The beating heart of any great magazine is its columnists, and for more that 20 years Two Wheels readers were treated, every issue, to three of the best: Grant Roff, John Rooth and Peter Smith. They didn’t just write about bikes, they wrote about living a motorcycle life, in a way that, well, when you read any of their columns, you just knew exactly what they were talking about, because they spoke of motorcycling’s universal truths. Here, Classic Two Wheels presents three of the big ones: Groff’s take on the joys, and perils, of riding with your mates; Rooth’s riff on Zen and Art of Getting Booked, and Mr Smith’s search for a nice girl on a motorcycle.

On Responsibility

When the waitress asked how we’d like our steaks cooked, Mole said: “Blue”. I’d never heard the expression before. Apparently it involves throwing the meat at the frypan, turning it over just before it hits the surface and then whipping it onto the serving plate. The distinction between “raw” and “blue” is tenuous. We shared a litre of house red and enjoyed dinner.

It was now pitch-black outside. “What are we going to do?” he inquired.

“Well, the lights on your bike work, so I’ll just ride behind you.”

“It’s 150km through twisty forest roads. Do you really think this is a good idea?” Maybe not, but none of my other ideas that day had been any good, so at least it was consistent.

The motorcycle trip pre-departure domestic had started earlier than usual. “Why do all your friends have the names of animals? Don’t you know any normal people?”

“What about Scrotum? That’s not an animal name.”

“You realise Annika has two netball games tomorrow as well as her violin lesson. Nicholas has tennis and Dominic is supposed to be going to a birthday party in Cockatoo. How am I going to be able to do this on my own?”

I’m maintaining eye contact during all this and packing stuff in my tankbag by feel — feels like T-shirt, feels like spare jeans, feels like socks. I need to get out of here quickly. She’s still talking at me.

“You wanted children. It’s about time you started taking some responsibility for them.”

Actually, all I wanted was sex. As regards kids, I wasn’t really thinking that far ahead. Wisely, perhaps, I kept my own counsel on this. “I’ll ring you if I make it.”

The Titan’s alternator shutting down early, was, as I said, at least consistent. The wine-dark trip from Lakes Entrance to Genoa was a nightmare. We didn’t consider this before we left the pub, but Mole wouldn’t be able to see me in his mirrors or even hear me. I could exit the scene at high speed to do some midnight gardening and he wouldn’t know.

Since he couldn’t do anything about it anyway, he decided not to worry about me. Within minutes, this transformed into his forgetting I was there at all and ripping through the hills on his FJ1100 in the 140-160km/h zone. I had to stick on his tail-light or park the bike and walk. Fun it wasn’t, and he was as surprised as me when we both rolled safely into the bright lights of Genoa.

The pub was awash with mates. As usual, I managed to arrive just in time for my shout.

“Groff, you scrofulitic old cock-sucker, you maggot-infested pile of shit, you fly-blown piece of gutter trash, you dead-headed shit-wit, you miserable softcock, you ill-­gotten bastard son of Satan, you ugly, shovel-faced son-of­-a-bitch!” I’d get on a lot better with my wife if she was as pleased to see me as are my friends.

I was wet, of course, and my pack-by-feel tankbag contained three pairs of winter pyjamas, a scarf and the canvas fly-sheet for a tent I’d long-since lost. I put on the most presentable pyjama top and told everyone it was a smoking jacket.

It seemed to work on a local lass who made bedroom eyes at me until Nick Rooth turned up. I don’t know what it is with attracting women, but he’s got it. She even bought his drinks.

I rang home and one of my daughters answered. “It’s your old Dad here. Put Mum on.”

“We have a new dad now. His name is Steve and he owns a speed boat.”

I don’t remember being that cynical when I was 11. “Highly amusing, shithead. Get your mother.”

“Can’t. The car broke down again and she’s down at Granny’s place borrowing her car.” My mother-in-law is a test pilot for a broom manufacturer. Bet they’re whingeing about me.

“Has Mum calmed down?”

“Well, Dad, I’m just a kid and I don’t know much about adult relationships, but does she usually keep your wedding album in the garbage bin?”

Hmmm. Nick obviously knows a lot about relationships. Time to seek his advice. He was patient with me while I drank around seven buckets of claret and told him the whole story. Brilliantly, he was able to capture the entire wisdom of successful relationships in just one sentence.

“Sounds like she just needs a good root.”

Of course! Why hadn’t I thought of that? I made a mental note to tell her at the next available opportunity. Having resolved this problem, perhaps forever, I was able to slide comfortably into the night.

I don’t know why, but Nick’s advice didn’t seem quite as good the following morning. I rode home thinking it might be a better idea if I spent a little more time at home and less on the road. Maybe I had to learn to say “No” to my mates.

I was two hours late for dinner and the house was deserted when I arrived. There was a piece of raw meat on a plate on the table, which may have been her subtle way of saying my dinner was now my responsibility. As it happens, thanks to Mole, raw is now how I like my meat.

There were a couple of letters for me, one from my old mate Horse reminding me about a rally I’d promised to attend with him the following weekend. I’d forgotten about that. I’m sure my family will understand.

Just one more…

By Grant Roff. Two Wheels, October 1998

Ticket Collector

The sturdy little guy in the flip-top helmet made it pretty obvious it was me he was pulling over with a series of arm movements that would have had an AFL flagman looking for hints.

I looked down at the speedo, already flickering down rapidly, and saw it was still floating 20-plus over the limit. That old familiar feeling of too much cooked goose, the weighty stomach and sour taste, hit as the realisation was driven home. Booked again. Shit.

Well, sort of. See, if the odds are anything to go by, I must have been right out on the end of my luck anyway. Having spent the previous week trying to keep an R1 Yamaha under the limit — who can do that and not fail miserably? — there was a certain justice involved here. Not only that, but I’d beaten a “loud noise” rap on the Harley — by pointing out that not one testing authority in Queensland could actually test for noise — only days before and had seen the light flash on my non-existent front number plate while speeding home to celebrate.

Yet I don’t think of myself as an inveterate flouter of the traffic laws. Unfortunately, as a judge once pointed out after “pulling the sheet”, the 43 demerit points earned in one two-month period some years ago, plus countless other incidents resulting in the loss of several licences, probably say otherwise. Like Toad of Toad Hall I have a problem. Unlike Toad, I believe I’ll eventually get over it.

But that 43 points was the result of getting offside with one real bastard. A little worm once told me it was because he’d come home early one day and found his wife entertaining a young local motorcyclist with her version of bite the sausage on the string, sans string so to speak. Then, during the pursuit, he’d wrecked a nice new police car trying to fit it up a walking track. In a country town those sorts of things get talked about and the memories are as long as the laughter is loud. The last ticket he gave me, before I took the hint and left town, was for going through a stop sign without stopping. It was early on a Sunday morning, it was the sign outside his place and he looked bloody stupid in his police hat and pyjamas.

But at least I have no problems remembering the two months the Norton was really flying.

Nearly three decades of surviving as a motorcyclist has meant developing a few little habits that still guarantee the occasional ticket. I like my bikes to be noisy, it lets the cars know you’re there. And I still take any opportunities to make space between myself and the surrounding cars, including lane splitting and blasting away from the lights to earn that precious few uncluttered moments when you don’t have to worry about Bertie spilling his Maccas in his lap and flattening you by accident. It’s always by accident, too, possibly because most drivers think more of saving their french fries than bumping into a bike.

It’s hard given our environment — where two-wheeled life seems to be valued less than hot chips and mobile phones — to not get pissed off with a speeding ticket. My first reaction, after deciding the bolt wasn’t worth it, was to rant and rave about why the hell Officer Plod wasn’t out there booking the real villains — the mindless idiots who drive as if the safety of others is worth diddly-squat.

I’ve done that before, though, and I know the result. Most times the officer will take umbrage at you telling him what he already knows, but is powerless — given the scale of stupidity — to prevent. Upsetting the man who’s got your licence at the tip of his pen is dumb.

Second reaction was to go the big lie. You know, the wife’s brother is having a suicidal fit, the dog’s stuck in the garbage disposal; the doctor said the tumour should allow at least another three weeks of life before… Sob, sob.

But I’ve done that too. Bullshitting a copper is asking for trouble. Most traffic police have heard every story several times and have evolved these huge antennae for detecting crap. The penalty for crap is more tickets. I know, I’ve had ’em.

And here I am getting one more for 87km/h in a 60 zone. I earned it, I deserve it and there’s no bloody defence for it. The anger passed in a nanosecond, especially seeing as he was a motorcycle cop, which in Queensland means you’re usually talking to a fellow motorcycle enthusiast who’s just doing his job. I’ve even got a few friends who ride in the ranks these days, they’re hard-riding bastards, too.

But the ticket still hurt.

They always do. But in all honesty, in 30 years of collecting the bloody things, there’s only been a handful that weren’t justified, and they were all issued during the same two-month period and all by the same guy.

He might not have made me a safer rider, but he sure as hell taught me to keep my pants up.

By John Rooth, Two Wheels, December 1999

Downstairs

It’s that time of year again … or it was when I started writing this. It’s a bit later now, but that’s due to the nature of the human experience of the fourth dimension (Time) which, I was assured by an Egyptian cab driver who was a professor of something fairly diabolical in a former life, is a bit like the way we watch a movie. On a good night.

Then again, it could be, as the shiftless bloke in the wheelchair suggests, neither here nor there. If “here” has any meaning at all. Or “there” for that matter. Who knows? Certainly not My Very Uncomely Self.

Anyhow, what I want to talk about today is what happened recently (at this point in time) in the past here in Squiddley, which was the Happy and Leslie-Anne Mardi Gras.

Big gig, by all accounts. Good thing I didn’t go. I haven’t known what Ecstasy is for so long it makes parts of me hurt.

Anyhow, I was thinking all about it in the week before it all went down, and how our old mates in that wonderful organisation, Dykes On Bikes, generally lead the Big Parade.

A monstrous improvement on the famous 76 Trombones, I can tell you.

What made me think a lot about the event was the huge number of couples of German lesbians I noticed walking around the city.

Look, I’m not being sexist here. There were lots of couples of tanned, solid Brunhildes walking around the city dressed in singlets, denim shorts, Birkenstock sandals and not much else, holding hands and talking in German. What was I supposed to deduce from this sight? It being Mardi Gras week and all.

Well, one of the things it made me think as an extension of same is how our bodies decide what sort of other human being attracts us physically.

Now, I tend to spend bulk time in the inner suburbs of Sydney, Newtown in particular. In that area one finds many same-sex couples strolling the streets and when I see a particularly attractive pair of young ladies strolling along, I often ponder on how unfair life is at that moment that both of those women has a delightful young woman holding her hand, while I have none.

For it’s a sub-type of those sorts of women that I find highly attractive … short hair, tattoos, pierced bits, serious attitude problem … it’s right up my alley. An unfortunate metaphor, in the circumstances.

Once a feeling of despair so profound came over me after watching scores of these delightful young women strolling the streets that I resolved to find myself a female partner — being, as I am, fairly heterosexual these days. I hastened home and bunged an ad in the personal contact pages of a local rag. The ad went something like this:

Short, fat, old, crippled, burnt-out, bald, bearded bikie wants sheila, age and appearance unimportant. Prefer non-smoking, beer-drinking, music-playing motorcyclist. Non-motorcyclists considered if they have tradesman mechanic’s ticket or own tools. Degree in English Literature, Biochemistry, Mathematics, Ethnomusicology or Medicine essential, although Doctorate in Divinity considered in lieu. Personal experience in steam engine or ultra-light aircraft maintenance an advantage. Dog-owners and horoscope-readers need not waste my time. Did I mention beer?

Not surprisingly, I did get a few replies. Unfortunately, all of the applicants decided that, while I was just what they were looking for, they’d be robbing the cradle. Some were twice my age. And that’s heaps.

It was a shame. One of them had a lovely Stahlwille toolkit and played a mean slide guitar. Unfortunately, she rode a BMW. The gods are unkind.

But what I was going to say was that what the advertising experience made clear to me is that human beings are basically extremely sexual animals. Some of the women made it abundantly clear that they expected me to… err… perform.

Well, I’m starting to feel a bit Quentin Crisp in the naughtiness department these days. I mean, I remember what it was like and I recall the episodes with great amusement, delight and wistfulness, but I’m afraid that Mr Smith is Out, Retired Hurt. And that looks like that for the rest of the innings.

I used to have a bit of a reputation, despite my disgusting appearance. What it was a reputation for, I hesitate to say. Ask Philthy Phil Maguire.

Unfortunately, these days a combination of the HUGE amount of drugs I have to take to keep breathing, combined with my current physical condition means that… how can I put it… even when the cage is open, the beast is asleep. It is a situation I find intensely interesting.

Now that my body cries out not for the parking, but for the companionship, I am in a quandary. Does my current asexuality mean I’m not as blokey as I used to be?

I certainly feel blokey. I look like a bloke in the mirror. I do blokey things, like make an idiot of myself in every possible social situation. I am still smelly. But the only time I feel any tingling in my groin is when I ride a four-stroke single. And in particular, a Yamaha SR500. Yeah. There’s no doubt. The factory didn’t get the crank balance factor right.

Crank balance. I think that’s the story of my life. Then again, I suppose I’m getting a bit kinky in my old age. I’m now looking forward to riding the YZ400F.

Cop you later.

By Peter Smith. Two Wheels, May 1998