Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

The wispy palo verde trees carried an array of tiny yellow blossoms; the spindly arms of the ocotillo cactus were studded with vibrant red; a host of small plants and bushes displayed their subtle jewellery, and the mesquite, cholla, and giant saguaro cactus wore their full-dress greens. The wind blew fierce and steady from the west, raising dust clouds along the roadside, and it was a "quartering" wind against me and the motorcycle. Bad enough riding against a headwind that buffeted my helmet around and drove stubbornly back against the bike and my body, but trying to steer the bike into a wall of wind that was slightly off-center like that was even worse, combining the wind of my passage at 80 mph against the 40 mph wind vectoring in at me.
Ghost Rider  Neil Peart p318

[Biggles]

You know I prefer the back roads, the empty two-lane blacktop thrill-rides of the West, but there is still something special about a long, relentless journey, even on the "Superslab; Brutus and I did a couple of cross-country marathons during the Rush tour (Virginia to Frisco in four days, Toronto to L.A. in five) and we got to like the way you just keep humming along, stopping only for gas and "biological breaks," with a mental jukebox dredging up every song you ever knew and playing it back to you. Sure you get stiff and sore, and maybe cold and wet, but that's the price of admission.
Ghost Rider  Neil Peart p344

[Biggles]

Yesterday morning I was setting off early from the Four Seasons to my folks' place in Severn Bridge for breakfast, but when I brought my bike up from the parking lot, I found the rear tire was flat. Nothing else to do- I got out my repair kit, located a big nail sticking out of the tire, removed it, and plugged the hole, as I've had to do several times before, in various exotic locations. And here's where a real hotel shows its mettle: instead of "boging out" about having me there lowering the tone of their front entrance- leather-clad Scooter Trash sitting on the ground behind his dirty old motorcycle with tools spread around- bellman ran off to get the hotel's electric compressor to help me fill the tire, and the doorman brought me a bottle of Evian and a towel- because of course it was sweltering hot in the city yesterday, even at 7:00 a.m.
So that was pretty nice, for a bummer situation.
Ghost Rider  Neil Peart p366-7

[Biggles]

When the bike was parked in my garage, I was enjoying my well- earned glass of Macallan at the kitchen counter, and started to smile about it, thinking, "You know, that was a real adventure today."
And so it had been- both the good and the bad. For of course it could have been much worse, in many ways, and those ways had been avoided in large part by the "kindness of strangers". At the end of the day I was left feeling a little better about the world, and about life- for I also had to smile at a thought that sometimes crosses my mind at the end of a long, perilous day. "I have cheated death again."
Ghost Rider  Neil Peart p368-9

[Biggles]

Some lovely vistas of blue ocean, surfswept stretches of beach, giant teeth of rock sticking up, conifers shaped to leeward by the wind, tall stands of Douglas fir, and all like that, certainly makes a beautiful sight. However, once you've seen it one or two times from the end of a line of traffic backed up and crawling behind a big fat RV towing a sport-ute, or a double-trailer dumptruck. Or, just as the road finally opened up a little south of Coos Bay (nice name that), a bitter fog rolled in, hiding the road, the traffic, and the scenery. And making it 47°F out.
Ghost Rider  Neil Peart p428

[Biggles]

I was just thinking about how some of those other biker-guys give the rest of us a bad name, you know? This morning at the Ahwanee I woke at about 6:30, windows open and chilly, pine-scented air keeping me under the covers for awhile, and while I enjoyed that first smoke, I heard an open-piped Harley exploding, one cylinder at a time, trying with repeated blats and concussions and finally igniting into a pulsing roar of potato-potato on fast idle, then rumbling off through the woods like a flathead Ford with a broken muffler (pretty good analogy, actually).
Ghost Rider  Neil Peart p448-9

[Biggles]

"Uncle Bill" is my Dad’s brother and at that time was a Louisiana State Trooper, a motorcycle trooper! Of course, the huge Police machine complete with siren, radio and red lights was a "don't touch" item, but no one said I couldn’t look at it for hours and idolize every bolt on it. Any opportunity to do just that was taken, because that motorcycle was the coolest thing I'd ever seen.
One particular weekend, Uncle Bill and my Aunt Evelyn invited over to spend the night and acceptance was immediate. On that beautiful Saturday morning after breakfast, my Uncle was washing and polishing the huge, white bike on the sidewalk that led from the front door. He allowed me to help him dry it and I was ecstatic. As the bike sat there and glistened in the morning sun, Uncle Bill cranked it up and asked a question that would forever shape the rest of my life, "You want for a ride?" As I remember it, that moment was almost holy and to this very day forms an indelible picture in my mind along with a warm gratitude for the Uncle that lovingly and unknowingly flipped the switch that made me the insatiable fanatic that authors this book.
Shiny Side Up  Michael Abadie p xii

[Biggles]

As far as I'm concerned, grand prix is by far a greater mix of thrill-a-minute, white-knuckle,  adrenaline drenched racing. While watching an Italian race recently, I was amazed time and again to see those crotch rocket jockeys wring them out. One hundred eighty or so in the straights, do a stand up on both brakes and then dump the bikes into a series of turns so tight that there was about an inch of clearance between the track and the riders' ELBOW! I didn't say his knee, I said HIS ELBOW! Riding like that makes even non-bikers want to stand up and do a hallelujah jig! I rode like that one time; a very short distance. After waking up in the weeds against a chain link fence with pieces of my skin smeared into the asphalt, the realization occurred that I had made a serious miscalculation.
All of the motorcycles in the race were of the same class and virtually same type of construction with very similar horsepower. The difference in the winner and all of the "also rans" was the rider. The winner evidently had more courage and more confidence in his abilities and the potential of his machine. The fastest, most agile motorcycle in the world can't win a race with a rider full of fear and doubt. No chicken men are allowed in the eagle’s nest!
Shiny Side Up  Michael Abadie p28

[Biggles]

Hour after hour, day after day, multiplied thousands of motorcyclists zip up and down the roads in our country, some at breakneck speeds, without ever questioning the mechanical capabilities of the machine between their legs. Truly the faith of the average motorcycle rider is to be highly respected. Having built and rebuilt a few scooters myself over the years, I’ve seen the hundreds of intricate parts that make up the puzzle of the average motorcycle. All of the parts from the tiniest bearing, bushing or circlip, to the tank, forks, swingarm and everything in between, must perform in flawless concert to make the bike carry our carcasses from point A to point B. If a critical one of those parts decides to give up the ghost, the whole thing either sputters, stops, blows up or flies apart Sometimes the truth is just plain ugly, ain't it? However, most of us just climb on, crank it up and blast down the interstate three feet from an 18 wheel behemoth without ever giving a second thought. That, brothers, is faith in action! If the rider's attention was continually centered on what could possibly go wrong, then all the great benefits of riding would be wiped out. Getting on bike would become a masochistic exercise in terror that no one in his right mind would want. But we, because we have biker faith, ride joyously and terror free trusting in and relying on our faithful scooters to take us through all of life's great poker runs.
Shiny Side Up  Michael Abadie p30-1

[Biggles]

My riding buddies and I are chewing at the handle bars in anticipation of the eastbound scoot to join with a zillion of our comrades for the frolic in the sunshine state. As an added treat, there is a dinner and get together for the Iron Butt Association that should prove to be a lot of fun for those of us who are truly smitten with the afflictive disposition for extreme long distance riding.
With the re-emergence of motorcycle season that is now once again upon us, we will all be coming back into contact with friends and acquaintances we haven't seen in awhile. Familiar faces and the renewal relationships usually results in the nice, groovy feelings of the warm fuzzy variety. Some of those old faces are mighty fuzzy too! After a year has lapsed, a considerable amount of water has passed beneath the proverbial bridge; some good and some not so good.
Shiny Side Up  Michael Abadie p79-80

[Biggles]

And how many of us have had to listen to the never ending cries? My Aunt Harriet’s third cousin’s wife bought a bike and on her first ride somebody ran a red light and ripped off both her lips with the tie rod end of a Mercedes.  You'd  better  quit riding those death machines! Isn’t it strange that to some, it s always the fault of the motorcycle? That old chick's permanent smile could have just as easily happened while strutting across the street on foot, but most non-bikers never think of that. The poor old bike always gets the blame, no matter what. But, no matter what, I'm going to enjoy my scooting days while I've got them and I'm not going to allow one of society's fear mongers to steal my joy. So there! If our riding was dependent on public opinions, I'd probably never leave the garage. Those who don't ride don't understand.
Shiny Side Up  Michael Abadie p95

[Biggles]

I'd miss our regular motorcycle-maintenance and beer-drinking sessions and blats into the hills. Dave was a motorcycle journalist. We'd met years earlier. For a long time I’d thought motorcyclists in Sydney were a really friendly bunch; every time I was off the rig and belting around the eastern suburbs on my bike I'd get a wave during rush hour on the big lane split into Bondi. Turned out it was Dave every time, just on a different bike each month. When we finally stopped one day in the same place he explained he'd been waving to me for ages.
'Mate, I always had on the same helmet.' I hadn't noticed.
Is That Thing Diesel?  Paul Carter p6

[Old Steve]

Is That Thing Diesel?  Paul Carter p6

This guy writes a varied range of books.  "Is that thing Diesel?" is about his circumnavigation of Australia on a bike converted to a diesel engine and run on deep fryer oil (I think, but definitely a biofuel anyway).

Other books of his are:

"Don't tell Mum I work on the Rigs, she thinks I'm a piano player in a whorehouse"
"This is not a drill, just another glorious day in the oilfield"

[Biggles]

As I twisted the throttle to get more fuel through the injectors I had to pull on the front brake to stop from lurching forward. Then it hit me, the most amazing aroma of cooking oil. It was an unmistakable food smell, a combination of fish 'n' chips and greasy fry-up. I turned in the saddle and looked down at the light grey smoke puffing in time with the engine’s KA DONK, KA DONK, KA DONK.
Is That Thing Diesel?  Paul Carter p75

[Biggles]

Practice makes perfect, provided of course you have the right parts. I drilled myself over and over again changing tyres, chains, sprockets, filters, the whole lot. Betty and I went for ever longer rides from Perth. I was getting to know her, and discovering that many of her character traits were- how can I put this?- less than ideal. Betty was loud, so loud people walking down the street 50 yards away would turn to see what was making that bizarre noise. This was often followed by an open- mouthed stare and the question: 'Mate, is that thing a diesel?' Riding Betty past a group of people waiting roadside for a bus was a cringe-making, loud, smelly and smoky experience; the combination of her rank green colour, noise and exhaust fumes was as repellent as you could imagine.
Is That Thing Diesel?  Paul Carter p105-6

[Biggles]

I stood in the little examination room staring at the eye chart on the opposite wall and nervously hopping from toe to toe while the doctor sauntered in and casually closed the door, regarding me with a whimsical look. 'Right, you've got an insect in your ear then.'
I twitched, my eyes big and crazy. I closed the gap between us, put both hands on his shoulders. “Get it out, for God's sake.”
He straightened up instantly, all humour gone. “Don't worry, Mr Carter. Over to the bed and sit down, please.” I leaped onto the bed. “Call me Paul. Just get it out, Doc!” He produced one of those black trumpet-shaped scope things with the little light, pulled down on my lobe and poked in the scope. As his head drew close to the lens he jerked back.
'Whoa,' was all I heard.
'What the stuff is it?' I asked.
He put down the scope. “Well, there's a big cockroach in there, but don't worry, first we're going to drown him with oil, then we can remove him.”
“Whaddya mean drown him? It doesn't need to look like an accident- why don't you send in a hit man? Drown him in oil, what do you mean in oil? I work in oil. What kind of oil? Why muck about with a drowning? Just use a gun- even better, there's a meat skewer back at the house. I was raving, but he was already gone. I sat there for what seemed like forever. My new friend, sensing he was in real trouble, began scratching around even harder. The doc came back with a giant turkey baster full of warm vegetable oil. He had to sit on my head to keep me still while a nurse squirted the oil into my ear. The roach went into his death throes while he slowly suffocated. The doc held on while I screamed and bucked wildly. The nurse held the examination bed down while the doc enjoyed his first human-head rodeo; he rode for the full eight seconds before dismounting and straightening out his hair. I lay there twitching in unison with my newly drowned friend.
Is That Thing Diesel?  Paul Carter p120-1

[Biggles]

We ascended through the Madura Pass at nightfall, with rain still falling hard, and pulled up at the motel there. “Try the quiche, it's really good,” said the motel manager as I checked us in. I glanced over to the driveway; Clare was waking up in the cab outside. The manager was a big man with a shaved head, a goatee and a lazy eye. On a night like this one, my first impression was that he had probably just finished digging three shallow graves out in the bush in anticipation of our arrival. It didn't help that the motel was a big spread-out complex at the base of the pass.
Other than us and the manager, it appeared to be totally empty. Our room was at the end of a wing that stretched into darkness. “This place is creepy,” said Clare, looking through the rain as lightning lit up the wet landscape. We unloaded our bags and ran back to the main building for something to eat. The motel manager was there. “Try the quiche,” he grinned. “It's really good.” We sat there in the restaurant alone, not another soul in there. “This place is like an Aussie Bates Motel,” I whispered. Clare looked worried and put on Lola's bib. “He's scary,” she said.
“Are you going to have the quiche? Apparently it's really good.” She pulled a face. The manager returned a moment later with a pad. “I'll have the quiche,” I said, smiling at Clare. Clare had a salad and Lola demolished a big piece of fish.
The quiche was horrible, our night was long, the door had a flimsy lock on it, and Clare was convinced the motel manager was going to burst through the door and hack us up with a fire axe. She was ready to pile up the furniture against the door, but in the end the night was uneventful. The manager was in fact a perfect gentleman with a dry sense of humour and bad taste in quiche.
Is That Thing Diesel?  Paul Carter p122-4

[Biggles]

Our first night's stop was due to be Mount Gambier via Keith. My initial joy at finally being on the road was ephemeral to say the least. The first thing that hit gain- was how slow Betty was. The second thing that hit me- on a highway surrounded by trucks- was the shockwave of wind right after each truck has shot past. My hands were totally numb from the vibrations coming through the bars. Now that's a weird feeling: you know you're holding onto the handlebars, you just can't feel it.
Is That Thing Diesel?  Paul Carter p129

[Biggles]

They could not understand why this guy on a big motorcycle was only doing 80 kilometres per hour. I was in the slow lane, where you can legally do 80, but this just wasn't good enough for the average mild-mannered motorist, most of whom simply defaulted to giving me the finger and/or a verbal serve on passing. I'd had enough, so we turned off the coastal route at Lavers Hill, heading northeast. This country was much better for an underpowered bike. Betty cruised over the Otway Ranges through some really pretty country. The sun came out, the road traffic was light and I started enjoy myself- that is, until the sun went down and we hit the Princes Highway. Back to the road rage and abuse- again with the hand gestures- from fast-moving cars; trucks blew by threatening to suck me from the handlebars. It was impatient driving at its worst. One bloke even threw a kebab at me.
Is That Thing Diesel?  Paul Carter p131-2

[Biggles]

This must be the start of the dreaded Betty-crushing Black Spur, I thought. Eddie swiftly confirmed this over the two-way. “The Black Spur,” he announced. “You're never gonna make it, sucka.” I overtook the truck and put-putted into the most amazing high country forest. Two brand spanking KTMs pulled alongside and Betty got the once-over. There was some pointing, lots of laughing, then they barked the engines, down a gear, on the throttle, front wheels effortlessly airborne- wankers- and off up the straight on the balance point through the gearbox. I couldn't do that; I just didn't have the power the gearbox. But I could enjoy the scenery, hairpin after hairpin straight up into the Yarra Ranges.
Is That Thing Diesel?  Paul Carter p140

[Biggles]

The ride down the other side was a joy, all the same swervery but no longer underpowered so I could finally keep up with all the other bikes enjoying the run. The KTM duo were stuck behind a caravan, deep in conversation, doing twenty. I thumped past, rushing a really silly overtake on the apex of a right hander. No oncoming traffic but an overhanging tree nearly took my head off. Don't look back, just hold her wide open and go. The game was on. I caught flashes of their headlights in my mirrors; Betty's footpegs touched bitumen for the first time. I rode as hard and fast bike would let me. We duelled, always within our lanes, measured, experienced fun, ripping through turn after turn, the bikes well over, jittery on the lean from the leaf litter on the roadside, into the centre line and back, always thinking ahead, always looking towards the exit point and the next setup. No looking back, or they'd know I was trying, no glancing down at gauges or mirrors. We were flying. At the first straight section we came to the duo pulled up, one on either side of me. I was hopelessly out-gunned, out-wheelied and out-braked. We rode on, three in a row down the straight, no hard-faced manly nods or piss taking, just big happy grins.
Is That Thing Diesel?  Paul Carter p141

[Biggles]

In the morning Eddie got up early and fixed us a full cooked breakfast. Dan wanted to go for a ride to get some shots, so he jumped on the back of Betty again. We plodded through a few paddocks, cresting a big hill to pull up right in front of the biggest bull I've ever seen. He was magnificent. It looked like someone had stretched a hide over a drooling city bus.
The big beast blew snot out of nostrils you could fit a fist in. ‘OK mate, we've seen the giant bull, let's move on,' Dan said nervously.
The bull turned and started walking towards us.
'Pauli, let's go, c'mon mate,' Dan said. I pulled off very slowly. Dan didn't think it was funny.
Is That Thing Diesel?  Paul Carter p149

[Biggles]

Rory had obviously done this kind of thing before [made custom leathers]. He talked easily to the camera, he spoke well and knew exactly what he was talking about. He described the ideal fit of a riding suit for professional racers and amateurs, and explained the difference from a rider's point of view in the different suit designs as well as different types of leather. 'Right Paul, if you could hold out your arms like said. I did as I was told, and Rory started taking my measurements, then entering them into his laptop. I was rather enjoying the whole thing, until Rory got to the crotch measurement. 'OK, Paul, I need to get the tape directly on the skin here, so I'll need you to hop out of your jeans.' There was a pause while my mind raced for an answer.
Rory grinned. 'You're not wearing underwear, are you?' I shook my head. Dan looked up from the camera.
'Mate, who goes to a racing suit fitting jockless?' I tried to look penitent. 'Sorry, guys. I've been on the road and just ran out of clean undies.'
Is That Thing Diesel?  Paul Carter p156-7

[Biggles]

Stage three was a straight run up the Pacific Highway through Newcastle with a brief detour through Bucketts Way. It's a popular run tor riders. Some parts of the road are not so great to ride on but at my speed and with all the vibration it didn't really make any difference. We meandered along with the Karuah River past wide paddocks and shaded forest, then turned left at Gloucester and on to Nabiac and the National Motorcycle Museum.
Our stop for the night was a small house in a paddock directly behind the museum. As usual we arrived late. Dad and Phil had spent the day on the road chatting and both looked tired, so Dan and I wandered over to the main entrance of the museum in the dark. A massive bike was displayed out the front. Dan lit up the camera, and its beam cut through the pitch-black interior, bouncing off hundreds of neatly lined up, polished handlebars. 'Wow.' It was an Aladdin's cave in there. I was like a drooling kid outside a toy store window at Christmas. I pushed on the door as if somehow by magic it would open and automatically all the lights would come on, beaming me through the looking glass and into Bike Nirvana.
The door of course remained locked, so I had to wait till morning, but as soon as the museum opened, I was there hopping about like a cartoon rabbit ready to spend my morning soaking up bikes, bikes, more bikes, bike stuff, bike trivia- bike everything. The place didn't I disappoint. I have never seen so many bikes in one place.
Is That Thing Diesel?  Paul Carter p162-3

[Biggles]

By mid-morning we had crossed over into Queensland. By then we were back on the Pacific Highway and I was back to feeling silly each time a big, ballsy, hairy-armed biker sidled up for a look. As I sat in my upright bio-fuel typing-pool riding position, hairy-armed bikers glanced over at me with a mixture of pity and amusement. Seated astride their Harleys in that laid-back, reading-the-weekend-paper-in-the-armchair position they travel past me effortlessly, their bikes sounding like several howitzers going off in unison. Even when bankers, lawyers and brain surgeons skip a weekend shave, get up early, saunter into the garage and throw a leg over their Harley, they get that face on, that look-at-my-bad-arsed-substance face. When they go past me, I can practically hear what they're thinking: I'm cool today baby, but next to this thing I'm really cool. Hey, I think it's a diesel.' I knew that for the entire ride I was never going to bump into another twat riding an irrigation pump. I was never going to go fast enough for anyone to want to ride with me, unless I befriended a retired biker in a cart. I was never going to hear someone say, 'Hey, you have a slow bio-diesel Frankenstein special, so do I- let's be friends.'
Is That Thing Diesel?  Paul Carter p165-6