Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

I cannot pay them a more sufficient tribute than the tribute of the Commander-in-Chief: 
"Carrying despatches and messages at all hours of the day and night, in every kind of weather, and often traversing bad roads blocked with transport, they have been conspicuously successful in maintaining an extraordinary degree of efficiency in the service of communications. No amount of difficulty or danger has ever checked the energy and ardour which has distinguished their corps throughout the operations."
A Motorcycle Courier In The Great War  W. H. L. Watson p202

[Biggles]

Hobbling next to Jonny, my body spent and exhausted, my hands stiff hooks that were seriously cramped from squeezing the handlebars of the motorcycle. My back and tailbone bellowed from sitting on the bike and my left shoulder was burning in what felt like raging flames. I had to pull in the clutch of the motorcycle with my left hand and each time I gripped it, pain shot from my fingers through my wrist, hand and arm, setting my left shoulder on fire. It was only our second day of motorcycle riding. We had ridden 300 miles the previous day and we'd just completed another 338 miles out of the more than 10,000 miles we had planned for our trip. But my mind couldn't compute such a large number. My body refused to compute it.
The Mom Who Took Off On Her Motorcycle  Diana Bletter  p12

[Biggles]

I hadn't even considered that he'd want to sleep facing the door to guard us. The only time I'd stood guard during the night had been when my kids were babies. Most other nights, I crawled into bed and slept undisturbed while Jonny tossed and turned, running through battle zones, leaping from exploding buildings.
I turned in my sleeping bag like a caterpillar adjusting on a branch. I pushed away our clothes and bags and tools and jackets and boots and tried to get cozy on the knobby Canadian dirt. My eyes adjusted to the darkness, the light pitching like a tuning fork from black to faint gray. I looked around. With the tent's many different compartments in which to put accessories- flashlight, journal, pen, keys and water bottle- I felt like I was sleeping inside my favourite handbag.
The Mom Who Took Off On Her Motorcycle  Diana Bletter  p25

[Biggles]

The first woman to ride a motorcycle across America was Effie Hotchkiss, twenty-six, of New York. The year was 1915; Hotchkiss was working on Wall Street, and the daily monotony propelled her to buy a Harley Davidson and aim for the West Coast. Hotchkiss' mother, Avis, didn't want her daughter travel on her own, so Hotchkiss attached a sidecar to her bike and invited her mother along for a a ride across the country.
The mother-daughter duo left New York in May, facing unpaved roads, rattlesnakes, and nights where there was no room at the inn because there was no inn. Instead, they slept in people's homes, where Avis sometimes taught women how to crochet in exchange for a place to crash. When Hotchkiss got a flat tire in New Mexico, she and her mother cut a blanket, rolled it, stuffed it into the tire and continued on their way.
The Mom Who Took Off On Her Motorcycle  Diana Bletter  p63

[Biggles]

"You sure you can't come with us? I asked.
"I'd love to," he replied, "but I gotta get back to work."
"Well, thank you for everything you taught me," I said. "You're like my guru."
"Why's that?"
"Because every nice Jewish girl should have a Puerto Rican motorcycle guru," I said. "You helped me believe in myself."
"You're going to be fine, kiddo," Paul said, grinning.
I had about 20 years on him and he was calling me kiddo. I guessed that was a guru's prerogative.
"Just remember to keep your chin up," he said.
"Gotcha," I said.
Then he mounted his motorcycle and turned left heading back to Long Island, and Jonny and I turned right, toward Alaska.
The Mom Who Took Off On Her Motorcycle  Diana Bletter  p67

[Biggles]

Above us, clouds were opening up like smashed pinatas, sending down torrents of rain. Cars and trucks whizzed by, their windshield wipers ticking as fast as my beating heart. Just after I pried my motorcycle from what felt like a 45-degree tilt, I watched a crack of wind send Jonny flying into the next lane, almost crashing into a truck.
Then the wind reversed. Instead of coming at us from the sides, it slammed into my face. The highway was a treadmill; we were riding and riding and going
nowhere. My speedometer slowed down to a trickle of less than forty miles per hour, and as much as I tried, the motorcycle didn't move any faster. I cracked the throttle again, trying to get Artemis to move, but it was like kicking a lame horse. In both of my rearview mirrors, I saw cars flying toward me- switching lanes at the last minute to dodge out of my way- and trucks passed, spraying me with water.
The Mom Who Took Off On Her Motorcycle  Diana Bletter  pp88-9

[Biggles]

Any confidence I'd gained while listening to Jonny's motorcycling spiel the night before vanished as I careened down a 6 to 10 percent grade incline- practically vertical. What I was supposed to do with my gears? Paul had told me to keep up my speed and downshift only to third, and then use my brakes. No, that wasn't it. He must have me told me to downshift to second and then use my throttle. What was the throttle again? Should I pull in the clutch with my left hand while I braked with my right hand? Or should I just brake with my right? Or with my right foot? I wasn't cold but I was shivering, almost hallucinating, gripped by a sort of hypothermia. I tried bringing myself back to my reality, in which I was losing control slipping down a mountain. I slammed down my left foot on the gear pedal, lighting up the 'N' on my dashboard. 'N', as neutral. 'N', as in no way are you going to get out of here alive.
The Mom Who Took Off On Her Motorcycle  Diana Bletter  p133

[Biggles]

"'Just when you think you are the only motorcyclist for miles and miles, as soon as you're stranded on the side of the road, another motorcyclist appears,' Isn't that what Paul said and look!" My heart soared as a motorcycle suddenly materialised. My heart sank as he zoomed by us, barreling up the mountain pass.
"That mud made a groove right through my rear tire," Jonny said. "The tread is shot." He stared at his tire while I stared at the highway. I prayed, hoping to
conjure up a motorcyclist, to make one appear like a rabbit out of a hat, when that same motorcyclist who'd passed moments before came zooming back down the mountain.
"Can I help you with something?" he asked, climbing off his bike next to us the way an officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police might have dismounted his horse to help a damsel in distress.
The Mom Who Took Off On Her Motorcycle  Diana Bletter  p148

[Shiney]

"'Just when you think you are the only motorcyclist for miles and miles, as soon as you're stranded on the side of the road, another motorcyclist appears,' Isn't that what Paul said and look!" My heart soared as a motorcycle suddenly materialised. My heart sank as he zoomed by us, barreling up the mountain pass.
"That mud made a groove right through my rear tire," Jonny said. "The tread is shot." He stared at his tire while I stared at the highway. I prayed, hoping to
conjure up a motorcyclist, to make one appear like a rabbit out of a hat, when that same motorcyclist who'd passed moments before came zooming back down the mountain.
"Can I help you with something?" he asked, climbing off his bike next to us the way an officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police might have dismounted his horse to help a damsel in distress.
The Mom Who Took Off On Her Motorcycle  Diana Bletter  p148

I love how bike riders the world over act like this

[Biggles]

After dinner, I craved ice cream. We walked the streets but the stores in Yukon's capital were already closed and sunk in shadows. Suddenly a middle-aged man with wire-rimmed glasses appeared, pedalling toward us on a red and yellow bicycle with an ice cream cart attached to it. He had a large green frog pinned to his pink jacket. He wore blue Crocs and a blue apron decorated with red and yellow flowers.
"How did you know I wanted ice cream?" I asked him.
"Because I knew," he said.
I ordered my ice cream and paid him, and before I'd even peeled back the wrapper and taken a bite of my Chocolate Eclair, he had turned the corner and vanished.
The Mom Who Took Off On Her Motorcycle  Diana Bletter  pp166-7

[Biggles]

Then a couple on a motorcycle pulled up. I remembered seeing them at the last gas station about 50 miles down the road. They were riding a trike, a motorcycle with three wheels, pulling a trailer, definitely not cool. I hadn't wanted to talk to them then. All I wanted was to talk to them now. Maybe they could help us.
The guy got off his bike and walked towards us.
"You have to help my husband!" I said, waving my hands. "He just fell down and it was my fault because I stopped without signaling- I was about to signal- and this is just awful and-"
The man grabbed hold of my right thumb, holding it in midair, until I grew quiet. Then he let my thumb go and walked toward Jonny.
"The bike doesn't look damaged," the guy said.
"But it didn't start!" Jonny said.
"Just take out the key and wait a moment for it to readjust, and then try again."
Jonny turned the key and pushed the ignition button. The motorcycle coughed, groaned and hacked like an old man. Then it cleared its throat, decided that life was good after all, and let out a proper BMW purr.
The Mom Who Took Off On Her Motorcycle  Diana Bletter  pp212-3

[Biggles]

We got back on our bikes. Jonny took the lead before we got on the highway. On the entrance ramp, I noticed my ugly gray pocketbook hanging by its strap off the handlebar. I had hung it there after I'd gone into the convenience store- and I'd forgotten to put it back in my tank bag. How could I be so careless once again?
Jonny was about to to shift up, gathering speed to merge onto the highway. I had to stay close to him so we wouldn't lose each other- we had no other way to communicate- and yet my pocketbook was hanging off my handlebar. It would either get caught in the front wheel or it would fly right off, which would mean losing all my money and credit cards, not to mention my journal and my fountain pen. I pulled over, snatched the pocketbook and stuffed it into the tank bag, and then gave Jonny the thumbs-up and he pulled across onto the highway.
The Mom Who Took Off On Her Motorcycle  Diana Bletter  p230

[Biggles]

Turn three is a fast downhill left-hander, almost flat out in fifth gear, and it is probably my favourite corner in the world. It's what I call a 'balls out' corner, the kind of corner that has always seemed to suit me. You get a strong wind coming at you from the inside and it makes you want to lose the front. Some people chicken out when the bike gets light and most riders put weight on the front to carry as much speed as they can. The real key, though, is to get the rear sliding way before you even hit the apex. This takes all the guesswork out of trusting the front through that corner and not knowing whether it will stick or not because of the wind. You have to take the weight off the front and turn with the rear and that's when it really takes guts...
Twenty-seven laps - the perfect number - I come out of turn twelve for the final time and see the chequered flag being prepared. I am about to win the 2012 Australian MotoGP, my home race. I experience a familiar moment of relief and elation but this time that flag holds extra significance...
Pushing The Limits  Casey Stoner  p2

[Biggles]

My 'modified' was a real weapon for a five-year-old, a 60cc Kawasaki that Dad had de-stroked to be a 50 by changing the crank shaft to one he had made himself.
He pretty much hand-built the whole thing with bits and pieces given to him by an old racing friend of his, Terry Paviell, who had competed with some success over in Europe. That thing used to fly and the 'Kwaka' was my pride and joy.
While we were living at Wongawallan Dad bought himself a road bike and he used to take me out on the back of it to go down to the shops. In the end, though, he had to stop because I would be hanging off the side, trying to get my knee down around the corners like the guys I'd seen on the TV. Dad would have to reach behind and haul me back on.
The bug had definitely bitten, so we started travelling around Queensland to race at different tracks such as North Brisbane, Gladstone, Kilcoy, Trailblazers and Wheelstanders junior bike clubs, racing most weekends with up to fourteen races at each event. Sometimes I'd win them all, sometimes I wouldn't do as well, but I was constantly learning from my successes and failures.
Pushing The Limits  Casey Stoner  p18

[Biggles]

Paul Feeney says now: 'They put on a display that was probably highly illegal... pitting the club's young star up against the soon-to-be World Champion in the same race. Casey was riding his little KX 50 and he just gave it to 'em. I mean, Mick and Daryl were messing around a bit but Casey was hanging in there. In the end it got a bit serious because neither of them wanted to get shown up by this kid; he was a bit better than he was supposed to be! But he didn't care who they were, he just wanted to beat them. That was when I said to Colin, "Look mate, if you can keep the whole package together this kid is going to make it. There is no grey area where he's going." Every now and again a kid comes along but he was a level above that. One in a million.'
Pushing The Limits  Casey Stoner  pp24-5

[Biggles]

There have been a few successful racers from the Gold Coast, such as Chris Vermeulen, Ant West and, of course, Mick Doohan, but generally speaking the majority of recent Australian talent seems to have come from the Hunter Valley in New South Wales, particularly the areas around Kurri Kurri and Maitland, which are mining towns. I'm not sure why this is but I think its fair to say these places are tougher to grow up in than the Gold Coast and the area's tradition for hard racing seems to have encouraged some real talent, including the likes of Broc Parkes, Josh Brookes, Jamie and Daniel Stauffer and Chad Reed. Even Troy Bayliss and the Cudlin brothers, Damian and Alex, are from Taree, not too far away from the Hunter Valley region.
Pushing The Limits  Casey Stoner  pp33-4

[Biggles]

Dad tells of one particular day at the West Maitland junior dirt-track that really sticks in his memory. 'We were messing about with the bike, setting it up different tyre pressures like you would on a practice day at a Grand Prix. The best lap Casey had ever done there was about 20.4 seconds or something similar. This day he managed to get his time down to a 20.1 so I promised him an ice-cream on the way home if he could crack the 20-second barrier before we left. He came past five or six times shaking his head, he knew he hadn't done it and he was right, he was stuck on 20.01. I was amazed he could be so sure of his lap time because he didn't have a timer on his bike. Then he came around on the next lap, crossed the line and nodded his head. I looked down at my stopwatch and, sure enough: 19.98. I could never understand, and I still can't, how he could measure the difference to that degree around a little track like that. It was dirty, slippery, the bike was moving around, there were a lot of factors. And to split a couple of thousandths of a second? That's almost unimaginable.'
Pushing The Limits  Casey Stoner  pp39-40

[Biggles]

Finally, after a few months, we got a response from the  AJRRA committee. It was a letter addressed to Dad and signed by the secretary of the club. Basically the three lines told us the application had been tabled at a committee meeting and my application to join the AJRRA had been denied.
There was no explanation, no apology, no nothing; just the letter, the cheque and the photo (we still have all three). Effectively I had been banned from racing in my own country at the age of fourteen for absolutely no reason. I was devastated. I didn't care about the politics, whatever they were, I just wanted to race motorbikes and I couldn't understand why I wasn't being allowed to do that when I had the ability. Riding bikes was all I had ever done. It was all I wanted to do. I couldn't understand it; it made no sense. All we could put it down to was jealousy and spite. Even if they had issues with my dad, why take it out on a kid?
Pushing The Limits  Casey Stoner  p61

[Biggles]

In Spain...
At the start we were all given identical bikes but I was 1.5 seconds quicker than the other guys in the first test so they gave me an updated air box and exhaust. Basically, if you showed the potential they gave you support to see what else you could do and whether you were capable of running at the front. Simon was even smaller than Dani Pedrosa at the time so he could also make the bike look better than it was, especially in terms of power, so he got a few extra bits and pieces too. I think I ended up with a 1998 kit on my bike, although this was in 2001 so they were still a long way off Grand Prix specs. Given my history of makeshift bikes I wasn't complaining!
Pushing The Limits  Casey Stoner  pp89-90

[Biggles]

From a technical point of view one of the main areas in which I felt I was lacking compared with the European kids was trailing the front brakes into the
corners, which loads the front tyre and gives better grip and stability. It's a technique they were able to master from a much earlier stage than me. I came from dirt-track where you mainly use the rear brake. They came through minibikes, where you use a lot of front. I had experimented with this as a kid but I just wasn't pushing the front tyre hard or at an angle and it took me along time to get good at it- well into my MotoGP career.
My strength was in the way I could adapt to different circumstances: different bikes, tracks, tyres and weather conditions, which was all thanks to my background in dirt-track. I had spent hundreds of hours riding every different kind of surface imaginable.
Pushing The Limits  Casey Stoner  p101

[Biggles]

I decided to stop focusing on Marco and concentrate on using my own braking markers, which had worked well for me in qualifying. What I didn't allow for was that with a full tank of fuel the bike weighed around ten kilos more than it had done in qualifying, so all my reference points were effectively no good. It was only a matter of time before things went wrong. As I went through the fast left over a slight crest in turn three the bike became unsettled by a bump and as I braked hard for the tight right-hander at turn four the extra load on the front made the suspension bottom out, the impact causing the rear wheel to lift slightly off the ground.
With the bike already at an angle the rear moved to one side, the rubber bit hard on the tarmac as it came back down and drove even more force through the flexing chassis and suspension. When I grabbed the brakes again, trying not to plough straight into Melandri as he tipped into the corner ahead of me, the rear tyre flicked from one edge to the other and the bike loaded up and bucked before launching me into the air. It was a big crash but I think it looked more spectacular than what it was and at least I knew why it had happened. Despite how dramatic it looked, I only ended up with a scratch on my chin.
Pushing The Limits  Casey Stoner  pp107-8

[Biggles]

One night at Mugello in Italy it was at least 35 degrees and it was like an oven. When we were travelling we had to sleep with the windows closed and the home locked up tight so we didn't get robbed.
One night we were stopped at a service station in a big area used as an overnight stop by caravans and motorhomes. Thieves target places like this and use gas to make sure everyone inside is unconscious before they break in. The one time it happened to us they couldn't get inside because we were locked up like Fort Knox. The owners of three other vans parked near us weren't so lucky. While they lost money and passports all we had to deal with was a bit of a headache (though Mum thought it was the best sleep she'd had in ages!) and a stolen battery-powered scooter from the enclosed trailer.
Pushing The Limits  Casey Stoner  p110

[Biggles]

That good feeling didn't last long, unfortunately. In the next round at Brno, in the Czech Republic, I was trying a experimental chassis for Aprilia (it used to
buck so hard we called it 'Chainsaw' after a famous Australian rodeo bull). I'd finished fourth fastest in the wet in morning free practice and was running
second fastest after six laps of first qualifying in the dry when it spat me off and I hurt myself pretty badly, breaking my collarbone and scaphoid.
A broken collarbone is a fairly common injury for a racer and not too serious because they normally heal okay, but the scaphoid is bad news, even though it is a tiny little bone, no bigger than a cashew nut. First of all, it is in an extremely important part of the wrist, just below the thumb, where you need a lot of
strength, stability and flexibility. Secondly it has limited blood circulation to it so it is a bone that doesn't heal well and if it is not fixed quickly and properly it will die. Together with the doctors at the Clinica Mobile (the medical clinic that travels with every race) the team organised for us to head straight back to San Marino for surgery to staple the bone back together and my wrist was fitted with a small cast.
Pushing The Limits  Casey Stoner  p122

[Biggles]

In the past we might have disagreed over things to do with the bike but that would be about it. I knew my place and I respected Mum and Dad's decisions. But I was growing older and like any nineteen-year-old I was forming my own ideas. Things reached a tipping point at Phillip Island. There was a lot of expectation on me after the win in Malaysia, a lot of demands on my time, we were all under a bit of stress and no one reacted well. Things with Dad came to a head at the riders' box at Phillip Island. We ended up scuffling, which wasn't pretty for anybody.
Even with all that going on I still placed third in the race. It was a tough decision to tell my dad I wanted to do this my own way from then on. I'd already had some conversations with former racer, Randy Mamola and a business colleague of his, Bob Moore, who worked for a big American management company called WMG, and I'd decided that the best thing for my career was to go with them.
Dad told me to do what I wanted but he wasn't going anywhere until he'd checked out the management contract. He said, 'Once I'm happy with the contract, you go for your life.'
Pushing The Limits  Casey Stoner  p134

[Biggles]

I was definitely maturing, learning from my experiences and at the end of that year I had a look at the relationship I had with Bob and Randy. It hadn't worked out the way I thought it would. They had tried to advise me on everything from training to psychology without me wanting their input on these things and yet they hadn't brought us a single sponsor and were trying to cut in on deals that we already had. I didn't like that at all. The turning point was when they wanted me to switch from Nolan to a different helmet company because they offered more money. That wasn't what I wanted. I had a good relationship with Nolan and I felt I owed them because they'd supported me at the beginning of my career when one else would. Those loyalties mean nothing to a management company- they just want to take their percentage. It was a big lesson and I decided to end our relationship. I knew I couldn't manage myself but I wanted someone who'd respect my opinions and loyalties. I decided to talk to Dad about it. We'd needed the space to change the way we worked together but once we set boundaries we both knew we could make it work. Dad stopped being part of my career other than on the management side from that point on.
Pushing The Limits  Casey Stoner  p138