Start: Smith, Bernard.
Hello, my name is Bernard and I am to be Catherine's guide, pilot, and companion for this 12 month trip around the globe by motorcycle.
I have been on motorcycles for about 32 years and if I say it really quick, it doesn't seem as long. It's funny how time flashes past isn't it? 32 years on two wheels in the blink of an eye.
Recently people have started to ask me various questions about what I do for a living with the Royal National Institute Institute of Blind People and so here we go in this edited page which, originally, only dealt with motorcycle matters!
My main role is to work with Liverpool Community College to ensure blind and partially sighted students have everything they need (in a nutshell!)
I have been a teacher for most of my life and when I started working for the RNIB this meant having to learn a whole range of new skills to do my job - yes, including learning Braille. I admit though that I cheat with the Braille and use my eyes to read it. Unfair advantage I hear you shout but I own up to cheating! As part of my role I proof read the Braille documents my team of RNIB staff produce for learners. You may, or may not, be surprised to learn that not all blind people use Braille (often people assume blind = Braille user). Often we produce large print versions, audio tapes / CDs and electronic documents. We produce what the student needs (in effect) including sighted guiding assistance along with classroom support for their lessons. I fix problems in effect and try to ensure that everything runs smoothly.
Bernard the Motorcyclist
My very first motorcycle was a CB250 Honda. The joys of your first motorcycle.
I felt so grown up and rebellious! My
father didn't want me to have a bike and so I convinced my - to be - father in
law to sign the dreaded Hire Purchase forms for me and off I went on 'my'
bike.
The day I passed my test I nearly had my first crash as I pulled away from the test station. I was so delighted I never noticed that a very large wagon had stopped in front of me. Ooops!
As I was now a fully fledged 'biker' I burned my 'L' plates and instantly moved onto a GT750 Ducati which I promptly crashed four days later - spreading it all over the A55 by St. Asaph in North Wales.
My claim to fame is that the police had to shut the A55 for a while as they picked up the bits. Catherine will be glad to know it wasn't my fault. More importantly, I survived doing a Superman impersonation by flying through the air at extremely high speed - No, I won't tell you how fast although I think the Police may have lost interest by now!
After a short 'recuperation' - and once the bike was rebuilt - I part-exchanged it.
I'm not sure about other motorcyclists, but once you crash a bike it never feels quite secure ever again. Thus I said 'arrivaderci' to the Italian stallion of the time and moved on.
For those of the motorcycling
persuasion you will recall the GT750 Suzuki, or 'kettle', as it was
affectionately called due to the fact it was one of the earliest water cooled
production motorcycles.
750cc of howling triple cylinder two-stroke. My God did it howl if you had a Piper 3-1 exhaust on it!
I was to spend many happy years filling streets with two stroke smoke although I didn't know it at the time! By this I mean how long I would ride this bike for. I always knew about the smoke as my wing mirrors were always full of it! I just never realised how long I would spend on this - and the subsequent - bike.
The GT750 was fantastic in a straight line but it did have a serious aversion to corners if I recall correctly! Perhaps it was just me being a nervous disposition?
After seizing it up (at 70mph) and locking the back wheel after which I had to go and buy a whole new set of underwear. So it was that this bike was part-exchanged for a Norton 850 Commando.
I gave up on the Norton after skinning my knuckles for a couple of years and having oil stained hands, eventually getting fed up after one more leaking head-cylinder. The Triumph 750 Bonneville went with it at the same time - yes, I owned two bikes at the same time, both British and they both leaked oil. I used to have to wear oil-skins in the summer. Remember the summer of 1976? Heat, sweltering in African temperatures? I rode in oil skins otherwise I would have been buying jeans every week due to the oil. Begone with you, oh, oily one (although to be fair, I think if I had been a better mechanic this may not have been true!)
The Honda CX500 came next although it rapidly - after a few months - disappeared back into a showroom as it ate its camshaft followers - much like many of the early models. In a perverted sort of way I really liked it. The seat seemed enormous for the time and it was seriously comfortable and I loved the burbling exhaust note. However, the seat and sound did not save it from the inevitable part-exchange.
I pushed the CX500 in the front door and by the back door of the showroom I appeared with one of the earlier R100RTs!
Funny
how things work out as I now own a similar bike again and plan to
circle the world on it.
Being in various bands, for many years (that is a whole other story), this bike was sold after a few years as I thought stardom was beckoning and I needed to purchase equipment. The equipment was purchased and another GT750 was installed in the garage at the same time from the money left over.
Stardom never happened but I had a hell of a good time for years and years and I still rode a motorcycle as well.
Thus I returned to the 750 triple fold for many years from this point onwards.
The picture on the left shows the daft sort of thing we all do when we are young and indestructible! It is particularly true when we rode bikes like the 750 triple.
One thing I have noticed as I have grown older is that I no longer bounce when I hit the floor after doing something stupid on a bike. I just sort of lay there groaning nowadays. Actually, it's more like a whimper or a soft cat's meow.
Thus I have become more 'sensible' and more calculating which has resulted from my body's inherent fragility due to encroaching senility. No longer enormous wheelies (standing the bike on the back wheel) and doughnuts (full power and spinning the bike in a circle while leaving a burnt black circle with the tyre rubber).
Me, I stick to trying to survive nowadays. It keeps me happy.........and alive.
Anyway, in a period of deep depression - in the 1980s - during the Thatcher years of negative equity and 15% interest rates things got difficult, as it did for many people.
I know there is talk of how it fundamentally transformed England but from where I watched it truly was a difficult time. I believe if you had money it was a good time but that wasn't me. I was so broke by the end of the 80s that I even had to sell my bike to raise money for Christmas presents in 1990.
It
was to be several years before I could afford to return to the fold but I did so
eventually in 1994.
My first BMW was to be an R80ST and I kept this bike for nearly 11 years and covered many happy miles with my thumping twin. I was sad to see it go and I sold it through the new phenomenon of eBay. I hope it is still thumping away with all of its customary reliability.
Never once did it let me down across many, many thousands of miles and I was, more or less, converted to the agricultural thump of the Bavarian Motor Works from that point onwards.
Then,
one day in 2005, I saw my current bike in the show room. I took off to
Ireland on the R80ST and did nothing but think of it the whole time. I was
convinced it would have been sold by the time I got back two weeks later.
First day back I went went straight off to the shop and, bingo, it was still for sale. It was £3000 - which was high. However, it was IMMACULATE as if it had come straight out of the factory.
From that point I was lost.
It was destined to come home with me which it promptly did - Honestly it just, sort of, followed me home like a puppy.
The picture above of the bike taken in Spain from a solo trip to Africa.
It is a R100RT dating from 1990.
Currently it has approximately 20,000 miles on it. It is also - possibly - the bike which we will end up using for the World Trip.
I say possibly as we do hope that one of the major manufacturers will become involved in the Charity ride and offer us something a little more recent! If the bike has to be a 18 year old one then so be it. I will probably have to take a trailer full of tools and spares to keep it going! Surprising what you can fix with Gaffa tape and cable ties!
I often think it would be really good to take a bike back to the factory where it was built and meet the people who had made it. I think Catherine would love that. It would be some distance to go for a service if it was Japanese!
"How about a nice GS1200 BMW Catherine?"
"Or would you like a nice Honda Varadero or the new Triumph Tiger perhaps?"
"What's that?"
"You need a Gel Seat as your bum gets sore?"
"We'll see what we can do............"
If you have heard of 'Long Way Round' by Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman then it is entirely possible that somebody may give us a gel seat for Catherine.
There are several major differences between Ewan and Charlie's trip and ours, however.
First of all, I am not as good looking as Ewan. That may come as a shock I know. I'm also rubbish with a light saber. Not too bad with a broom handle. Excellent with a mop ............. but light saber ........... sorry.
The up side of our trip is Catherine.
She is much better looking than both of them!
If you ever read this guys, only joking (apart from the previous point).
So it is that we really will, however, be on our own. No back up vehicles. No minders looking after us. It will be........
Just me, the bike and a blind woman called Catherine.
Select here to return to top of page.
