Valerie King

Bikers - How Much Protein Can One Person Eat?

Bikers – How Much Protein Can One Person Eat???

Have you recently won the lottery? Has an ancient old aunt finally dropped off the twig and left you her substantial all? If this is the case, then I strongly recommend you feed a biker or two, should you wish to return to the good old days of having 72p 'till Monday and something unpleasant in the 'fridge that ought to be a sourdough starter, but probably isn't.

The average biker meal could feed a medium-sized boarding-school for a week. I know this because a) I have been to boarding-school and remember every meal I ever ate (because they were all pilchard salad as I recall (yes, yes even the breakfasts...)) and b) I feed motorcyclists on a regular basis.

My husband is a biker, as are many of our friends and I have myself joyfully swapped pleats and pearls for black leather jacket and helmet, happy to be a pillion – not least because there is an element of protection, for the passenger, from the quite astonishing amount of kamikaze insect life that seems to congregate over the twistier B-roads, all just waiting for something with an amusing amount of brake horse power to come thrapping over the horizon and against which they can end it all with a bit of style. "Oooh – ooh – look! A Ducati!! That's the one for..." SPLAT. What goes out with two legs and comes home with 1,486? A biker in August, hur hur hur.

The other thing a biker has, apart from several ounces of extremely flat greenfly, I mean, is a very serious appetite. A Decent Breakfast is an important meal and a biker can tuck one away at any time, day or night. Sometimes two. And in the case of one our mates, who – irritatingly - weighs about nine and half stone, two plate-bending fry-ups either side of a quick pasta supper. (This before going home to a light snack, obviously.)

A decent biker breakfast is the cholesterol attack version of Ratty's picnic. None of your namby-pamby kedgeree or devilled kidneys, I thank you. Today we will be having sausages-and-bacon-and-fried-potatoes-and-mushrooms-and-tomatoes-and-fried-bread-and-some-eggs-and-pancakes-and-maple-syrup-and-it's-a-shame-to-let-those-last-five-sausages-go-to-waste-and-some-bread-rolls.

They do eat other stuff, mind. The year is crammed with different events, from straightforward parties to specialist hog roasts, but to my mind the most charmingly bizarre meet is the Blue Flame Bash, thus-called because – actually I have no idea. But there's a pub selling half-decent beer, an orchard where people can camp overnight and although the landlord provides burgers and chips he also doesn't mind if people bring their own scoff.

I arrived in a car on the occasion of my first Bash. From the road, it looked quite menacing – dozens of strapping people, all dressed in black leather and boots, hanging around in different-sized groups – not actually making a noise, but not entirely silent, either.

On closer inspection, however, it was apparent that the groups were divided into those who had bought a barbecue on which to grill their swordfish steaks and were trying to get the branches of fennel to char on the coals and those who had bought T-bone steaks only slightly smaller than Glamorgan and who wanted to know when to dress the salad. I had thought to bring a cold picnic and a chocolate cake that could stun an entire country. And still all the landlord's hamburgers were sold.

As for the gentle thrum of conversation that was going on? The fish mob was wondering if the Chablis was cold enough and the meat contingent was wittering on about chambrèing the claret.

I was so amazed by the whole thing that later on in the evening I actually heard myself say "Why don't you all come and have brunch tomorrow?"

I think it was the most expensive sentence I ever uttered.

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