Would off road, dirt track motorbiking as a novice be ridiculous/foolhardy?

[Richard Tarleton]

We must have a chat about irony.

I think I got the message, beef.

My motor-cycling career lasted for 4 months, 40 years ago. Never ridden one before, or since. I had just secured my first paid contract at the start of my career in nature conservation, and my job was of a peripatetic nature, travelling the entire Northern Ireland coastline and spending some time on an island (Rathlin). I naturally asked about transport, they assured me I'd have wheels but were vague about how many. It turned out when I got there that transport was to be a motor bike belonging to the regional officer's secretary's husband. It needed a few repairs, apparently . I had never ridden a motor bike in my life, but kept this to myself. When I went to collect it the motor bike was still in pieces on the garage floor, husband and a friend busily trying to reassemble it, each time finding bits left over. I spent the night with them, and after breakfast the bike, a Honda 125, was declared ready.

I asked them to remind me where everything was, lying that it was a year or two since I'd ridden one, and wobbled off down the road. They told me later they realised I’d never ridden one before, but by then it was too late to stop me. It was not difficult. On my first day I rode from Newtownards through central Belfast and onto the M2, up through Ballymena and Ballymoney to the north coast and along to my first billet on Lough Foyle, a trip of around 85 miles. My legs had turned to jelly, but I could ride a motor bike. My driving license was inspected on numerous occasions at RUC or UDR road blocks over the next four months, but my entitlement to be riding a motor bike was never questioned. I fell off occasionally, especially on Rathlin (the bike was shipped over on a small fishing boat), but suffered nothing worse than ripped jeans and a grazed knee. Oh, and the handbrake broke, but I managed without it for a while. I travelled many hundreds of miles on that bike.

But that was enough. My next, and full-time, job carried with it a 4x4 Daihatsu. My advice, Lat, at your stage in life, is don't.

[Zucchini]

Brilliant - beautifully told!

[Beef Oven!]

I think I got the message, beef.

My motor-cycling career lasted for 4 months, 40 years ago. Never ridden one before, or since. I had just secured my first paid contract at the start of my career in nature conservation, and my job was of a peripatetic nature, travelling the entire Northern Ireland coastline and spending some time on an island (Rathlin). I naturally asked about transport, they assured me I'd have wheels but were vague about how many. It turned out when I got there that transport was to be a motor bike belonging to the regional officer's secretary's husband. It needed a few repairs, apparently . I had never ridden a motor bike in my life, but kept this to myself. When I went to collect it the motor bike was still in pieces on the garage floor, husband and a friend busily trying to reassemble it, each time finding bits left over. I spent the night with them, and after breakfast the bike, a Honda 125, was declared ready.

I asked them to remind me where everything was, lying that it was a year or two since I'd ridden one, and wobbled off down the road. They told me later they realised I’d never ridden one before, but by then it was too late to stop me. It was not difficult. On my first day I rode from Newtownards through central Belfast and onto the M2, up through Ballymena and Ballymoney to the north coast and along to my first billet on Lough Foyle, a trip of around 85 miles. My legs had turned to jelly, but I could ride a motor bike. My driving license was inspected on numerous occasions at RUC or UDR road blocks over the next four months, but my entitlement to be riding a motor bike was never questioned. I fell off occasionally, especially on Rathlin (the bike was shipped over on a small fishing boat), but suffered nothing worse than ripped jeans and a grazed knee. Oh, and the handbrake broke, but I managed without it for a while. I travelled many hundreds of miles on that bike.

But that was enough. My next, and full-time, job carried with it a 4x4 Daihatsu. My advice, Lat, at your stage in life, is don't.

I too had a Honda 125 forty years ago!

I fell off a few times and decided two wheels weren't enough for me.

It was a great bike and pretty quick.

[Dave2002]

I have a hole in my arm - well remains of a scar anyway - caused by falling off a push bike at low speed. That was around 50 years ago.

Around that time I also knew someone who went out for trial spin on a motorbike. i think he had leathers on - but nothing too special.
A little while later he returned, and perhaps he'd had a day or so to recover, I can't remember. He said it was great until he came off doing about 70mph.
We asked what happened next. He said he "just" skidded along the road for ages, and he was just praying he wasn't going to hit the gate or post he could see ahead. Either he didn't, or he had slowed down enough for that not to be a problem. His clothing was ripped to shreds. He was relatively unharmed, and very lucky. I also knew a young student girl much more recently who graduated and went to work. Some while later I met her again and she had given up work - probably in an IT area - very much incapacitated, as she came off a push bike at speed, and suffered head injuries. She said she could no longer cope with working in a job which required much thought. I think she had been a keen cyclist. She was recovering slowly, but I think it had taken her a year to recover some of her facilities. I know several people who lost legs from motor bike accidents.

I have only ridden on the back of a motorbike a few times, and I think I once rode a moped round a short road circuit as a trial just to see if I'd like it.

Overall the risks of taking this up now would not seem to justify the thrills at the kind of age that I think some of us here are at.

[Bryn]

I too had a Honda 125 forty years ago!

I fell off a few times and decided two wheels weren't enough for me.

It was a great bike and pretty quick.

Hmm. I had a head-on crash with an Austin Montego while riding a Honda 125 twin, back in 1977. I managed to break some 22 bones in 37 places, literally from head to toe (well the bottom of my right tib and fib, actually). Thanks to the ambulance paramedic doing an emergency trachyostomy, I survived, but could no longer bend my right knee sufficiently to ride and change gears, on most motorcycles (compound fracture just above the knee). Would of I could, but I can't.

[Nick Armstrong]

Definitely choose 4 wheels, would be my advice!

[Zucchini]

Biggest risk for a beginner these days is a pedestrian catching you up and nicking your Patek Phillipe

[BBMmk2]

Stick to what you know, Lat!

[vinteuil]

Definitely choose 4 wheels, would be my advice!

ooh, not sure four is enough to be really safe -

https://www.vintag.es/2013/10/old-photos-of-octo-auto.html

.



.

[Sir Velo]

As someone whose other great passion is bikes, albeit of the self propelled variety, there is nothing to beat the adrenalin rush of careering headlong over precipices, mountain passes etc. Really tests the cojones. Give it a go; what have you got to lose?

[oddoneout]

My father decided to get himself a motorbike in his fifties for the journey to work. It did my mother's nerves no good at all, and whatever fantasies he'd had about enjoying the open road at weekends never seemed to materialise - I think it was too heavy and too frightening for him but admitting to making a mistake was not an option initially. Fate stepped in and resulted in an accident - coming off and ending up in a ditch with the bike on top of him. The resultant broken toe gave him the opt-out, and the bike was sold. Silly thing is that if he'd chosen a scooter instead, like he'd had 20 years before for commuting, I think it would have worked out fine, but I suppose that didn't match whatever view he had of himself in maturity.

[Bryn]

As someone whose other great passion is bikes, albeit of the self propelled variety, there is nothing to beat the adrenalin rush of careering headlong over precipices, mountain passes etc. Really tests the cojones. Give it a go; what have you got to lose?

Hmm, takes me back to my youth when a couple of friends and I went on a cycling tour of the West Country, staying at Youth Hostels en route. While at the Cheddar Gorge Hostel some 'joker' turned my break blocks round. The next day, hurtling down the Gorge, the block flew out. Only by good luck was I able to get my feet out of the clips , lower myself onto the cross bar and use my the shoes on my feet as brakes. Oh how I laughed (not!).

[Stanfordian]

I wish I had your energy and get up and go! But the word 'bargepole' springs to mind.

[Dave2002]

We don’t want to see Lat go, but there are other ways to get a thrill. Abseiling for charity, or this one - diving with sharks - https://www.caudwellchildren.com/fun...well-children/

Sponsored parachute jumping or skydiving, or perhaps a hang glider ride in a tandem configuration with someone who knows how to do it, maybe too.

[greenilex]

Last I heard, Lat, your parents were still in the picture?