Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

We raced down the middle of the exhibition hall on matching dirt-track race bikes, each of us towing a roller-derby lass on her rollerskates. It was like the 1975 film Rollerball. We were even wearing helmets painted to exactly match the teams from the film. Charlie Chuck was only taught how to ride a bike a week before the Rollerburn show, just so he could take part in this race. Next thing, he's lining up between me and Gary, and we've all got tattooed lasses from the Lincolnshire Bombers Roller Girls team in short shorts, fishnets and long socks, crouching down and hanging on to special handles on the back of three Co-Built Rotax race bikes. The race was supposed to be a bit of fun and a spectacle, and it was, but Gary got off the line quicker than me, and I wasn't having that, so I gave the 600cc dirt tracker a bit of a handful and overtook him, with Charlie Chuck not that far behind, cackling like a madman. He was mental, and now that I think back, he wasn't even wearing a helmet. Unsurprisingly, I hadn't practised racing with a roller-girl on the back, so I think I went a bit quick for the lass. Her racing name was Catfight Candy, and she got into a bit of a speed wobble over 45 mph, fell and ended up with a bit of friction burn from the polished concrete floor. Some of those roller-derby women are as hard as nails, and she was still smiling, happy that we'd won.
Worms To Catch  Guy Martin  pp276-7

[Biggles]

Bonneville Salt Flat speed record chasing
After going through the starting procedure again I set off, and this time I got settled quickly. I looked at the speedo expecting to see 60 and I was already doing 120 mph, the maximum I was supposed to do, but Matt had already said I could do 150. Next thing I knew I was doing 180, 190- it came so easy. So I thought, Let's see what it'll do. There was no sensation of speed, which was why it could feel boring. The team had set a limit, electronically, which stopped me revving the bike as hard as I wanted. This was the first time I tested the parachutes. I released them in the order Matt told me: right hand release first, then left. This deploys the big one first.
Worms To Catch  Guy Martin  pp354-5

[Biggles]

The wobble didn't make me want to stop riding but I planned to wear the ONT helmet with the HANS device now. HANS stands for Head and Neck Support. The helmet is tethered to a shoulder harness that limits how much the head can move forward or back in relation to the body, and should stop injuries from whiplash movements. A lot of car-racing series, including F1, have made them compulsory, and I was used to riding the thing by now, so I didn't need the familiarity of the AGV any more. I wanted the added safety of a helmet with a HANS device, and bike helmets don't have the screw holes to fit one to.
Worms To Catch  Guy Martin  p357

[Biggles]

Michael and I had ended up riding separately- he was late showing up at my house, so I just left. (No fun standing in the driveway with all your riding gear on, straddling a silent bike- not wanting to disturb the neighbourhood, even with the BMW's inoffensive purr.) I texted him my intended route and figured we would almost certainly connect somewhere along that highway. But we never did- Michael followed me into the truck stop at Grants to meet the bus a half hour behind me. And that was fine, I never mind riding alone. It's having someone to talk to at the end of the day that's nice. Even if that someone is Michael. (Longtime readers know the two of us are "the best of frenemies", and maintain our day-to-day equilibrium by constantly "venting" at each other.) I still like to tell the story of how one time Michael delivered a load of bitter and obscene rhetoric on me, and I said, "I love that you feel you can talk to me like that- but I really wish you wouldn't."
Far And Wide  Neil Peart  p64

[Biggles]

Perhaps it is only long habit that makes me prefer to find my routes on paper maps, with the tactile details they seem to reveal- and that's the perfect word. I do not so much design a route as study the page for a while and let the "right" roads be revealed to me. With highlighter pen, I stitch together a complicated thread of Rand McNally's thin red lines, grey lines, and, best of all, the broken grey lines- the unpaved roads. The term "adventure riders" has become tarnished with overuse, but if it's adventure a motorcyclist is looking for, it will likely be found on those roads. (In recent years those paper maps are increasingly hard to find. We used to start every tour by buying the Rand McNally boxed set of all fifty states, but now Michael has to collect them piecemeal online, and they are dated more than a decade ago.)
Unless we have to get into a city for work, I avoid all major arteries, especially divided four-lanes (heavy traffic, low speed limits, and frequent intersections), and any settlements with more than a single stoplight or two. Once I have joined the puzzle (as it often feels) with my blue highlighter, we move into the modern digital world. I pass the map to Michael and, kneeling at his computer, he transfers the route (often with much mumbling of profanities) to his mapping program.
Far And Wide  Neil Peart  pp86-7

[Biggles]

"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."
That wonderful final line from The Great Gatsby applies so perfectly to this tour- I certainly did a lot of "beating" (and took a lot, too), and the show we were presenting went back in reverse chronology musically, and in its production, with stage sets devolving around us. The places Michael and I visited on days off were usually rural areas and small towns that seemed pleasantly out of step with the modem world of big cities and arenas.
"Boats against the current" can be likened to "bikes against the weather", because in just the first couple of weeks we experienced every kind there is, from desert heat to snow to torrential rains.
Far And Wide  Neil Peart  p97

[Biggles]

It sometimes happens that toward the end of a long ride something takes hold of me- like what Jack Lewis describes as "a horse that can smell the barn". It always happens on a challenging road, late in the day, and some of those rides have been unforgettable. Riding into Death Valley for the first time, under a full moon, was one of those- another happened in Tuscany, when Brutus and I had crossed the Alps from Austria and been held up with some bike trouble. By evening all of the Italians seemed to be off the road, and it was just me racing ahead of Brutus. (He always sensed when I was "possessed", and just let me go.) Winding through the exquisite countryside, framed in a supernatural golden light, my world shrank to the bike and the road.
That day on the Cherohala, we still had a couple of hours to ride back to Suches, and dark clouds were bringing in the rain that was forecast for the evening. Once I was sure we had enough photos, I started "smelling the barn". I rode off and surrendered to that spell, that determined pace. I threaded the curves in a rapid rhythm, eyes like a ray on the apex and the exit, keeping everything smooth and quick. Occasionally I glanced in my mirrors and saw a single head-light behind- "Probably a sportbike rider," I thought, and I wicked up the pace a little- to keep him back there. Like Becca said, "Just to know I could do it."
Curve after curve, mile after mile, that light was still there, and only later did I learn that of course it was Becca. Wes said after, "I haven't seen her smile like that for a long time."
I asked him, "Is it a sin to dance with another man's wife?"
Wes laughed and said, "No, it's not!"
Far And Wide  Neil Peart  pp105-6

[Biggles]

As the road descended, I just stayed with the flow of traffic, taking it easy on the wet road. I began to encounter lines of vehicles backed up at traffic lights, and at one of them, just after Manitou Springs, a small pickup pulled up beside me. A bearded man in a park ranger's uniform leaned over and called through his passenger window, "You dropped one of your boxes back there."
I automatically looked to the rear of the bike, saw that my right-side luggage case was gone and felt an immediate chill of alarm and fear. The hardshell cases were locked onto the frame of the bike, so one of them coming off was like, say, losing the trunk of your car.
"About a half mile or a mile back," the ranger said.
Thanking him, I made a U-turn at the lights and raced back up the divided highway a mile or so, then turned around and rode back in the drizzling rain, slowly scanning the roadside. At first I hadn't been too upset, thinking I would surely find the case lying beside the road and everything would be okay, but I didn't see it.
Still hopeful, I thought, "Maybe I didn't go back far enough." I turned around again sped uphill a couple of miles this time, then circled back and rode slowly over that same stretch of road, desperately scanning for that luggage case. It wasn't there.
Far And Wide  Neil Peart  pp128-9

[Biggles]

But the years went by- a decade went by- and the lost case slipped from memory. But as I talked on the phone from my office in sunny Los Angeles to Rob in snowy New York on Tuesday, February 4, 2015, all of that flooded back. But from so long ago, I could hardly absorb it.
How many times in the past ten years had readers of Roadshow asked me if I ever got that case back? I'd always had to give a rueful shake of my head and say, "Unfortunately, no."
And now- presto change-o- that luggage case and its contents were back in my life. Imagine losing a suitcase or a cardboard box full of close personal possessions for over ten years. At first the vanished items would be achingly real and personal, and their loss would hurt. With the passing of years the objects cease to be "attached"- or you cease to be attached to them- and they are all replaced in your life by new versions. Like one of those time travel stories where a person or object can't appear twice in the same place- these are a phantom shaving kit, gold watch, binoculars, ring, and so on.
Right after that loss, I replaced the BMW luggage cases with aluminium Jesse cases that couldn't fall off- their ads showed the bike being lifted by the luggage mounts. I was never able to trust the BMW cases again.
Far And Wide  Neil Peart  p133

[Biggles]

And yet, the alternative- just staying somewhere and resting- had zero appeal. Another chorus of "What's the most excellent thing I can do today?" the answer would never be "lounging in a hotel room or on the bus." I did not believe that resting in a hotel room for one day was going to that level of stress and exhaustion, the prescription of "rest" is measured in days and weeks, not hours. And sometimes the definition of rest is measured in miles.
Only three situations had ever made me decide not to ride. A lightning storm in Missouri, a snowstorm in Tennessee, and August 10, the date of Selena's death. After 1997, for many years I hide in a hotel room and seek oblivion. After seventeen years, I can just about get through that day, but it is always veiled in the dark scrim all grievers know about.
Otherwise, the roads called to me, the map called to me- the lanes of New England as much as the Appalachians or the West. And I did find a kind of peace there.
Far And Wide  Neil Peart  p176

[Biggles]

Not that there are any guarantees anywhere, with robbers or cops. As a counterpoint to "Miracle in Colorado", I can offer the tale of "Entrapment in Ohio". A couple of tours ago Michael and I were riding into Columbus and for the "final approach" I accidentally led us onto the divided four-lane state highway rather than the interstate we wanted. We only had forty miles to go, so I decided to stay with it despite the annoyances I have cited before: low speed limit, frequent intersections, overeager law enforcement. After about twenty miles the putting along was getting to me, and when a pickup went speeding by us on the left, I thought, "Must be a local, probably knows what he's doing." So I led us in behind him as he cruised at about eighty. A mile or two later my heart froze at the sight of a row of black-and-whites at the side of the road and a line of troopers pointing us in.
The pickup pulled to the shoulder ahead of us, but I was surprised to see it driving away after less than a minute. Meanwhile Michael and I were written up "to the full extent of the law", and did not ride away until almost thirty minutes later. The trooper's good humour did not stretch to knocking one mile per hour off the speed clocked by the air-plane pilot overhead. She handed me the ticket and said "Have a good show"- so recognising my name hadn't helped, either.
Looking back, no question it was a setup- aircraft circling above that cursed road while an officer in a "civilian" vehicle lured outsiders into speeding. Both shameful and shameless- as the Ohio State Patrol has been known to be forever. I should have known better.
Far And Wide  Neil Peart  p180

[Biggles]

I started riding motorcycles twenty years ago, after taking a motorcycle safety course at Humber College in Toronto. Two life-saving acronyms have stayed with me- indeed, become automatic parts of my mindset on the bike. One is ATGATT, for All the Gear All the Time, and SIPDE, for Scan, Identify, Predict, Decide, Execute. Scan the traffic to identify potential hazards, predict other drivers' reactions, decide on a defensive strategy, and do it.
Another constant game is "What if?"- creating imaginary scenarios in surrounding traffic and considering alternatives. I say to myself, "Never let it be your fault", which is the same thing as saying "Don't make it easy".
Far And Wide  Neil Peart  p182

[Biggles]

One technique I had been watching Brian do, and learning to imitate myself, was banking the motorcycle over in corners on gravel and spinning the rear wheel to make the turn. Following behind him for a while, I saw those skid marks arcing through every corner- a typical dirt-bike technique, steering with the throttle and using the rear wheelspin to keep up your cornering speed. It was fun and effective, and I was soon doing it fairly well, but it took me into a zone where I needed new braking techniques, too.
That I learned the hard way, powering into a bend a little too quickly then trying to slow by using only the rear brake, as you would usually do on a loose surface. However, at speed, with the wheel already deliberately breaking traction, it was a bad idea. Because the back tire was no longer "hooked up", it only skittered over the surface, and the bike began to slew around, out of control. The edge of the road and the wall of pine trunks suddenly seemed very close, and I was sure I wasn't going to make it. Fear lit me up inside like electricity. Eventually I regained my balance and got back on the throttle, and managed to just slip along the edge of the gravel. That sense of imminent death shook me up for a while.
Far And Wide  Neil Peart  pp206-7

[Biggles]

One time the purple line led us past an imposing barricade- a gate of heavy iron tubes painted yellow. Fatefully, it happened to be open just then, with a corporate pickup parked just on the other side. Probably a logging company surveyor, I realised later. Dingus pointed onward, so onward I led us. However, a considerable time and distance later, we came upon a similar barricade- only this one was closed. I checked the padlock- it was hefty, and shackled. I scanned the woods to either side, but boulders had been placed at each end of the barricade to stop people like us getting around them. Any other way out would be a long way back- and even that open gate we'd passed through might be locked again now.
Michael said, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"
"I said, "I'm readin' your mail."
This image, for once, looks worse than it was. We decided to lay the bikes down, remove one of the luggage cases and mirror, then slide them under the barricade. We did it, and it was good. A fist-bump celebrated our triumph against The Man.
Far And Wide  Neil Peart  p236

[Biggles]

In late afternoon I sat on a white plastic chair in front of my room with the usual journal, camera, and plastic cup of The Macallan on ice. I looked out past our parked motorcycles (on their sidestands because gravel) at the occasional traffic on Route 66, behind to the Santa Fe railroad and long freight trains at intervals, and behind that to Interstate 40 and its whining semis. The story of the modern Southwest right there, really.
The overloaded old van and trailer on the highway behind the motorcycles reminded me of a modern-day version of the Joads in The Grapes of Wrath. They fled the Oklahoma Dust Bowl with all the possessions they could carry on their old car and struggled west on this same Mother Road in the 1930s. The train reminded me of the great Bob Dylan title, "It Takes a Lot to Laugh, It Takes a Train to Cry".
Far And Wide  Neil Peart  pp260-1

[Biggles]

It wasn't so unusual to find a note on the bike. Riding in London you get to recognise certain motorcycles and in the small community of overland riders it is not uncommon to know someone's bike by sight, whether or not you are acquainted with the owner, and to make comradely contact. Mine had all the identifying marks of a well-travelled machine - large capacity 'desert' tank, sheepskin seat, scruffy panniers, a few foreign stickers, general tatty, battered appearance, not to mention an oil leak that was currently soiling the streets of SW7. For a fellow motorcycle traveller to say hello in this way wouldn't be considered strange. But the mysterious Habib made no reference to his own motorcycle travels or ownership. I wondered if he was a member of the embassy staff, but as far as I knew they had all been bundled on to a hastily chartered Iran Air flight out of Heathrow a few days ago. Maybe he was just a regular Iranian living in London, distressed at the recent bust-up between his homeland and his adopted country.
Revolutionary Ride  Lois Pryce p3

[Biggles]

My arrival in Ankara, the functional, if rather dreary, capital of Turkey, stilled my fevered imagination and offered an agreeable if less theatrical, answer to my problem: the Trans-Asia Express, a weekly rail service between there and Tehran. Its first Iranian destination was Tabriz, the north-western city just over the frontier that I had planned as my first stop. For the price of a few kebabs I could put myself and my bike on the train across the rest of Turkey and be deposited just inside Iran, 1,000 miles away. Hopefully once there, I could slip the bike out of the guard's van and be on my way, no questions asked. There was a time when my younger motorcycling self, who valued the notion of purism, would have been aggrieved by interrupting the ride like this. Purism be damned! Outwitting the Iranian authorities was my priority, and besides, as a secret railway fan, I was geekily excited about the idea of riding such a romantically titled train.
Revolutionary Ride  Lois Pryce p15

[Biggles]

"Benzin?" I said pointing at the tank, smiling weakly at a guy in petrol company overalls who was standing with the pump in his hand, gaping at me, unabashed. I had never felt so exposed and awkward. The men kept staring, standing at a wary distance in silence.
I attempted to ask directions to the Tehran highway but my pronunciation was poor enough to perplex them even further.
After a while someone grasped the problem.
"Aah, Tehran."
OK, emphasis on first syllable. This was important.
The frozen statues became animated. What man can resist being asked directions? There was much arm-waving and circular motions that I guessed indicated a roundabout, and lots of pointing and rapid Persian. I grasped a vague idea of what I should be doing and replicated their motions for approval - straight ahead, right at the roundabout? The men had abandoned their vehicles now and were gathering around while still maintaining a polite gap between us. When it transpired I had understood the directions correctly, their faces opened up into smiles and laughter and I rode away to the sound of their clapping and cheering. Maybe it was all going to be fine after all. But still, the freak-show sensation was not a pleasant one.
Revolutionary Ride  Lois Pryce pp56-7

[Biggles]

The physical nature of forcing a 120-kilogram motorcycle through a snowdrift meant that I was at least keeping my blood flowing and my heart pumping, which kept my toes from freezing solid, but my heart was banging in a whole different way when an hour later all I could see ahead was more white - smooth and endless in every direction. The only sign of life was an eagle dipping and swooping high above, but it soon disappeared into the white. I feared I had become disorientated and my thoughts raced with all the possible catastrophic endings that awaited me. When at last I spotted the faint shape of a structure in the distance, relief rushed through me, and with it a new surge of energy I pushed and shoved and heaved and panted towards this evidence of human agency. I realised that I was looking at the squat shape of the caravanserai, the most welcome shelter in what felt at that moment like the world's loneliest outpost. I could almost have thrown a stone into its courtyard, but as I pushed and heaved some more I realised that the truth was, there was no way I was going to be able to reach the building. The snow ahead was so thick, so heavy and deep, that I simply did not possess the physical force required to shove my way through.
Revolutionary Ride  Lois Pryce pp87-8

[Biggles]

This time my crossing of the Alborz was on a brand new road with spectacular views, but there wasn't much opportunity to enjoy scenery as my full quota of concentration was required for dodging and tackling fellow road users. It was a mystery to me how the Iranians, so warm and helpful in person, became lethal maniacs behind the wheel. Cars, trucks and buses tore past at terrific speeds, so close I wobbled in their slipstreams. Often drivers would be yelling words of encouragement out of their windows, giving me the thumbs up, or even filming me on their mobile phones as they simultaneously forced me into the ditch. I mentioned the phenomenon to a few people in passing when I stopped for tea and fuel, and was met with laughter and cheerful boasts that Iran had the highest rate of road deaths and injuries in the world. It seemed churlish to complain in the face of such national pride.
Revolutionary Ride  Lois Pryce p102

[Biggles]

Like a wild animal preparing for attack, teeth bared, all senses in overdrive, I charged into the Tehran traffic. Every muscle in my body tensed, switched to fight or flight mode, until I realised my mistake - it was fight and flight that was required here. At top speed, one eye on my maps, the other pretty much everywhere else, I weaved, ducked, dodged and yelled my way into this most unholy of capital cities. Twelve million people in their horn-blasting, fume-spewing bangers, all playing the same fast violent game. It's hard not to take it personally, but once I had altered my western road user's mindset and understood that none of Tehran's drivers were actually trying to kill me, it made it slightly easier. I simply had to learn to ride like an Iranian. This meant the only rule I needed to understand is that there are no rules: red traffic lights are advisory rather than obligatory, four lanes marked on the road actually means seven in reality, and no vehicle should ever be further than one inch away from another. Breathing deeply as another maniacal taxi driver hurtled towards me, I trawled my past travels for motivation and reassurance. Remember Kinshasa? Guatemala City... C'mon, you can do this! Istanbul, just a few weeks earlier, had seemed like hell on earth but now felt like a dawdle through Toytown. None of them compared to this insanity.
Revolutionary Ride  Lois Pryce pp121-2

[Biggles]

When the time came to say goodbye to Issa I had to quell my natural urge to give him a hug. We had bonded easily and warmly and I had felt an instant connection with him. Here was a man from a different era, continent and culture but, as I was well aware from my time on the road, the camaraderie of motorcycle travellers does not recognise such borders. However in the Islamic Republic there could be no hug, not even a friendly pat on the shoulder; we couldn't even shake hands. I sensed Issa felt the same but, unable to act upon our human instincts, we just stood facing each other, about three feet apart, and bid each other farewell. With his right hand to his heart he gently bowed his head, wishing me good luck on my travels in Iran and extending an invitation to visit him at his home in Tehran any time. I dearly hoped we would meet again somewhere.
Revolutionary Ride  Lois Pryce p146

[Biggles]

It was a minibus with blacked-out windows and was barrelling along at a terrific speed. I assumed it would overtake me at the last minute, in typical reckless Iranian style. At the same moment I saw there were roadworks immediately ahead, with the two-lane highway narrowing to one lane. The bus showed no signs of slowing down, in fact, it was speeding up. We were both gunning for the same space. The traffic cones cut across the lane in front of me and the road workers, with a clear view of what was about to happen waved panicked arms, motioning for me to move out of the way. But with the roadworks looming, there was nowhere to go, no hard shoulder or verge. The bus was gaining on me. For a moment everything went into slow motion; I watched over my shoulder as the bus accelerated towards me, engine screaming. At the last minute my brain snapped into gear and I launched my bike out of its path, crashing through the cones and barriers into the work zone and skidding to a halt, only just managing to remain upright. The bus missed me by an inch, showering me with gravel as it flew past. The road workers stood around me, staring after it, shaking their heads, equally confused by what they had just witnessed.
Revolutionary Ride  Lois Pryce p162

[Biggles]

Another way to fox a village policeman is with piles of important-looking paperwork in a foreign language. Of this I had reams. His lips moved as he squinted at each page of official documentation, trying to hide his confusion. The men of the village were watching his every move, so he made an exaggerated fuss of comparing my registration plate with the papers, even though he clearly had no idea what he was looking at. Some of the men started calling out instructions or advice, or maybe they were taunting him. It was hard to tell. But his reaction was to start throwing his weight about even more, barking orders at me and waiving the papers in my face. I was in the middle of a cock-fight for which I had little enthusiasm. But what I lacked in upper-class bossiness I made up for in horsepower. Taking the papers from his hand, I stuffed them down the front of my jacket and before he knew what was happening, I was disappearing up the hill, safe in the knowledge that his little bike would never catch me. I could hear the jeers and a roar of laughter from the crowd as I rode away. I almost felt a bit sorry for him.
Revolutionary Ride  Lois Pryce p187

[Biggles]

My plan would have worked if they hadn't started a cat-and-mouse game. My heart quickened as they overtook me before suddenly swerving into my path, trying to force me to stop. I dodged around them and kept going. They dropped behind again but stayed close, sticking behind me for another mile or so. Then they were pulling in front of me again, giving me no choice but to veer off onto the rocky verge. The road was empty, no other vehicles, no signs of civilisation in sight. I felt sick with fear, wondering what to do, imagining the worst and reliving the attack at the petrol station. I wanted to scream Just leave me alone! Then they came up alongside, lowering the window, shouting motioning for me to pull over. They were so close, I could have reached out and touched them. Suddenly, without warning, they swung in front of me, forcing me to plunge down the bank to avoid smashing head first into the side of their truck. I came to a wobbly halt at the bottom of the ditch and looked up to see that they had stopped ahead of me and were now reversing back at speed. I was stuck in the gully, trapped. Then the two men jumped out of the cab and came running at me.
Revolutionary Ride  Lois Pryce p217