Born to be Mild

In my younger days, I attended a fair few bike rallies. It was a familiar pattern - turn up, open a beer, open another one, smoke a spliff, open another beer, give up attempting to pitch the tent, head for the bar, drink, dance, laugh, drink, smoke, play silly games, drink, sit by the bonfire and sing songs, give up attempting to recall where you had given up pitching the tent, sleep by the bonfire, wake up cold, confused and hungover, ride bike home in a slow, ponderous fashion, sleep. Occasionally there would be even sillier games (dizzy sticks, the eating competition (in which a friend of mine triumphed on one memorable occasion by eating dry weetabix followed by lard, cockles and three giant spoons of golden syrup before heroically throwing up all over the bloke next to him), egg roulette, plank skiing), or a go on the wussy board (a square of wood tied to the back end of someone's bike - said bike would then be hammered round the field at 40+ mph while a hapless, stoned individual clung onto the rope for dear life and tried not to fall off the board). The diverting presence of Rally Virgins always piqued the imaginations of those who had attended before. If it was your first rally (no matter where you were, or who you knew) you'd do well to keep quiet and bribe your friends to do the same or it invariably ended in tears. I got off lightly - my boots ended up suspended from the rugby posts and I was drenched in cold filthy water the minute I changed into my remaining clean clothes. I have friends who have variously had their clothes stolen and burned, been forced into drinking contests (in which they were the only participant) or even been tied to marquee posts with flaming rolls of newspaper wedged into the cleft of their arse. I took a friend to a rally one year - it was a Hallowe'en one and it was his first time. He forgot the protocol and finished the evening jumping through the bonfire, dressed only in his socks and a pointy witches hat.

Of course a lot of the things that occurred at rallies were downright dangerous. The Ex once wrote off a friend's brand new bike - a very helpful friend who, on noticing that an extremely intoxicated Ex had erroneously fitted the ignition keys into the petrol cap (he had generously permitted the Ex to have a go round the rugby field), placed them into the ignition slot and sent them on their way. Witnesses report seeing the rear light flip end over end at least twice. Neither the Ex nor his pillion passenger split a drop of their cider. There were acid casualties, dancing injuries and no end of people who'd had one too many space cakes. One year the Rugby Club barman got so drunk during the silly games that he was unable to serve for the rest of the day, so we served ourselves that night. On a much more serious note, a good friend of mine was killed three years ago, popping home on a Saturday morning to see his fiancee and baby son. He was arguably over the limit and it gave a lot of people a very nasty shock. But somehow it seemed fitting for him. If that sounds crap I don't know how else to articulate it. The Hippy was a vibrant, party-loving all-round nice guy. He was far too young to die but you take your chances in life and he was never one to settle for a quiet life. His funeral was amazing - a Triumph Speed Triple with a hearse-sidecar carried him at the head of a procession of hundreds and hundreds of bikes through his hometown. When another friend had died of cancer two years previously, a member of the Hells Angels rode his missus behind the hearse on his beloved Harley. It's a weird sort of camaraderie in the biker world, but one I'm very glad I was part of for a while.

As with any activity that produces a "club" culture, politics invariably creep in. The bike club I was part of suddenly became very righteous; any female members were refused renewal of their membership on the basis that only the men could "run" the club. Leather waistocats with the club "colours" appeared (all MCC's in the UK are carefully vetted (or at least always used to be) by the Angels to ensure that their patches weren't copied in any way, down to the colours and any mottos). The club now had a "President", a "Secretary", assorted other henchmen and a fierce coterie of girlfriends protecting them. My friends and I began to lose interest. The last rally I attended with the old club was about ten years ago, at a pub just outside my home town. There was a bike show, a barbecue, and bands in the evening. The bike show was laughably pompous - lots of earnest "biker" handshaking and manly hugs, and the snakebite was rendering myself and my friends dangerously giggly. We were sitting at tables outside the back door of the pub. Directly in front of us was a large bouncy castle, and the first row of tents was in a regimented line alongside. As the club president's girlfriend (who took the whole thing very, very seriously and who hadn't cracked a smile all day) made her way between the inflatable and the campsite (a pathway only two feet wide), the ceremony concluded and eight to ten burly, half-pissed blokes leaped at the bouncy castle with a roar. They all ended up hitting the left hand side at the same time, and the look of astonishment on the face of El Presidente's missus as she was catapulted six feet into the air before landing unceremoniously on her arse in the middle of somebody's tent was almost worth being kicked off site and missing the barbie owing to our prolonged, shrieking hysterics and inability to get up off the floor.

Happy days.