Team Thrasher

An Introduction

Some history. Long ago, when poor students were Real poor students, Beer was Not Real Beer and Maggie Thatcher [schupppphew!] was Prime Minister, there was a group of gallant men and women that joined the Portsmouth Polytechnic Motorcycle Club (PPMCC). It was free (save for the lobotomy). It was fun (except on days everyone was doing something else) and it was safe. At least that is what we told the parents, police, government officials, and even the Student Union officials.

Every September the club would re-form. A bunch of folk (Boys and Girls) would rest their weary bodies against a table in the student hall and entice all the new students to partake of life in a way their parents had told them precisely not to. The cute girls frequently had no motorcycle so their participation was limited, the cute guys thankfully did other things, leaving just normal people (with motorcycles) to join the illustrious membership of this Student Union sponsored beer and thrash-athon.

The first Tuesday of the new term (I understand the word is now trimester) was the first night the whole new club assembled. Oh, my! What an assembly. Generally the first meeting was some 150 to 200 machines and even more riders and passengers. First order of business was to split the gaggle into two groups, the infamous 'fast group' and the downright dangerous 'slow group.' Preference was that prior years members rode in the fast group and new members and those older members that knew better, would ride in the slow group. A pub was chosen (this was long ago dear Jeannie, long before the concept of 800 mg/l BAC, in that mirky period between the officers saying "Are you drunk? Pick yourself up and go home!" and the more recent form; "Are you drunk? It's the electric chair for you, you long 'aired yobbo!")

With target selected it was off to get petrol. Like the cavalry being unleashed at Sevastopol, hundreds hurtled out onto the streets of Portsmouth headed for a petrol station near Northend and the Ferry port, shrieking engines, howls of excitement, and billowing two stroke fumes (Again, do I have to mention that this was before Aunt Angry basically outlawed the most fun that a person could have while clothed, and two strokes were common transport?)

I have never quite recovered from the sights that greeted me at the petrol station on the occasions that I went on this first night. Along with our 150-200 motorcycle legends (less the few that had crashed at the roundabout by the cinema) were between 8 and 70 Hells Angels from a local chapter, and their police chaperones. This was a heady brew. Gruff manly 'ello's were uttered by embryonic sociology students, met by erudite 'Good days' from levi and leather clad heavies of the Queens Own 1st Regiment Chicken Head Chewers. While in the midst of this confusion sat a little Police Panda car (remember Panda cars?), its inhabitants trying to look like they just solved the Lord Lucan mystery, repeatedly checking to make sure the doors were locked and the windows were up.

The petrol station attendant simply looked bemused, "More Bloody money, I got to put more bloody money in the till!"

From there it was a mad dash out into the night, either on the motorway or up through Cosham and into the countryside. The fast group boys were gone. And I mean Gone! The slow group meandered along, slowly. I was in the slow group, first by choice, latterly by official status and by the need for someone to mark the dead souls on the side of the road so we could pick up the bodies later.

No one died, not on my shift anyway.

My first bash was to the Kings Head in Droxford - if memory serves me right But then it also may have been to the pub at Worlds End. Even though I was old enough to have been legally drunk for several years, the whole concept of riding, getting merry and then riding again was quite new to me. Fortunately, I didn't make a speciality of it, in fact I found over the years that the ride to and from the Pub was my favourite bit, the drinking was entertaining but not something I did too much of. And generally I have to say that if you wanted to be known as someone that was seriously serious about your riding, drinking took a backseat.

The Motorcycle club was not just Tuesday night pub runs. That might come as a shock to some, but there were other activities and events that took place. There were the almost invisible activities (the Club elections for instance, more later) and the very entertaining (the treasure hunts) and then the national and international events (a trip to see the NSU Motorcycle rally at Keale, comes to mind, as does the harrowing cold on that occasion.)

Organization

First year students hardly notice that there is any structure to these clubs and hence are ill prepared when the club elections take place. The third and fourth year students tend to have exams on their minds and are less inclined to take up the cudgel with the responsibility and time an elected position can eat up. That leaves the second years and the third year students in four year courses, to run the mad house. The Students Union dictated that each club have certain required posts such as President, Secretary, etc, but after that the each club was allowed to define its own positions. The PPMCC had its share of odd posts. The most important post in practically all clubs was the post of Treasurer as this person handled the club funds (stipends given by the Polytechnic to the Students Union, then divvied up by the Union on a prior year budgeted basis to the clubs.) The clubs could supplement their funds through certain tax recovery programs. Now, while we would never suggest that ANYONE made out like a bandit, Ms Thatcher was light a few bob by the time we were through. Of course where the book of Petrol station receipts came from I just cannot say. Second most important position was the Events Secretary. I held this position while Tony tried to hold down being President. I think Tony liked Events more than President though.

The Events Secretary had the role of selecting and organizing events for the club. I was hopeless in my time at this role, it was a good job for me that Tony relished it. Events could be quite large. We had 75 or so motorcycles screaming all over the South Downs on one momentous Treasure Hunt, teams even participated from near by Southampton and Brighton Universities. Why the Sotton guys considered us a bunch of right fisted hooligans I will never know. Our guys won the treasure hunts, repeatedly. Organizing one of these was no small chore. How about our Poker Run...

Events : A Poker Run

The concept behind a poker run is that you go to locations identified on a map, select one card from a small selection of cards you find there, go to as may of these places as possible, then return to the control point and make up a poker hand. We were aiming for a seven card hand for everyone. Given that we had our famous two groups (the fast and the slow) we had to devise two complete circuits, each with about 9 stopping points, spread over about 150-200 square miles of the English South coast. Each spot had to have a certain number of cards. We determined how many decks of cards we needed, created the decks of cards (they had to be waterproof and slightly stronger than normal cards,) dealt all the cards out (2 routes, 9 points each,) then recorded which cards went to each point (so no one could cheat by picking several good cards from one location.)

In the weeks leading up to the event we spent a great deal of time looking for good locations to put the cards, we made a final list and selection, then the week before the event we did a dry run around the course to make sure it was doable, before we let the cartographers get down to creating maps of the course for us and lists of all the clues. Then we make 100 copies of everything. We had to find a pub that on a Sunday was quiet enough that it could take some 60-100 people dropping in for lunch and arrange with them that this would be Ok. Finally, on the morning of the event, we had to go out and put the card packs at the correct pick up locations, duct taped in place for security.

Come Sunday, holding onto our lucky clovers, we just hoped people turned up to take part. Of course this had involved publicising the event across the campus (and in this case to Southampton and Brighton Universities). We then had to handle any inquiries about directions to the Polytechnic or other special needs. As the Poker Runners came into the Student Union building that Sunday we were making sure that everyone was registered and was given all the details they needed to run the courses - all those maps, directions and clues.

At about 10am on a sunny Sunday morning, the great unwashed headed out of Portsmouth into the hills to the north to start their card sharking. We organisational folks headed off to get coffee and recover from the 5am start - required to put out all those cards. Eventually we headed out to the Lunchtime pub and waited for people to drop in. We made one of the rules that participants show they had done only so many pickups by lunch time, this way ensuring that people actually stopped off for lunch. Lunch took a long time for the organisers, as it was late in the day before some of the stragglers even located the pub (most of these poor folk didn't do much better finding their cards), so long in fact that we had to divide our work, some heading back to the Students Union building in Portsmouth to make sure that the quickest finishers didn't get there to find no one home!

Eventually all our organisers ended up back in Portsmouth and the job of recording all the finishers got into full swing. We had to record who the cards were entered by, check they had registered to start, check that the cards all came from different points and that the points were on a teams' assigned route, then from the eligable cards, make up the best hands. A good poker book was needed to set the placing's for some of the top people. Then we waited. We were waiting for the last people home. Some were surprisingly missing. One gent and his fine lady from Southampton, who had been fastest in the morning, were missing till after 7pm. Last seen heading up a road that locals knew was a dirt road/farm track, we even sent out search parties to find them. They turned up safe and well, if very muddy, and far less friendly to one and other. Others never appeared, giving up before the end and heading home. It was not till Monday that we were able to check everyone was accounted for and finalise the results, handing out the great prizes. The prize for this was something like 100 Pounds.

And we did these two or three times a year!

The Nuffield Garages

Just off the back straight... Sorry. Just behind Mercantile House was a low block of garages. It had no water or power, but the doors locked (sort of) and the roof didn't leak too badly. These garages were ascribed by the Polytechnic to various uses, mostly for Polytechnic use, but in the case of two lock-ups they were for the use of the Car Club and the Motorcycle Club.

It was rare that the doors were locked all day. There was frequent activity around our garage. Any member could use the facilities - a pained expression crosses my face as I try to recall what facilities other than a damp floor we actually had there... An member could repair their motorcycle there, and a few members left motorcycles there for longer than was wise.

As a meeting place it lacked beer, but made up for this deficit through sheer atmosphere. The smell of old oil, the cars rushing by just the other side of the iron railings, the sight of poor members trying to beat their bikes back into life. Real atmosphere. The stuff that fills guys chests with pride and makes girls puke.

The Puch

The garage area wasn't always so sanitary, oh no. There were flashes of true inspiration and achievement as would make a grown man cry. One such event was the saga of the Puch Moped.

Somewhere on campus a student had a Puch moped, it expired. Somehow he was in contact with a certain Mr Hands - a fine upstanding member of PPMCC - who managed to push the dead moped round to the garage. There the little thing sat forlorn for several weeks while a search went out for bits to make it go. Steve decided in the interim to 'tune' the little Puch, not a hard job but one fraught with opportunities to trash an otherwise gutless engine. Finally, one day the critical electronics turned up and the club membership stood around and watched its installation (very satisfying, too.) The Puch not so much sprang into life as meandered into a burble. But this was good! With billowing clouds of two stoke fumes obscuring the view Steve rode the little devil up and down the car park in front of the garage, finally announcing that the moped was ready for use by its owner. But that was not what anyone had in mind for this little, erm, racer. Soon people were trying it out to see if it would wheelie - It did, though standing on the rear axle and pulling on the bars tended to cause it to wheelie even when it was stationary. The next endeavour was to test its metal on the racetra... road.

Suited up in appropriate garb, we took it in teams - turns! - to test the moped around our track... No.... test circuit... In the rush hour. And all those poor car drivers. They never stood a chance. The moped could be made to rush up to its top speed (approx 31 mph), then at the last moment, with a slight touch of brakes, be stuffed down the inside of the cars and take the little bend round the sharp end of Mercantile House almost flat out. Zooming down the back straight, round turns 3 and 4 and back to the front straight and another set of unsuspecting car drivers... Sanity was in short supply that afternoon.

The CB125T

Honda four stroke Motorcycles require oil in their crankcases, this lubricates the bits that go around. And in a handsome Honda CB125T the bits can be made to go round very fast indeed. Such was the case one Saturday afternoon as the owner of this fine little bike set off up the M-27 headed for Fareham, unfortunately the little bolt that has a parts description of "Oil Drain Plug" fell out. There were all sorts of excuses, but the end result was that at about 70 mph the little Honda's internals got very hot then very still - very quickly. The bike was dragged back to the Halls Of Residence where we looked at it the next day and tried to get it running. We freed the motor up, put more oil in it, then tried to get it to run. By messing with the electrical's we could get it to idle just above 5000 rpm - in and off itself, not a good thing. We decided that the owner better ride it round to see if it would free up a bit. As he lowered the bike off its center stand and engaged the clutch there was a big "Poof" sound and the largest cloud of smoke I have ever seen from something that didn't have the word Bomb written on the side! The engine ceased to run. This was very bad!

This was going to require the garage!

The motorcycle was moved to the garage, its engine taken from the frame and placed on a large table we had in the lock-up, and the task of dismantling the little motor started. It was fairly evident, very quickly, that not all was as it should be in the motor. The spark plugs had no electrodes. The cam cover came off and all the valve springs were quite loose. This was a sure sign that the valves were shorter than they should be. One of the head bolts was finger loose, one could not be undone, while the rest seemed normal. After splitting the nut on the over tight bolt and removing all the rest we took off the cylinder head. I was looking at the head but had quite a shock when I looked down the cylinder bores and saw the crank. There should have been more of a piston there. That explained the big smoke cloud! We could not turn the crank. We had to dismantle the entire engine without turning the crank - quite a tough thing to do, eventually something was not going to come apart, and so it was in getting the top of the crankcase off. The connecting rod had fused onto the gudgeon pin that held the holed piston. We couldn't get the pin out and we couldn't get anything passed the piston. There was only one option. Saw the piston off. I still remember kneeling on that big bench, hacksaw in hand, flailing away, with aluminium dust everywhere. Club members thought this was quite a picture. It took a fair time to get this piston off, but off it came, in two.

It took a few weeks to get the parts together, but eventually that little 125 ran again. Another victory at the Garage!

How Not to impress the girlfriend

After a particularly satisfying and useless afternoon at the Garage, where quite a few club members had assembled including my girlfriend Jane. For some reason I don't recall anymore, I left to go back to my digs. Why I decided this was to be one of the few days I ever rode the bike without my motorcycle boots, I will never know. My Kawasaki 550 was at the time missing more or less all of its exhaust internals, making it a little louder than average, which satisfied my ill-educated ear. I took the bike out from the garage and swept across the road heading right and accelerating hard. I was making noise! I realised all too late that I was going fairly fast into the big righthander, just a tad faster than normal. When the exhaust pipe hit the ground I knew we were waaaaay out there. A moment later I crossed the crest of the road and it was literally all downhill from there. The bike did a 40mph lowside. There was fortunately no traffic, but I still ended up in a big pile in the gutter. A moment of peace passed. Slowly I realised that there was a growing assembly of people around me. Many of the bike club patrons had rushed over to see if I was still alive. My girlfriend had not come over. She was pacing back and forth calling me all the names under the sun - with a very Yorkshire slant to the vocabulary!

I was missing a goodly chunk of my ankle, and even bigger bit of pride.

Try not to do this yourself!

The Thrasher

Someone had the idea of producing a motorcycle club magazine, Adam Palmer took on the responsibility of actually editing this august publication. Someone had the foresight to put all the expense of this publishing into the club budget the year before. Motorcyclists are probably not known for their prowess in matters literary, and the magazine we produced did nothing to dispell that belief. It was a selection of cartoons, essays, and information for and about the PPMCC club members.

Tony F. generously scanned the first and third issues, in all their glory. They are a bit raw, but you can now see them on-line for the first time ever! Martin G. also brought over a copy of the second ever issue in March of 2005 - it too is on the web for the first time ever. Hyperbole at it's finest!

Tony F. and Martin G. having done wonders, having located what we think are all the Thrasher magazines from the halcyon days of the early 1980's. Scanned and edited they are here. Also in a mix sent over by Martin where several, if not all, of Tony F's "The Thrasher in Exile" newsletters, and some "Team Thrasher on Tour" leaflets. All these fine publications will be seeing light on the web for the first time, see below.

These issues also give more insight into the activities the club and its membership were involved in.

Issue 1. February 1982

Issue 2. March 1982

Issue 3. Sept 1982

Issue 4. Spring 1983

Issue 5. October 1983

Issue 6. October 1984

More Thrashers

Tony recently found a rare 7th edition which he is gamely struggling with. It seems the magazine quality is nothing to write home about and the scans are quite poor yet. But we will also bring this to you in the fullness of time.

Safety warning:

Practically all the events mentioned in the Thrasher editions were real, however we were young and stupid at the time, we were also immortal. Do not do some of these things if you are over 30, they will kill you! You have been warned!!!

The Management, Team Thrasher!

Team Thrasher

After Tony left the Poly he continued producing, at great effort in time and money, a news letter initially called Team Thrasher, and subsequently called The Thrasher in Exile. They can be seen here.

Extra Curricular events

PPMCC was involved in providing the Students of Portsmouth Polytechnic (now Portsmouth University) with activities and events at a local level, but along with these were other events, national events and gatherings that were more based in friendship. These events included The National Union Of Students Motorcycle Rally to the University of East Anglia at Keale, and the somewhat long lived Team Thrasher Tours adventures.

NUS Bike Rally

I suspect that only Scott of the Antarctic was colder than some of the motorcyclists that went to the Rally at Keale. It was a surprisingly cold spring, April or May I guess, the great unwashed camped on campus grounds but many failed to bring enough a) tent or b) sleeping bag to get through the cold nights. On the first morning a good half of the ralliers were still shivering long after dawn, even though they had spent most of the night in a Student Union common room.

That was however not going to dampen spirits and the Rally got going in ernest with treasure hunts and various local activities of a motorcycling bent. PPMCC had mustered about 6 entrants to the rally and participated in practically all the events. We didn't win much but we had a good time trying. Mr. Cooper, then CX500 mounted, did win the "Topbox Terry" award for the most impressive set of luggage, a title he still dreads to hear these many years on.

The trip was also famous for statements like "We're in Grantham, are we close?"; flying back down the newly opened M11, getting into some traffic works, where while waiting for the traffic to get going, we watched a bunch of pigs humping each other; our XT500 rider had his rear wheel collapse - spokes everywhere - the Police having to put up with lots of emergency calls about dead bikers on the motorway cutting - the rider and pillion deciding it was such a nice afternoon they would fall sleep on the grassy embankment by the bike, on the side of the motorway, until help arrived!

Chas Mortimer Racing School

Like we of all people needed and excuse to go faster! Someone worked very hard to set up a day out at the Chas Mortimer Racing School as it visited the nearby Goodwood racing circuit. At the time the circuit was not in use for racing, in fact it was not in use for very much at all, save perhaps as a silage growing space. The club was able to get a discount for providing 12 students to the racing school, and promptly turned out 13. There was some coaching about what you should do, there were several laps following around one of the instructors then it was everyone for themselves. Hammering around on Yamaha RD400's was a experience worth every minute, and it just didn't last long enough. As soon as we started, we seemed to be stopped by the checkered flag. Personally, I managed second fastest lap of the day. I was chuffed!

Sponsoring Racers

How Andy managed to get PPMCC to sponsor his horrible Kawasaki KH500 I will never know. All I do know is that he raced the bike with a prominent Portsmouth Poly logo on the side panels. "Race" is of course a debatable term when used with regard to Kwak triples of this vintage, the particular KH500 had a propensity to spit its rider off and generally break.

To keep up his side of the bargain, Andy made sure we had access, as his race crew, to certain events. The event I went to was the early February BEMSEE practice sessions. This was a time ago, and the Late Barry Sheene was there practicing with his then new Yamaha YZR500's. Andy, following Bazza through Druids, was amazed to find that a full-on factory race bike was able to go through this corner much faster than his production heap of junk. The consequent crash put oil all over the track. Andy wheeled the beat up Kawasaki back to the pits, however the practice session had to be stopped to clear up the oil. We were all in hiding when Bazza Sheene came down pit lane, fuming, cussing and swearing about some idiot that had dropped oil on the track.

Team Thrasher Tours

Over a number of years we did several motorcycle tours to specific events, mostly endurance racing events, that involved several PPMCC members. These trips included our famous blitz to see the penultimate year of the 1000cc Endurance bikes at the Bol D'Or in the south of France; a trip to see the British round of the World Endurance Championship at Silverstone; and also a trips to see smaller ACU sponsored 6 hour production based endurance races at West Raynham and Snetterton.

Comp Sci Class of 1980

The reason I was at Portsmouth Polytechnic was to take Computer Science. This is the motley crew that I served time with, note the complete lack of short hair. This was the time before students got a thing about actually going to Poly or University to take exams, we wanted to learn stuff, but we were going to have as much fun as our Student Grants would allow us!

Technical term alert: "Student Grant." This was a minimal amount of money the government in their benign benevolence gave to people to go and get higher edukation. It is now a distant memory, replaced by debt and governmental stinginess.

You will note that the photo is slightly lacking in females. This was common, and is again, in technical arenas. Yvonne S. where are you now?!

Collage

Sights and scenes, people and places that were my time at Portsmouth Poly.

Commercial plugs for old members

We must be getting old... ventures and websites of members of the Old PPMCC...

• Dave's Restaurant in Almeria, Spain
• Tony