This article was taken from our archives. It first appeared in the June 1993 issue of The Bermudian. It appears here exactly as it did originally.
My teenage boating experience didn’t go much beyond furtive jaunts in ‘borrowed’ punts.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like boats – I loved them. I liked stories of the sea, doted on ships and coveted the model boats on display in the toy stores. But boats required money or connections. My family had neither.
I spent my time on bikes instead: pedalbikes as a youngster, then bikes with motors once I started climbing the teen years. Ownership of a motorbike at age sixteen has become virtually a rite of passage in Bermuda.
My love for motorbikes came alive when ‘mopeds’ first hit Bermuda’s roads. I was living on Victoria Street just around the corner from Lucas House. They were agents for the Velo Solex and I spent many afternoons on the way home from school peering in at the door while Velos, and later Lambratta scooters, were being uncrated, assembled and tested.
Those first mopeds were puny machines. The Velo Solex had a primitive gas engine and a friction roller which pressed against and turned the front wheel. Its top speed was perhaps twelve miles an hour. Going downhill, a Velo could go faster with the motor disconnected.
The Mosquito was another add-on. With its two-stroke engine it was a bit more refined and far noisier – hence its name. It could be ordered from the U.S. and fitted to almost any pedal bike. The Mosquito kit had an engine and brackets which fitted over the rear wheel. The engine turned the wheel through a friction roller.
Among the early motorbikes in Bermuda was the Excelsior. I had seen a few of them, but it wasn’t until I was twelve or so and living in Grenada that I first got to ride a motorbike solo. There was this Grenadian fellow named Seon Bell who was tall and rangey with a sense of humour to match. He had a two-gear Excelsior which he rode on the streets, and occasionally on the beach, with abandon.
Compared with modern electric-start bikes, the Excelsior was a Neanderthal. Let me explain.
There were two standard ways to start an Excelsior. One was to put it up on the stand and pedal until the motor started. This was how most Excelsior owners started their machines. The stand was a long ‘U’-shaped bracket with square corners. Its open ends were pivoted on the rear axle so that when the stand was down, the rear wheel was lifted off the ground. When the stand was in the up position it was held up by a clip at the end of the rear fender.
If the stand wasn’t clipped properly or the clip broke, the stand would drag and bounce on the ground creating showers of sparks. Seon liked the sparks effect, especially at night. By the time I met him the stand on his bike had been worn away to useless stumps which hung down on each side of the wheel where they would scrape the ground only when he leaned on a corner.
So Seon had to use the second and less orthodox method to start his bike. He would furiously push the bike a short distance, jam the engine into gear and ‘pop’ the clutch. It sounds easy when saying it but just to watch him do it was hilarious. Those old Excelsiors were finicky machines at best. They had a big flywheel which didn’t take kindly to the clutch-popping technique, so the engine put up a lot of resistance to turning over unless the decompression level was pulled in at the same time.
Those old bikes also had an awkward throttle arrangement, not like the twist grip common today. Instead, there was a lever very much like the one used to shift gears on our modern ten-speed bikes. That lever had to be positioned just right. Too little and the engine wouldn’t get enough gas to kick over; too much and the bike would fire up and unceremoniously run away with, over or from you.
Pushing the bike, grabbing the gear stick, holding the clutch and decompression levers, and adjusting the throttle required more hands than people normally have.
Jump-starting was an acrobatic feat requiring the use of forehead, knees and elbows. The balancing act was so demanding that more than seldom, bike and rider would end up in a tangled heap on the pavement. Every startup was an adventure for the rider and entertainment for bystanders.
Cheez! We’re at the end of the page already before I’ve told you how I learned to ride. Well, next time ….
