chapter 9: WHO ARE YOU CALLING A SISSY?

Dragsters. Sparkly metallic paint, more steel than the US Navy and so 1970’s that just thinking about mine makes everything I look at go all washed out skivvy clad and moustachioed (didn’t know moustachioed was a colour did you? Well it is. It's a brown. A particularly browny shade of brown).

And sissy bars? Really. What was the message there exactly. ‘You are a sissy if you ride this bike’. Or was it just if you leant back against it you were a sissy. I have no idea. I’m not trying to pretend that I wasn’t totally into the bike mind you ‘cause I completely was. It’s just that this part of the 70’s was, I suspect, a lot like the rest of the 70’s – seemed like a good idea...at the time.

The 3 speed dragster (either metallic orange or purple, I can’t quite remember) was my second (and as it turned out, third) bike. My brother and me got ours shortly after our neighbours got theirs. James and Robert were always about 6 months ahead of us in terms of getting cool stuff. I think they were watching absurdly expensive rented VHS tapes that you had to leave a $50 deposit for long before us also. That is of course, totally unrelated to my pushing James off the staircase onto his head that time. Totally.

I suppose they (dragsters that is) were inspired by the whole ‘Easy Rider’ biker thing. Which makes me wonder what would happen these days if a bicycle company tried to sell our kids bikes with an Outlaw Biker theme. Extra thick top tube for the stashing of methamphetamines? Quick release seatpost for quick access in case of a gang fight?

We lasted about a year on these before BMX burst onto the scene and our much loved dragsters became totally naff, social liabilities requiring immediate destruction lest we suffer the full horror of, um, I’m not exactly sure really. So, overnight our brightly coloured, two wheeled, rolling disco balls lost their long seats, sissy bars and long drop style handle bars, gained knobby tires and BMX handle bars and were spray painted a very tough looking matt black after being stripped down to the frame and strung up on the hills hoist like so much slaughtered game.

It was on this extremely faux BMX that I first started riding further than up and down the driveway. I’m pretty sure I made it to school and back a couple of times and on one occasion I peddled what Google Maps has just assured me is a whole 3.7kms to the local public library (which is a total load of bollocks because I remember quite clearly that it was at least 120kms and possibly passed over the top of Mt Everest at some point). Not bad on cranks that measured maybe 20cms long.

NEXT: Why you ungrateful.....