Graeme Crosby - Croz Larrikin Kiwi Biker

From where I was sitting under a low hedge I knew I was in deep trouble. My white overalls were soaked with water and grass stains, blood dripped from an open wound on my elbow, and the new visor Id purchased less than an hour ago was hanging from one dome and scratched with gravel rash. The customers bike lay beside me, grass and mud smeared down one side and a shiny new scrape mark running along the left-hand muffler. The bikes handlebars were bent and there was a small but conspicuous dent in one side of the tank.

At 17 years of age I had suddenly developed a face like a sucked lemon as I dragged the little Kawasaki from where it had come to rest alongside me under the hedge. Shit! Ive done it now, I thought. This was my first day at work, my first assignment, and already Id made my first major fuck-up.

Playing racer on a clients bike, seeing how fast I could ride in the rain, was not a good start to my employment. I was going over and over it in my mind, asking myself why Id lost the front end going into that corner. The tyre appeared to be in good condition with lots of tread and the road, although wet, seemed to have grip though clearly not enough. I decided it must have been sap on the road from the overhanging trees that had brought me down. I put that one in the memory bank for future retrieval watch for sap on corners.

I had started my motorcycle working career in Auckland in 1972 with Laurie Summers Ltd, the Kawasaki importers for New Zealand at that time. I began in the sales department as a general gofer, dogsbody or hairy arse, depending on who was addressing me. I had just been to head office in the city to pick up the small daily parts order that included a Vespa exhaust valve. I soon worked this out as being an apprentice initiation test, knowing that Vespas dont have valves, and retaliated by taking a 10-minute break on the way back for a hot chocolate and a fag. I began thinking I was some hotshot racer and decided to take a short-cut through the One Tree Hill Domain which had a series of nice flowing bends. Scuttling around these was fun and, yes, it was raining lightly and the rest is personal history.

How the hell am I going to explain this to my boss? I wondered. I managed to kick the handlebars back into a workable position, jumped aboard and kick-started the 350 cc twin rotary disc 2-stroke. It barked back into life as if nothing had happened. I would have to deal with it, just fess up as soon as I got back, admit my shortcomings and apologize profusely.

Arriving back at the dealership, I quickly located the boss and explained in depth how that bus had just come out of nowhere and how Id tried to avoid it but I hit the brakes and skidded off. I told him the big yellow bus didnt even stop, but it must have been one of about 250 belonging to the Auckland fleet. The boss leaned forward in his chair, listened to me intently, paused, then advised me to watch out for buses in the future and told me that bikes are just mechanical things. Anything can be fixed but bodies are a little different so be careful in the future. Yes, sir, I said.

Bob Buchanan was the manager, a fair-faced man with a mop of hair that at first glance resembled Worzel Gummidges. He wore large black-rimmed spectacles and his roughly trimmed moustache sat proudly above a huge jawbone. Bob was always puffing away on cigarettes. I first met him when I was straight out of school working part-time in a used-car yard. This somewhat seedy looking place specialized in classic English sports cars. There were some wonderful cars on display, including the XK120 and 140 Jaguars plus MGAs, a TF1500 and Triumph TR6 and TR4s. As a cleaner I was encouraged to use whatever it took to make the cars look great. Using my initiative, once I even tried black tyre paint to enhance the sun-ravaged and tired-looking leather on a Sunbeam Rapier. That brilliant idea had to be abandoned after a client returned from a test drive in the car and walked out of the yard with black stains on the seat of his white linen pants.

I worked there for about five weeks before persuading a local copper to issue me a car drivers licence. Id had a motorcycle licence since the age of 15 so considered myself overdue to have a car endorsement, and as the little book was signed off by the traffic officer I took the opportunity of stealing his pen and adding a heavy trade truck licence endorsement. I was licensed to kill.

Bob visited the car yard one day looking at an XK120 and after a test drive and some talking he offered me a job on the spot at the Kawasaki shop. How could I refuse? Motorcycles were my passion and I started the next day. I cant remember telling the yard boss I wouldnt be turning up for work again but I guess they figured it out.

At such a tender age and a sponge for knowledge, I found Bob was able to teach me a lot about life. He was a hard-drinking man with a penchant for living life to the max. Bob was the most accident-prone person Ive ever known. Although he couldnt ride a bike well, he insisted each night on taking home the most expensive and powerful bike in the showroom. He was usually intoxicated and crashed frequently.

I had been at work for less than a month when we received a call to pick up a smashed bike at Mangere Bridge, about 8 km away. I arrived at the scene to find a Kawasaki on the grass verge with its front wheel tucked up neatly between the exhausts under the engine. This 1969 Kawasaki 500 cc H1 triple cylinder 2-stroke was blessed with a powerful engine and a power band as narrow as a knife edge. It was mounted in a thin-wall lightweight tubular chassis that twisted and bent like spaghetti at any suggestion of a corner. The chassis provided virtually no ground clearance and had a set of handlebars so narrow your thumbs almost touched each other. This red-tank model was known to be the most vicious bike ever produced and led to the coining of its nickname, the widow-maker.

Bob was on a hiding to nowhere riding this lethal machine. It took me and two big Samoan boys, who happened to be watching, to manhandle this battered bike onto the companys Morris Oxford utility.

On his return to work from a short stay in hospital, Bob elected to use the Morris Oxford utility as his mode of transport a safer bet, he thought. He set off for home after work one Friday night full of beer and bravado with his leg still in a plaster cast. The top edge of his plaster got jammed under the dashboard, and with his foot firmly planted on the throttle Bob careered out of control. He shot out through a car park at the back of the shop, across the road and smashed head-on into a brick state house, demolishing its front wall. I can still hear that old engine screaming its lungs out with the rear wheels spinning furiously. Someone eventually had the presence of mind to switch it off.

I was then given the opportunity of selling bikes, and part of the sales process was providing demonstrations to the clients, which usually meant coercing them to climb on the back. They were treated to a 10-minute pillion ride while I clinically demonstrated the bikes various selling points. The features I usually liked to demonstrate included the bikes power and acceleration, its maximum banking angle and the ease with which it could be flicked from side to side at speed while dodging cars and trucks. During all the time I spent doing these demonstration rides, I only once threw a bike away with a customer on the back. I touched an exhaust pipe on the ground while blasting off and turning out from an intersection. The bike spun up the road, leaving me and the prospect on the ground. Although highly embarrassed, I quickly got over it, as did the client, who went on to buy the bike.