I’d forgotten how much fun dicking about on bikes can be. You don’t need much of a plan, or even a bike with lots of power, just a bit of space, a couple of mates and a few toys. This month the space and the toys were provided by a good friend of mine called Alan, a man of adequate means it’s fair to say. He has several acres of land surrounding his farmhouse in rural Derbyshire and he also has a fully stocked lad’s toy box – the kind of thing we’d all have if we could. In it you’ll find an assortment of quads, a collection of dirt bikes and trials bikes, and even a Polaris all-terrain buggy.
Between Christmas and New Year, Alan invited my mate Shoey and I down to help him and his two teenage sons turn most of his land into a boggy mess, not to mention the destruction forever of any relationship he may have built up with his neighbours. It didn’t really matter what we decided to
ride – so long as everyone was on the same thing it was fun. Going out on a bike when everyone else was on four-wheelers was distinctly dodgy, prompting me to check that my BUPA subscription was up to date. In the event of a simple tip-off you could easily find yourself being run over by one or more quads. Not because they couldn’t avoid you, oh no, but because we all know a human being affords more purchase than muddy grass.
The biggest giggle to be had was on the quads. They were of the racing breed (as apposed to the farm type) but with a pretty pedestrian 250cc four stroke engine. Not the fastest things in the world but at least they were all identical. That’s all you need for things to get very competitive. Hang on. Blokes? Toys? Competitive element? Who’d have thought it. Unsurprisingly, the girls would occasionally come out of the house to see if we’d got bored yet, shake their heads and then go back in for more Pinot Grigio.
Strangely, even though I’ve been lucky enough to ride pretty much every type of bike you can think of over the years, I’ve not done much with quads. Though in many ways you ride ‘em like a bike, to get round our smooth but fairly slippery track fast you had to work round their idiosyncrasies. Because they have a fairly wide and solid rear axle, they understeer like a Polski-Fiat on cross plies. If you tried to turn with the bars alone these things would push straight on, particularly once we’d worn through the turf in most of the turns. The technique to combat this hideous understeer – and my apologies if you’re a real quad rider and I’m talking shit here – was dead easy once you’d got your head around it, and loads of fun.
Coming off a straight you simply brake for a corner using both brakes, go down the box in the usual manner and then, as you get to the turn in the right gear, pull the clutch in, release the front brake and stand on the rear one. This gets the back of the quad to slide out. At the same time you whack open the throttle, release the rear brake and dump the clutch.
When you get it right, the rear tyres go from sliding because they’re locked to sliding because they’re spinning, and all without the machine coming back in line. Once the rear tyres are spinning the thing wants to turn, and all you have to do then is control the oversteer with the bars. We shot video of ourselves going around and around and, to be honest, it didn’t look as impressive as I thought it would, but from the saddle I felt like a drift champion.
There are loads of little signs to let you know when you’re getting old. You know, like when you see a 10-year-old with a mobile phone and you can’t help but tut, or when you look in the mirror and see your dad looking back at you.
And then of course there’s the classic – all policemen looking about 14-years-old. But it wasn’t until I’d finished fitting a pair of heated grips to, wait for it, my KTM 300EXC enduro bike that I knew I was really getting on. I’ve had to put up with a lot of piss-taking from my mates, not to mention sideways glances at the motocross practice track. But I don’t care. They weren’t laughing when we went green laning up to North Yorkshire in arctic conditions. Mmm, warm hands – lovely.
Speaking of arctic conditions, during the recent cold snap you were taking your life in your hands if you ventured out onto the roads in the Huddersfield area. Even the drive to work or the school run became perilous undertakings. I don’t know if it’s because our local authority got reamed in the Icelandic bank crash, or that they simply misread the weather forecast a few times and didn‘t send the spreaders out, but loads of minor roads didn’t get gritted at all. As a result they were like skating rinks.
I thought I’d take advantage of the conditions and have a bit of fun on the aforementioned KTM. What a mistake. Even with knobblies I discovered bikes and icy tarmac don’t mix. I spent twenty minutes looking like I’d never rideen a bike before, skidding about like Bambi on a frozen lake. At least my hands were warm.
