Charlie had this bike for a little over two years. It was a fun bike to show off with, but was a bugger to pedal. It should have been made with gears to make it easier to pedal. I did think about fitting a little engine to it, but I had too many other things going on at the time. It would have stood around for a year or two, until I got round to doing anything with it. Charlie lost interest in this bike because he got fed up struggling with getting it going. Once you got a bit of speed up, it wasn't to bad to keep it going.

As it is with every kid, as they grow up, they go through the “I want a Bike” stage. Well our Charlie is no exception to this and he has had many bikes. He’s done the push bikes stage with having had just about every sort of bike possible, that is within my price range. Paying £1000 for a super ultra-lite bike with titanium bits and pieces plastered all over it for a 13-year-old boy to wreck was out of the question. But he has had the plain and simple bikes along with the BMX’s, Mountain bikes with and without suspension, disc brakes and the alike. But these are not as fast as the “Mini Motor Bikes” you can get these days.

On the right is Charlie at the car park next to the Recycling Centre at Sixfields. The green Quad was also Charlie's at one time and he sold it to Richard, the man sitting on it in the photo.

Charlie is no exception to the “I Want” category kids fall into. In-fact, he is constantly asking for this and that and it’s “I want” all the time.

When he came to me and asked for a Motor Bike, my reply was an instant NO. However, I went along to the bike-meeting-place at a car park next to the recycling centre at Sixfields in Northampton. I spent the afternoon watching these little bikes go round and round and round the car park. It soon got boring to watch, but I got to thinking that it would be great to have a little bike and join in with the fun that everyone else seemed to be having.

This was Charlie's first bike he ever had with an engine in it.

I was constantly reminded by Charlie that a long time old friend living in Kettering had told Charlie that if he was good, he would give him a Mini Motor Bike that he had stored away in his shed. Sandor is his name and I have known Sandor since sometime in the mid 1980’s. I met him and his brother Ben at Santa Pod one Sunday while we were thrashing the nuts off a Ford Cortina that we each individually owned. Ben’s Cortina was just slightly slower than mine and I only just managed to pip him to the finish line every time. Sandor had a Ford Corsair, which he later wrapped around a lamp post on my stag night.

A fun good night that was?

Charlie went on and on about this bike Sandor had offered him and I was sure that he hadn’t offered it at all. After a week or two I rang Sandor, just to see if it was right in what Charlie was saying about the bike. Sandor confirmed it was correct, but only if he had been a good boy. Well he had been good for a while, but Charlie is Charlie and it isn’t long before he can be a git again. However, Charlie and I went over to Kettering and collected the Little Chopper Bike and brought it home. Although it was a couple of years old, it looked quite new and Sandor had told us that he had brought it for his two lads and they only used it once, up and down the street for an afternoon. It lived in a spare bedroom for a while and then finished up in the shed.

As it was found in Sandor's shed.

This is Sandor and his BBQ.

The BBQ is made from a Cadillac front end, complete with wings and working lights and it’s all sitting on Concrete blocks. Where the engine should be is where you stand and you do your cooking on the homemade grill where the radiator used to be.

If there is one thing that Sandor loves most, is his American cars. So much so that he keeps an American "V8 Engine" in his living room, next to his TV. That's so that, if there is nothing on the box, he can sit and admire his engine.

Now click Next>> to Page 2 and read more about Charlie and his bikes.