The Prophet Bike

Crashes, and other forms of guidance

August, 2006.

I felt like scratching an itch.

A motorcycling one.

Not a dirt bike this time. A roadie. Something cheap but fun. Back when I was 21 I’d bought a 2nd-hand Honda GB400, for a South Island holiday trip with a couple of Auckland buddies. Flickable café racer style. Simple to fix. Not exactly gobs of power, but an enjoyable bike all the same.

What about a GB500? Same idea, just with more grunt. Perhaps I could even do the 600cc conversion I’d read about and gain a lot more hog :)

There was another reason. I’d recently met a Christian woman at a local dance club. Let’s call her Dancy. We were getting to know each other, and it might be fun to have something adventurous we could do together. Exploring windy Waikato back roads on route to country cafes, that sort of Sunday afternoon thing.

Only, unlike the 400, all the GB500’s I’d ever seen were single-seaters. Then I found a beautiful burgundy one with a proper pillion seat and pegs on TradeMe. First I’d seen like that. Sweet.

I bought it.

The bike was in Southern Canterbury so my brother-in-law collected it and stored it on their farm until my holidays in September. I booked a one-way flight to Christchurch, planning to ride the bike back. One way to create an adventure.

Meanwhile, I kept seeing Dancy at weekly dance class.

She attended a Pentecostal church while I went to a Reformed one on the opposite side of the city. Kind of a theological word picture in itself. God had clearly led me to that Reformed church following my return from a nine year stint in Tanzania. So I wasn’t about to change that.

Part of a strange tension that year.

I’d returned from a trip to Europe in mid-March, after a romantic hope there that originated in Africa went pear-shaped. I’d recommitted myself to finishing my Master’s studies, trying to walk with God faithfully by not getting ahead of Him.

Then along came Dancy and maybe the possibility of companionship again.

And now a bike. Because a man trying to knuckle down into what God has put before him needs a café racer with pillion pegs.

Flying down to Christchurch in September, somewhere above Blenheim, a text flew in from Dancy.

She was at a weekend conference at her church. Her message:

“God said you’re a prophet.”

Umm ok. Then another. “I was afraid to send that, but felt it would be disobedient not to.”

Interesting.

My sister collected me from the airport and we drove out to the farm. It was good seeing her, my brother-in-law, and the nephews and niece again. Next morning I was up early; keen to get my new bike out of the woolshed and take it for a quick blat before breakfast.

My sister’s second son, was fourteen by then. A good-hearted cheeky, mischievous, upstart. Not at all shy when he wanted something.

As we marched towards the farm sheds he came up with the brilliant idea of getting the bike for me and riding it up to the house and back down to the workshop where we’d lube the chain and check her over before I rode off somewhere else.

Hearing myself say yes I gave over the keys. Off he sprinted before I’d change my mind.

Typically for him, he was as savvy as he was confident and five minutes later he handed off my bike to me unscathed.

I hopped on, turned it around, and was about to ride back up the gravel road toward the house for breakfast when the third son, always a tease, came alongside on his Honda XR200.

He stopped beside me, revved it up, and said, “race you to the cattle stop, Uncle.”

“And why would I want to do that?”

An overnight shower had made the gravel road a bit slippery plus it had a sloping camber. His bike sported knobblies, mine smooth road tyres. I had more power but he’d have more traction and with it; control.

I told him what would happen if I was stupid enough to race him.

He would get the jump due to much lower gearing and grippier tyres whereas my smooth rear tyre would easily spin on the wet surface. Because of the camber, the bike would naturally drift right towards and onto the wide roadside verge covered in even more slippery wet grass. I’d bail off there rather than hit the fence or perhaps manage to stay upright but overcorrect into heading back left onto the road, hit the thick gravel at the roads edge on a terrible angle, and dump it.

A sound analysis.

Being a nephew, he was only interested in his own plan and suggested I was just scared he’d beat me. Which I knew he absolutely would. Then, for reasons still unknown, the crazy switch flipped in my head. I’m still not sure I tripped it.

“All right then.”

Quickly, the oldest nephew strode out in front of us with his arm raised.

“Three, two, one, GO!”

Off we went down the road. Well, he sure did.

I tried to feed the clutch out gently and ease the power on, but the rear lost traction almost straight away. Gaining speed surprisingly fast the bike drifted down the right-lane camber toward the grass while my annoying nephew shrank into the distance ahead. Easily winning our drag.

Meanwhile, I was entering the grass verge half sideways in a pretty decent speedway rider impression. The rear wheel was still spinning, but I didn’t chop the throttle because slowing down would transfer weight onto the just-as-smooth front tyre which would then protest by sliding out from under me thus pitching me into the 8-wire post and batten fence.

Instead I avoided that nasty fate by doing a jolly impressive long arcing power-slide over the grass as I attempted to steer my wallowing boat of a bike using the rear wheel like a jet boat nozzle in classic dirt bike style - complete with enough roost to impress my sister who I was pretty sure was right now observing the madness from her dining room window on the hill above. That she would not be at all surprised was itself no surprise to this brother.

The thought of waving in her direction flashed across a synapse but the rest of them were too busy and refused to perform such an epic flex. Funny what surfaces during a moment of mortal peril :)

For a brief instant there was hope. Then I was curving back toward the gravel road going way too fast wearing gumboots but sans helmet, jacket, or gloves. As you are wont to do in front of impressionable younger male relatives.

Hitting the thick ridge of loose metal pushed to the edge of the lane by traffic the front tyre promptly lost it’s already tenuous grip and slid out. Physics then pitched me into a rather impressive high-side dismount.

I flew less than gracefully but landed softer than my bike with merely wounded pride. Dang nephews :)

Immediately turned to inspect my poor Honda.

The left handlebar was bent almost ninety degrees downward. The beautiful gas tank, previously a lovely deep iridescent burgundy, was blasted with fine gravel rash like some nut with a 12 gauge had mistook it for a quail. Ouch. No broken hand levers though. Left mirror destroyed but the right was ok. Still legal. Phew!

Picking the bike up I noticed the pillion peg frame on the left side was gone. The cast aluminum subframe had snapped off. I saw it yards away twisted in a very final-looking way.

Instantly a gentle voice in my spirit whispered “it’s so you can’t take Dancy on your bike” as if this was a good and right thing.

Interesting.

However, my most immediate problem was whether I’d be able to ride the beast home now? Did I ever feel more the idiot? Yes, actually. To their credit my nephews were relieved I was ok and were showing concern about the bike. No apology was offered, of which I was proud of them, as it was all on me the supposed adult.

After breakfast, served with accompanying choice teases from my sister, we got to work on the bent handlebar. Poured boiling water over it while slowly straightening it using a random length of 2 inch galvanised water pipe as a lever.

The bar complied nicely. You’d not know it had ever been bent. Up close the tank still looked like it had lost a fight with a pile of blue chip but she was entirely rideable. Relief came with the lack of further humiliation!

A few days later, I headed off to stay a night in Christchurch on my way North. Dave & Simone had been good friends with my parents over the decades since they first met at Navigators.

When planning my trip weeks earlier, I’d experienced an entirely unexpected feeling that I should visit with Dave while down South. I put that down to being halfway through my Master’s degree and wondering what might come after it was done. With his experience working with people in transitions he might have some appropriate wisdom for me?

We enjoyed catching up with all the news from both sides since we’d last met some years earlier. It was nearly midnight and we’d been talking about their own stage of life situation then about my wider family, my current studies and future aspirations.

Abruptly Dave looked straight at me and said, “Andrew, you’re a prophet.”

Interesting.

He added, “in his own different way your father is too, which is why he’s been misunderstood by so many church authorities while he served as an elder.”

The next morning I rode NorthWest out of Christchurch past Hamner Springs into the Lewis Pass then North toward Nelson at Springs Junction. Much later I chose the slower but more bike-friendly super twisty, aka car-free, Charlotte Sound route to the Picton ferry wharf. Glorious ride. Cold stiff digits at times through the Lewis due to patchy rain soaking my summer weight gloves, but always beautiful.

Crossed Cook Strait on the ferry, and stayed with my youngest sister in Wellington.

Next day I continued north toward Hamilton. While stopped in Bulls, to both stretch and fuel up, I suddenly knew without a doubt that Dancy was texting me that very moment. Which was not expected as we usually stuck to our current agreement of early morning early evening only.

Ting ting ten seconds later. A text from her.

Interesting.

There were a few good rides over the next months. Dancy ended up buying her own road bike unannounced. We did a couple of trips exploring Waikato backroads and cafes together. Nice to have a riding buddy.

I never took her as a pillion. Strange, but I felt I didn’t have permission from our Heavenly Father so I’d never replaced the missing left footpeg and it’s subframe.

A year later, in September 2007, our relationship came to an end. A story told here. Painful, but necessary. One of those obedience things where your heart takes way longer than your conscience to catch up.

In 2008, as I was preparing to leave for a new role in Uganda, I didn’t need the bike anymore. I hoped to be in Africa for a decade, maybe longer as I wanted to really sink my teeth into something there. Coming back would only be for holidays every 2 or 3 years.

So the 500 needed to go. Trouble was, with a gravel rashed tank, it wasn’t going to sell for any amount like what I paid for it. I kept putting it off until there was no time left to attempt repainting it myself.

Then I thought of an older Dutch man at church. He loved bikes. Had raced them in Holland before World War 2. He also liked fixing things up to be like new.

Would he be willing to restore my bike back to its former glory, sell it for me, and send the funds to a missionary we both supported? He agreed. And that was the end of GB and me. Well, until a dream in September 2012, only that’s another story.

This 2006 story isn’t quite Rock of Remembrance level.

More like an odd signpost along my journey. A story that doesn’t come with a tidy lesson, but still tells me something true.

I wanted a bike partly so I could take a gal riding but God let the pillion peg snap off before I ever could.

I went south to collect a bike and came home with two separate people having spoken the same word over me.

Not a word I would have chosen for myself at the time given the Reformed Churches official doctrine of cessationism denying such a possibility. I already had my own theological issues with that but not enough to walk away from the fellowship that God had so very plainly directed me to just 18 months earlier.

But I can’t pretend I haven’t spent my entire life noticing patterns, connecting dots most don’t notice, sensing outcomes way before I can explain my conclusions, feeling the weight of the unseen, predicting events up to twenty years distant with surprising accuracy. Being unable to leave certain truths unspoken once they’ve lit a fire inside me.

God telling me who I really was before I had language for it.

The trip also showed me once again how my plans are never the whole story.

I make plans.

Sometimes good.

Other times so half-baked they threaten what He has already decided to bless me with in the future.

At such a time our good Lord knows how to use a nephews knowledge of exactly which Uncle button to push.

Yes, even when I’m sliding sideways,

God directs my steps.