25+ yrs ago, my younger brother and I thought (Ok, mostly my idea
) it would be a good idea to tow him up the steep hill home. Attached a rope to the back of my trailbike and to the
handle bars of his pushbike. It seems obvious now, pivot points and all that, that this wasn't the way to go; but all credit to him, he did a mighty fine job of balancing it on the front wheel while clinging on to the rest of it as it swung (slowly) on the steering head from one side to the other.
In school days, a mate had a Honda Elsinore 125 motocross bike. It had some serious power - at about 8000 rpm, not much anywhere else. Took it down to the local park one day. After instructing another (complete novice) mate on the finer points of the controls .... something like 'snick it into first, twist the throttle a bit and let the clutch out slowly' we stood back to watch. Chris can't have been listening too closely cause he snicked it into 1st alright, then twisted the throttle right round and dropped the clutch. Did it stall? Ummmm, no.... Took off upside down (yes I KNOW that defies the laws of physics, but thats how I recall it). He hung on, grimly, just long enough to ensure a perfectly vertical fall onto his head, while the bike cartwheeled into the distance. Lucky the ground was soft.
Another mate had a 250 Suzuki with some massive carb that he'd stuck on it. It basically ran like a dog and stalled all the time. You couldn't kick start it to save your life. I was trying to bump start it, but only while I ran along side - duh - not hopping on or anything. It fuck8*g started alright, did about 3 donuts at max revs with me hanging on with the throttle twisted open before it threw itself into the shrubbery.
My mate Colin had a Rover P3 (1948 model) in the early 80's, that he had done some resto work on. Black with a sunroof. Pretty classy car. I had a later model P4/75 about 1955. Not so classy cause it had a fruit box for a front seat and was painted canary yellow. Still it only cost me $400 (and some seats). Its most interesting feature was the small round wheel in the centre of the dash that, when rotated one way, disconnected the engine from the wheels whenever you backed off the accelerator.... Nice idea, but freakin dangerous when you 'free wheeled' your way into town and encountered an unexpected stop light. That thing weighed aboout 2 tons and wasn't overly well endowed in the brakes department let me tell you; it needed all the engine-braking it could get
However, from Colins point of view, its most interesting feature was its towbar; he had long harboured a (mad) plan to retrieve a wrecked P3 he had located near Sydney. As we lived in Canberra, this would involve a round trip of some 300 miles, with the underpowered, underbraked P4 required to drag a massive tandem trailer (at least it had its own braking system!!) and the wrecked P3 - should we ever get it ON to the trailer, seeing as it had no wheels (Colin never did let me in on that part of the plan) - up the infamous Razorback.
I had my doubts; but being young, impressionable, and eager to please, and Colin being a good - if more than slightly unhinged - mate, and my older sisters boyfriend to boot, I agreed. One fine day we hitched up the (hired) trailer and set off, we had cleared Canberra and were skirting Lake George. I had had my foot to the floor for about 15 minutes, gradually working the hefty rig up to about 70 mph when we both heard a sort of ping, and felt the car lurch forward. I looked in the RVM (!) and saw the trailer gradually receding from the car, just like in a western where they disconnect the guards van from the locomotive. Except that a car was overtaking the trailer as I watched!!!!!!
Probably the best thing they could have done. It wasn't the tow ball that had snapped off, but the two-bolt goose-neck, complete with safety chains. (Probably SHOULD have checked that the bolts were good and tight.
) Anyway, luckily, nobody got killed or maimed, luckily it didn't happen up the Razorback. Colin hitched a ride back to Canberra to co-opt the services of another mate with a towbar and retrieved the trailer - surprisingly intact - from the ditch where it had finished up. He never did get that P3. Perhaps it was the P4's way of bailing out of the whole deal, can't say as I blame it.
Cheers, Neil