A Splash on a FLASH!
Histories are marvellous things. When a personal history overlaps with actual real history, it can be even more marvellous, not least because comparing personal memories of what happened with official versions of what actually happened can be seriously entertaining. And I’m talking only about motorcycle history … and motorcycling history, which may or may not be the same thing.
Take my own formative riding years: the very end of the 1960s and the early 1970s. It was a time of considerable irreverence and sudden and unexpected mobilities, both personal and social. It was of course a golden age … if only for me because I lived then and very much of the remainder of my life has been stimulated by those times. And bikes were central to that. As were music, politics, the counter-culture and much more. But bikes held the rest together because of the physical mobility they provided, as well as being a fascination which has lasted from then until now. An amusing thought for the first day of the new year – which is when I’m writing this: January 1, 2019.
What has this got to do with the Golden Flash which hopefully RC Smudgocolor™ has revealed in glorious black somewhere nearby? Well, it’s minor admission time. I always wanted a plunger Flash. Several times I tried to buy one and every time I failed. I have now given up. They were once so common that folk gave them away for free – two of my 1970s pals were given buckshee Flashes, and both converted them into horrible Easy Rider wannabee horror stories, mainly by fitting insanely overlength fork stanchions (available through the ads in Motorcycle Mechanics magazine at one point), which made them terrifying to ride. And down through the (how
