The Ace Caff

You can find it here, though few of the pics capture the spirit of the place in its heyday. Sadly by the time I was cruising (what an innocent word that was then) the North Circular the Ace was a thing of the past. One day I intend to pass my motorcycle test and then I shall blat down the A1 for a coffee at the Ace.

I have never taken a motorcycle test and I have never ridden a motorcycle legally. I have not ridden a motorcycle (not a 'motorbike', which is a vile word) for thirty years but when I used to I did not display L plates, had no insurance, sometimes no licence, no MOT on a bike that was not 'MOTable', no road fund licence, or whatever it was called then, and, often, in the dark, no lights. My brakes were worn and didn't work terribly well in the wet (I remember, on a wet day, driving my bike between a camper van and a line of cones that separated, by less than a foot, my wheels from a deep trench as the labourers jumped for their lives and the cones toppled into the abyss, while pulling hard on the right hand lever, the throttle closed, and not daring to step on the left hand peddle for fear of jamming the rivets on the drum.) I was occasionally drunk, but never stoned, and, I realise now, always very, very lucky. Until late in 1975 I did not wear a helmet.

As irresponsible as I was, I did no evil to anyone. How did I get away with it? Who knows? Perhaps the devil looks after his own, which I earnestly hope he does.