The story yesterday, Here - was...
ALL TRUE!
Yes, it all happened.
The guy sold the club a short while after that and it was a couple more years before the current owner bought it and transformed it. The club is now one of the trendiest hot-spots in town.
I worked at the new club when it opened and I was the first licensed female Door Supervisor in the town.
Some pictures from Google - free to use - search
When I was 16 years old, just out of school and a little after starting work at my first full time job, Trev and I decided to go on holiday (vacation). Two weeks of just him and me, a bike, a tent and a HUGE adventure.
I honestly didn’t believe my parents would give me permission to go, but amazingly, they did. We planned to go in July/August and I’d been seeing him since April.
He planned the route and I enthusiastically watched and listened as he showed me where we were going.
Trev used to have a little Yamaha 350LC which he didn’t think would cope with the journey, so he bought his dream bike. The bike he’d been wanting to own for a while – a MotoGuzzi 850 LeMans MkII – a blue one.
On the day we set off, we’d both been to work and we’d been up since early that morning. We packed up the bike. Our luggage consisted of a large tank bag strapped on the tank of the bike, twin panniers to the sides, huge travel bag strapped on the back rack, tied securely so a) it wouldn’t fall off, b) I could lean on it and c) the rucksack on my back would fit over the top.
We set off for France – well, Dover first.
Stopping only for refuelling – either the bike or the bike and us, we travelled down the country and arrived at the queue into Dover.
Because the panniers were wider than the bike (obviously) he had to be careful when ‘filtering’. Driving slowly between lines of cars is legal in England and is one of the benefits of riding a motorcycle.
There was a convertible in one of the lanes, with four young (same as us) people in it. They noticed the Guzzi and watched.
One characteristic of the Guzzi is that it’s a shaft-drive motorcycle, not chain-drive. As you move off from a standing start, the bike lifts a little and the guys in the convertible noticed.
They mentioned it to Trev as we passed them.
Trev explained it’s a shaft-driven motorbike and they whooped and cheered – nope, I have no idea why… maybe they were engineering geeks?
We got to Dover and caught a ferry across to France. Being the passenger, I had more time to look at the scenery and we’d developed a signal system. I would tap his leg on the corresponding side if I saw something of interest and he’d look whichever side I’d tapped. It was a rudimentary system but it worked.
Trev had to be the navigator because the map was set in front of him (no sat-nav in those days) but I worked out the km/miles from the road signs.
I also had a tiny camera and I kept it on a top pocket so I could grab it and take pictures easily.
We’d got quite a long way down France and we were getting tired (exhausted). We’d been travelling for ages before we finally looked for a camp site.
Not only had we been up and working on the day we set off, we’d also travelled through the night as it was easier than riding through traffic.
27 hours of riding is NOT safe, but when you’re young and stupid, who cares? Right?
We arrived at a tiny camp site, Trev sorted the arrangements and we set up the tent. If I remember correctly, it was around 6pm when we finally got to sleep. 27 hours of travelling, we’d made it to Dijon.
12 hours later, we woke up, packed up and set off.
What we found out later was that we were allowed to camp on the motorway (freeway, autobahn) in designated camping areas. That would have saved quite a lot of time and energy if we’d known then.
Still, we were on our way!
We decided that we weren’t going to be so silly next time and we aimed for a camp site closer than 27 hours away.
We met up with a group of bikers and chatted to them at one of the refuelling stations. They were looking for a camp site too.
The next camp site was MASSIVE! We rolled in through the gates, set up camp and stayed there for the night. The camp site had all the amenities we could wish for – swimming pools, snack bars, restaurants, bars, shops – we could have stayed there longer than the one night.
The best thing about the camp site was that there was no obvious place to pay for our pitch.
The group of other bikers decided they would risk another night or so, but we had an agenda and we moved on.
The further down France we got, the warmer the weather. Pretty soon, we would be up and about, packing the bike up before the sun got too hot because the heat was unbearable if not.
Back in those days, I had a little leather jacket, a helmet and gloves as protective clothing. We had no concept of leg or foot protection, so jeans and sneakers were all we wore – we know better now of course!
More tomorrow