Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

Folks often ask me why I ride, how it feels, and why I would take off for hours, or even days with no specific destination in mind. I have no easy and quick answer for them. Often it is uncomfortable, lonely, exhausting, and dangerous. It can also be uplifting, sensuous, enlightening, and inspiring. It can be all of these, or something never before experienced and completely unexpected.
 Motorcycling is a part of my life, a part of my soul, but it is so much more than just transportation. Would folks understand if I told them that my soul cries for it? Would they comprehend if I said that how they choose to view the world determines what they experience in it? Would they believe if I cried out that the world is magic? That the mundane threatens to overwhelm only because it is so much easier to find? Could they see? Would they see?
Life Is A Road  Daniel Meyer pxvi

[rally]

 
Phew Biggles,
you sure own this site, must have worn your fingers to the bone, but all interesting.

Rally

[Biggles]

I felt it coming before it actually happened. I let off the throttle and eased toward the left shoulder just before the action started. Hard braking and intense manoeuvring were not going to be effective yet, the standing water and driving rain would see to that. Traffic was suddenly tightening up, and everybody was moving way too fast for the conditions. It goes without saying that they were not giving me any space. This was going to be ugly. Call it intuition, gut feeling, or maybe magic. Whatever it is, once again it called and I listened...and lived.
Suddenly the sound of crunching metal and squealing tires assaulted my ears. An 18-wheeler slid into my lane, covering the space I had just vacated. Barely behind me a mini-van hit the wall. In front of me a pickup slid onto the shoulder backwards, scraping the concrete barrier and sliding along the space in front of me, blocking my avenue of escape. This entire mess was moving at about 60 mph. A hair's breadth separated me from death, and even that piddling distance would not have been there had it not been for my early reactions.
In the dilated time that was spread before me a detached part my brain notes that there is a car sliding in front of the big-rig, and the driver is out of the action completely. She has both hands over her face, and has trusted her fate to her car's ability to drive itself. Probably not good.
All of this mess is sliding together, my small island of space collapsing in on itself with annoying rapidity... I have survived the initial assault, now I must make good my escape.
One chance remains, there is a small space in between the leading (back-wards) pickup, the 18-wheeler, and the driverless car. if I can get through there, I will still be taking my chances that there is not a car in the middle or right lane that will clobber me, but I can think of few things worse than what is coming at the moment.
Life Is A Road  Daniel Meyer p17

[STeveo]

Holy poo bags!!! 

Have heard that calling and survived too.

[Biggles]

Holy poo bags!!! 

Have heard that calling and survived too.

So you don't need to know what happens next, then.     

[Biggles]

I aim vaguely for the hole and mash the back brake. This results in an instant tail slide. Normally this would be setting myself up for one of two conditions- laying the bike down and sliding along with it, or a "high-side" when I let off the brake or scrub off enough speed and the rear wheel grabs again.
In a "high-side", the bike will typically violently straighten up and throw the rider off in the direction of travel. Even if the bike does not land on or tumble over the rider, these are bad. This one would be worse; it would be directly in front of an 18-wheeler. Death and death in this case. The Devil wins. I find that a bit distasteful.
Violently twisting the throttle as she begins to whip around for the high-side. Now I have not done this since my dirt-bike days, and I have never done it on concrete or with a bike that weighs in at about a half a ton with me and fuel, but the result is the most gorgeous power-slide I have ever done. This is a controlled slide, using the power-slipping of the rear wheel to moderate the violence of the bike's attempts to straighten itself out. I do not want to get bucked off directly in the path of a sliding 18-wheeler.
I slide heavily to the right, cross in front of the big truck, over-correct and facing the direction of travel, with The Dragon idling smoothly beneath me. Yep. The Dragon and I understand each other.
Life Is A Road  Daniel Meyer p18-9

[Biggles]

Fifty yards ahead of me where the sliding mess finally came to a stop I see the truck driver running up and down the side or his rig with a flashlight, peering under all the axles. I've a pretty good idea what he is looking for (me) so I toot the horn at him and casually wave as he looks up. He immediately drops the light, grabs his chest with both hands, and nearly falls over backwards. He turned out to be ok (no serious injuries in the wreck either), he was just so sure I was smashed underneath his truck, he said he thought I was the devil himself standing there on my black beast.
 Sometimes the Devil wants to dance.
 I was forced. No choice or quarter was given.
 So I danced with the Devil.
 But I was leading.
Life Is A Road  Daniel Meyer p19

[Biggles]

An engine oil change, tire inspection, final drive oil replacement, new air filter and new brake pads were on the list of things to do. I was also installing yet another set of driving lights so I can actually see the local wildlife just before impact. This required a fair amount of disassembly of the motorcycle and to make the work easier I had the bike on the lift and jacked about ten inches into the air.
I had just finished the final drive oil change, and had dribbled a bit of the amazingly sticky and slippery gear oil on my shirt. Gear oil travels- that's what it is designed to do- and a little bit dribbled somewhere will soon spread all over the place. I wear old, torn up tee shirts when working so I just shrugged, removed my shirt, wiped the rest of the oil off of me, and tossed the shirt into the rag pile.
The heat was really starting to kick up now and I was sweating profusely. Born and bred here in Texas, it rarely bothers me and I just kept right on working. I finished installing the new relay for the lights, and was ready to begin the installation of the light-bar itself.
Those who know me know that I am passionate about my music. While singing along to the inspiring tune from my very good mp3 player in the garage, I retrieved the driving-lights and hardware from the workbench. As I stepped around the bike with the light-bar the music took hold of me and I executed a series of dance steps and maybe even a turn or two.
That was when I realized the wife was watching...
Life Is A Road  Daniel Meyer p75-6

[Old Steve]

Thank you Daniel Meyer for not taking the tale any further ....

Or should that be thank you Biggles for selective editing?

[Biggles]

He left it to our imaginations.
========================

Hmmm. Cool engine, less volatile fuel. I guessed that he was flooded. I also guessed that if the bike did not start with the next try his battery would be gone.
I know bikes and I did not want to try to push start anything in this heat. I still had my hand on his engine, mainly for balance as I was kneeling. "Hold full throttle and try again." At that moment a truck whooshed by and I closed my eyes against the dust just as Kevin pushed the start button. The V-twin instantly grumbled to life. It sputtered a bit on the odd fuel, but it was running.
"Jheeze!" He was looking at me with an odd expression on his face. "Thanks man, I really appreciate this!"
I stood up and headed for my bike. "I'll follow you to the next station.”
I chuckled as I put on my helmet and gloves. As he had driven off I overheard him saying to himself, "Never had someone 'heal' my bike before, nobody's gonna believe this." 
As I followed him to the next exit I started thinking about the events of this encounter from his perspective. If he had not seen me go by the first time, or pulling off the road when I did stop I could see how the entire encounter could appear a bit.. .well.. .surreal.
He fuelled up. “Well thanks again! You've got a nice bike." The massive gleaming black and chrome Valkyrie always gets some comment. "Where are you headed anyway?"
I looked out at the blazing sky, back at the road, took a deep breath, and smiled. "West., .just west."
 I nodded to Kevin and stuck out my hand. "I'll see you on the road!"
As he carefully shook my hand he said, "I don't doubt that at all."
Some miles down the road I burst out laughing. I had just realized I was wearing one of my favourite shirts. A simple black "T" shirt with white lettering. It has a paraphrase from Shakespeare on it... my favourite... kind of my motto, "There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.”
Life Is A Road  Daniel Meyer p86-7

[STeveo]

Good one, "heal my bike".   

[Biggles]

As I passed an oncoming car, a brown furry missile shot out from under it and tumbled to a stop immediately in front of me. It was a squirrel, and must have been trying to run across the road when it encountered the car. I really was not going very fast, but there was no time to brake or avoid it- it was that close.
I hate to run over animals, and I really hate it on a motorcycle, but a squirrel should pose no danger to me. I barely had time to brace for the impact.
Animal lovers, never fear. Squirrels can take care of themselves.
Inches before impact, the squirrel flipped to his feet. He was standing on his hind legs and facing the oncoming Valkyrie with steadfast resolve in his little beady eyes. His mouth opened, and at the last possible second, he screamed and leapt! I am pretty sure the scream was squirrel for, "Banzai!" or maybe, "Die you gravy-sucking, heathen scum!" as the leap was spectacular and he flew over the windshield and impacted me squarely in the chest.
Instantly he set upon me. If I did not know better I would have sworn he brought twenty of his little buddies along for the attack. Snarling, hissing, and tearing at my clothes, he was a frenzy of activity. As I was dressed only in a light t-shirt, summer riding gloves, and jeans this was a bit of a cause for concern. This furry little tornado was doing some damage!
Picture a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a t- shirt and leather gloves puttering maybe 25mph down a quiet residential street.. .and in the fight for his life with a squirrel.
And losing.
I grabbed for him with my left hand and managed to snag his tail. With all my strength I flung the evil rodent off the left of the bike, almost running into the right kerb as I recoiled from the throw.
That should have done it. The matter should have ended right there. It really should have. The squirrel could have sailed into one of the pristinely kept yards and gone on about his business, and I could have headed home. No one would have been the wiser.
But this was no ordinary squirrel. This was not even an ordinary pissed-off squirrel.
This was an evil attack squirrel of death!
Life Is A Road  Daniel Meyer p110-1

[Biggles]

Somehow he caught my gloved finger with one of his little hands, and with the force of the throw swung around and with a resounding thump and an amazing impact he landed square on my back and resumed his rather anti-social and extremely distracting activities. He also managed to take my left glove with him!
The situation was not improved. Not improved at all. His attacks were continuing, and now I could not reach him.
I was startled to say the least. The combination of the force of the throw, only having one hand (the throttle hand) on the handlebars, and my jerking back unfortunately put a healthy twist through my right hand and into the throttle. A healthy twist on the throttle of a Valkyrie can only have one result. Torque. This is what the Valkyrie is made for, and she is very, very good at it.
The engine roared as the front wheel left the pavement. The squirrel screamed anger. The Valkyrie screamed in ecstasy. I screamed in...well...I just screamed.
With the sudden acceleration I was instantly forced to put my other hand back on the handlebars and try to get control of the bike. This was leaving the mutant squirrel to his own devices, but I really did not want to crash into somebody's tree, house, or parked car. Also, I had not yet figured out how to release the throttle...my brain was just simply overloaded. I did manage to mash the back brake, but it had little effect against the massive power of the big cruiser.
About this time the squirrel decided that I was not paying sufficient attention to this very serious battle and he came around my neck and got IN my full-face helmet with me. As the faceplate closed partway and he began hissing in my face, I am quite sure my screaming changed tone and intensity. It seemed to have little effect on the squirrel however.
Life Is A Road  Daniel Meyer p111-2

[STeveo]

I am so pleased we don't have squirrels in Oz.   

[Biggles]

Finally I got the upper hand. I managed to grab his tail again, pulled him out of my helmet, and slung him to the left as hard as I could. This time it worked, sort-of. Spectacularly sort-of, so to speak.
Picture the scene. You are a cop. You and your partner have pulled off on a quiet residential street and parked with your windows down to do some paperwork.
Suddenly a large man on a huge black and chrome cruiser, dressed in jeans, a torn t-shirt flapping in the breeze, wearing one leather glove, moving at some incredibly unsafe speed, on one wheel, and screaming bloody murder roars by and with all his strength throws a live squirrel grenade directly into your police car.
I heard screams. They weren't mine.
I managed to get the big motorcycle under directional control as I dropped the front wheel to the ground. I then used maximum braking and skidded to a stop in a cloud of tire smoke at the stop sign at a busy cross street.
I would have returned to fess up (and to get my glove back). I really would have. Really. But for two things. First, the cops did not seem interested or the slightest bit concerned about me at the moment. One of them was on his back in the front yard of the house they had been parked in front of and was rapidly crab walking- backwards away from the patrol car. The other was standing in the street training a riot shotgun on the police cruiser.
So the cops were not interested in me. They often insist to "let the professionals handle it" anyway. So be it. That was one thing. The other? Well, I swear I could see the squirrel, standing in the back window of the patrol car among shredded and flying pieces of foam and upholstery, and shaking his little fist me. I think he was shooting me the finger.
That is one dangerous squirrel. And now he has a patrol car.
Life Is A Road  Daniel Meyer p112-3

[Biggles]

I stepped outside into the warm winds and my soul cried. If you are a motorcycle rider, as opposed to just a motorcycle owner, there is no way that you can NOT ride on a night like this. I bungied my heavy leather jacket and winter gloves on the back seat, and took off into the night winds in nothing more than t-shirt, jeans, and light leather riding gloves. I grabbed a pair of clear wrap around glasses and left the helmet stabbed onto the backrest.
"Safe" was not a demand of my soul tonight.
Riding the winds north was pure pleasure. The brisk tailwind made the ride calm, quiet, and smooth. The temperature was perfect and as the speeds increased my soul began to sing.
Occasional waves of clouds would briefly obscure the view, but mostly the sky was clear, the stars were intense, and I could see the universe spread out in amazing detail above the highway. This night the atmosphere was so clear I could see galactic clouds with the naked eye. From my perspective the highway led straight into the stars, and I aggressively twisted the throttle and sped into the sky.
Life Is A Road  Daniel Meyer p123

[Biggles]

Another hailstone thumped into the water covered ground nearby, and by the sound of it, was substantially larger than our usual dime and quarter sized stuff. I heard it whistle through the air before impact. The winds rapidly began to climb, a gust nearly blowing me over. This was about to get dangerous.
I eyeballed the tank and gauges on my beloved Dragon, and quickly pulled the bags off the back seat and arranged them to cover the hail-vulnerable parts. Just as I finished I was smashed in the left wrist by at least a three-inch stone. My hand instantly went numb, and I cursed and crouched on the left of the bike as the shooting impacts began raining down around me. This was going to be a bad one. I should have given up protecting the cruiser with the bags and pulled them over me instead, but it was too late for that now.
Life Is A Road  Daniel Meyer p141

[Biggles]

6000th post.

Beaten bloody and senseless, it took quite some time before I was aware of the break in the storm. The first obvious sign was the cessation of noise. I had not realized just how loud the hail on my helmet and the roaring winds were until they stopped. Blessed relief!
Cautiously I dropped the arm from my face and looked around. The sky was amazing. Purple and black clouds were visibly roiling overhead, and I could see white of hail falling like rain some miles away across the water. Everywhere that was not purple was a bright, deep, and somehow familiar green. A green that was not a good sign.
The landscape was even more bizarre. Hail rivers and drifts were everywhere! They made complicated patterns where they had flowed with the heavy runoff, and many could be measured in depths of feet! I could still hear some thunder in the distance, but everything was eerily silent except for the crunching of the settling and flowing hail. Carefully I pushed piles of ice back from my side of the bike and stood up. It took tremendous effort, as my exposed leg was not too keen on supporting my weight, and I had to be careful not to let The Dragon fall as I rose. She was none too steady on her stand.
Life Is A Road  Daniel Meyer p141-2

[Biggles]

I surveyed my situation and would have whistled long and low had I actually been able to whistle. It came out more as spitting blood and an agonized moan as flexing my lip caused my nose to throb in pain. I settled for a grunting, "Wow!" instead. I had stopped merely feet short of a line of large rocks and broken concrete separating the road from the water. I had travelled a number of feet down the shallow embankment from the road and I was within spitting distance of the water. There were drifts of hail against the bike and the rocks that had me pretty well bunched in.
Life Is A Road  Daniel Meyer p142

[Biggles]

Carl Stearns Clancy and Walter Rendell Storey arrived in Dublin on 18 October 1912, all set to conquer the world on their Hendersons. Except for one small but significant detail- Storey had never ridden a motorbike in his life. A fact which even the normally imperturbable Clancy admitted people might find a little queer.
Undeterred by such a hurdle, they did what any men in their right minds would do: saw the sights and went shopping.
They visited the Bank of Ireland in College Green which, until the passing of the Act of Union in 1801, had once housed the Irish Parliament; admired the Book of Kells in Trinity; bought woollen underclothes and waterproof shoes and gloves; and at City Hall registered their machines and secured UK licences for 10 shillings each. Clancy's verdict on Dublin at the end of the day: 'nearly everything at least 50 years behind the times'.
In Clancy’s Boots  Geoff Hill  p2-3

[Biggles]

Then, filling their petrol tanks to the brim for a shilling and seven pence, they set off for Phoenix Park so that Clancy could teach Storey to ride. It was, according to Clancy, a relatively successful lesson, 'By dark, he had mastered his steed completely, but we were compelled to leave our machines in a nearby house till morning, having no carbide in our lamps.’
The next morning, they affixed to the Hendersons two around-the-world pennants made by a pair of charming Irish girls who had befriended them on the transatlantic crossing, mended their clothes and adopted them as brothers, and set off at last on their grand adventure. Only to be stopped before they got to the end of the street by a policeman - 'a beautiful specimen of a gigantic, almost wax "Bobby"' - who insisted they get number plates for their front mudguards.’
In Clancy’s Boots  Geoff Hill  p3

[Biggles]

And then it struck me: there were two things that had not changed a bit. One was the same urge that drove Clancy, me, Gary and all the bikers around us: the unstoppable desire to get on a motorbike and ride off with the sense of infinite possibility we had as children but lose as adults, and in the process forge the sword of our destiny in the crucible of adventure.
Since we were mostly blokes, maybe we were just victims the bugger-off gene, which compels men to bugger off now and again. Resistance is futile.
 And the other thing that had not changed, of course, was Clancy's boots, which were nestled in one of my panniers along with an around-the-world pennant which I would give to Dr Gregory Frazier in San Francisco some months hence.
In Clancy’s Boots  Geoff Hill  p7

[Biggles]

I climbed back on the BMW, filled with admiration for how Clancy had ridden the Henderson on these steep and winding Donegal roads with luggage on the back and Storey on the front; and wondered what he would have made of the sure-footed but nimble GS, never mind our armoured Gore-tex suits and state-of-the art flip-up helmets.
Although the Henderson engine was the fastest and most advanced motorcycle in the world, with a top speed of around 70mph, the 934cc engine made just 7bhp and the bike had only one gear and no front brakes. In comparison, our machines made 110 bhp from only a slightly bigger engine, never mind having traction control, ABS, heated grips, fog lamps, everything from average speed and mpg to the time of high tide in Hong Kong on the dash, and what I imagine would have been most astonishing to him, an electronic suspension system you could toggle on the move between Normal,  Comfort and Sport, and within those modes set it for every riding load from 'Victoria Beckham on Diet' to Two Fat Ladies with Kitchen Sink'.
No, on second thoughts, what would have astonished him most was the fact that to fill the tanks of both Hendersons back in Dublin had cost him a shilling and seven pence, but to do the same with the Beemers worked out at about 92 quid.
In Clancy’s Boots  Geoff Hill  p10-11

[Biggles]

Warmed, fed and watered, we fell gratefully into bed. Gary took turns at keeping each other awake by snoring in shifts, and we rose at seven and were on the road at eight, heading for he balmy south. Before long, the temperature on the dash had climbed to a positively sub-tropical three degrees.
It is, I thought, remarkable how simple the pleasures of motorcycling are. The snow or the rain falls, and you're sad. The sun comes out, and you're happy. You crash and nearly kill yourself, and you're sad. You realise you're lucky to be alive, and you're happy again.
As were Clancy and Storey, for with an equally early start, they made a record 133 miles that day, proceeding speedily along splendid roads past assorted bleak moors, ravines waterfalls and assorted picturesque shepherds with story book crooks minding their enormous flocks, and stopping briefly in Gretna Green.
In Clancy’s Boots  Geoff Hill  p25

[Biggles]

As Gary was setting up his camera to replicate Clancy's photograph, a young man came wandering down the street clutching a coffee and stopped to admire the bikes and their burden of baggage. “You're not just out for the day on those, then,” he said, then turned out to be a biker and IT technician called Oliver Stirling, and the first person we had met on the trip who had actually heard of Clancy. “Read about him in a motorbike magazine. What a fabulous thing to do,” he said, heading off to work as another biker came over.
Bikers are always doing this, which makes travelling by motorcycling such a sociable experience. You don't really find Toyota Corolla drivers wandering over to other Corolla drivers and swapping thrilling tales of another day on the M25.
In Clancy’s Boots  Geoff Hill  p35-6