Now there are five!

[Nooj]

What does it take to be an AllYearBiker operative?

So, you're possibly wondering, what makes us so special? You've seen the website, the leaflets, the forum posts and the video on YouTube (you don't actually live under a rock do you?), they tell you what we do to get your bike from something that may well resemble inner-city canal detritus to something that the guy parked next to you at your local meet wants to lick and give himself bodily to. But what sets us, The Operatives, apart from the rest of humanity?

Like every great organisation, there are closely guarded secrets and circles within circles (Dan Brown, are you listening to this?). You have suspected right, there is more to us than meets the eye, ear, nose and throat!

What is the central secret to our unbelievable service to bike-kind? Is it voodoo magic? Is it the alignment of the stars? Or are we just a bunch of bad-bottomed motor-scooters with superhuman powers?

Actually, it's the last one, we are more than human, we are MenPlus. Let me intorduce you...

Roy (Newton Aycliff and the Rest Of The World): After ingesting huge quantities of ACF50, tea and Café Crème smoke while carrying out the initial experimental treatments on his own bike, certain eccentricities started to manifest themselves in Roy. He began to experience vivid hallucinations, spiritual visions that were to lead him on journeys of up to three miles from home. His ACF50 spirit guides show him the location of the rare and mystic ingredients needed to developed our cleaning products, such as the albumen from angel's eggs and powdered unicorn dung, and gave him insight enough to begin building the AllYearBiker empire. Unfortunately these spiritual gifts also cruelly inflicted Roy with a Vauxhall Zafira. Incredible!

Nooj (Newbury): One day after finishing a nice pint at the Red Lion bike meet, set within the mysterious Avebury stone circle, Nooj accidentally burnt his hand on the exhaust pipe of an escaped radioactive Honda Deauville. The only thing available to ease the burn was to press his hand against one of the cold mystical stones. What happened next was unusual to say the least! An amazing flash of insight, a crystal clear vision of how to clean a motorcycle properly, this lead Nooj to seek out Roy. Some of the eldrich aura of the Avebury stone circle indelibly marked Nooj that day, bestowing on him the ability to travel forward in time. But he chooses to do so only at the normal rate so no one gets suspicious, when using his super power it appears to the casual observer that nothing out of the ordinary is happening! Awesome!

John (Chesham): John is a being of many mysteries. Where he came from nobody knows, where he's going few can speculate, where he is now most of us can only be mildly certain. Even when standing next to him we can be, at best, perhaps only 62% sure of where he actually is. Like a wardrobe, John has an inside and an outside, but unlike a wardrobe, there is no door which opens up to reveal his inner mysteries. In the James Herbert novel Dune, just as Paul Atreides consumes the spice Melange from the planet Arrakis to give him the ability to fold space, so does John consume AllYearBiker's PTFE Wax, giving him the ability to fold dirt, leaving only a clean motorcycle where once there was filth. When this man steps between two reflecting Chromium surfaces, the physical rules of our universe no longer apply. Phenomenal!

Ian (Malton): It was a dark and stormy night when the young Ian witnessed his first true love being stalked, taken down and eaten by a pack of feral whippets high on the Yorkshire Moors. One week later the distraught boy sat at midnight with a ouija board, sheltering from a raging thunderstorm under the mighty gnarled Yew next to the girl's freshly filled grave. Desperately, with an aching emptiness tearing his soul apart, ready to make any demonic pact to be with her again, he tried to get in contact with his lost amour in the next world. Nothing happened. Many years later Ian was hit on the head by a box of magnets giving him amazing telekinetic abilities. However, he can only use them once. When that day comes all will tremble before him, he will be judged not as a man, but as a god. Astounding!

Tony (Newton-on-Ouse): Our Man In Newton, Tony-on-Ouse, Touse, The Tonester, T-Man, Toe-Knee. Like a complicated clock, Tony is a man of many faces, and like an ancient Hebrew tax dodge, has many hidden talents. He is a short as he is tall, as loud as he is quiet and as obvious as he is obscure. Tony can blend into the background like a chameleon on a window, or stand out like a used condom nailed to the doors of the Vatican library. Tony can see lay-lines by starlight and the colour of his eyes changes with the phases of the moon. The Caterpillar Lord, the moths and the butterflies are Tony's familiars, he is all seeing and everywhere by day and by night. One thing's for sure though, the dirt and corrosion on your bike won't see Tony coming until it's too late! Unbelievable!

[Aladinsaneuk]

you been smoking some of martdudes special pipe tobacco??

(and love it !)

[MartDude]

I think they're closet Hawkwind fans - the above is scarily similar to sleeve notes of some of the early albums.

[Nooj]

I am a bit of a Hawkwind fan actually Nothing to do with the above though, I was asked to write something for the AllYearBiker website, couldn't think of anything serious or relevant so came up with that instead.

[MartDude]

Didn't intend to imply plagiarism; sorry if that's how it came over.

[Nooj]

It didn't come over at all like that, has reminded me to try and re-collect some Hawkwind (it was all on tape, long since stretched and gone wobbly).

[Aladinsaneuk]

funnily enough, a friend recently found the complete back catalog of hawkwind at www.isohunt.com

[MartDude]

This outfit have been re-issuing quite a lot of old Hawkwind albums; haven't had anything from them yet myself

http://www.cherryred.co.uk/atomhenge/main.php

Nooj - I've several albums on CD if you'd like copies

[MartDude]

long since stretched and gone wobbly

A good metaphor for the ageing process

[DavShill]

I'll be contacting your Malton man very soon Nooj - cheers.