I had to go into town yesterday. Parked in one of the rip-off text-to-pay bays, next to the ugliest machine I think I’ve ever seen. At first I wasn’t even sure it was a motorcycle. I thought perhaps a plumber had dumped an old bath at the end of the bike bay. Then I had another look and realized that, silly me, of course it was a motorcycle.
It was an old Honda CX500 – the Maggot – with a horrible fairing bolted to it. Not a proper Rickman – something even nastier. Possibly home-made. By a blind man. It was a great slab of bulbous plastic with the curves and colour of a corpse bloating with decomposition. I didn’t dare try to take a picture of it in case it cracked the lens of the phone’s camera.
Then I got a shiver. I used to have one just like it. I came over all ill again just thinking about it. I had to check the reg to make sure this CX wasn’t the one I thought I’d scrapped in 1990, on grounds of taste and decency as much as mechanical meltdown (it was a different bike, thank god – so my conscience is clear). I know the Pan isn’t exactly a catwalk model of a motorcycle, but it wasn’t as bad as that beast.
It was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen on two wheels.
Dex
Tags: Honda CX500, Pan European