Earlier in 2012, Daventry town centre hosted a motorbike festival. Some beautiful bikes were brought along and I took the kids and my camera into town to enjoy the event. Amongst many exhibits; vintage bikes, custom choppers, a squadron of Vespas, some 70s superbikes and most bizarrely the motorcycle hearse you see before you, were on show. The hearse was like a big sidecar attachment to a powerful Triumph and I’d never seen anything like it before.
Have you?
The hearse was genuinely used for funerals, the chap that owned it was interviewed live on air by the master of ceremonies (for want of a better description) and he had some amusing anecdotes to share. The hearse bike was apparently in demand – people dying to have a go – ha ha (his joke).
Actually the bike was popular (perhaps not the best choice of word) with the Hells Angels types and I can kind of understand why. Although it’s a bit macabre, I guess if you live by the bike, possibly die by the bike and then go to your eternal rest on the bike then there could be some sense of balance/continuity.
On the subject of funerals, Mrs Baldwin is ‘dead’ set against motorbikes and has threatened divorce if I am ever tempted to buy one. My seventies stuff has generated similar threats in the past but in this instance, she means it too.
So the beautiful yellow seventies Honda Super Sport (also pictured), though coveted, will not be appearing in my retro ‘things’ gallery. That’s not such a bad thing either because the Super Sport was much better at ‘going’ than ‘slowing’ – and I am not ready to ride in the hearse just yet!
I guess if the mid-life crisis bites and I get the urge for two wheels, the cost per mile calculation will have to take into account the monetary hit from a divorce and maintenance payments (child not bike). The droopsnoot Firenza is therefore a much better financial proposition and Mrs B. would even support that.
Although I may have mentioned, I did see a beautiful Vauxhall Monaro the other day…
Blog Home
Blog Library
Home