Modern Vespa

I spent yesterday evening watching stand-up comedy in the Charing Cross Road Borders with a friend. At the end of the night we went our separate ways. I got back to the bike bay, geared up, nodded and smiled to the other biker unlocking his steed, and set off down the road.

Ten metres later, the bike sputters and dies.

I start up, set off, it sputters and dies again. Repeat twice; sit staring at dashboard in despair. The fuel light went on fairly recently and I usually get a good 15 miles out of the reserve, so I don't know how this has happened, but it has.

Meanwhile the other guy from the bike bay has got going - but instead of roaring off into Bloomsbury he stops beside me. This is why you should always nod and smile!

"Out of petrol?" he asks. He's Australian, about my age, riding one of those retro-looking Gilera bikes.

"Looks like it," I reply, then add "I'd better ring the AA," so he won't think I'm angling for him to go and fetch me some fuel (which I am).

"Want to hop on the back and I'll take you to the garage?"

I assent with gratitude and ascend with a clumsy legover. Yes Ma, I got on the back of a complete stranger's bike at half-past ten at night in Camden, trusting in the international biking fraternity to keep me safe. (If it looked like we were leaving W1 for some seedy crack den, I planned to tip myself off the back.)

I was more worried about entrusting myself to a stranger's riding, but he was very smooth though took more liberties with advanced stop lines than I like to. At the first set of traffic lights he introduced himself as Neil and asked my name.

At the petrol station I bought a can and a fiver's worth of unleaded, and we returned with the container jammed between us. Once I'd filled my tank he excused himself on the grounds of having to get up early the next morning and we parted with a handshake and many injunctions to take care and ride safe.

(Funnily enough it's a year this weekend since my boyfriend and I fetched a can of petrol for a motorist stranded in the Dorset countryside. How's that for karma?)

Thank you, Neil, wherever you are, for turning a disaster into an adventure!

Good people are every where! R

Nice one Alice! +1 to London Bikers!

A nice reminder that all strangers aren't lunatics, rapists or mass murderers.

it's always nice to hear about people who aren't jerks

Great post, thanks for sharing your story.

Wow, I am impressed! You have all the luck! Great tale.

You didn't get his phone number ? That was a really sweet thing to do and I agree with the above's that it does reassure you that most people are nice. Maybe we should make it our duty to track him down ?
Me I would have plumped for the crack den and than all kinds of malarke would have ensued.
Lovely story though. I feel all smug and full of love now.
Did you get your text Husky ?
Love and Rockets Billy-no-scoot

One part of the story is missing - did the Get Smart ET4 fire back up again once it was refilled ? He wasn't wearing lots of tight fitting blue and red clothes with underpants on the outside and a big S on his chest or was it the other guy ?
Love Billy-sans-vespa

Thank goodness, yes it did! I am starting to have serious worries about its fuel consumption, though!

i knew it. there are good guys out there after all.

edit - sorry, that sounds a bit chick-flick. what i meant to say, in a manly voice, is that there is joy to be had from helping others and being a man needn't exclude you.

...oh, what the hell. still sounds wierd.

glad you got your bike going alice

I think we should declare this international get a leg over with an Australian day!

i hope it has got off to a good start for you.

Aah it's the end of the day here. And I spent most of it looking at conference posters with pics of really fugly dermatological conditions. Maybe I should declare tomorrow...

I don't think there are any pretty dermatological conditions.

What about this chap who turned blue from self medicating w/colloidal silver.



Don't know about pretty...but certainly interesting. 8)

awwwwwwwwwww, love to hear these stories...
I am a strong believer that there is a pact and community amongst all two-wheelers on the road out there... I'm not intimidated or disgusted or scared of any bike owner in bays. Maybe in traffic when they get going, but not by the bikes..

and it wasn't even just for flirts' sakes as he went on his way and you have a boyfriend, see!

glad you got home ok!
no cager would help you, I can assure you!

keep smiling everyone!