at the end of the day ( or early in the morning )

[perry]

is a phrase i havnt heard for about 3 or 4 years 

it was the usual scene no doubt found all over the country . ie a group of lads often between 5 - 10 of us sat in a mates flat watching all the usual vids like the early roadfools / clicked etc . our lack of jobs ( only one of us was inclined to claim "lack of job money" ) meant "social " hours were nothing more than a hinderance to us . for you see we lived in one of the countrys most popular places for tourists to buy fish and chips and aimlessly wander around   ( torbay )

we had trails , decent ones at that but we were people who loved to just ride , regardless of what was under the tyres 

so we took to the streets AT NIGHT 

often we wouldnt even leave the house until 11pm , it just made sense . no cars / grockles just complete freedom 

we lived like that for months on end clocking up at least 20miles a night riding between brixham/paignton/torquay/totnes/newton abbott ( yep ive been stood in the middle of decoy track at 3am  . there was even a ride to exeter one night ( look on a map for the distance between brixham and sexeter ) which ended abruptly when the police couldnt understand our lifestyle " why have lights THERES NO ONE AROUND !"  and met many characters at the early hours of the morning  either people wandering home from the seafront clubs / general homeless people and general unsavoury chaps

we wouldnt get home till 6am after picking up some milk on the way  sleep until 12 , get to the trails and either dig/ride/relax , then back to a mates to do it all over again

sometimes we coundnt leave for a night before a bike was built/fixed and i once spent 6 hours filing a reweld on a mates mtb swingarm with nothing more than a tiny screwdriver 

those were great times that i wouldnt change for the world but everything has to move on eventually 

i now live on the other side of the country , have no one to ride with , a job working nights ( not the same  ) a girlfriend and all kinds of responsabilities

but the love never dies does it 

trouble with working nights comes with having days off , that arnt really days off at all because the body gets conditioned to sleep during the day and be awake at night . so i have a habit of waking up in the early hours and just sit here , doing nothing 

but the terrible one propped against the sofa called to me

i looked out the window to see it was about dry enough to go out for a ride around

so at 4am this morning i was pedalling around town     no agenda other than to be on the bike to relive some times past

and i bloody loved it 

i hardly know my way around town and i never really rode parks so going there at anytime of the day ends up with me doing nothing more than 180s for half hour before i ride off embarassed by the new crop of riders that can out do my 14 years in about a week ( ive never been any good but heyho ive learned to live with it )

im going to try and get out in the early hours as often as i can now , hopping kerbs like ive just done is the best fun in the world 

any old ( or even new thatl be kind not to point and laugh ) people who live/ride in grantham ? comeon there must at least be a few i remember cyclesport having ads in ride in the mid 90s

anyone else have fond memories of middle of the night riding ? im sure we wernt the only ones doing it

[pickle]

Never rode in the middle of the night buddy.....but sounds like you had a blast!!!   

[JT71]

got busted by the cops riding around on me bmx late at night, ira style balaclava, black widow catapult in me pocket, no lights. couldn't explain what i was doing, just "messing around" parents didn;t even know i was out. 

[oberonspacefruit]

I know what you mean about the night jaunts. Coming home at the same time  the milkman arrives always puts a topsy turvy slant on your day.

Its much more peaceful out and about at night. nobody ever gave me any hassle because they always seemed to think that if your out at that time you should be avoided.

24 hour garages are handy too.

[perry]

oh yes the late night garage 

often a free airline

but hatch service was a chore

" crunchy , there , there , there , CRUNCHY ! , NO NOT A TOPIC ! , I WANT A SODDING CRUNCHY !!! "

we did get stopped a few times  i have a few signs in my collection 

one night i ended up with a red light bulb ( from the lights on the sea front ) a bunch of flowers and a sign , luckily i was walking at the time but they couldnt understand how i had walked with my bike from the places id picked up the stuff to where i was stopped lol

one morning i decided i didnt want the £30 fine as i was a couple roads from home and had ridden all night so couldnt see how id get a fine soooo close to home , gave a false name but i couldnt think of an address quick enough so i turned the bike around and rode off , very rapidly

the diesel  gave chase but i went down a few alleys and was avoiding them for ages until i was a road away from home ( id been all around town by now so was knackered ) and saw them at the oher end of the road , i stopped and waited " fair cop guv " i thought i was going to be charged wth resisting arrest or something but only ended up £30 lighter

i guess they enjoyed an excuse to hoon around in the panda car lol

we got our milk direct from the milkfloat , until they changed the oldboy to a pair of hefty fellas in a transit

[oberonspacefruit]

we used to hang on to the back of the milk float to get a free tow, as long as you kept your head down it was ok.

not very fast though.

[priv]

got busted by the cops riding around on me bmx late at night, ira style balaclava, black widow catapult in me pocket, no lights. couldn't explain what i was doing, just "messing around" parents didn;t even know i was out. 

exactly what we did,allways thinking of routes we could take where the coppers couldn't catch us.

i think it stemmed from the ET thing,trying to out run the copers

priv

[southern andy]

I feel that i have missed out on some part of a BMX'ers life here.