Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

Larry was a newly retired sergeant from the air force and had purchased a Harley when I had. We had met at the dealer's and knew each other slightly, but when I told him I was going to make a run to Alaska he nodded and said in a soft-spoken Georgia drawl, "I'd like to go with you."
To the last minute I was not certain he would be going. Many bikers looked wistful and swore they would be coming when I told them about the run but for one reason or another they couldn't or wouldn't make it and I thought for a time Larry might prove to be that way. He came down the driveway and turned around and I started my motor and we headed north with about as much fanfare as if we were going to the corner gas station.
Zero To Sixty  Gary Paulson p41

[Kev Murphy]

 

That about sums up the way that my mate Jeff and I started our almost 4 year tour of Australia in the early 70's

[Biggles]

So I stayed with my faulty carburettor until Dawson Creek, the official start of the Alaska Highway, where I saw actual gas dripping out of it through the air cleaner and decided I had to try to fix it. I thought it would take hours but there was an adjustment screw that looked promising so I tweaked it and ran the motor a bit and the leak stopped and never came back.
Apparently, I thought at the time, the American mechanical ability was indeed inherited.
Zero To Sixty  Gary Paulson p134

[Biggles]

But many of them constituted a danger because of their inability to drive and control their rigs or to pay attention to what they were about. There were many motorcycles on the highway— mostly Honda Gold Wings, some BMWs, and (if I remember correctly) just two other Harleys— and I saw a young man on a BMW start to pass a motor home when, for absolutely no reason at all, the motor home left its lane, pulled out in front of him, and forced the bike off the road. The motorcycle left the shoulder like a gazelle— the rider somehow holding the front end of the bike up while flipping the bird to the driver of the motor home (who of course did not see it)— to crash twenty feet down in a rocky ditch, bounce twice, and then, spouting dirt and stones, to come roaring up out of the ditch without ever laying the bike down. It was as masterful a bit of driving as I have ever seen, but he was shaken and rightly so. In another two hundred yards there was no ditch but a three or four hundred foot vertical drop and he most certainly would have been killed.
Zero To Sixty  Gary Paulson p144

[Biggles]

Then too there is the fact that in a tight turn the bike is leaned well over and the wheels lose traction and if you accelerate out of the turn you lose more traction still and if there is dust or dirt or loose gravel or moisture or oil in the turn still more traction is lost and if a gust of wind hits you right then when the traction is low and you have slowed and lost the gyro action and God is not on your side and you look up to see a motor home coming at you...
Well, you get the picture. Everything that once was simple becomes very complicated very fast and that is essentially what happened to me.
Zero To Sixty  Gary Paulson p166

[Biggles]

There was a long straightaway and the rain had let up a bit. In front of me a couple of hundred yards there was— of course— a motor home. I checked my mirror and saw Larry back there, no other traffic coming, so I cracked the handgrip and took her up to seventy-five to whip around the motor home and back in. A straight pass, clean, no traffic.
Sometime during the winter when they were plowing the road the grader had left the corner of the blade down too much and gouged the road surface in a two-inch deep groove that started at the centre line and moved out to the shoulder on the left side of the road (as I faced it), which was made up of soft wet dirt and thick mud.
I hit this groove just as I caught seventy-five and started around the motor home and the wheels dropped into it like they had found a home. I decelerated instantly but the groove took me away from the highway and toward the muddy shoulder and a twenty-foot drop so fast, so completely instantly that I didn't even have time for fear. One part of a second I was there, the next I had no control of the bike and was heading off to the side at over seventy miles an hour.
Zero To Sixty  Gary Paulson p167

[Biggles]

The groove paid out about one inch— no more than that— from the edge of the asphalt and the bike ran there, hung there, teetered there, while I looked down in growing horror for what seemed like miles. I was caught in one of those off-balance things where you can't move the way you need to move because it will make the bike turn the wrong way and I could do nothing but stare down at the front wheel, still spinning at seventy a bare inch from the mud and then it moved, just a hair closer and I shifted my weight and tipped it away and it came out and I passed the motor home and could not stop shaking, thinking of it, for miles; could see nothing but the mud and my tire. It is in this way that people die, I thought. They are perfectly sober and there is good visibility and the road is dry and the bike is in good shape and nothing can go wrong and they splatter themselves all over the landscape.
Zero To Sixty  Gary Paulson p167-8

[Sicman]

Ur late today Biggles -  I was getting worried 

[Biggles]

Ur late today Biggles -  I was getting worried 

Missus Biggles' birthday lunch went overtime. 

[Sicman]

Fair enough excuse 

[STeveo]

In that case you're forgiven.   

[Kev Murphy]

A late post, but... Happy Birthday to Mrs Biggles.

[Biggles]

A late post, but... Happy Birthday to Mrs Biggles.

I made sure of that.     

[Biggles]

Moto Diez is five kilometres from the city centre on a six-lane highway. I am nervous. I mount the Honda and practise turns in the car park. Mechanics watch. They wonder why I don't ride out onto the road. Fear stops me from riding out onto the road: fear of falling off, fear of panic, fear of being hit by a truck. And there is a further and greater and growing fear- the fear that the mechanics will suspect me of cowardice.
This is the fear that forces me to the car park slipway. Trucks and buses thunder through a fog of blue exhaust fumes. I edge out gingerly onto the highway and stall the motor. I remain astride the bike, kick the starter and almost overbalance. The mechanics have come out of the yard to watch. My palms are slippery and sweat stings my eyes. I dismount at the kerb, find neutral and kick the starter again. The engine fires. I mount, open the throttle and engage bottom gear. The bike bucks. I close the throttle. The engine stalls. I long to hide my face in my arms and weep. A small crowd has collected. My ears burn with shame. I dismount again, kick the starter and ease forward along the kerb. I keep in bottom gear for the first hundred metres and then move into second. I am still in second when the bike stops. I have ridden 300 metres.
Old Man On A Bike  Simon Gandolfi  p16

[Biggles]

Up the last few hundred metres, and then over the brow and halt at a cafe on the right side of the road. My legs tremble as I dismount. The driver and passengers from the bus gather round. One of them asks, "Hey, grandfather, how old are you?"
I tell him and another asks where I am going.
"Argentina," I say. "Patagonia, Tierra del Fuego..." For the first time, I truly believe that I can make it.
The woman of the cafe brings coffee and sets a chair against the wall in the sun. I sit and absorb the warmth while the bus passengers ask questions as to my true intention and where I come from and does my wife approve of my absence and how many children do I have and what do they think of my travels? I answer with what has become my standard reply: "What should I do with the last years of my life? Sit in front of the TV?"
They all agree. "It is a good thing to travel, to meet different people."   
Old Man On A Bike  Simon Gandolfi  p34

[Biggles]

So my bum is numb - this is a countryman's visual heaven.
I pause for cold water and a packet of nuts at a tiny roadside shack with two white tables and six chairs. A man in uniform is the only customer. The earth crumbles beneath the Honda's stand and the bike turns sideways. The man in uniform attempts to save the bike and burns his palm on the exhaust. He holds ice in his hand and boasts of the beauty of Chiapas and enquires of my journey and what I will write of Mexico.
The owner of the shack and her daughter listen, as does an old white man with pale blue eyes and a grey bristle-beard who has shuffled across the highway from a five-hut village.
"That Mexico is an immensely rich and beautiful country with many poor people," I answer.
My listeners murmur their assent. Despite my protests, the man in uniform and with the painfully burnt hand insists on paying for my water and the packet of nuts. Mexican generosity is inescapable.
Old Man On A Bike  Simon Gandolfi  p61

[Biggles]

I recall Ibiza in the sixties.
I recall riding my red Bultaco Matador 350 trial bike.
I picture myself as I pictured myself then: chest thrust out as I gripped the wide-spread controls, white canvas trousers over Frye boots, grandad T-shirt, sun-bleached locks in a coronet of Moroccan beads. Wow, was I something. Every girl's dream (in my dreams).
So what has changed? Nothing, I decide, and kick the Honda alive. The track is hard dirt for the first fifty metres. It turns uphill. The front wheel slides into a deep rut. My ancient legs don't have sufficient strength to hold the bike upright. I sprawl with my left leg trapped under the bike and my right calf on the exhaust. In struggling free, I kneel on the exhaust. As Monica, Eugenio's young and intelligent wife, remarks as she drives me to the pharmacy: "Hey Simon, remember- you are an old man. You need to be careful. And you should never wear shorts on a bike."
Careful and I wouldn't be attempting this dumb ride to Tierra del Fuego.
Old Man On A Bike  Simon Gandolfi  p76

[Biggles]

The highway twists down through the mountains towards the Caribbean. Roadwork backs up the traffic for a couple of kilometres. I creep past the queue. A worker holding a red flag asks where I am going. I tell him. He waves me through and tells me, "Good luck, old man, and take care."
So many people have wished me luck, people imprisoned by lives of constant struggle, people who have never sampled liberty of choice in what they do: La lucha, la lucha. Along comes a fat old man on a small bike and they dream for a moment. If the old man can, then maybe, maybe some day, just maybe ... and I, as I ride on, am immensely grateful and proud - proud that I am, if only for a moment, part of a dream. Failure would be to betray all those well-wishers.
Old Man On A Bike  Simon Gandolfi  p141

[Biggles]

The traffic lights show red. I wait astride the Honda and cringe as the planks lift and clatter beneath approaching trucks. My spectacles fog and my nose drips.
The lights change to green. An impatient driver honks his klaxon. Walking the bike would delay him - and he would suppose me a coward. I ride twenty yards before the front tyre slips in a gap between two planks. Desperate to save the Honda, I tip inwards across the rails and sprawl beneath the bike. I look down between the railway sleepers at muddy foam. Drivers pound down the track and heave the Honda off my leg. They warn me that the bridge is dangerous - as if I require warning. They lift me on to my feet and the bike onto the back of a truck. I sit up front in the truck with a young driver.
Old Man On A Bike  Simon Gandolfi  p146

[Biggles]

The highway from Bucaramanga follows a green river valley a short way before hitting mountains. The Honda and I are well rested. We face only 300 kilometres to Villa de Leiva. No reason to hurry and I am at one with the bike as we swoop into the curves. We climb and climb. These are dry mountains. Even the air feels brittle.
Brilliant sun sparkles on rock. Views are astounding.
A statue to the Virgin Mary blesses the inside of a curve near the head of the ascent. Headlamps rather than flowers are the offerings. Some of the lamps are connected to a power supply. At night, the statue must be a beacon.
I stop at a cafe at the summit of the pass and ask the woman serving behind the bar why headlamps for the Virgin? Surely this a special cult, a celebration of some extraordinary occurrence, a miracle, a vision?
"Lightbulbs last longer than candles," she tells me.
Travelling brings such wondrous surprises.
The woman asks where I have come from and where I am going and refuses payment for my coffee.
Old Man On A Bike  Simon Gandolfi  p209

[Biggles]

I funk Bogota. I am not in the mood for big cities. The traffic terrifies me. The young driver of a new blue CM Corsa draws alongside to ask where I am going and wish me good luck. So do two cops on a big police bike. Try riding a small Honda through Bogota traffic while sandwiched into a three-way conversation. I yell to the cops that I am trying to find the Pan-Americano. The cops activate their flashing blue light. The cop riding pillion beckons me to follow. The police hurtle across an intersection. My memory of the following ten minutes is blank. I suspect that I rode with my eyes shut.
Old Man On A Bike  Simon Gandolfi  pp214-5

[Biggles]

The valley narrows to a gorge and up we go again, up and down weaving through mountains scoured of soil and crumpled in a giant's hand, hairpin after hairpin tracing the sharp folds. I cross a terrifying bridge from which I dare not look down, and then up again on the last long climb. The bike rides oddly. My gut tightens. I ease into the concrete ditch on the side of the road. The rear wheel is punctured. Damn, damn, damn.
On the way up, I had noticed a farm on the left-hand side. I ride back slowly, stop at the gate and walk down a concrete ramp to the farmhouse. The farmer meets me at the door, a square, well-muscled man in his forties - a child's plastic wheelie toy out in the yard, no sign of a wife. Sure, he tells me, of course I can park the bike back of the house. I need anything? A drink? Any help?
"I'm fine," I reply, although I am nervous. I last took a wheel off a bike somewhere back in the early sixties. I tell myself that mechanics is logic. I lay out the tools and set to work. No problems. The farmer tells me to leave my kit in the house, drives me to the last town to have the tube repaired and insists on waiting, and then drives me back.
Thank you, farmer.
Old Man On A Bike  Simon Gandolfi  p220

[Biggles]

Today I discover bliss cruising the fells of southern Ecuador at eighty kilometres an hour on a 125 Honda pizza delivery bike. We are 11,000 feet above sea level on a broad ridge that stretches for forty kilometres. The sky is a patchwork of dark and white and brilliant blue. A stiff breeze chases shadow and sunlight across the road and through the tufted grass and scrub and down the valleys either side. The road dips and rises and curves and the view is forever in all directions. We meet a convoy of gravel trucks. The drivers see this old bearded foreign man on a small, heavily burdened bike and they wave out the window and honk and flash their lights. That friendship of the road does for me. I weep with happiness - real tears.
Old Man On A Bike  Simon Gandolfi  p239

[Biggles]

Honda HardCorp on Avenida Nicolas de Pierola services the bike. The mechanic wears slacks and polished shoes and a clean short-sleeved shirt - sufficient cause for suspicion. So I watch. I watch keenly. He completes every job by the book. He changes the oil, adjusts the valves, changes the plug, adjusts the points, greases this, oils that, on and on for three hours. He works while squatting on his polished heels and without getting a single drop of oil on his clothes or on the floor.
He dismounts the rear wheel, has a fresh tyre and tube fitted, remounts the wheel and remains clean. I mount the wheel and I have to sit in the dirt and balance the wheel between my feet. My hands get covered in oil and dirt. So do my trousers and my shirt. And I habitually wipe the sweat from my brow on the back of my hand.
New rear tyre, tube and a spare tube, new plug, oil change and a full 3000 kilometre service sets me back fifty-six dollars. Back home I would pay fifty-six dollars to have a bike mechanic sneer.
Old Man On A Bike  Simon Gandolfi  p254

[Biggles]

Argentina excels in road signs. SINUADO is my favourite. Sad that they don't include SENSUADO. Any biker would know the meaning: sweeping curves, smooth dips, curving climbs, perfect camber, views to die for. Today's menu features rivers and lakes, dark, forbidding moors, pine forests and finally the snowfields. A familiar face observes me from the far side of a fence. He is a young chap, not fully grown, red coat, white nose. I pull into the curb, dig out the camera and approach through coarse grass.
"Where are you from?" he asks.
"Colwall." I reply.
"In Herefordshire? That's close to Ledbury."
"Four miles," I say.
"I believe that's where my great-great-grandfather came from," he tells me.
"Very probably," I say and take his photograph. He is embarrassed at having spent so much time with an old fogey. Off he trots to join the rest of the herd.
Old Man On A Bike  Simon Gandolfi  p300