Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

Long overland journeys invariably end on some sticky-out bit and somewhere, often a far-flung outpost that has become a tourist destination merely due to its extreme location. As I approached Cape Town, I ignored signs for the city centre and skirted round to the east, heading for the southern coastal road that would take me to the tip. As the ocean came into view I recalled my arrival at the tip of South America almost three years ago to the day, remembering how I had gazed out at the cold sea, knowing that Antarctica was just a stone's throw away, and marvelling that I had ridden all the way from Alaska. Soon I would be standing on another sticky-out bit of land once again staring out to sea, with the entire African continent behind me. Although my journey through Africa had been just half the time and distance of my ride through the Americas, it had been ten times as tough, and I felt truly grateful to be here.
Red Tape And White Knuckles  Lois Pryce  p403

[Biggles]

I'm nearly there! I was squealing to myself, I've made it! I've ridden across Africa!
The bike gave a little splutter, but I didn't take much notice. It had been running fine for the last 10,000 thousand miles and I had the utmost faith in it. Then it spluttered again, as if it was running out of fuel, but it couldn't be- I had filled up only a few miles back. But like a painfully predictable scene in a bad sitcom, fifty yards from the Cape of Good Hope it gave one final splutter and ground to a halt.
I couldn't believe what was happening. Of all the places to conk out! I dismounted and started investigating, but there was nothing obviously amiss. There was plenty of petrol in the tank; I pulled off the fuel hose and it was coming through fine, pouring out all over the ground. I quickly shoved it back on before I created an environmental disaster. The electrics were fine, the battery was good, I had ignition, the engine was turning over, but nothing was happening. I fiddled with a few more things and had another go at starting it, but to no avail. Again, the engine turned over, coughed, spluttered and died. After repeating this pitiful process a few times, I resigned myself to the sad truth that I would be pushing my bike to the tip of Africa.
Red Tape And White Knuckles  Lois Pryce  p404

[Biggles]

Trish has a unique claim to fame because, unlike most motorcyclists who collide with kangaroos, she had a kangaroo collide with her. No, that is not a fib from a drunken sod. Trish told me that she had gone on a ride with a group of people and stopped at a dam somewhere to admire the scenery. Suddenly a small kangaroo had bounded out of the bush and leaped onto her head, knocking her, the motorcycle and the kangaroo onto the ground. The kangaroo had got up, dusted itself off and disappeared back into the bush leaving a stunned Trish lying on the ground under her bike. She was helped up by the rest of the riders and rode away unscathed.
Motorcycling Adventures  Michael Sourjah  p12-3

[Biggles]

We left Esperance ahead of lan and Yvonne who had decided to ride separately to Albany. It was another glorious day for riding and we rode along the South Coast Highway until we reached Albany, after covering 500 kilometres. We had done 4,500 kilometres by then.
Along the way, we stopped at Ravensthorpe (population of about 500 people) for fuel and had a snack on the verandah of the roadhouse. The pumps for Autogas for the backup car were located some distance away down an incline and I relaxed while having a sausage roll. Just before we departed, I saw a cattle road train leaving Ravensthorpe and thought to myself that we would be overtaking it soon. Shortly afterwards, we caught up with the road train and as I was overtaking I got splattered with cattle dung and urine. The front of the bike, my helmet and visor and parts of my clothes and boots were stained a brown colour and the smell wasn't pleasant (to put it mildly) and I had to ride for at least 150 kilometres before I could clean up at the next service station. Yuk!
The things we undergo to fulfil our dream of crossing the Nullarbor.
Motorcycling Adventures  Michael Sourjah  p41-2

[Biggles]

Edward also stopped his bike at Corrigin as he desperately needed a drink of water. We noticed a statue of a dog and read that it was to commemorate the "Dog in a Ute" where some locals had set a world record for the most dogs (1,527) in utes in a queue. Apparently this event is held each year. The things you learn while on a motorbike trip.
We eventually reached Hyden and refuelled at the service station. I parked my bike in a corner, well away from the building but a bloody idiot reversed his vehicle without looking and nearly collided with my bike.
We checked-in at the Wave Rock Resort. The resort is really great and it is next to a salt lake named "Lake Magic." I dumped my stuff in our lovely cabin, jumped on the bike and went to Wave Rock. What an absolutely fantastic sight. I walked to Hippos Yawn which is a rock cave that looks like you are entering a yawning hippo's gaping mouth.
Motorcycling Adventures  Michael Sourjah  p58-9

[Biggles]

I got my only real scare of an accident on this stretch of road, as I noticed an oncoming vehicle in my lane overtaking a road train. As I drew closer, the bloody idiot was still in my lane. I switched my lights onto high beam which also lit up my driving lights but the skunk still kept coming in my lane. I was just releasing the throttle and thinking of stopping in the gravel (bad option as it was sloping down into the scrub about 5 metres below the road) when the clown finally overtook the road train and swerved sharply into his lane. I blasted him with my air horn and gave him the "bird" when he passed. It was a pity he couldn't hear the juicy words being uttered inside my helmet.
Motorcycling Adventures  Michael Sourjah  p90

[Biggles]

At last the motorbikes were packed and the engines had been started and warmed up. This was the first time Tim had ridden a motorbike in Australia and he had never got onto his steed for this trip, a 21 year old BMW K75 RT. That was my biggest worry and he almost confirmed my fears when he got onto the bike, lifted it off the sidestand then promptly overbalanced and couldn't hold the motorbike upright. I was already seated on my bike watching the spectacle unfold in front of me as Tim's bike teetered on the point of falling down. I knew I would never have been able to jump off my bike and rush over to help him keep the bike upright. Thankfully, my son was standing nearby, smiling at Tim's flailing efforts to keep the bike from falling. A yell from me, however, got him into action and he helped Tim. Both Tim and the bike were safe but it was a very close call, even before we had moved a millimetre from my house. What a way to start a  5,500 kilometre trip!
Motorcycling Adventures  Michael Sourjah  p123

[Biggles]

Wilcannia is a dead town with everything closed and barred. It has a population of about 600 people and proclaims that it is in the "middle of nowhere, centre of everywhere". We rode our bikes along some of the side streets looking at the lovely old buildings which had been built in the 1800's. There was nobody walking on the roads but I had been following a sign that said "BP petrol" because the service station on the highway sold an unknown brand of petrol. The signs led us to what looked like a backyard operation away from the highway and I wasn't going in there. We returned to the service station on the highway, pumped petrol and then used the washrooms. Unlike the last time I was there in 2010, there were only a few Aboriginal people hanging around. I walked to the beautiful old church next door to take some photos. There was a lone bike and biker in front of the church and we got talking. He too was heading to Alice Springs and we met up a couple of times along the way.
Motorcycling Adventures  Michael Sourjah  p137

[Biggles]

The difficulty of stopping a motorcycle on the side of the Stuart Highway (and also across the Nullarbor) crossed my mind. In most places, there is only a little bit of bitumen from the line marking the left edge of the road to where the gravel or soil begins. The ground outside the bitumen was quite boggy because of the recent rains and wouldn't support the bike's side stand. Parking the bike in this area would almost certainly result in the side stand sinking into the ground and the bike toppling over. If that happened, it would be a real bugger to get the bike upright again. But parking the bike on the small verge of bitumen leaves it dangerously close to passing traffic, especially if two trucks are passing simultaneously.
Motorcycling Adventures  Michael Sourjah  p191-2

[Biggles]

Since leaving Alice Springs we had met some road trains with four trailers. These were so long that we needed a clear road for at least one kilometre ahead to be able to safely overtake them. Fortunately there hadn't been a crosswind since leaving Alice Springs so we overtook these mammoth beasts without difficulty. Maybe the trees on either side of the road prevented any wind from affecting the bikes. Some of the road trains were travelling at more than 110 km/h but we were only being buffeted, sometimes very badly, when they were travelling in the opposite direction.
Motorcycling Adventures  Michael Sourjah  p200

[Biggles]

Wally provided an interesting titbit of information when he said that the ides of the road in the Northern Territory are cleared of vegetation five metres on each side so that motorists and particularly motorcyclists have an opportunity to spot wildlife and maybe avoid a collision. A further advantage is that motorists and riders won't collide with trees and other vegetation that can cause serious injuries or even death. I think that's a great idea and wonder why the other Australian States can't follow that example. Oh! I am sure that enough excuses and reasons will be provided by politicians and government agencies but this is a serious issue that all motorists (not just motorcyclists) need to question.
Motorcycling Adventures  Michael Sourjah  p217

[Biggles]

Three days prior to this discovery, the Hoka Hey Motorcycle Challenge had departed Key West and was on a hard ride to Homer, Alaska. The initial description outlined a number of requirements, making it a bit more difficult. Riders had to sleep next to their bikes; no motels allowed. (For the 2013 ride, that "no motel" rule was relaxed a bit; it went from "no motel" to "motels are frowned upon you sissy." For the 2014 ride, the earlier rule was reinstated as a hard-and-fast rule, as it should have been.) You could not speed (speed being a relative term), and you had to stay on a very specific, predetermined route. If you got off route, you had to return to the point where you took that wrong turn before proceeding. No global positioning systems and no outside support. The more I read about it, the more I liked it.
Solitary Without The Confinement  Steve Briscoe  p10-11

[Biggles]

I had yet to fully convince my wife this was something that needed to be done, but I was wearing own. It was just a matter of time before she threw her hands up in surrender and let me participate. Now, all guys know its not as though we need the permission of our better halves for anything, we have the right to do what we want, when we want, and how often we want. But guys also know it's prudent to give their better halves the illusion that they seek their permission. If you're reading these last couple of sentences, if they got past the editors, it means "I permitted" my wife to lay claim to the illusion she had allowed it. Okay, I think I might be digging a hole here. I think it's best to stop digging.
Solitary Without The Confinement  Steve Briscoe  p13-14

[Biggles]

By late Friday afternoon, I was bored to death but at the same time anxious to get underway. I'd completed my registration, and my bike had passed inspection. I'd packed and repacked the bike six times, checked the lights eight times, checked tire pressure twelve times (actually six times, but there are two tires on a bike), and played with the camera angles more times than I could count. I sent a text message to my brother Dan mentioning I was bored to death, and his response enlightened me to the fact of just how muddled my brain was. His reply to my text was short and simple: "Go for a ride." Whereas I'm pretty sure I was properly using my brain, it became obvious to me some of my synapses had shut down because that option had not occurred to me as an alternative to boredom.
Solitary Without The Confinement  Steve Briscoe  p38-9

[Phntm0]

Not sure if this counts...

[Biggles]

Anyway, I was on the right side of the [USA] lane monitoring the activity around me, paying particular attention to the riders close by. I'd never been in a group in which a rider behind weaved in and out between the staggered formation in an effort to achieve a lead position. Until that day. Out of nowhere a rider came up behind me, weaved around my left, and cut in front of me to weave past the right side of the rider in front of me. He weaved a bit too soon, and had I not moved in the only direction available to me, we would have made contact. That's a long winded way of saying, "He cut me off and ran me off the road." In an instant I was bouncing across those rough stones thinking, I can't believe this! Twenty minutes into the ride and I'm gonna crash. My wife is gonna be soooo mad at me! I recall wondering what my corpse would look like.
Solitary Without The Confinement  Steve Briscoe  p43

[Biggles]

The lesson I learned here was if you are in Canada and see a gas station, you better stop and get gas even if you don't need to. My bike has a 6.2 gallon tank, and I was getting an average of forty miles per gallon. I'll let you do the math. The scenery was great, the road was great, the weather was great ... all in all life was good. Even the moose that watched me ride by from the of the road looked like he was having a good time. I was livin' the dream, that is, until I got down to about a quarter-tank of gas and started looking for a gas station.
Since my last wrong turn, I hadn't seen two pieces of wood nailed together let alone a gas station. I'll shorten this story for you. The needle was rapidly approaching the E on my gas gauge and no station in sight. I just knew I was going to be stuck in the middle of nowhere waiting on a Good Samaritan, a serial killer or a deranged moose.
Solitary Without The Confinement  Steve Briscoe  p62

[Biggles]

We gassed up and headed down US-71S; I for one was happy to be back on familiar turf. About an hour down the road, we stopped on the side or the road to take a break. I'm glad we did, as one of the riders I was with was all over the road, and I mean that literally. We call that "road drunk" — you're so tired that not being able to keep the bike straight is a foregone conclusion. It was obvious he was riding and sleeping at the same time. The rider and I were flashing our lights, honking our horns, trying to get his attention to pull over. We didn't dare pull up beside him because his path was so erratic that the chances of his steering into us approached absolute certainty. We eventually got him to pull over.
Solitary Without The Confinement  Steve Briscoe  p67

[Biggles]

I came to an intersection where I could go right or left. I needed to go right. I was thinking it was somewhere between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. There was not a
light in sight. Normally, when I come to a stop sign, I make a full stop (not always, but most of the time), but at that point, my hips and backside were so
sore I wasn't so sure I could safely stop and keep the bike upright. So not seeing any hint of vehicle headlights anywhere, I slowed to almost a stop and
rolled through.
What kind of police officer sits in the middle of nowhere waiting on a Hoka Hey rider to come through and run a stop sign? Apparently, there is at least one
deputy sheriff in Minnesota. The whole area lit up like the Fourth of July; red and blue lights and a big spotlight saturated my meager existence. I felt it
wise to pull over. He may have just been bored on night watch and needed something to do. He didn't write me a ticket or even a warning; we just sat and
talked for about twenty minutes. That, with the application of hindsight, was probably exactly what I needed to get the fuzziness out of my head. I believe
his concern was genuine. He told me the wildlife on that road had been exceptionally active that night and that pulling over for the night might be in my best
interest. I told him I had seen some wildlife, but I decided to not elaborate. I was pretty sure lions, tigers, and flying dinosaurs did not, nor have they ever, resided in the trees in northern Minnesota.
Solitary Without The Confinement  Steve Briscoe  p74-5

[Biggles]

I said it before and I'll say it again: as a Hoka Hey rider, I know it's bad form to sleep in a motel, but I had convinced myself I deserved a nice, soft bed in a room I didn't have to share with pesky bloodsuckers. I rolled into a motel and got a room. When I got the key, I asked for an 11:00 p.m. wake-up call. I had grown weary of hot days, so I thought riding through South Dakota at night would be my best option. I took a shower and crawled into bed. I believe I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. I woke up after a bit. The sun was still up. A quick glance at the clock on the nightstand told me it was almost 6:00 p.m. I was irritated at myself that even though I had ridden solid for thirty-three-plus hours, I could sleep for only a couple of hours. I looked at my watch and saw it was almost 6:00 the next day. I had slept for almost fourteen hours.
I was very angry with the motel staff because they had failed to give me a wake-up call as I had asked. I packed my bag and went to the counter, ready to grab someone by the upper and discuss their transgression. Turns out they had given me a wake-up call; I just hadn't heard it.
Solitary Without The Confinement  Steve Briscoe  p77

[Biggles]

I continued through Nebraska and Colorado. As the sun went down on day six of my adventure, I was in the open expanse of the plains. While riding the plains in the middle or the I  night, I decided to stop for a bit. I was tired and needed to stretch, walk around a little, and get the blood flowing in my legs again.
As far as the eye could see, there were no lights, no traffic nothing but me and my ride. I shut the engine off and removed my helmet. The lack of sound is hard to describe. The only thing I heard was a slight breeze. You can sit in a quiet room, but it's not the same. In a room, there are still the sounds of the furnace or air conditioner, the buzz of the refrigerator, or the ticking of a wall clock. Out there, the only real sound is your thoughts. As hard as you try, you can never escape your thoughts.
Solitary Without The Confinement  Steve Briscoe  p88

[Biggles]

After I passed through Cloudcroft, NM the rain and cold turned to hail and cold. The rain and cold was tolerable, but if you add hail to the mix, you rethink the level of discomfort associated with rain and cold.
The sting that accompanied the hail was still tolerable but I will admit it was very close to the limits I was willing to deal with. It was not something I would have selected as a way to spend part of my day. The two-lane road leading through the mountain was narrow and offered very few places to pull over for shelter. All I could do was hunker down behind the windshield and ride through it. On those few occasions when I did see places to pull over, it was always too late, as I didn't catch sight of them until I rode by, and there was no option available to turn around. As one might say, I was stuck like Chuck. I'm not sure who Chuck is, but apparently at one time in his life, he found himself in a difficult situation.
I was rolling along about twenty miles per hour, which means my exposed hands and legs were running into hailstones the size of marbles at twenty-five miles per hour. Try it sometime, You won't like it. I'm sure the guy in the truck behind me was entertained.
Solitary Without The Confinement  Steve Briscoe  p90-1

[Draco (Heartbreak Kid)]

After I passed through Cloudcroft, NM the rain and cold turned to hail and cold. The rain and cold was tolerable, but if you add hail to the mix, you rethink the level of discomfort associated with rain and cold.
The sting that accompanied the hail was still tolerable but I will admit it was very close to the limits I was willing to deal with. It was not something I would have selected as a way to spend part of my day. The two-lane road leading through the mountain was narrow and offered very few places to pull over for shelter. All I could do was hunker down behind the windshield and ride through it. On those few occasions when I did see places to pull over, it was always too late, as I didn't catch sight of them until I rode by, and there was no option available to turn around. As one might say, I was stuck like Chuck. I'm not sure who Chuck is, but apparently at one time in his life, he found himself in a difficult situation.
I was rolling along about twenty miles per hour, which means my exposed hands and legs were running into hailstones the size of marbles at twenty-five miles per hour. Try it sometime, You won't like it. I'm sure the guy in the truck behind me was entertained.
Solitary Without The Confinement  Steve Briscoe  p90-1

  Thanks for the very interesting stories here Mr Biggles, enjoying the read 

[Biggles]

I was about to step off the bike when an elderly couple walked I out of the restaurant. We made eye contact, and after a brief discussion between them (words I didn't hear), they turned and walked back into the restaurant. I can't say I blamed them; I'm sure my appearance was reminiscent of a bag of dead rat hair that had been dipped in festering swamp water. I looked in the mirror to verify what I felt to be the case and was rewarded with the sight I had expected. Yeah, I couldn't blame them at all. I just smiled to myself and wondered it they were, at that very minute, dialing 911.
I sat for a minute looking at the many hailstones covering the ground, and wondered if I should venture into the restaurant for a cup of coffee and risk being arrested. About that time, the couple walked out of the restaurant and handed me a cup of coffee. They said it had been apparent to them I was in serious need of some. The coffee warmed my body, and the conversation with them, coupled with their kind act, warmed my heart. After a bit, they wished me safe passage. I went on my way knowing I'd never see these selfless people again but would never forget them.
Solitary Without The Confinement  Steve Briscoe  p91-2

[Biggles]

"Guide" would be too grand a description for Mohammed's services, but he is available to aid the stranger in town, interpret and answer questions.  He has an impressive habit of hacking up great gobs of phlegm to punctuate his conversation.  Much as I might "erm" and "umm" my way through a dialogue, he uses throat clearings to emphasise the importance of a particular point, to critique the ways of the world, to clear his airways and just to amuse himself.
We skip up a narrow staircase to an empty rooftop tea-room.
"There are forty thousand peoples in this village; it is very old but lots of poor here and around," hack, "but we live in beautiful place.  Look around."
Spit.  "Many Berber people come and sell food in the medina but I," says Mohammed, stressing the distinction, "I am Arab."  Big garggly hack.
African Brew Ha-Ha  Alan Whelan  p10