Top Ariel dealers recommend it

From Cyril's memoirs dated 21 January 2006

When an office junior at Ariel Motorcycles in the 1950s, it was decided I should be sent to investigate one of our dealers in nearby Solihull in Birmingham. They were suspected of rum shenanigans and I was to apply for the post of trainee mechanic, a position which, if I got it (I did), would enable me to report back to head office. I had my misgivings and didn't want to be what might now be termed a 'grass', but I had little choice if I was to keep my job.

JL Morris was a long-established dealer set in crumbling Victorian buildings in a dingy back street. JL 'Jimmy' Morris himself stayed mainly in the ramshackle office at the side of the showroom floor. My immediate boss, in fact the only other employee, was Charlie Hake, a 50-something mechanic of dubious morals and questionable hygiene. My introduction to Charlie came on my first morning. I was in need of the toilet and was directed by Jimmy Morris to the privy in the yard. I opened the door and there was Mr Hake, boiler suit around his ankles, hunched over his manhood in furious activity. I must have stood there for a couple of shocked seconds, long enough to prompt Charlie to say, 'Look kidda, either come in and gimme a hand or shut the bloody door.' I shut the door.

Over the coming weeks it became clear why the motorcycles being sold at JL Morris were ill-prepared and often displayed a bewildering array of faults and bodges. Charlie Hake simply couldn't keep his hands off his wedding tackle long enough to get any work done. His trips to the toilet were frequent and when not actually pleasuring himself he'd be talking about sex in all its forms while tweaking feverishly at his overalls. It was certainly an education for me and while it was many years before I learned the correct names for certain depraved acts, I soon became well versed in the vernacular.

Now, Jimmy Morris had a tan boxer bitch called Honey, which was allowed to roam freely throughout the workshop. On too many occasions to put down to chance, the dog would be missing at the same time as Charlie Hake. It was decided that the clinching evidence needed to get rid of Charlie was to catch him on camera in flagrante delicto with Honey the dog. So HQ supplied me with a Kodak Brownie and a flash cube.

Over the next few days I watched carefully when Charlie and Honey disappeared. It turned out he was leading the dog to a store room at the back of the workshop. What puzzled me was why this poor creature followed so willingly.

It was a Friday afternoon when I decided to take the plunge. I'd already planned my photo-assault, greasing the hinges of the store room door so I could ease it open without a tell-tale creak. Indeed, when the time came it opened silently and with the door ajar I could hear vigorous licking and slurping and already my mind was several steps ahead, awash with images of strange congress. On top of that there was a sickening smell of what I can only describe as warm meat. My stomach churned as I eased the door further open and carefully peeped inside. The scene before me was beyond anything I'd imagined. There lay Charlie Hake, flat on his back, overalls around his ankles, eyes closed in rapture as his arms reached back to grip the forks of a 1951 Square Four. Honey was paying close attention to his John Thomas with her big pink tongue, and why? It was smeared liberally with dog food. Suddenly there was a groan, Honey's lick rate increased, I pressed the shutter, scarpered, jumped on my Red Hunter and high-tailed it back to HQ.

The picture proved enough to get Charlie Hake the sack, and I believe the original print hung around at the Ariel offices for many years, being brought out at Christmas parties and the like. In retrospect, I do feel a little sorry for Charlie as his only wrongdoing, in my eyes, was the bodging of the bikes. I mean, who hasn't, at one time or another when feeding Tiddles or Fido, glanced at that marrowbone jelly and felt a flicker of mischief? Have I said too much?

Ginger kids, grands prix and donkeys

From Cyril's memoirs dated 5 January 2006

These short January days put me in mind of pre-season testing for MotoGP – or the 500 class as it was during my working life. As wind batters the shutters, logs crackle on the fire and while my lovely young wife Francesca nips upstairs to slip into something a little more comfortable I shall relax my grip on my stiff hot toddy and put into writing something which, were it ever to get into the public domain, could cause ructions. Is this the alcohol talking? I fear so, but...

The final four years of my full-time employment, leading up to my retirement at the end of 2000, were spent at Yamaha in the UK. While not officially linked to the 500 GP race team I was lucky enough to have close access due to my friendship with certain movers and shakers.

Back in 1997 Valentino Rossi first began scaling the slippery pole of GP stardom when he won the 125 World Championship at his second attempt. It was clear to us all that here was a star of the future. That year we’d had plucky Luca Cadalora and that lovely chap Norick Abe on the YZR but certain besuited gentlemen high up in Yamaha made it clear that for the next season they’d be bringing in a pocket rocket youngster. The team would get the latest YZR, the OWK1 (or the Owki-Cokey as it was ‘hilariously’ dubbed – I hasten to add not by me. Which reminds me, that coming season, following Simon Crafar’s first ever GP win at Donington Park, several of us performed, by way of celebration, a spirited late-night and rather adult version of the hokey-cokey in the paddock, with plenty of ins, outs and an abundance of shaking it all about. I could be wrong but I seem to recall a rather disgruntled Kenny Roberts Jr appearing outside his motorhome in tartan dressing gown and Kermit slippers, complaining about the noise. But poor old Kenny had had a terrible day on his dad’s KR3, so if indeed it was him then all must be forgiven as I sympathise utterly. My own father insisted on building me a bicycle instead of buying me the Elswick Hopper I’d been admiring in the local shop window. The result was acute embarrassment outside the school gates followed by a broken front tooth and a punctured lung. I now regret being so rough with father, but I was only 15, had a bit of a temper and didn’t know my own strength. After all, he'd tried his best with that bicycle given the restrictions of his wheelchair. I digress…).

We were at pre-season testing somewhere in Spain, can't recall where exactly. All was going well, with Simon and Norick putting in good times on the OWK1, but by the end of the first day there was still no sign of this fabled new boy. Just as the team was packing up for the evening, a taxi appeared and out stepped a diminutive figure with a shock of wild, curly, bright ginger hair. He introduced himself as Flamoes Beffen, an 18-year-old Dutch lad who, until now, was unknown to any of us. It was too late for any riding, so I offered to give little Flamoes – or ‘Flam’ as I very quickly dubbed him – a lift back to the hotel in my hire car.

As I drove we chatted. Like most Dutch, who are ever happy to accommodate foreign tongues, his English was excellent. He told me of his racing in the domestic 250 championship, where he’d finished a lowly 12th the previous season. However, despite uncompetitive machinery his talent must have shone through as Japanese talent scouts had approached him with a view to riding for Yamaha – and here he was. He seemed a nice lad, softly spoken and even a little star-struck, hardly daring to believe his luck, I don’t suppose. If only that luck had lasted just a little longer.

I’ve never had a good sense of direction (it was once said of me that I couldn’t find my own cock with both hands, but then my grandmother did have a colourful turn of phrase). So, becoming ever more enmeshed in one-way systems and crowded back streets, we found ourselves in a lively part of town as night fell. It was a very warm evening and I was absolutely parched, so I suggested we park up, have a beer at a bar and get our bearings. If I’m honest, I’d pinpoint that decision as being the catalyst for what was to unfold.

Well, one beer led to another, which led to another bar and another beer and some tapas. Flam started to relax and in fact became very animated, laughing at anything and anyone and singing Dutch drinking songs at the top of his voice. I quickly learned a chorus or two and we became quite a hit, the more we sang the more beer the barman provided for free. We must have been a strange sight, a grey-haired 62-year-old and a ginger dwarf both caterwauling in Dutch. If only it had ended there.

As I told the Spanish police, I remember nothing after crawling to the toilet, where I was found some time later, having divested myself of troublesome clothing, lying with my cheek on the soothingly cool porcelain footplate of one of those distinctive ‘hole-in-the-floor’ Continental toilets. Not my most dignified moment. The police were very keen to learn how I knew Flam and questioned me for some time – keeping me at arm’s length you understand – before letting me go. I never did find out why Flamoes Beffen was deported back to Holland and I refuse to go on rumour alone, because, as we all know, gossip and hearsay can distort things terribly. I mean, the donkey possibly, but the Jack Russell? He was only a small chap, but I just can’t see it.

So, things might have been very different for Yamaha’s 1998 season and after several more years, despite great riders such as Bayle, Abe, Crafar, Biaggi and Checa, it took Vale Rossi, as many of us had always thought, to finally wrest the laurels from Honda. But, you know, whenever I catch a glimpse of a ginger youngster, or indeed Ronald McDonald, or hear the distant braying of a donkey, I wonder what truly happened that night, and of what might have been.

Suzuki's GSX-R750 prompts a frank and revealing exchange of emails

From Cyril's memoirs dated 27 December 2005

From: deaconblue@purgatory.com
To: cyrilgreen@libero.it
Date: 12 October 2005

Dear Cyril

I read with interest your account in Bikes and Bikemen of the invention and naming of Suzuki's SRAD induction system. Now, you and I both know that the naming process was long and hard and took place at a seminar in Berkshire in April of 1995. As I recall, it wasn't you who came up with the acronym which was to grace the following year's GSX-R750T. No, in fact I coined Suzuki Ram Air Direct after several of your suggestions were rejected, including, if I'm not mistaken, High Air Intake Rate Yield, or HAIRY. I’m surprised you seem to have forgotten this, but am prepared to put it down to the heavy medication a man of your age and condition must be forced to endure. I look forward to seeing a letter in Bikes and Bikemen correcting the error.

Yours, Charles Deacon

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From: cyrilgreen@libero.it
To: deaconblue@purgatory.com
Date: 13 October 2005

Dear Charles

Many thanks for your message, but I feel I have to defend my ground on this one. I know for a fact that SRAD was coined by myself to great acclaim and relief from all involved after discussions had reached deadlock on day 18. You may not recall the decisive moment too well as I believe you were out of the room at the time on (yet another) toilet break. How is that nasty waterworks trouble, by the way? Incidentally, your embarrassing bladder-based 'accident' earlier that day could have happened to anyone suffering from chronic incontinence, although to have had the same mishap eight times in two weeks does seem a little unfortunate.
The fact that the problem was prompted by urethral chaffing during the 1992 Le Mans 24-Hour does make it seem a little more heroic, although as you were a mechanic, not a rider, I'm a little puzzled as to when this chaffing actually took place. It may well have been caused by going balls-out on something long and French, but I doubt it was the Mulsanne Straight. We'll say no more.
HAIRY, I'm afraid, doesn't ring a bell and I suspect your mind is playing tricks on you. It's only to be expected when a man suffers premature baldness, but you really must put that to one side, as I presume you do your rather fine toupee each night before bed.
Oh, and may I say that my only medication involves liberal doses of my lovely young wife Francesca and the finest Umbrian olive oil, usually taken separately, though not always!

Best wishes, Cyril
PS: how's the rash?

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From: deaconblue@purgatory.com
To: cyrilgreen@libero.it
Date: 16 October 2005

Cyril

Dear oh dear, you really are a bitter little man, aren't you? Do I need to send you a copy of the photo of me shaking hands with Masahiro Nishikawa as he congratulates me for my work on the GSX-R project? It would be a simple thing to take a quick snap of it in situ on my bedside table. No doubt you won't recall the photo being taken during Nishikawa's surprise visit to the seminar, as you were otherwise engaged in a maintenance store cupboard with a waiter you'd been chatting up at lunch. Or was that just another 'misunderstanding'? I'm sure 'the lovely Francesca' (or is that Francesco?) would be interested to hear all about it. Just write the letter, Cyril.

Charles

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From: cyrilgreen@libero.it
To: deaconblue@purgatory.com
Date: 27 October 2005

Charles

Please forgive my tardy reply, but I've had many more important things to do, such as fettling my small but lovely collection of motorcycles and tending to a troublesome boil on the dog's bottom.
It's a pity you had to bring up the incident in the cupboard with the waiter – and in such a threatening manner. Perhaps it's time to tell you that the photo you have cherished all these years is not, in fact, the GSX-R750T’s engine designer Masahiro Nishikawa, but rather Kevin Hom who worked at the Shell Minimart, Twyford. If you knew one iota about the team behind the GSX-R you'd know that Nishikawa has never sported an afro perm, is unlikely to be seen in a blue nylon snorkel jacket – least of all with the hood up – and didn’t, the last time I met him, have a lazy eye. We were all in on the joke, Charles.
As I recall, and you obviously do not, you then drank yourself unconscious in a self-congratulatory frenzy before being carried up to bed by the rather burly night porter. As a memento, I have in front of me as I type a rather interesting collection of snapshots. My word, it's not so much the length of those GSX-R750 conrods as the external diameter of the big-end. Ouch! Thank goodness for polished internals. And how are the old Chalfonts, these days?
If I were you Charles, I'd forget all about this whole SRAD business, before you make a complete TAWT of yourself.

Yours, still wincing at the thought

Cyril 'Polaroid' Green

Cyril witnesses first hand the advantages of a wipe-clean surface

From Cyril's memoirs dated 19 December 2005

I’m sure many of you enjoyed this year’s Motorcycle Show at the NEC in Birmingham, that thrilling coming together of the greatest bikes and equipment in a carnival atmosphere fuelled by fine food, refreshing ales and lovely girls. At least that’s what the marketing men would have us believe. I’m afraid my own experiences of the show were always rather mixed. To say I’m mentally scarred might be an exaggeration, but the flashbacks persist to this day. Luckily, my lovely young wife Francesca now knows how to handle me on finding me bolt upright in bed in the small hours, screaming ‘get the Bandit off the baby!’. Recurring nightmares are the worst.

However, my most vivid memory of the show didn’t happen at the show itself. 1982 was the show’s second year at the NEC, I was Suzuki’s UK and European Sales Manager and we had a beautiful GSX1100 Katana on the stand. After setting up ready for the show’s opening the next morning, several of us decamped for a beer or two at the Bartons Arms in Birmingham’s Aston district. This locally-famous Victorian-era pub was a lively place back then, full of local ‘characters’ and certainly not the place to start an argument.

One of my sales team, Andy Craven (30-something, single, balding, Star Trek enthusiast with fungal problems – I’m sure you get the picture) was wearing a now much sought-after Katana paddock jacket made from what can only be described as purest nylon. How it glistened under the pub lights. The evening was going well, with several pints of Brew XI lubricating the conversation as we stood at the bar, when an enormous chap, who might best be described as a skinhead, tapped Andy on the shoulder. As Andy turned around and gazed up, our laughter came to an abrupt halt. I have to admit that in Andy’s more irritating moments (that is, any time he was in your company) I’d often harboured vivid daydreams of him being beaten ferociously by broad-shouldered, heavily-muscled men with fists like steam hammers, yet with my dream seemingly about to come true I wasn’t sure I had the stomach for it. But, it must said, Andy had one of those very punchable faces.

‘It’s a sword, ay it,’ boomed the large youth in a distinctive Brummie twang.
‘What is? What are you talking about?’ Among Andy’s many failings was an inability to accurately judge potentially explosive social situations.

‘That, on yer back, mate. Katana. It’s a bloody big sword, ay it.’
‘It’s a bloody big bike actually ‘mate’,’ said Andy with a derisive smirk. He turned back to us with a sarcastic chuckle. I suspected his Essex accent wasn’t cutting a lot of ice at this point and my toes curled inside my shoes in grim anticipation.

‘Yowma rude little git, ay ya?’ said the skinhead, who then, extraordinarily I thought, walked away to the bar. As the rest continued with subdued chatting I watched as this chap ordered two pints of snakebite – the infamously punchy mix of cider and lager later banned in many pubs – downing them one after the other before leaving. I felt very relieved to see the back of him and got in another round.

I think it was the screaming women, and some men, who alerted me to the return of our close-cropped friend. He marched across the large pub creating a bow wave of back-stepping punters. In his hand he did indeed have a bloody big sword.
Andy, now a little worse for wear, was oblivious and still had his back to the approaching maniac. However, his attention was caught when the skinhead took up a splayed-legged, baseball batsman’s stance and whacked Andy’s backside with the flat of the sword.

‘THIS,’ he boomed, ‘is a fucking katana! The greatest killing weapon of all time and capable of slicing through a human torso in one stroke.’

Andy leapt the air and spun round, and was now facing the lunatic while gripping his freshly-thwacked buttocks. He had the expression of a cornered guinea pig. As the whole pub looked on, the skinhead lifted the sword in two hands high above his head then brought it down very slowly onto Andy’s scalp. He then slid the tip down his forehead, nose, mouth and chin (is it just me, or was all this rather homoerotic?). The sword came to rest on Andy’s thin brown belt and with a very deft flick of the wrists the belt and trouser waistband were cut clean through. I clearly recall that as everyone in the pub stood in rapt silence, ‘Happy Talk’ by Captain Sensible was belting out on the jukebox. I don’t think Andy appreciated the irony.

Well, I’m not sure if it was Andy’s custom to go without underpants, but if not he certainly picked an unlucky evening to do so. (Which reminds me of the time I was discovered lying in a lay-by, next to my neatly-parked Yamaha FZR1000 Genesis, my bottom half utterly naked and covered in butter. But more on that another time.) With Andy’s snipped slacks gathered in a heap around his ankles, a pair of pants would have helped in at least two ways. They'd have saved him from the humiliation of presenting the assembled throng with something not unlike a pink bar-end weight peeping from a ginger nest. And they would have baffled the high-pressure exit of that rather unfortunate by-product of extreme fright. I’ve seen such jet-like eruptions from cows in a milking shed, but never from a human. Everyone has their talents, it seems.

Those of you who know the Bartons Arms will understand how the Victorians’ extensive use of ceramic tiling on floors and, thank goodness, walls, came in rather handy during the subsequent clean-up process. And, you know, it’s true what they say about sweetcorn. Quite extraordinary.

Invention and insanity make cosy bedfellows

From Cyril's memoirs dated 27 August 2005

Ah, innovation! Motorcycles have often led the way in the search for more power, less weight and greater efficiency and the man in the street is lucky enough to be presented with the polished result of many years' research (there are some dishonourable exceptions, of course, such as Morbidelli's hilarious V8 and poor old Bimota's ill-judged V-Due). But over the years I've seen great men brought to their knees by the immense strain of research and development, and I’ve witnessed projects which, frankly, can only have been the fruit of troubled minds.

You may remember me telling you of Peter Cartwright, he of shaven dog and V5 lawnmower infamy. Well, on release from psychiatric hospital Peter was, for many years, shunned by the motorcycle industry and he hit rock bottom, his considerable engineering skills pitifully wasted in the sewage industry. However, in 1986 Peter won a Guild of Mechanical Engineers competition to develop an alternatively-fuelled power unit, the winning engine to be fitted in a new Honda-designed road bike. This was an exciting project for Peter, but I’m sorry to say that the results were predictably disastrous.

Things seemed to start well enough, but when no one had heard from him for a month, and following complaints from neighbours about the smell, police broke down the door to Peter's semi-detached house in Crawley. They were driven back by the stench and flies. Years in the sewage industry had influenced Peter’s thinking in a shockingly direct manner and, convinced he could create an engine to run on gases produced by composting human faeces, he’d got himself into
rather a mess.

Never the tidiest of workers, much of Peter’s carpets and walls were smeared in his ‘wonder fuel’. His own body’s production being insufficient for his experiments, health inspectors found what can only be described as an innovative but ultimately rather disturbing ‘turd catcher’ installed in the manhole in his garden so as to harvest his neighbours' motions. Dear oh dear. Peter still writes to me from his secure accommodation, but I've always handled the letters carefully since he will insist on using a distinctive brown ink.

And Yamaha's Deltabox chassis, now deservedly an icon, had a painful development. Though the history books show the preliminary Alphabox and Gammabox frames, we never hear of the mysterious Betabox. And with good reason. The Betabox shunned early work on a perimeter frame in aluminium and instead looked to do away with metals altogether, favouring modern plastics (though we're talking modern by early 1980s standards). Barry Sheene, a skilled mechanic and development rider, was involved in the first serious tests of the Betabox chassis at a secret session at Pau in France. When the engine reached full working temperature the plastic frame, while not exactly melting, certainly became worryingly pliable, bending alarmingly. By the time the bike returned to the pits it resembled a pregnant sow, its midriff sagging until the belly pan was almost on the floor. Sheene dismounted and summed up the future of the Betabox in his beautifully direct style, saying, "The Betabox? It’s not even stiff enough to f*** the designer up the arse with it." Barry had a great way with words.

Then there was the time a certain German manufacturer experimented with a new type of seat foam for extra comfort over long distances. However, it turned out that this foam, a by product of the sap of the South American quilombo tree, gave the 20-strong team of test riders such a fearful rash and inflammation 'down below' that it was branded the sitzenscrotenscratchenbloten (how do those Germans keep it so succinct?). Once the testers were released from the clinic they made a ceremonial bonfire out of all the known saddles and topped it off with an effigy of the seat’s chief designer. However, the intended celebratory atmosphere was rather tempered by the fact that everyone was still rather sore and those not hobbling about with an exaggerated John Wayne gait were sat on medical rings filled with cooling gel. Add to that a blaring soundtrack of the finest German heavy metal and I have to say it’s not the best barbecue I’ve ever been to.

Finally, I must mention the ill-fated Ariel Aqua-Skoot. Oh yes, wet bikes and jet skis are now commonplace, but when Edward Jones took to Coniston Water on a June morning in 1955 he was breaking new ground. Unfortunately, he also broke his neck in an effort to control the 500lb monster as, taking on water at a disastrous rate and the 600cc four-stroke twin revving to the heavens, it careered towards a family picnicking on the shore. His shrieks warned them in time, but the impact of his face with the family-sized pork pie was such that he had to be formerly identified by a tattoo of Norman Wisdom on his right buttock. Mind you, a by-product of the research into the Aqua-Skoot can be found today in the weather-proof seal used under the starter button on Suzuki’s GSX-R1000. So old Eddy’s death wasn’t completely in vain.

'I want to show you my big cock'

From Cyril's memoirs dated 12 August 2005

‘I want to show you my big cock.’ Such was my rather bewildering introduction to Gunter Blasen, consultant designer at BMW. I was reminded of Gunter when I saw BMW's brutally handsome K1200R in the flesh for the first time recently. Gunter was instrumental in changing the way BMW think about their bike design, although his tenure with the firm was rather short lived.

A few years ago I was asked by BMW to be part of a group assembled to offer honest opinion of their then current range and of their hush-hush plans for the future. It meant being away from home for a month, so I was anxious about telling my lovely young wife, Francesca. I found her in the kitchen, expertly tossing a caesar. She took the news well, however, saying that it would give her time to get to grips with our new gardener, Claudio, a muscular youth who didn't seem to know his basil from his backside but for whom Francesca clearly had a soft spot.

Although I'm lucky enough to have a well-travelled R1150RT in the garage, it seemed that taking it to the 'secret summit' in Bavaria would be too sycophantic, so for the blast up from my Umbrian hideaway I took the Ducati ST4 – and a big bag of tools.

The long day's ride on beautiful roads was marred only slightly by the mishaps. I know I'm not the only one to ever have suffered sprayback when filling their fuel tank, although I was especially unlucky that so much petrol went in my eyes. I screamed like a schoolgirl and ran to the toilets. Having rinsed my stinging eyes I went to the loo, but there must have still been petrol on my hands as for the rest of the day I suffered an irritating burning sensation 'down below'. While I was in the toilets someone used the keys, which in my panic I'd left in the ignition, to steal my panniers. They could have nicked the whole bike, so I suppose I should be thankful.

On arriving at the hotel that night my eyes were red and bloodshot, my face rotten-tomato blotchy, I reeked of unleaded and was fighting a losing battle to control the urge to continually rearrange my stinging peter. I could see the receptionist was most thrilled to be checking me in.

Later, on coming down for our welcome dinner, the Hawaiian shirt, tight snow-washed jeans and yellow flip-flops weren't ideal, but it was the best the hotel could rustle up from lost property given the theft of my panniers. My eyes were still pink, my face a patchwork of blotches and I must have resembled an ageing, drug-addled sex tourist (not helped by the fact that the old chap still demanded regular tweaking).

Dinner went well, I'm glad to say. We were a very eclectic bunch from all over Europe and varying motorcycling backgrounds. It was there that I was introduced to Gunter Blasen, seated next to me at the large table. After dinner, as we sipped the strong local abspritzen firewater, we began a debate on BMW quirks. Switchgear – innovative German design or Legoland freakery? Boxer engine – refined by almost a century of development or a throwback destined for Somalian tractors? Suddenly, Gunter stood up, leaned close to me and said: ‘Come outside, I want to show you my big cock.’ It was all I could do not to laugh, which would have been such an insult because despite Gunter's English being almost perfect he'd obviously got the wrong word this time. I guessed that he wanted to show me his bored-out Beemer, or something of the sort, so I followed him through a side door towards the carpark.

We stopped in a dark spot near the bins and I looked around for the bike. When I turned back Gunter did, in fact, have his old chap in his hand, and I have to say it certainly was enormous.

‘Cyril,’ he said, ‘I have noticed you winking at me all evening and you cannot leave yourself alone down there. Let us enjoy the moment!’

‘Ah, look Gunter,’ I said, ‘You've got it all wrong. I had a bit of a mishap today, and that's why I seem to have been winking, and as for fiddling with myself, well...’ And I went on to explain the situation.

If only it had ended there. I have to say, we'd both enjoyed perhaps a little too much wine and abspritzen, which perhaps explains why Gunter remained with his percy in his hand and why I decided to pop mine out to show him the burns inflicted by the petrol.

And I'm afraid that was the scene which greeted a top BMW executive strolling out to enjoy a cigarette – a German chap with a mullet proffering his unfeasibly large member, and an old boy dressed like a low-rent Miami pimp doing likewise with a rather less impressive specimen, the two of us apparently squaring up for a little pork swordery.

I left early the next morning and haven't been in touch with BMW since, and neither, so my source in the industry tells me, has Gunter. However, I'm sure I detect Gunter's influence in that big, bruising hooligan tool, the K1200R. I feel convinced he managed to plant a seed with at least one of the BMW designer chappies. Guten tag!

California, gender bending and tortoises

From Cyril's memoirs dated 30 July 2005

Ah, the heat of lazy summer days, the smell of scorched tarmac, the bitter-sweet thrill of a sun-baked black vinyl saddle. This time of year was made for motorcycling and when the mercury rises and resting fuel tanks gently whistle, I like to take off into the mountains on my Ducati Monster M1000S.

I was parked up last week overlooking a parched Apennine valley and tucking into a juicy panino slipped into my backpack by the lovely Francesca (who works wonders with a salami and a smear of olive oil). My mind was taken back to the permanent summertime of California where I was lucky enough to spend a couple of months in August 1971 working on an exciting film project with the BSA-Triumph group in my role as Global Sales Director. I'm sure you're all familiar with the great documentary film On Any Sunday, starring Steve McQueen. Well, BSA-Triumph decided to cash in on the film's success by creating its own version in which Triumph motorcycles would play a major part. The film was to be called Spank the Monkey! (these were more innocent times when it meant merely to enjoy the power of one’s machine) and its star would be Sean Connery. However, despite the best efforts of everyone involved, things didn't go exactly to plan. A humiliating farce? I’m afraid so.

The project ran into budgetary troubles almost immediately. BSA-Triumph could barely afford a buttered bun let alone the movie business, consequently, plans to commission the highly respected Bond film producer ‘Cubby’ Broccoli had to be abandoned. Many potential candidates were then sidelined as we searched for an affordable name. Alf Bishop may not ring a bell with many people, but when I tell you he was the genius behind the 1968-'73 British TV quiz show Nig Nog Golliwog I'm sure the memories will come flooding back (it must be said, the programme was a product of its time and nowadays not only unacceptable, but quite probably illegal). We considered ourselves very lucky to get Alf.

Of course, Sean Connery also fell victim to our meagre budget. As we went down the list, through Dennis Waterman, a young Mike Read and even the keen motorcyclist Dick Emery, it was clear how desperate things were getting. Eventually, salvation arrived in the shape of a young amateur actor who, better still, was useful on a bike, having been spotted on waste ground handling his big thumper with aplomb. (I must say, I do enjoy taking out my own lusty mudplugger on balmy evenings, much to the delight of certain of the local lads.)

However, there was something about Ashley Clarke that unsettled me, yet I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. But the board were getting jumpy and decided that his rather effeminate voice (I'd say Catherine Zeta-Jones being throttled by a large-handed maniac) could be dubbed over at a later date – such was the muddled thinking which had already permeated the project.

The first week's shooting ended badly after an almighty row with director Alf Bishop, who had hijacked what was an admittedly loose script and decided to insert his 'trademark'. This entailed 20 black and white minstrels riding pillion through the Californian desert, complete with straw boaters and canes. It was clearly ludicrous, though perhaps not quite so ludicrous as the mass brawl that ensued when I requested security remove the disgruntled minstrels from the set. Mammy!

A couple of days later things turned especially strange. We were out in the desert shooting a scene where Ashley comes charging through the scrub, kicking up a trail of dust on a lovely, high-piped Triumph TR6C. Unfortunately, he swerved rather violently in a noble attempt to avoid a desert tortoise. The result was a spectacular end-over-end crash which left Ashley squealing like a stuck pig with what appeared to be a broken leg. The medics were on hand very quickly and having administered enough morphine to render him not only silent but putty-like, proceeded to cut away his leather jeans.

Well, as jeans and underpants came away as one, my misgivings and Ashley’s curious traits all began to make sense. Ashley Clarke had quite the strangest set of ‘meat and two veg’ any of us had ever seen. It turned out that he was, in fact, a transsexual who, until very recently, had been Andrea Clarke (not the Brit porn star from the 80s, she came later). The last turkey in the shop with which the gathering crowd was presented was the result of many hours of surgery, but
by the look of it there was still a fair bit of tidying up to do around
the edges.

With our main rider out of action, the project folded. But wouldn’t it be superb to see John Bloor and Hinckley Triumph pick up the reigns and make a modern-day Spank the Monkey? A Bonneville Scrambler powering through the Baja California desert, perhaps with 'Right' Charley Boorman in the saddle? What a marvellous thought that is.