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nothing like riding in a pack like that and feeling the world’s eyes on you. It just did things to you. It was like an old biker saying, If I had to explain, you wouldn’t understand .
    ‘OK then,’ he said, as I hurriedly stuffed my gloves into my lid and clipped it to the lock on the bike while he pulled his gloves off and quietly surveyed his dismounting horde before turning back to see how I was getting on.
‘Well at least it’s a V-twin I suppose,’ he observed looking at my bike, ‘even if it’s an Eyetie one.’
    ‘And at least he doesn’t ride it like a twat,’ the big Brethren chipped in from behind me to my surprise. ‘Can’t stand these fucking “born again bikers” wobbling round the corners like they’re a thruppenny bit.’
    It was an old Guzzi California, one of the original ones, with the black barrel shaped tank and huge creamy white trimmed buddy seat. I don’t know why but its semi CHiPs styling had always appealed, I had just always wanted to ride a bike with footboards for some reason. I’m quite tall and lanky and I’d worried before I’d got it if it would be comfortable or whether I’d find myself banging my knees on its pots but it had been fine. Long legged and easy to live with had been the strapline on the gloriously sexist bike mag ads back in the eighties that I had ripped out and bluetacked to my bedroom wall, as long haired models in drapey slit-sided skirts lolled languidly and suggestively in front of the gleaming bike. And it wasn’t a half bad choice of description either, the torquey 850 shaft drive was easy to live with and with plenty of grunt made for a comfortable, if a bit squishy long distance cruiser, ideal for those summer trips over to France with my mates in my early twenties, boys abroad with tents bungeed onto the rack with one gallon plastic cans for red wine en-vrac at what seemed like pennies a time.
‘Looks in good nick though for its age,’ Wibble added approvingly.
    Nowadays, it wasn’t as sexy or as urgent as it had been when I was younger, it was an older affair, comfortable and relaxed, it felt like an increasingly middle aged reminder of a freshness and youth I’d never recover. His ride, when he showed me later, was a very different proposition indeed. I guess someone who didn’t know bikes, and I guess quite a few who did, would have taken a glance at it and just assumed it was a mildly customised Harley. But they would have been wrong. From its 2000cc S&S motor with RevTech coils, single-fire ignition, carburettor and pipes, its hand built frame, twin cap mustang style tank and classic chopper chrome Bates headlight, right down to its hand laced chrome spoked wheels and billet forward controls it was an entirely custom built, purpose filled machine. He told me the only original Harley components on it were the gear box and the traditional tombstone taillight, and afterwards I wasn’t even too sure about that. Not that I could really tell all those details either. I was too long out of the serious bike scene to be able to pick it apart like that, but I only had to ask Wibble a single question about the bike to get the full ground up build and spec run through.
    Mine was a comfortable old classic and well worn, but off the peg number. His was a sharp edged, tailored high spec machine.
It was country tweeds suit versus hardnosed city slicker.
It was casual versus very, very serious.
‘Ready?’ he asked. I nodded.
‘Come with me then,’ he said, ‘there’s some people we need to meet first,’ and turned away to walk off.
    Well I thought, since I was here today, it was obviously time to go to work. The kid who was standing next to me looked awestruck.
‘See you round,’ I nodded to him as I left and headed to catch up with Wibble.
    ‘Yeah see you,’ I heard from behind me.
*
‘Where are we going?’ I asked.
‘We’re here, so we need to meet the locals,’ was his cryptic reply as we strode out, with some of the other Freemen