AS A CALLOW YOUTH I WOULD DROOL AND dribble over the road tests in Bike and SuperBike, revelling in the words carefully crafted as the writers, these gods among men, imparted their wisdom upon we mere mortals (and they were never goddesses, because heaven forfend that a woman should be allowed closer to a motorcycle than the pillion seat, unless she was wearing a bikini and draped over it in studio... or, in the case of Superbike, half a bikini).
There we would be regaled by the likes of Calderwood, Nicks and Williams with tales of their debauched lifestyles, where they were given vastly powerful motorcycles by cringing marketing men who handed over the keys as easily as they handed over the martinis, while comely wenches lit hand-rolled cigars for them before they went out onto the roads of Portugal or Penang, sometimes destroying the machines and airily demanding new ones to wreak havoc upon. What red-blooded youth would not wish to join these deities in the pantheon?
Eventually, your humble scribe did make it into print, but either they were making it up or times have changed. Thus far, motorcycle manufacturers have not been kind enough to drop brand-new motorcycles in my lap
