On yesterday’s bike ride I went through the small village of Ardstraw, Co. Tyrone. I was last here in 1995 when I bought my one and only motorbike from George Millar Motorcycles. Sadly the man himself died just over 2 years ago and the business is now closed up.
The motorbike was a small 100cc Kawasaki trail style road legal bike similar to this one:
That bike allowed me to start my first proper job after leaving college. It was with the Forest Service of Northern Ireland, based in Ballymena taking data measurements and foliage samples from research plots. The plots were spread out through a number of forest sites so I had to have my own transport. I’d already failed my driving test once but I could drive a motorbike on an L plate.
I have a number of great memories from that bike.
- Trying to teach myself how to drive it with zero experience, doing an accidental wheelie up the side of Mum and Dad’s and throwing myself off by flipping the bike! My first road rash.
- Driving it to Ballymena for the first time, going over Glenshane Pass flat out at 30mph in February and damn near freezing myself to death.
- Driving it in the mountains of Antrim in the snow and sliding it all over the roads like a dirt star.
- Travelling home to Donegal from Ballymena in the middle of the Garvaghy Road protests when lots of Protestant villages were barricaded and closed off across Northern Ireland. I picked my way using the Nationalist and Unionist flags to work out where it was safe to take my Donegal reg bike.
- Spending my lunch breaks tearing round the forest tracks like a madman and thinking I was cool as fuck.
I spent the rest of the ride reminiscing what it was like to be 22 again and feeling indestructible. Nice memories.
Header image: logo for “Sons of Anarchy” from FX.
the idle cyclist 
You never forget your first bike, I started racing 125cc bikes when I was 16, I was so nieve, believing that riding fast was simply a case of keeping the throttle wide open. If they had, had a world championship for break dancing (with a motorcycle) I would have won it, no problem. You learn fast or you killed yourself in those days, My racing motorcycle was a, stripped to the bare bones 125cc BSA Bantam, I painted it with paint bought from Woolworth, green with a ban the bomb sign painted on the tank, My road bike was a 350 cc girder forked unsprung rear end, ex WD Royal Enfield, it cost me £7.10 shillings, every penny I had saved. I would scour the local paper each week, the only stipulation for the type or cc of motorcycle I wanted, was it has to cost less than £7.10 shillings. Happy days.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Great memories, sounds like a lot of effort just to get to and from work at times!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The big efforts were getting from Ballymena to home or vice versa. I rented in Ballymena and went home every couple of weeks. Getting to work was handy enough and great craic on the bike, even if the top speed was only slightly over 40mph!
LikeLike
You were doing your part for the environment way back in the 20th century. Goodonya.
LikeLiked by 1 person