1976 and all that ...

"... shrieks and hoops of the riders
barely penetrating the engine noise ..."

To:
Nigel, Paul, Les, Kym, Dave B, Dave S, Jackie, Michelle, Maria (Misty), Penny

1975 onwards....
Tuesday nights downstairs at 'Longs' in Old Christchurch Road ... the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, Lynyrd Skynyrd, Thin Lizzy - at times you actually had to listen, and further-up the same road, later that decade a Cafe appeared - 'Chimneys' projecting B&W movies on the walls as we supped our early-hours coffees. Meeting times for this place always around midnight ie: after our respective evenings and outside, often the focus - The Bikes sat gleaming.

A hybrid bunch - not always content with the one identity, some of us closely shaved, elegant shirts, trousers and packed cigarette cases under the studded denim, leather and doss-rag; we'd use B'mth's discos (The Other Place, Bumbles, earlier on ... Chelsea Village, Maison Royale, Enfer) as much as the Biker bars, returning to the machinery in the early hours, sated by some female student's strawberry flavoured lipstick.

Some Saturday nights were truly amazing. On that millionaire peninsular now traded exclusively by either Estate Agents or Cafe Bars for the seriously heeled, the Haven Hotel once housed The Thumbscrew Bar - all decorative splendor playing host to the boys and girls who dared be there. 11pm - or nearer half-past - twenty + machines would fire-up and hurtle back along Panorama road. Alcohol-fuelled, the stunts down that glorious piece of tarmac defied gravity...sheer pace or unbelievable acceleration melded into a blur of streaming lights, riders only identifiable by the stud-patterns on their backs. These were very early days, we had to be content with our CB & CD 175's, GS250's, (I can't bring myself to mention the Fantic125 Chopper - surely the most ludicrous 55mph ever achieved) - one of the pack owned the first 100mph 250, the Kawasaki H250 'Hustler' - as skittish and unpredictable as the owner always seemed to be. On rare nights a huge black quad-potted beast would join the pack, four chromed tail-pipes shouting its superiority - the impossibly romantic Z900, the King. From Haven Point to Westover Road, B'mth (using the Westcliffe bends, of course) - about 5 miles of utter mayhem, shrieks and hoops of the riders barely penetrating the engine noise, then stacking the machines outside one of the cinemas - ready for the late showing of whatever. Saturday Nights!

Weekdays it had to be The (as was) Pinecliffe in Southbourne, a rock venue from the dawn of time, favourites for most: 'Freshly Laid', yet for me the sublime 'Gringo' fused Latin Rhythms with searing, soaring rock riffs (a la Santana - yet far more approachable ) long before we started to hear the mess that passes for the same this century.
Further afield The Alice Lisle, The Rising Sun, and in Everton a pub reached by surely one of the best pieces of road ever Biked at Midnight. - Now altered, smoothed-out and dumbed-down, the route from Everton back to Bournemouth - through Barton, Highcliffe, Mudeford, Southbourne - at first requiring intense concentration, reducing into a rolling motion lasting all the remaining miles, ' seemed like your steed would find the way should you not be able to.

In '76 both 'Hotel California' and 'A Night at the Opera' were released, confirming to us our choices - speaking to us as surely as if we'd penned the lyrics ourselves on the shores of Poole Harbour. We rented our own Hotel California - a ground-floor flat in a vast old mansion that used to occupy No.10 The Avenue, Branksome. A mesh screen door separated the immense lounge from the grounds, the bikes housed two-hundred metres away in garages on the very periphery of the gardens. Living the dream, this launching-pad toward experience was the backdrop for our emerging styles, our differences, our loves and our passing out of late teenage.

We evolved. GT380's,CB500's, GS750's - safer through their weight, and older pilots..................