OzSTOC
General Category => General Discussion => Topic started by: Biggles on March 11, 2024, 11:56:00 PM
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I began posting excerpts from the books I own on September 29, 2012.
In the intervening eleven and a half years there have been some folks join us who may not have seen the series. I'm re-posting the first book's quotations- a real classic by Ted Simon who is one of the trailblazers of the Adventure riding genre. The revived interest for me was caused by my having recently finished reading another book which I'll add after the 30 Jupiter's Travels excerpts. I've just begun a 700+ page saga (which weighs 1.25kg!) co-authored by an Australian rider. FWIW, I have scanned in 2538 excerpts, all but 9 of which you can find in the forum if you look hard enough.
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The idea of traveling round the world had come to me one day in March that year, out of the blue. It came not as a vague thought or wish but as a fully formed conviction. The moment it struck me I knew it would be done and how I would do it. Why I thought immediately of a motorcycle I cannot say. I did not have a motorcycle, even a licence to ride one, yet it was obvious from the start that that was the way to go, and that I could solve the problems involved.
The worst problems were the silly ones, like finding a bike to take the driving test on. I resorted to shameless begging and deceit to borrow the small bike I needed. There was a particularly thrilling occasion when I turned up at the Yamaha factory on the outskirts of London to take a small 125-CC trail bike out "on test." I had my L plates hidden in my pocket, but first I had to get out of the factory gates looking as though I knew how the gears worked. Those were the first and some of the hardest yards, I ever rode; now it can be told.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 17
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Thanks for bringing this back 👍
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I carried out my first-ever major motorcycle overhaul in Alexandria. I found a cavernous garage near Ramilies Station, haggled bitterly over five piastres for the right to work there, and then received many times that amount back in tea, cigarettes, snacks and true friendship from the poor men who struggled to earn a livelihood in that place.
I took two days to do a job that might be done in two or three hours, but every move was fraught with danger. I dared not make a mistake. Already I knew that there would be no chance at all of getting spare parts in Egypt. Both pistons, I found, were deformed by heat, and I had only one spare piston with me (a piece of nonsense which inspired more waves of telepathic profanity to burn the ears of Meriden [UK Triumph company]). The pistons had seized their rings, and I put back the less distorted one after sculpting the slots with a razor blade. It seemed the only thing to do. I prayed that I was right. I had no real idea about what had caused the overheating after only four thousand miles, and felt rather gloomy about it.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 66
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"Yes, yes, yes," they scream and, in a flurry of brown limbs, they fight with the Triumph up a gangplank, over a rail into a narrow gangway, through hatches, over sills and bollards, four hundred pounds of metal dragging, sliding, flying and dropping among roars and curses and pleas for divine aid, while I follow, helpless and resigned. Finally the bike is poised over the water between the two boats. The outstretched arms can only hold it, but they cannot move it, and it is supported, incredibly, by the foot brake pedal, which is caught on the ship's rail. Muscles are weakening. The pedal is bending and will soon slip, and my journey will end in the fathomless silt of Mother Nile. At this last moment, a rope descends miraculously from the sky dangling a hook, and the day is saved.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 73
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"Yes, yes, yes," they scream and, in a flurry of brown limbs, they fight with the Triumph up a gangplank, over a rail into a narrow gangway, through hatches, over sills and bollards, four hundred pounds of metal dragging, sliding, flying and dropping among roars and curses and pleas for divine aid, while I follow, helpless and resigned. Finally the bike is poised over the water between the two boats. The outstretched arms can only hold it, but they cannot move it, and it is supported, incredibly, by the foot brake pedal, which is caught on the ship's rail. Muscles are weakening. The pedal is bending and will soon slip, and my journey will end in the fathomless silt of Mother Nile. At this last moment, a rope descends miraculously from the sky dangling a hook, and the day is saved.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 73
Could have spoiled his day, big time!
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Thanks for these posts. Although I have read this book a couple of times it is still a good read to have again.
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It was plainly impossible to move the bike, so I began to unload it. I noticed immediately that my water bag was empty, the plastic perforated, the contents drained away. Well at least l had a litre of distilled water. With all the luggage off I glanced in the gas tank. Had it been possible at this stage to shock me, I would have been shocked. There was only a puddle of gasoline left, hardly a gallon. My fuel consumption was twice what it should have been, and when I thought about it, that was perfectly natural. Grinding along in second gear over a loose surface in such heat, it is what you would expect. Only I, of course, had not expected it.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 82
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Scooping the sand out by hand took half an hour, but I managed to make a lane back to the firmer ground. There was a bit of brush growing on the dunes, and I paved my lane with twigs. Then, inch by inch, I was able to haul the bike back to where I wanted it. Again I had lost a lot of sweat, and I got the water bottle out. It was warm to the touch. I put it to my lips, and then spat vigorously on the ground, mustering as much of my own good saliva as I could. The bottle contained acid.
Battery acid.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 82
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Ahhh…..familiarity :beer
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If falling were a competitive sporting event, I would be a champion. Sometimes, on deeply rutted tracks like the one between Gedaref and Metema, it was impossible to avoid a fall.
(Getting it up again) was an exhausting exercise because I could not lift the bike without unpacking everything first.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 92
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I have had one more soft fall, but each jerk on the wheel pulls the muscle in my left shoulder and prevents it from healing. I feel no hunger, no thirst. I am absolutely wrapped up in this extraordinary experience, in the unremitting effort, in the marvellous fact that I am succeeding, that it is at all possible, that my worst fears are not just unrealized but contradicted. The bike, for all its load, is manageable. I seem to have, after all, the strength and stamina to get by, and my reserves seem to grow the more I draw upon them.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 95
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Why you? Why were you chosen to ride through the desert while other men are going home from the office?
Chosen? I thought I chose myself. Were Odysseus and Jason, Columbus and Magellan chosen?
That is a very exalted company you have summoned up there. What have you got in common with Odysseus, for God's sake?
Well, we're all just acting out other people's fantasies, aren't we? Maybe we're not much good for anything else.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 96
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The road to Gedaref is worse. Much worse. Worse than anything I imagined. At times, in fact, I believe it is impossible, and consider giving up. The corrugations are monstrous.
Six-inch ridges, two feet apart, all the way with monotonous, shattering regularity. Everything on the bike that can move does so. Every bone in every socket of my body rattles. Not even the most ingenious fairground proprietor could devise a more uncomfortable ride. I feel certain it must break the bike. I try riding very slowly, and it is worse than ever. Only at fifty miles an hour does the bike begin to fly over ridges, levelling out the vibration a little, but it is terribly risky. Between the ridges is much loose sand. Here and there are sudden hazards. The chances of falling are great, and I am afraid of serious damage to the bike.
Yet I feel I must fly, because I don't think the machine will survive eighty miles of this otherwise. It is hair-raising and then it becomes impossible again. The road swings to the west and the sun burns out my vision. I realize I must stop and make camp.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 100
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Why don't the tires tear to shreds under all this punishment? Why no punctures? I think a puncture might finish me, I'm so beat. Why doesn't the Triumph just die? Unlike me, it has no need to go on. It protests and chatters. On one steep climb it even fainted, but after a rest it went to work again. I hate to think what havoc is being wrought inside those cylinders.
We have such a long way to go.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 102
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It is clear that the bike can barely cope with the combination of load, work and heat. The road is scarred and ripped to rubble. It's like following the track of some stumbling monster of destruction. Halfway up a particularly hard climb, I lose momentum and the bike simply dies on me. I don't know what's happened, what to do. I wait awhile and kick it over. It starts and revs up fine in neutral, but when I engage the clutch it dies on me again. I am quite near the top of the hill, and I unload the heaviest boxes and carry them up myself. Then I ride the bike up, and load again. The plugs and timing are O.K. What else can I do but cross my fingers, and try to keep up momentum.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 106
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The best trick in my repertoire was provided by a company called Schrader in Birmingham. They made a valve with a long tube which I could screw into the engine instead of a spark plug. As long as you had at least two cylinders, you could run the engine on one and the other piston would pump up your tire. So I was able to pump up my tube, and it seemed all right.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 129
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Clever, although a modern engine would probably throw an error 😄
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....a company called Schrader in Birmingham....made a valve....
We all have a couple of those on our motorbikes.
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....a company called Schrader in Birmingham....made a valve....
We all have a couple of those on our motorbikes.
In the tyres' valve mechanism- just a different application at a smaller scale.
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I waved to him and he stopped beside me.
"Can you help me, I wonder..." I said.
"Absolutely," he said. "Most definitely. I see you are having trouble, isn't it. A spot of bother."
" Well, my tire's flat..." and I went on to explain.
"I will introduce you to Mr. Paul Kiviu," he burst out enthusiastically. "Definitely he is the very man of the moment. He is manager BP station Kibwezi Junction and he is my friend."
Mercifully the road was level at that point. As I pushed the loaded bike along on its flat tire, Pius bobbed around me like a butterfly, calling encouragement, imploring me to believe that my troubles would soon be over. His good nature was irresistible and I began to believe him. In any case I was happy that something was happening and I was in touch with people. At the time it seemed to me that what I wanted was to have my problem solved quickly and to get on my way. I had a boat to catch in Cape Town and the journey was still the main thing. What happened on the way, who I met, all that was incidental. I had not quite realized that the interruptions were the journey.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 130
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In the tyres' valve mechanism- just a different aplication at a smaller scale.
Yes, but I suppose they work in opposite directions.
I didn't know (or at least that I recall) of the Schrader valve until I had my bicycle shop (back in the 90's). As kids, we referred to them as American valves.
Bloody septics, think they invented everything.
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My confidence in the Triumph has gone beyond surprise and gratitude. I now rely on it without question, and it seems past all coincidence that on this last day, the unseen fate working itself out in the cylinder barrel should manifest itself. It is not I who am looking for significance in these events. The significance declares itself unaided. Just beyond Trichardt, in the morning, the power suddenly falters and I hear, unmistakably, the sound of loose metal tinkling somewhere; but where? Although the power picks up again, I stop to look. The chain is very loose. Could it have been skipping the sprockets? I tighten the chain and drive on. Power fails rapidly and after about smell of burning. Is it the clutch? It seems to have seized, because even in neutral it won't move.
Two friendly Afrikaners in the postal service stop their car to supervise, and their presence irritates me and stops me thinking. I remove the chain case to look at the clutch, a good half hour's work. Nothing wrong, and then my folly hits me. I tightened the chain and forgot to adjust the brake. I've been riding with the rear brake on for four miles, and the shoes have seized on the drum. Apart from anything else, that is not the best way to treat a failing engine. I put everything together again and set off, but the engine noise is now very unhealthy. A loud metallic hammering from the cylinder barrel. A push rod? A valve? I'm so near Jo'burg, the temptation to struggle on is great. At Pietersburg I stop at a garage.
The engine oil has vanished.
"That's a bad noise there, hey!" says the white mechanic, and calls his foreman over.
"Can I go on like that?"
"As long as it's not too far. You'll use a lot of oil."
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 169
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I spend two days at Naboomspruit working on the engine. The crankcase is full of broken metal. The con rod is scarred, the sump filter in pieces, the scavenge pipe knocked off centre. The sleeve of the bad cylinder is corrugated. I have kept the old piston from Alexandria, and put it back thinking it might get me as far as Jo'burg. With everything washed out and reassembled, the engine runs, but no oil returns from the crankcase.
The second day I spend on the lubrication system, picking pieces out of the oil pump. On Sunday, in bright sunshine, I set off again, for twenty blissful miles before all hell breaks loose. The knocking and rattling is now really terrible. I decide that I must have another look, and by the roadside I take the barrel off again and do some more work on the piston and put it back again. By now I am really adept and it takes me four hours.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels pp 169-170
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Joe's Motorcycles on Market Street, as agents for Meriden, took the engine to pieces again and sent me off with a rebored barrel, two new pistons, a new con rod, main bearings, valves, idler gear and other bits and pieces. The broken metal had penetrated everywhere and again I was struck by the force of the coincidence that all this havoc had been wrought virtually within sight of Johannesburg. I was very susceptible to "messages" and wondered whether someone was trying to tell me something, like, for example, "I'll get you there, but don't count on it."
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 171
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Calling at a gas station is an event, particularly on a motorcycle with a foreign number plate. In southern Africa everyone plays the number-plate game. You can tell instantly where each one comes from; C for Cape Province, J for Johannesburg, and so on. My plate begins with an X, a mystery all the deeper because some pump attendants belong to the Xhosa tribe. Peeling off damp layers of nylon and leather, unstrapping the tank bag to get to the filler cap, fighting to get at the money under my waterproof trousers which are shaped like a clown's, chest high with elastic braces, I wait for the ritual conversation to begin.
"Where does this plate come from, baas?" asks the man.
"From England."
A sharp intake of breath, exhaled with a howl of ecstasy. "From England? Is it? What a long one! The baas is coming on a boat?"
"No," I reply nonchalantly, knowing the lines by heart, relishing them rather. "On this. Overland."
Another gasp, followed by one or even two whoops of joy. The face is a perfect show of incredulity and admiration.
"On this one? No! Uh! I can't. You come on this one? Oh! It is too big."
I am learning, as I make my way through my first continent, that it is remarkably easy to do things, and much more frightening to contemplate them.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 176
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The great freeways sweep me on past Stellenbosch and Belleville towards the ocean, into the suburbs of Cape Town, winding me down effortlessly and without error as though on an automatic flight path to the heart of the old city and setting me down in the plaza beside the ocean. My joy is almost hysterical as I park the bike, walk slowly over the paving towards a cafe table and sit down. I have just ridden that motorcycle 12,245 miles from London, and absolutely nobody here, watching me, knows it. As I think about it I have a sudden and quite extraordinary flash, something I never had before and am never able to recapture again. I see the whole of Africa in one single vision, as though illuminated by lightning. And that's it. I've done it. I'm at peace.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels pp 180-181
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Mourning becomes electrics*. Among the dunes and bushes of a camp site at La Plata, south of Buenos Aires, I searched for an electrical fault. I never found it, but when I put everything together again, furious and frustrated, the fault disappeared. Not an uncommon experience.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 267
*Allusion to Eugene O'Neill 1931 play and subsequent movie "Mourning Becomes Electra".
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So far, on my journey I had learned scrupulously to resist travelling as though to a destination. My entire philosophy depended on making the journey for its own sake, and rooting out expectations about the future. Travelling in this way, day by day, hour by hour, trying always to be aware of what was present and to hand, was what made the experience so richly rewarding. To travel with one's mind on some future event is is futile and debilitating.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 307
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I was particularly interested in Pete because he had just ridden a three-cylinder Kawasaki on almost the same route from Rio to Panama as I had taken.
"Remember that bridge coming into Ecuador?" he asked.
There was only one bridge he could have meant. It was built like a railroad track, but with planks instead of rails to take the wheels of cars. The sleepers were set about eighteen inches apart, and there was nothing between them but air, and only river beneath. It might not have been so bad if the planks had not kept changing direction, so that it was impossible to build up any momentum. I had fallen halfway across and was lucky not to have gone through into the river. Bob and Annie had also fallen on their Norton.
"Sure I do," I said. "I fell on it." He howled, and grabbed my hand.
"Me too, pal. Which way did you fall?"
"Into the middle."
"Jesus. I only fell against the side. Boy, that was some ride. I'm really glad I met you pal."
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 309
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The bike is tired also, but that is only a figure of speech. I do not credit the bike with feelings. If it has a heart and soul of its own I have never found them. People I meet are often disappointed that the bike does not even have a name. They often suggest names ("The Bug" is top favorite) but none of them seem to do anything for the bike or for me. For me it remains a machine, and every attempt to turn it into something else strikes me as forced and silly.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 314
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Suddenly I realize that I have wandered into the middle of the road, and look up to find a huge truck bearing down on me out of the rainstorm. It is far too late for me to react, and it is entirely by chance that the truck misses me, by a hair's breadth. As I realize what I did, how close I came to being literally wiped out, obliterated, I feel that fearful rush of heat and cold sweat that makes the heart nearly burst, and feel immensely grateful for the warning while wishing I knew to whom to be grateful. A God would come in useful at times like that.
I can count only two other times when I came so close to an end. I must be really tired at the back of my skull. I must be careful. I must never let that happen again.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 315
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By the time l got to Mexico City one cylinder was smoking just as it had in Alexandria, but this time I was better prepared. I had two spare pistons with me, both oversize so that I could rebore if necessary. Was it necessary with only three thousand miles to go? This time though, a friendly Triumph agent was there with all the equipment and the will to help. It seemed silly not to take advantage. Friends of Bruno put me up; Mr. Cojuc, the agent, did the rebore; I put it together again in his workshop, if for no other reason than the close contact this gave me with Mexican workers made the experience worthwhile.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 316
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The coast road north of Sydney is called the Pacific for 650 miles until it gets to Brisbane. Then it becomes the Bruce Highway. Another five hundred miles north is Rockhampton, right on the Tropic of Capricorn. I crossed the tropic (for the sixth time on my journey) four days before Christmas and headed on for Mackay.
Since Brisbane the arid summer of the south had been giving way slowly to the tropical rainy season of Queensland. In the southern droughts the cattle died of thirst. In the north they drowned and floated away on the floods. Australia runs to extremes.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 341
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If the Nullarbor was not an ordeal, it was perhaps a last straw. Bouncing over it was too much for the spokes of the rear wheel. After all they had been through in two and a half years. I had been warned. In Melbourne and again in Adelaide I had replaced broken spokes, and I checked them every time I stopped for the day. At Eucla, where the dirt ended and the highway began they were still in order. The smooth tar enticed me to greater speed. After five hundred miles, just before Norseman, I noticed a growing vibration through the steering head. I stopped in the absolute nick of time.
Only four of the twenty spokes on one side of the wheel were left, and the rim was a terrible twisted shape. A few seconds more and it would certainly have collapsed. I shuddered to think of the mangled mess that that would have left. As it was, I spent one of the nastiest hours of the journey rebuilding the wheel in a twilight plagued by squadrons of vicious mosquitoes.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 363-4
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The journey continued, as it always had, with this close inter-weaving of action and reflection. I ate, slept, cursed, smiled, rode, stopped for gas, argued, bargained, wrote and took pictures. I made friends with some Germans, and some English, and some Indians. I learned about mushrooms, potatoes, cabbages, golden nematodes, Indian farmers and elephants.
The thread connecting these random events was The Journey. For me it had a separate meaning and existence; it was the warp on which the experiences of each successive day were laid. For three years I had been weaving this single tapestry. I could still recall where I had been and slept and what I had done on every single day of travelling since The Journey began. There was an intensity and a luminosity about my life during those years which sometimes shocked me.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 406
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And why else should I find myself now having my future told to me at a Rajput wedding?
"You are Jupiter," he said. Of all the gods in the pantheon, Jupiter is the one I fancy most. A lovely name, Jupiter, like cream and honey in the mouth. And a sense of great distance and closeness at the same time. He was a rainmaker, and I have definitely made my share of rain. I rained all over the Southern Hemisphere in unprecedented quantities. Then he was famous for his thunder, which is appropriate too for a god on a motorcycle, and (if it's fair to mix him up a bit with Zeus) then I like the idea of appearing in all those disguises. I have been changing my shape quite often as well. All in all I would quite like to be Jupiter, if it is not too late...
"You are Jupiter," he said, and for a flash I was, "but for seven years you have been having conflict with Mars." Of course. It was a misunderstanding. He was talking about the planet.
"This troubling influence will go on for two more years." His grip on my hand remained firm and convincing, and I did not resist. I wanted it to be important.
"During these two years, you will have two accidents. They will not be major accidents, but they will not be minor either." Really, I thought, that's stretching my credulity a bit. I hardly need a fortuneteller to predict accidents, with ten thousand miles still to ride. But he did say two. Not major? Not minor?
"After this period, when you are no longer influenced by Mars, it will be well. You will have great success and happiness."
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 421-2
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I was carrying rice from Iran, raisins and dried mulberries from Afghanistan, tea from Assam, curry spices from Calcutta, stock cubes from Greece, halva from Turkey and some soya sauce from Penang.
In a polythene screw-top bottle bought from a shop in Kathmandu was the rest of the sesame-seed oil I had bought in Boddhgaya. The rice and raisins were in plastic boxes from Guatemala. My teapot was bought at Victoria Falls, and my enamel plates were made in China and inherited from Bruno at La Plata. A small box of henna leave leaves from Sudan, a vial of rose water from Peshawar and some silver ornaments from Ootacamund were all tucked into a Burmese lacquered bowl. This in turn sat inside a Russian samovar from Kabul. The tent and sleeping bag were original from London, but the bag had been refilled with down in San Francisco. I had a blanket from Peru and a hammock from Brazil. I was still wearing Lulu's silver necklace and an elephant-hair bracelet from Kenya. The Australian fishing rod was where the sword from Cairo had once sat, and an umbrella from Thailand replaced the one I had lost in Argentina.
By far the most valuable of all my things was a Kashmiri carpet, a lovely thing smothered in birds and animals to a Shiraz design, but it would have been hard to say which of my possessions was the most precious.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 443
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(It was predicted Ted Simon would have an accident, "not major, not minor". He rode 60,000 around the world and it didn't happen. Then...)
In the South of France near Avignon, I came to a crossing. There were no traffic lights, and I was on the minor road. I stopped the bike completely and looked up and down the major road. I saw no traffic, and set out to cross it. I could hardly have been doing five miles an hour when I saw myself within yards of a big van coming straight for me very fast. It should have hit me side-on and I would undoubtedly have been killed if it had, but I braked and the driver didn't, and so his van was just past my front wheel when I hit it. The bike was torn away from underneath me, and the front end was smashed beyond repair. I fell on the tarmac with all the bones in my body shaken in their sockets, but otherwise unharmed.
The worst was having to face that I could look directly at a speeding van and not see it. My confidence was more shattered even than the bike. After all that I had done, with all the care I was taking, I could not explain how I could ride blindly into such a disaster. If ever an accident qualified as "not major and not minor" that was it.
Ted Simon Jupiter's Travels p 446
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Everything went wrong immediately.
I accidentally started in second gear, which meant that my bike began to chug forward without the much-needed stability of smoothly rotating tires. Not realizing this, I gave my bike more gas, and it lunged forward- but standing on the foot pegs as I was, this abrupt spurt of speed threw me off balance, and as I fell backwards, my grip on the handlebars pulled the throttle open even more. The net effect of standing up on my pegs, pulling back on my handlebars while riding up a steep hill at speed was that there was almost no weight on the front tire- and consequently I couldn't steer.
In these desperate moments of motorcycling, you have a split-second decision to make: jump from the bike and save yourself or try to ride it out, gambling that your abilities can save you and the bike. Unless you are about to ride off a cliff or into a cement wall, everyone chooses the second option.
The Great Pan American Motorcycle Expedition Jesse & Jessica Eyer p3
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For anyone who didn't realise, yesterday's post is the first of a new series from a book you haven't seen before.
Within 20 minutes, the man was back and the pedal, looking brand new— was re-installed. The total cost? $12 US. We thanked them profusely, hopped on our bikes and rode back out onto the main road. Moments later Jessica said "Something's wrong! My bike has no power!" With a groan, we started to pull over, fully prepared for a new motorcycle disaster. Then Jessica exclaimed, "Ah-ha! They installed the pedal upside down. I was shifting into the wrong gear." From neutral, you normally shift down for first and then up for the rest of the gears. The idea is that, if you're screeching to a stop and your left foot is madly shifting down, you'll eventually end up in first, not neutral— and be able to roar away if you need to. With her pedal installed upside down, Jessica now had to shift up for first and down for the rest of her gears— just like a racing bike. Within 10 minutes she grew accustomed to the new shifting style and never looked back.
The Great Pan American Motorcycle Expedition Jesse & Jessica Eyer pp46-7
(I personally can't imaging how the selector pedal could have been installed in this way except by having it at your heel rather than toe.)
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We met up with Kerman and Jann several hours later. To our surprise, they also met the two KLR-riding Aussies, Adrian and Tim, and invited them out as well. Adrian and Tim knew of several other adventure riders in town, who, it turned out, knew several others and so on. In the end, 14 of us ate dinner together that night, all of us on the same crazy motorcycle trip from various parts of North America to Argentina. It was an astounding coincidence that, after seeing no other bikers for so long, we all encountered each other that night in Antigua; none of us actually arranged to meet there. The group was filled with the best kind of riders: friendly, interesting, from all walks of life and filled with stories of adventure and good advice for riding.
Tim and Adrian, the Aussies, had begun in LA where Adrian had been working for several years. They were friends from high school who always wanted to do a crazy adventure together. Adrian was an engineer with amazing technical insight into almost any motorcycle-related problem. Tim was a pharmacist, and like Jessica and I, had only been riding for about a year, but was utterly fearless when it came to tackling dodgy Latin American roads. We'd team up with Tim and Adrian later on in our trip, but we didn't know that yet...
The Great Pan American Motorcycle Expedition Jesse & Jessica Eyer pp83-4
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The plan was to cross the Panama border that day and make it as far as David, the closest city on the Panama side, so we grudgingly pulled on our wet jackets and ventured back out into the damp, thick soup that hung over the world.
Finally, after what seemed an eternity, we began to descend and started to notice small changes that hinted at lower altitudes and warmer air, although everything was still dripping with water. Just as I stopped shivering, Jesse gave out a yell of surprise and slammed on his brakes. I skidded to a stop beside him and we looked out on the strangest sight we'd ever seen. Standing just off the road was an old Mexican airliner, parked in the middle of a jungle clearing with no indication as to how it got there. With mist swirling around its fuselage, the jungle foliage encroaching, and a few locals sitting idly in the open doorways, it was a bizarre sight.
Eventually we broke free of the clouds and headed for the Coastal Road, a 70 km stretch of the Pan American that, compared to the roads we had been riding on for the past month, looked like a super highway. We felt like we were hurtling down the highway at neck-break speeds, but in reality, we were only going 110km/h. After spending over a month at less than 60km/h the speed made me feel giddy.
The Great Pan American Motorcycle Expedition Jesse & Jessica Eyer pp130-1
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The Ecuadorian crossing was a breeze. While Jessica handled the paperwork, I dutifully watched the bikes, ate watermelon and chatted with a collection of locals and adventure bikers who were passing through. There was an old Irish gentleman, well into his 70's, riding a 1972 Goldwing two-up with his considerably younger Thai wife. There was an American riding a BMW GS Adventure with his enormously fat Argentinean friend on an equally expansive 2011 Goldwing. They were carrying an obscene amount of luggage— in addition to a spare front and rear tire, each of them had a second helmet, 3 spare visors, 2 sets of motorcycle jackets and over 20 litres of gasoline in jerry cans.
"You gotta be prepared!" the American exclaimed. "I'd never been south of the border, so I figured there might be nowhere to buy spare parts or equipment. Better to be self-sufficient than sorry, am I right?" I was sorely tempted to ask him if he still thought Latin America was the Third World wasteland he'd imagined. One major lesson we took away from our motorcycle trip was the benefits to traveling light. When you're on a motorcycle with minimal luggage, it allows the bike to be lighter and more maneuverable. If something breaks along the way, it can usually be picked up in any major city. When traveling without motorcycles, packing light enables you to simply bring a carry-on onto aircraft and just makes the entire travel experience that much easier and more pleasant. Packing light does require a bit of skill, experience and often specialized, multi-purpose equipment, but it's a great travel philosophy to adopt.
The Great Pan American Motorcycle Expedition Jesse & Jessica Eyer pp169-70
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Troy, the taller of the two, had apparently grown weary of his life of first-world luxury in Vancouver, and on a whim, had decided to ride southward on his old, beat-up Kawasaki KLR one winter's day. He'd ended up meeting Nate— who was currently sporting two black eyes— in Mexico, just in time for Nathan to have a magnificent motorcycle wreck during a Day of the Dead celebration in a small pueblo. Nate had badly broken his collarbone, so after storing the mangled motorcycle in the 4th story apartment of a friendly local (first things first, right?), they had rushed to the hospital. Rather than arrange for a medivac back to Canada, Nate had opted for on-the-spot surgery, whereupon a doctor with an electric drill had re-assembled his collarbone with a few screws and a strip of barely sanitized metal. The scars Nathan showed us were a mass of lumpy, discolored flesh. They had subsequently found out that particular hospital had one of the highest rates of patient mortality in all of Mexico. Later, in Colombia, Nate and Troy had gone out on the town to party with some locals (something we had carefully avoided) and had ended up drugged, beaten up and robbed— hence Nathan's two black eyes.
The Great Pan American Motorcycle Expedition Jesse & Jessica Eyer p188
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From Nazca we headed directly into the Andes towards Cusco, the ancient capital of the Incas which they had dubbed "the navel of the world". The route was long and winding— it took us two full days of riding— but it proved to be some of the most spectacular motorcycling of the entire trip. The road was fabulously paved and, within the first two hours, it wound up from the coastal desert to an arid, starkly beautiful tableland. We passed a towering white mountain of sand: Cerro Blanco, the world tallest sand dune at 1176 meters. Initially the air was warm and pleasant and we rode in our mesh jackets with just t-shirts underneath. The temperature dropped as the road continued upwards and the dry landscape eventually gave way to the altiplano, the grassy, high altitude plain that crowns the Andes. Further up we wound, eventually topping out at a breathless 4600 meters (15,000 ft), the highest point we would ride our motorcycles on the entire trip. The air had a funny, crystal clear light to it, and we had the impression we were motorcycling on the roof of the world. And it was cold.
The Great Pan American Motorcycle Expedition Jesse & Jessica Eyer p205
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The road to Valparaiso was fantastic: great pavement, winding twists and turns and, most importantly, reasonable speed limits. One of the things we appreciated the most about riding in Chile was the fact that their speed limits were realistic maximum safe speeds for each type of road. We never sped in Chile; it actually felt unsafe to go much faster than the speed limit. They even had provisions for bad weather and heavy traffic. Coming from Canada where, at the slightest complaint from an individual, road speeds are changed arbitrarily and without any consideration to the type of road it may be, it was refreshing to see that the Chileans had put some thought behind their traffic laws. Their chevron system was pure genius. Three successive chevrons are painted at intervals in each lane. If you can see all three chevrons (i.e. traffic is light and/or visibility is good), you can go the posted speed limit. If only two chevrons are visible, it is assumed that traffic has become dense or the weather/darkness has reduced the visibility, and therefore you are required to drive slower; and if only one is visible at a time, slower still. I wondered why Canadians didn't implement the same type of system.
The Great Pan American Motorcycle Expedition Jesse & Jessica Eyer pp244-5
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Headlights in my rearview mirror alerted me that someone was about to pass. Despite the hazard it posed to us, I couldn't really blame them: we were crawling along at about 40 km/h and weaving around as if we were drunk. I warned Jessica, and then, to my horror, I realized that it was a tour bus. As it drew abreast of me, it acted as a windbreak and in a split second the stabilizing force of the gale on my left vanished. I had been leaning at such a hard angle that the motorcycle abruptly turned to the left as if I was leaning through a corner. I jerked the bike upright just in time, narrowly avoiding a collision with the bus. And then, just as quickly, the bus was past me and the wind returned at full force, slamming me back across the road to the right.
"Brace yourself!" | shouted to Jessica and then I watched helplessly as she repeated the perilous maneuver I had just survived.
"This is insane!" Jessica cried. "How much further do we have to the gas station?"
I glanced down at my odometer— and realized a new problem had entered the fray. The wind was hitting us from ahead and to the left, and the extra wind resistance was killing our mileage. I watched in disbelief as my fuel gauge dropped by l/6th and then minutes later dropped again. We were only about 15 minutes into the ordeal and had ridden less than 40 km into our 110 km journey from the crossroads to the gas station, and already I was down to l/6th of a tank left. Seconds later, Jessica confirmed the problem.
"Jess, my fuel warning light just switched on."
That meant that, under normal circumstances, we had a remaining range of about 70-80 km. Under the current conditions— I didn't want to hazard a guess. Running out of gas in this wind would be a disaster since, without our forward momentum to keep the bikes upright, we would be blown over the moment we stopped.
The Great Pan American Motorcycle Expedition Jesse & Jessica Eyer p262
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They survived.
You want more, you gotta buy the book! ;-*
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Well known Australian Ironbutt rider, Ian McPhee and legendary US woman Ironbutter Wendy Crockett wrote about their record breaking ride in a 780 page tome "Pushing Miles". I'll let you have a taste here.
We stayed for a few minutes longer than we probably should have, with the clock ticking persistently in the back of our minds, but the timing was just too perfect. We both love watching the sunrise, and this one was far too gorgeous to admire with furtive glances over our shoulders at 130 km/h. I took a few pictures and lamented, not for the first or last time, that I would never be a good enough photographer to capture the true essence of this place in this moment. It rarely stopped me from trying, but even as lovely as those pictures are, they simply can't convey the weight of the heavy blanket of night being shaken off by the eager sun, the silence only being broken by the soft sounds of unseen creatures waking up for the day or shuffling off to sleep. One of those moments that you simply have to absorb and appreciate, and hope your memory never lets go of that beauty.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p76
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And the wind! The wind was unbelievable. It was fortuitous that almost nobody else was on the road, because we struggled to keep our bikes between the two shoulders, let alone within our lane. Half the raindrops were stabbing painfully at our exposed skin, and the other half were coming down in buckets. We couldn't see the road; we could barely see each other. It felt like we were drowning. We knew we had to slow down, and we did a little, painfully aware of the precariousness of our current situation. We simply did not have enough time to be safe.
Then came the construction zone. I vaguely remember hitting miles upon miles of dirt road on the way up, but back then it was a sunny day and hard-packed clay. Tonight it was a mud pit. We couldn't see anything; we couldn't even feel if we left the bitumen and hit the dirt shoulder because now it was all dirt. If we got too close to the edge, we'd find out when we fell off. I felt my rear wheel squirm and pitch; I regained a modicum of stability and slowly decreased my speed. Ian quickly disappeared into the airborne sea ahead of me. I tucked tight behind my windscreen in an attempt to find some respite from the onslaught and found myself face-to-face with my GPS which was screaming that, unless we made some serious changes, we were now all but certain to miss the ferry to Tasmania. Damn it.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee pp95-6
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The entire gathering was like that. Almost everyone had set out in the rain and almost everyone had experienced the types of misadventures that would make your typical bikers hang up their helmet for the day. But here we were, all having battled the elements in one way or another just to stand around, covered in mud, and chat with far-flung friends for an hour or two before saddling up and doing it all again on the way home.
The gathering wrapped up with a little speech, where I received a little gift pack including IBA Australia swag, so that was awesome. My FarRider number is/was now 1196, a number possibly consigned to history as the FarRider group was sold and promptly disbanded shortly after this ride. By all accounts I had the third-to-last FarRider number ever assigned, which makes me all the more pleased that we were able to make it happen. One more round of hugs and goodbyes, then we were off.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p171
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Unbeknownst to us at the time, that hadn't actually given us any useful info. (For all of you playing along at home, that makes four faulty jumper boxes on two continents; Ian neglected to mention that the two boost boxes I'd left in the Tahoe were also dead.) It's a nightmare getting into the battery on an R1100RT, so Ian got to work on that while I tore down the alternator belt housing to assess. The belt was still intact, if a bit squeally, but it was immediately evident that he'd picked up a bunch of rocks and gravel in the housing which had peeled a rib off the belt. Knowing that the belt wasn't our pertinent critical failure, and lacking torque wrenches to do the job properly, we elected to run with that belt. We tested the battery directly and it seemed good, which led me to suspect the starter. We gave it another try with the boost box and it started right up; again in retrospect, we now know it was the manual rotation of the engine and starter that did the job, not the boost box, but it led to us being unsure of the offending component.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p233
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"Oh, man - it's you guys! You've got to be freezing! I was having a tough time with the wipers going, I don't know how you're doing it. How much farther are you going?" He kind of trailed off as my frosty brain was still slowly processing all of this, then he said, "Oh, I'm sorry. (waves towards his car). We've been seeing you all day. We made you our road buddies."
I had to laugh because I'd made them my road buddies too! Sometimes on these long, straight runs where you're burning through a full tank of gas, you find yourself hopscotching along with other vehicles who are clearly on a mission of their own. It's a fun little way to entertain yourself; sometimes the other vehicle is clearly aware of this new bond and does things like make space for you in traffic or signals you of police presence. Other times you're in a world of your own making, imagining their backstory and destination, left to wonder if other drivers ever mentally befriend you in the same way you've befriended them. Over the years I've occasionally pulled off for fuel at the same time as a Road Buddy, sometimes coincidentally and sometimes intentionally, but it has never resulted in anything more than a nod of recognition from distant bowsers. This was the first time it ever resulted in a full-on animated conversation with someone who was equally as excited to talk to me as I was to him.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee pp261-2
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I've done this too. :rofl
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We were incredibly lucky — bad luck, good luck, all that — that we happened to be as close to the trailer as we were. It sounds counterintuitive, but I was actually close enough to see the wheel coming loose before it let go completely. I alerted Ian an instant before the blocks went flying; the car in front of us copped some pretty hard hits, but we managed to weave between the sliding projectiles without a scratch. Behind us, cars began to slam brakes and swerve unpredictably, creating new hazards in their own right. In my mirror I watched as blocks careened into cars, and cars into each other. We were in precisely the right position to watch the chaos unfolding before us and the carnage behind us, while somehow avoiding becoming part of it ourselves.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p277
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We were in Sioux Falls when he suddenly mumbled something indecipherable through the comms before jerking across three lanes of traffic and bombing off an exit. I barely had time to react, horns blaring as I cut of traffic to give chase, trying to figure out what the hell had gone wrong. It turns out he was simply too tired to go on, a realization he'd only had at that precise second. I was honestly pretty mad that he endangered me with that maneuver and I told him that if he pulled another stunt like that again he should not expect me to follow him. But truth be told, he was torched. Completely, legitimately torched. Our mishmash of short sleeps had simply not been enough to refill his coffers. He wasn't making sense and clearly couldn't think straight. We went into a Marlin's restaurant adjoining the truck stop where he'd pulled in and he went to sit at a table with chairs, not processing that we'd need a booth if he was going to lay down for a sleep. I gently redirected him to a corner booth and he immediately sacked out.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p346
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I give full credit to Ian and his adorably gregarious ways, but it still blows my mind how often we stumbled upon the right person with the right attitude at the right moment to keep us rolling another day. Think about it: How many mobile welding rigs do you see on any given week? One? Five? What is the statistical probability, even when accounting for all our wildly undeserved optimism and, "She'll be right, mate!" that we would happen upon this guy, a fellow rider, with a welder, who had the time and willingness to do the job, not because we spotted him on the freeway and chased him down, but because we legitimately just stumbled upon him? It truly boggles the mind.
It doesn't matter how experienced Ian and I are as mechanics, and it doesn't matter how tenacious we are in our pursuit; if we aren't carrying a welder or a new clutch or whatever it was that had derailed us, we're just as stuck as the next guy. But here we were, 1,000 fruitless phone calls later, and we stumbled upon a solution that took up less time than our standard morning cup of joe. The guy refused payment because on the road, we're all brothers.
God bless good people, good luck, and that Aussie accent.
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I was carrying a boost box, but it didn't seem to have enough juice to kick my bike over. To this day I still don't know if the problem is the alligator clamps or the box itself, but it seems to flawlessly power up just about everything but bikes. Plan B: Push start. The good news was, we were on a bit of a hill. The bad news was traffic was bumper-to-bumper on all these little one-way streets, and I had about 10 yards to get her started and make a quick off-camber right hand turn before I ended up mired down in dead-stopped traffic on the next (much flatter) block. I can bump start stuff fine, but I was less than enthusiastic about this situation and the blazing heat wasn't helping at all. We'd need to clear a lane of traffic so I'd have that couple car lengths to build a head of steam before the corner. Ian, completely unperturbed, walked out into traffic like he belonged there and brought everyone to a halt.
I dropped off the sidewalk into the road, and Ian gave me a valiant shove. He was shouting "Go, go, GO!" almost immediately, but I knew I only had one shot to get this right. About five feet from the corner with as much speed could hope to build, I dropped the clutch and... she purred back to life. Thank goodness for that. I was already terribly dehydrated and the last thing I wanted to be doing was shoving my bike halfway around the city on a 110-degree day. Ian trudged back up the hill and caught up with me around the corner, hot from the exertion but pleased with the results. He never had any doubt that everything would work out fine, and the funny thing is that he's usually right.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee pp504-5
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The two bikes were sitting there in the storage unit, front wheel to front wheel, the FJR looking at the BMW from its twin headlights. The FJR's requirements: an engine oil and filter change, a set of tyres, and that was all she wrote. Being the sort to rub in injustice to all other brands, the F]R slowly exposed the grip that had slid ever so imperceptibly down the bar, and the BMW watched with its one headlight that had a stone hole in it from Alaska as the grip was slid the ever so slight length back to original position. Even at this point in the ride, the amount of consumables the BMW absorbed was staggering compared to the FJR. The final count would be FJR: no brake pad changes, BMW: Three. FJR, not one single mechanical fault, the BMW had no mechanical faults with the ignition key switch and that's about it. Alternator belts, BMW: Three, FJR: nil (To be read in Wendy's most antagonistically angelic voice: "Hey, it's not my fault that FJRs don't have alternators" followed by inflammatory eyelash fluttering).
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p540
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From behind us, two big rigs both moved to pass the entire group with Rig #2 drafting tight on the ass of Rig #1. They both continued in the oncoming lane well beyond the end of the passing zone, flying up the blind hill. Right at the crest, I saw the headlights from an oncoming car. The car slammed brakes as Rig #1 whipped back into the right lane, nearly side-swiping the rig in front of us in the process but Rig #2 had been following so closely behind that he had no way of seeing the car, nor time to react when he finally did. Even if he'd had time to react, there was no space in our lane to accommodate him. Something had to give. Rig #2 held his ground, sending the oncoming car skittering off the road onto the grass. The whole thing seemed to happen in slow motion and I was honestly expecting to watch someone die. I'm amazed that the oncoming car was able to react so lightning fast to the realization that there was a second truck in his lane behind the first and didn't end up as a hood ornament or cartwheeling across the prairie. It was incredibly intense and I tasted the adrenaline from that the rest of the way home.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee pp580-1
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We were approaching one of the two traffic lights in town with me in the lead, rolling about 2 mph under the speed limit. I'd initiated our left-hand turn on a green turn arrow and the light was red by the time I exited the intersection. The gumballs were flashing behind us before we'd even completed our turn. Our comms were off at the time and I began furiously trying to link up with Ian to establish a plan, or at the very least eavesdrop on his conversation. We had done nothing to warrant getting pulled over and I was in no mood to play nice. Meanwhile, Ian had taken off his helmet as soon as we'd pulled to the curb so I was left sitting there glowering and straining to hear what was going on behind me. Two giant dudes in flak jackets who were clearly not local cops were reading him the riot act, about how this may be how he does things in his backwards little country but here in The Murca if they start allowing people to run red lights, lambs will start laying down with lions or some such shit. Several times, very politely, Ian pointed out that he had plenty of experience riding in the USA and that the light was clearly yellow when he entered the intersection.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p657
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Wendy was leading, she and the blue FJR disappearing through the downhill section in front of me; as the road flattened out on the 20-mile stretch before Rachel and with no warning the Buffalo let out a big bang under my feet. My breath caught as I ripped in the clutch lever waiting for something to lock up and throw me down the road. It didn't happen. The engine was running. I gave it a it a rev, ok, maybe it was a one-off, maybe I didn't hear what I thought I'd heard? Possibly? Letting out the clutch with no real load on anything, okay, that sounded fine, I said to myself. Putting on the power to get back to speed, the banging started again in earnest and right there in that moment with the banging under me, I knew this was serious. We were in the middle of nowhere, and my purpose-built transmission was toast. The over-abundance of ongoing, never-ending problems had reached the zenith, a pinnacle of sorts; the shit pile had capped itself off with a wisp of paper and there was no way out of this problem that didn't involve lots of money and time and I felt totally crushed.
"Gotta stop," I said to Wendy.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p684
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It took about a split second to understand what happened. It took the same split second to understand my ongoing clutch problems, the excessive and then intermittent or nonexistent slipping, the oil leaks, the funny feel on the lever, the inconsistent everything, the rumbling feeling I had been having through the seat and pegs and bars. It took the next split second to swing from utter rage to complete despondency to white hot anger to incredulity and back to rage. All this time, all through this ride, all through all our downtime, the expense, the heartache, the worry about whether I would get to the next town, there in front of me was the culprit, or should I say the evidence caused by an unknown culprit.
There is a part in the transmission called the drive shaft. It is integral in relaying the motion from the transmission gears out through the final drive system. On the end of this shaft is a small circlip. It's a $9 part from BMW. What we found on autopsy was that this circlip, which was supposed to have external ears, instead had internal ears. It was the wrong circlip. This resulted in a roughly 40% diminished engagement surface, which over time weakened and damaged the engagement groove on the shaft until a large part of the shaft's end broke off. This would be the horrible grinding crunching squealing failure we experienced outside of Rachel.
Pushing Miles Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee p704
So that's it folks. Buy the book and fill in all those tantalising gaps!
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Volker quickly rolled our two rental F700GSs outside onto the sidewalk. They were in great condition, had low mileage and looked well maintained. Soon he was outside with panniers, top boxes and even tank bags. We would certainly have plenty of space for our gear. During our preparations, Hispania's chief mechanic, Jesus, arrived and he quickly loaned me some tools so I could mount the GPS and satellite tracker to the bike.
Of course, we couldn't leave without our riding buddy Mr Cotton. Mr Cotton is our adventure mascot- a six inch, yellow flexible rubber pirate complete with a bandana, eye patch, hook for a hand and wooden peg leg. He thinks he's tall and quite manly, but I know his life's story and it isn't that dramatic. I discovered him in a small store in Portsmouth, NH while he was waiting for his next ship to come in. Little did I know at the time that he would decide that our bikes would become his vessel of choice for many journeys.
Mr Cotton Wanders Europe. Where To Next? Michael Botan Ch 3 [This book has no page numbers.]
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In the front yard, lay a tree felled by the wind. Instead of cutting it up and carting it off, the homeowner decided to do something different. Leaving the roots poking out of the ground, he/she hollowed out the trunk and made it into a flower planter. The top of the tree trunk had been sawn off and underneath the end of the trunk was a hand carved truck. It looked like the little truck was towing the tree across the lawn. It was a great example of folk art!
We took a few pictures and re-mounted for the remainder of our day's trip. We had a room reservation in a chateau in Neuchatel and we couldn't wait to get there. Besides we had seen that they had a pool that we could plunge into as soon as we arrived.
Mr Cotton Wanders Europe. Where To Next? Michael Botan Ch 7
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By the time we had exited the train and arrived at the parking lot where the bikes were stored, we had made the transition from melancholy to excitement. Funny- for us motorcycles had a way doing that. By the time we had packed our gear on the bikes, it was if we had been able to flip a switch. The longing for the mountains of Wengen and vicinity had vanished, replaced by excitement for the new journey we were about to undertake.
Each day I only gave Kim a brief idea of where we would be going and she joyfully played along in the extra excitement an unknown destination can bring. I had been online during the week looking for places to go based upon how 'wiggly' the roads looked leading there. This time I had found an old chateau in the Italian town of Acqui Terme, Italy. Acqui Terme is one of the principal winemaking communes of the Italian DOCG wine Brachetto d'Acqui. I really liked the name of our destination, the Hotel Roma Imperiale. It sounded like a good name for a chateau to me and besides they were offering special pricing!
Mr Cotton Wanders Europe. Where To Next? Michael Botan Ch 12
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We wished each other safe travels and the family departed. We went back into the chateau to settle the bill and by the time we finished, it was close to 11:00 AM. Finally we were ready and we rode down the steep switchbacks starting our journey for the day. Soon we were out of Acqui Terme and heading southwest. We were now back in the mountains making our way towards France. Mountain peaks surrounded us on both sides of the road. The narrow roads swooped and squirmed their way towards our destination. Then all of a sudden we were slowing to a stop. In front of us, several cars and one motorcycle waited in front of an overhead sign with large electric Xs and numbers. At first, we were a bit perplexed as to why we were stopped in the middle of the road with other travellers. Then it dawned on us. There was a tunnel ahead and they only let traffic pass one direction at a time. The numbers represented the minutes until the tunnel opened to our direction of travel. We were now waiting for our turn.
Mr Cotton Wanders Europe. Where To Next? Michael Botan Ch 15
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We mounted our bikes and were just about to ride off when I remembered something. We generally bring small trinkets to give to people we meet along the way. I got off the bike and handed them a couple of stickers from our website Ride2ADV.com. They smiled and almost ran for the bar door. The man immediately peeled the sticker off the backing and put it on the door. I was ecstatic to see them do this. We had arrived strangers and were leaving as friends. I jumped off the bike and took a picture of them in front of the sticker. I still have the picture and like to think that they enjoyed meeting us and that we left a little bit of ourselves at the bar.
Mr Cotton Wanders Europe. Where To Next? Michael Botan Ch 19
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The miles melted away as we rode and before we knew it, we were approaching Barcelona. But we wouldn't arrive without one last adventure. Less than an hour outside Barcelona, the winds began to rise. They were not insignificant and they were not steady. Heavy gusts pelted us from various directions, causing the bikes to shimmy and weave. The problem for Kim was worse since she only had a little over her 100 pound body holding her bike in place. Even with my 200 pounds on the bike, it was moving considerably.
It was actually better to have our speed up to make maximum use of the gyroscopic effect of the wheels to stabilize the bikes. On a different trip, we'd ridden through Chile and Argentina and faced the Patagonian winds on our way to Ushuaia. Those winds were far more intense, but they were constant and on barely travelled gravel roads. Here we were in four lanes of traffic with wind battering us from all directions.
But we soldiered on and soon found ourselves on the outskirts of Barcelona. Now the traffic was heavy and we trundled along in the right two lanes. As a sort of last challenge, we rode across a long high bridge. Totally out in the open, we got the maximum impact of the winds.
Mr Cotton Wanders Europe. Where To Next? Michael Botan Ch 22
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Larry and I left Casa Grande on a warm June morning. Our preparations were pretty simple. We tightened our chains, sprayed them with oil, checked air pressure, and filled the oil injection tanks. Each of the bikes had a shoulder-high sissy bar, sort of the fashion back then, and matching square containers for hauling our gear. I had fabricated, for each of us, a heavy-duty cardboard box lined with Masonite and then stuffed the box inside a canvas bag. The box was bolted to the sissy bar. We hauled all our clothes and gear inside those solid waterproof containers. We didn't lose anything, either. Unlike Jeff. More on his issues later.
We just carried sleeping bags and clothes, pretty much, and chain oil and a few tools. I had an industrial strength Diamond Chain, still new in the box, and a chain breaker, but we never needed it. We didn't carry any tents, but I had a big tarp stuffed in there. We only stayed in a motel two nights.
Riding 500cc Two Strokes From Arizona To Canada Jim Balding and Jeffrey Ross p16
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I saw a gap in my luggage pile. Aggh! Great! I motioned to Jim and Larry to pull over. After explaining the situation to them, we formulated a plan of action. I would back-track about five miles to the very rough and bouncy section of road we just came through and hopefully find the backpack. They would wait for me. I took a quick look for oncoming traffic, made a U-turn, and rolled up to about 120 mph on the 500cc Kawasaki, heading back to the northeast and a ridge of hills.
About three minutes later, I noticed flashing lights in my mirror. A Montana Highway Patrol cruiser had caught up to me. Great again! The day was getting worse. I pulled over, frightened and nervous. Wearing glasses and very muscular, the patrolman walked up to me after I parked on the shoulder, with his hand on his gun holster, and asked me why I made that U-turn when I saw him coming and took off. I told him my story. Not quite satisfied, he told me to wait there while he went back to call in my license and registration info. I felt like a suspect on the old Adam 12 TV show! (But this couldn't be a 211 or a 459!) I heard him talking into the radio while he stood outside his car and kept an eye on me. He was repeating my license plate numbers. Well, I soon learned nothing "bad" came back from headquarters. Did I get a speeding ticket? No. Why not? Well, no speed limit was posted in such places throughout Montana at the time. I guess 118 mph (at which he said he clocked me) was acceptable. The proper phrase was "reasonable and prudent".
Riding 500cc Two Strokes From Arizona To Canada Jim Balding and Jeffrey Ross p25
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I called my dad. We cooked up the following scheme:
1. He would ride his CB 450 down to Guymon, Oklahoma the next day and spend the night at a motel on the west side of town.
2. I would go to Dalhart, Texas and get a motel.
3. We would each have separate leisurely breakfasts and leave our "spots" at 7 am local time. Our motel rooms would only be about seventy-five miles apart. But we were concerned about predicted late afternoon tornados, hail, and all that.
4. We would look for each other on Highway 54 the next morning... somewhere around the Texas/Oklahoma border.
5. Then, a after a successful rendezvous, we would return to Nebraska and be home by dusk.
The plan basically worked. You must remember, there were no cell phones in those days. We simply set up a schedule over a sketchy landline and then just acted with a simple faith that things would come together.
Riding 500cc Two Strokes From Arizona To Canada Jim Balding and Jeffrey Ross pp40-1
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I felt like I was almost home! Miles slipped by. The Texas air was fresh and damp. I had to dodge a few puddles. Man, I was focused. I kept my eyes peeled on the highway and the shoulder, looking at every turnout, every intersection for my dad. I kept heading down the road. I looked behind every tree, every grain elevator, at every gas station parking lot- everywhere- for him and his green and gold 1971 CB 450. Then, somewhere between Stratford, Texas and Texhoma on the Oklahoma border, we met each other on the road. Sort of. I was behind a big rig truck, and he was behind a big rig truck, and we just managed to spot each other as we howled around a sweeping curve. I remember seeing his brake light go in my mirror as he pulled over, and I also came to a quick stop. After all our planning, we had almost missed each other. Hah. That would have been funny. We laughed back then and we still laugh now. Fortunes of the road, I guess.
But our plan worked. We spent a few minutes comparing notes and then headed to Texhoma and Liberal, finally finding our way north, later in the afternoon, on Highway 14. The return trip was quite uneventful... just a dad on his Honda and his son on a Kawasaki putting closure to the lad's 4000-mile ride. The warm, fragrant, humid Midwest air seemed wonderful to me- very refreshing and familiar. I was paying less and less attention to the engine's zing-zing noise.
Riding 500cc Two Strokes From Arizona To Canada Jim Balding and Jeffrey Ross p42
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Then, somewhere between Hondo and Roswell, New Mexico, suddenly, I saw "them". The scene was from a Svengoolie movie.
Tarantulas were being flooded out of their desert burrows and were running around on the highway! Some of those things were at least eight inches across. Big and ugly. Hairy, desperate spiders were everywhere. They were like rats or mice or squirrels! I was doing my best to dodge the scurrying creatures, but most cars I saw simply couldn't avoid the spiders and ran over and squished the poor arachnids. Gruesome brown and black blotches and body parts and legs could be seen everywhere on the road. I was on a miserable highway of death! I finally got out of there and away from the highway of spider destruction.
Riding 500cc Two Strokes From Arizona To Canada Jim Balding and Jeffrey Ross pp48-9
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Well, somehow around the Golden Gate Park, we became separated on the freeways. I pulled over alongside the road and tried to figure out where I was. A very pleasant motorcycle cop on a Moto Guzzi pulled over to see if I needed help. I explained to him what happened, and I told him I was a bit lost. Before he resumed his patrol, he kindly gave me good directions to the Pinole Hercules community where Les and I had originally planned to spend the night. (The area was much smaller back then and had only one motel.) But there I was, all alone and no Les. I rode along solo for a few more miles and finally entered Pinole, and then I checked into the motel and thought of a way to get ahold of Les.
Remember, this was 1974. I found a pay phone and called my mom back in Arizona. I asked her to call Les' house in Casa Grande and tell them where I was, hoping he would call there sometime that afternoon or evening to check in and learn of my whereabouts. My plan worked. I went back inside the motel and cleaned up. About three hours later, I heard that distinct GT 550 sound outside the room. Les had found the motel. Cell phones would have been easier, but we connected regardless.
Riding 500cc Two Strokes From Arizona To Canada Jim Balding and Jeffrey Ross p60
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As I approached the examiner's table with my red sparkly helmet hand, I felt all eyes were upon me, mainly because I was young- and a girl. Everyone looked so surprised! I told the examiner I was there to get my motorcycle license. He said, "What? What are you talking about?" I presented all the formal paperwork and the fee payment, and he just shook his head. He kept asking if my parents were aware of what I was doing, if that was what I really wanted, like he just couldn't believe my intent and was trying to talk me out of it.
Getting a motorcycle license was a completely normal process within my family, no matter what gender, and this examiner was ruining my big day. He was making me a little angry, and my stress level was elevating rapidly! I was firm and politely held my ground. He finally was accepting of the fact, although I can still remember the snickering and puzzled facial expressions from the other people in the room. Mr. Examiner finally realized I was serious. I took the written examination and passed. I don't recall the grade. But I was very happy; step one was completed. I had one final step to go on my journey.
Riding 500cc Two Strokes From Arizona To Canada Jim Balding and Jeffrey Ross p74
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Sorry for the gap in posting. Been in hospital for a broken femur.
No, not bike-related. Clumsiness.
We got off work at 1:30 am and headed out. (I probably would never asked her out, but since I had a way-cool motorcycle, she asked me and that was the start of our lifelong relationship.)
I took her home to her grandmother's house at 6 am. You know that didn't go over well. Two weeks later, Granny (who was raising Robin at the time) found out I had a motorcycle. During those two weeks I had shown up in my Camaro only- no Honda. The first dry day I came back on the Honda to pick up Robin for a ride, Granny hollered, "You're not getting on the back of that motorcycle, young lady!" Needless to say, Robin did anyway, and we pulled out of the driveway and took off with the front tire in the air for the first three gears!
Riding 500cc Two Strokes From Arizona To Canada Jim Balding and Jeffrey Ross pp82-3
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When I was cruising through Kansas, I was getting that numb feeling and beginning to feel the tiredness sneaking in on me. All at once, a right-angle turn materialized on the two lane!
I went straight ahead into a corn field that had been recently picked. No poles, no trees- just a shallow ditch. The Lord does watch over the careless. I was wide-awake now. The sun was coming up when I was cruising west of Seward, Nebraska on two-lane Highway 34, getting pretty close to the end of the journey. Just as I was rolling cross a two-lane bridge two cars were approaching, and the trailing car suddenly passed the other one. I hugged the guard rail; they both pulled over and we all escaped. Later on, I realized the sun in the eyes of the drivers was probably the cause of the near disaster.
Anyhow, I arrived home okay. Pat and I got the marriage license, I went to a local motorcycle hill climb and TT race on Saturday afternoon, and the wedding came off without a hitch on Sunday evening. That Warrior was a great bike.
Riding 500cc Two Strokes From Arizona To Canada Jim Balding and Jeffrey Ross pp89-90
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I went straight ahead into a corn field that had been recently picked. No poles, no trees- just a shallow ditch. The Lord does watch over the careless.
If his lord was serious, he/she/it woulda stopped him from getting drowsy in the first instance.
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With only minutes of lessons behind us, and having never really ridden, we took off.
I immediately wanted to see how fast I could go and how much fun I could have. Soon as I got on the small Yamaha, I was in heaven. We were riding along a dirt path to get to where the real run would be. Then, we met our turnoff and rode through some desert. After about a half hour of reckless abandonment riding in somewhat smooth desert terrain, we stopped for a water break, and I had a grin ear-to-ear. Now it was my turn to ride the big, much more powerful motorcycle. So, I hopped on the larger, and superfast, 250cc beast.
When I straddled this mammoth motorcycle, I could not touch the ground with both feet, which should have told me this was a bad idea. But that was not going stop me. I hopped on and took off. WOW! What an exhilarating rush I felt as I started riding. We went through the gears, starting slower and eventually riding faster and faster, jamming through curves and bumps with a joy only an off-road enthusiast would understand.
I was aggressively riding this uncertain terrain. Suddenly, we came up to a curve I wasn't skilled enough, nor prepared enough, to negotiate. At that moment, I realized how under-skilled, and certainly under-dressed, I was for the occasion. I crashed and landed upside down in a cactus tree! Next, I heard someone rushing over to shut off the motorcycle lying on the ground about fifteen feet away. The bike was still roaring away since I had been abruptly separated from it. Riderless, the 250 was screaming. Finally, the noise stopped.
Riding 500cc Two Strokes From Arizona To Canada Jim Balding and Jeffrey Ross pp96-7
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After our first full day of riding from Nebraska into Kansas, we camped at a rest area outside of Dodge City, Kansas, along US50. No problem. No concerns for our safety or decision. Today, in 2019, we would probably be arrested for camping in such a place. Back then, we just rolled out our bags by a picnic table and spent the night.
The next day, we went past Springfield, Colorado and just before turning south toward Pritchet, Colorado, Mike's bike ran out of gas (due to the extended forks that prevented him from fully utilizing the reserve gas in his fuel tank). Jeff and I kept riding into town before we realized Mike wasn't with us. We turned back and I pushed him into Pritchet by nudging his bike along with my right foot pressed against his left rear shock absorber.
Riding 500cc Two Strokes From Arizona To Canada Jim Balding and Jeffrey Ross p102
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Nothing is waterproof. I don't care how much you spend, where you get it from, or how many layers you wear. At some point that God awful feeling of cold water creeping between your legs will happen. Its insidious progress is awful. Like a cold wet spider it touches, examines, and then envelopes your balls. Not content with that it then slips its cold wet fingers over your bum crack, and not in a nice way.
Your gloves will leak and become sodden. Your boots might hold out for a while but slowly they will fill, sure as eggs is eggs, they will fill. Then your neck gets wet. No problem you think, a wet neck is nothing. Ha!
Motorcycle Touring From A Tight Arsed Northerner's Perspective Chris Hardy pp18-9
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Under 250cc.
Great fuel economy, beef the suspension up and a bigger tank, happy days as long as you don't want to bomb along the Autobahns. If I could find an old C90 I might be tempted to use that on my solo jaunts as they use bugger all in petrol and you can fix everything on them with 'Duct tape' and a hammer.
250cc to 500cc.
Same as above only a bit quicker I suppose.
500cc to 800cc.
For me this is about right, cheap to run, decent tank range, comfortable, and enough speed to manage the motorways.
800cc to l200cc.
Well now you have to start asking yourself why you want something this big, what benefits will it bring, or are you just suffering from possible penis size envy. Joke, I was joking for God's sake. Okay they are faster I suppose and can maybe carry more stuff (although my DL650 is rated to carry more weight than the DL1000, what's that all about?) and, well that's about it as far as I can see.
1200cc to God knows what.
Now you are just getting silly and should do what you really want to do, buy a car.
Motorcycle Touring From A Tight Arsed Northerner's Perspective Chris Hardy pp38-9
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A Sat nav.
I have ridden across Europe for a month without one of these but to be honest that was only because I had nowhere to go and all the time in the world to get there. They are a bloody marvellous invention as long as you use them, and don't allow them to use you. I tend to plot an interesting route on the map, write the information down, and then I key my final destination into the Sat Nav. That way you can wander about to your heart's content while always knowing how to get to your bed for the night by the quickest route. Now you can buy one designed specifically for a motorbike if you have a huge wedge of cash that you have no other use for and can get it out of your wallet without crying. I can't, it would kill me to pay that much, I am even now sitting here sweating just at the thought of it. I use a Garmin 50 car type and if it rains I just put one of those clear plastic food bags over it. I bought it brand new for £50, happy days.
Motorcycle Touring From A Tight Arsed Northerner's Perspective Chris Hardy p54
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Clothes I pack in a helmet bag, this keeps your mind focused as to how much stuff you really need. I take a freezer bag for my dirty socks and pants to keep them separate along with the liquid laundry wash and a clothes line just to remind me to actually do it. Footwear is placed in the top box so we can slip them on and go for a long wander. When we do, I lock the helmets and jackets together on the bike with a wire push bike lock (this is also attached to the front crash bars).
I use the hard panniers when we are camping and a set of soft expandable ones when we aren't. Hard ones for camping because I can get more in them, you can put your feet up on them, use them as a table, wash clothes in them, and a lot of gear can get put back in them safely overnight. Soft ones when we aren't because we can filter easier, and carry them easier into the hostels. I use cheap locks to secure the zips. I have never had anyone steal anything from the bike in all the miles I have done and places I have been.
Motorcycle Touring From A Tight Arsed Northerner's Perspective Chris Hardy p70
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Regarding accommodation, I always pre-book my first night on any trip and sometimes my last if I can get free cancellation. If you are heading for a popular area seek out the places a little further afield as they will be cheaper and you are after all on a motorbike, so transport is no problem. Don't be too put off by a bad review score, instead look to see why those people gave it a bad review. I have seen some rather pampered people give a place a bad review because there was no kettle in the room, the bar downstairs was noisy, or the man on reception never carried them and their bags up the three flights of stairs. You may well be only staying one night so really, does it matter? If you are with your lass you obviously have to be a little choosier.
Motorcycle Touring From A Tight Arsed Northerner's Perspective Chris Hardy p84
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"There is somewhere I have always wanted to go back to actually".
Before I could come up with several very good reasons why we couldn't go to the place she hadn't mentioned yet she said with the most unbelievable air of nonchalance.
"Ireland, I want to do the Wild Atlantic Way."
Now I have ridden motorbikes since I was 15. I have ridden them as my only form of transport for years in all seasons and all weathers so don't even consider using the word "Wuss" about me after reading what follows. Your scorn and looks of contempt mean nothing to what I felt about myself after these words passed my lips.
"But we will get wet!" I said.
Our lass placed her fork down and looked at me, I felt the ground shift under my seat, the great chunk of sausage turned to ash in my mouth, and the world fell silent.
Motorcycle Touring Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way Chris Hardy pp6-7
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The bike is in front of me squatting silently under its cover. I place my coffee down and remove its shroud. In that moment I swear I can understand how religion can take hold of someone because that's the only way I can describe the emotion that courses through my body. Coffee and cigarette in hand again I stare at that chunk of plastic and steel but see something quite different. I see life, the past, the future, soaring eagles, towering mountains, endless wheat fields, crashing thunderstorms, blinding white marble towers, vast forests. I feel gales, the sun on my back, rain in my face, dust in my mouth, joy, sadness, fear, I feel feckin alive. I stare at it and realise how much that bike has given me, shown me, how much it has taught me about myself, I reach out, touch it just to prove it's really there, and once again the realisation hits me. I have a feckin wonderful life.
Motorcycle Touring Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way Chris Hardy p19
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A special mention for that Healy Pass has to be made, not even nearly being wiped out by the Dutch couple in their camper van could spoil it. Our lass managed to shout "You stupid fekers" right into the woman's ear- we were that close as we slipped past them. For her to use that language proves it must have been a close shave. We were on a blind bend on a single track road; they were right over on our side of the road, usual story. The surface can be a bit loose so keep the speed down on the corners when you go round, in fact you won't be speeding as it's just too beautiful to rush over.
We stopped at "Peg's Shop" for a bite to eat and ended up firm friends with the owners within ten minutes and this was the case every time we stopped anywhere be it for petrol or a sandwich.
Motorcycle Touring Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way Chris Hardy pp37-8
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Conor Pass was magnificent with views stretching over the wild countryside as far as the eye could see, at the top the waterfall cascades down by the road in a singing crystal clear torrent of... well that's what it looked like in the Instagram photos I had seen before we set off. I couldn't see a bloody thing, the mist had turned into a dense fog and the only thing I saw all the way up and all the way down were my handlebars and a huge rock wall to one side of me, at least it has a one way system in place so there was no worries about an imbecilic Dutch driver heading towards us. We had picked a perfect storm of a day to ride over the bugger, too foggy to see anything and too dry for the waterfall to be anything more than a sodding trickle. I hunched over the bars and wiped my visor, "Bollox" I muttered to nobody in particular.
I pulled over to stand smoking a fag while looking at the pathetic trickle of water dribbling from the famous waterfall.
"This is magical, we have it all to ourselves" our lass said skipping over to me. I hate it when she manages to cheer me up when I want to be miserable.
Motorcycle Touring Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way Chris Hardy pp49-50
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I then heard the words that can bring fear into my heart, "Is that your bike?" It turns out it wasn't someone who owned a BSA years ago and wanted to tell me all about every old British bike ever made and how the piston could be re-bored to produce four more top end power wotsits, and how some compression was lost if you didn't toque the fluffle valve down to... sorry but at this point I normally either fall asleep or fake a heart attack. This old bloke actually owned the shop and had ended up here when he toured Ireland back in the 50's on a motorbike (yeah okay it was a BSA). He had returned home but couldn't get Ireland out of his head so sold everything he had and bought this shop. Once again a quick stop turned into a fantastic memorable encounter that etches itself into your memory, Ireland is like that. We waved goodbye as we left and everyone waved back.
Motorcycle Touring Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way Chris Hardy pp57-8
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The weather had cleared enough for us to remove our waterproofs and, oh God did it feel good, even though my underpants stuck to my arse and my boots were filled with sloshing water, it still felt great to get rid or those useless garments. The place we were staying at was right at the base of the cliffs so after checking in we jumped back on the bike and rode the twisting glorious road to the top of Slieve League. Now if you check the route it says you have to park at the bottom and walk up but you don't. When you come to the gate just open it and ride through- just make sure to close it behind you. Do not miss this place, just don't. From the views down to the sea and beyond, the sound of Skylarks, to the long coated sheep wandering the harsh countryside it's simply magical.
Motorcycle Touring Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way Chris Hardy p87
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So how much did this little jolly cost? Well including both ferries, food, petrol, and accommodation it came to around £1140 for our 16 night stay, or £570 each. To put this in perspective we normally spend around £1,100 (£550 each) for a month's tour of mainland Europe no matter which countries we end up exploring. Ireland is definitely more expensive there is no denying that. I think I could have done it cheaper but as I mentioned I wanted to stay somewhere nice in case the weather spoiled the day. So was it worth it? Now bearing in mind I really am a tight sod I can say with all honesty it was worth every penny. We had a hell of a time, we really did. If I had been by myself I would have camped and saved a huge chunk of money so it's perfectly possible to do it on a tighter budget. If you tour for the sights, sounds, and experiences, get yourself there. if you tour to get somewhere as fast as possible so you can brag about how many miles you can do in a day, don't bother because you would miss the whole point of this wonderful island.
Motorcycle Touring Ireland's Wild Atlantic Way Chris Hardy pp105-6
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When I pulled into the car park I hooked a right to avoid all the other bikers waiting to board. I don't really get on with most bikers as I just like riding my bike, I really don't want to talk about their bikes, their helmets, or even my bike. I have no interest in the rev range or the pull thrust push torque top end thingy, or their knee down escapes, or how fast they took the bloody twisty bit back there. I am not macho, I don't need to bolster my manhood, and I am quite secure in my masculinity thank you very much. That said I do actually speak to some bikers and I do get a great deal of enjoyment from the interaction. This though is down to my well-honed inner radar. I can scan a crowd of bike riding fellows and spot the one I feel I have some sort of affinity with from about, oh, 70 yards. I can sense him because he is probably the one staring up at the seagulls and doesn't own any item of clothing with the name of his bike plastered all over it, and of course he isn't on a BMW costing the same as a small African state's GDP. Anyway enough of that.
Motorcycle Touring From 'A' To Wherever And Back Again Chris Hardy pp15-6
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I am just outside of Bilbao on the AP8 and pottering along in the outside lane making good time when a Mercedes starts to edge out towards me from the middle lane. As he crosses my line I give him a little toot on the horn to let him know I am there, then I give him a longer toot as he drifts further over. "Feck this," I mutter to myself and twist the throttle to escape the trap he is laying for me. Right at that moment he speeds up and swerves over slamming into the side of my bike and forcing me into the barriers. Somehow I hold the big lump of a bike and drop off behind him waving and tooting (I wish bikes had a more aggressive sounding horn) and shouting my thoughts at him. He turns round to face me as I pull alongside of him and simply waves a dismissive hand at me. Now I am bloody furious "How fecking dare he dismiss my rightful indignation in this manner" I think to myself and proceed to start riding like a lunatic around his car. Now other road users are starting to take notice but all they see is a British biker harassing a local traveller going about his lawful business and I am getting glares of hostility directed at me along with lots of waving arms. I give up and stop for petrol and to inspect the damage. Fortunately the pannier took the brunt of the damage and everything else is in decent condition so I have a fag, place a curse on the driver's head, and forget about it.
Motorcycle Touring From 'A' To Wherever And Back Again Chris Hardy pp36-7
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"Habitacion?" she asked now turning her attention and those breasts to me with no flicker of emotion on her well made-up face. I swear to God I could feel time stand still waiting for my reply. Everything told me to get out of there- I could even sense the domino players silently screaming "Run you fool, run if you value your soul".
"Barato?" (Cheap?) I asked (I try to learn all the important words I tend to use a lot).
"Si" she replied.
Well that was that, how could I refuse. She glared at Lurch and opened a cupboard behind the bar removing one of the largest sets of keys I had ever seen and led me back to my bike. Pointing at the stable block she told me to place my bike in it. I said it didn't matter and the bike could stay in the driveway for the night. At that point she grabbed my arm in a vice-like grip and stared hard at me, "No" she said and pointed at the stables again crushing my puny arm in her grip. "Okay," I said and rode the bike into the stalls as she swung the doors open. I was now convinced they were dealers in body organs (vampires came a close second) and were hiding my bike so they could do as they wished and I would have no chance of escape.
Motorcycle Touring From 'A' To Wherever And Back Again Chris Hardy pp60-1
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I noticed that there seemed to be some family friction between the two siblings which carried on all evening, small nudges as they passed, a glare, a muttered harsh word. It turns out it was a family establishment and had only been open a couple of weeks. Mother cooked and the twins took turns in serving the customers and helping in the kitchen. None of them were Chinese by the way.
Eventually I could eat no more and my pockets were full of spring rolls so I decided to depart. "You were hungry no?" the twin said with a certain amount of admiration in his voice. "I was hungry, yes," I said as I walked the short distance to the till and presented my card. My fawning twin fawned, and took the card machine from under the counter. At this point the other twin came out of the kitchen and attempted to take the machine from him while also trying to outdo his brother in the fawning department. A slight tug of war ensued while I looked on still holding my card out.
Motorcycle Touring From 'A' To Wherever And Back Again Chris Hardy pp80-1
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The evening before I left eventually came as it had to and I walked over to the cafe to find it dark and the doors locked. I stood there confused not knowing quite what to do when the rear door opened and an old man I had made friends with beckoned me towards him. When I entered the bar was full of all the people I had met and made friends with during my stay. Marie had closed the cafe to host a going away party for me.
There were people with accordions, guitars, and even flutes. The tables were laid out with food, and there were streamers covering the ceiling. We sang and I even danced, (if you ever see me dance you would know how ridiculous that statement really is) half way through the night I made everyone sing 'La Marseillaise' as we all stood ramrod stiff, then we sang it again because it made everyone feel so good. By the end of the night everyone was falling over drunk and we parted quietly at the door as only drunks who are trying to be very quiet can.
Motorcycle Touring From 'A' To Wherever And Back Again Chris Hardy pp101-2
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Look I am a bit anti-social, okay, and I make no apologies for this as I understand where it comes from. If someone is funny or interesting I could listen to them all day but talking about bikes after about three minutes just numbs the brain, unless of course it contains a sentence like "For fecks sake don't ever pull the clutch in and turn the hazard lights on at the same time because that model of bike has a tendency to explode when you do that". Then there are the older blokes who get out of their cars and slowly edge towards you like a sly seagull after your chips. Now a word of advice if you are like me, never NEVER even glance at them because that is the only opening they need and the next words you hear will cast a shadow of dullness onto your once bright life. "I used to have a BSA, it was many years ago mind and the wife wouldn't put up with me having one now," he will say with a chuckle. I know all this makes me sound like some total knob but... ye gods I have been staring at the screen for five minutes now trying to think of what to say in my defence on this subject and can't come up with anything. Bugger.
Motorcycle Touring "Why Don't I Come With You?" Chris Hardy pp14-5
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Now this might sound pathetic but there really is something really cool when you are roaming the twists and turns of a mountain road and you manage to share a very low victory sign with a passing biker. Even sticking your leg out as you pass has an intrinsic coolness. Transfer this sign of acknowledgement to our country and simply because we ride on the other side of the road all we have is "The Nod". As I ride alone I dread a convoy of bikers coming the other way as I end up looking like a demented bloody chicken whereas on the continent a long slow low "V" sign is... well it's just so bloody cool. Yeah having written all that down it does sound quite pathetic but hell, it just feels so good doing it.
Motorcycle Touring "Why Don't I Come With You?" Chris Hardy p42
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Coming up to an old bridge I saw the speed signs advising me to drop down to 20km and as I was in such a chilled out mood and the road was empty I took no notice of it whatsoever. The bloody thing was cobbled. It was a bridge covered in cobbles that had been laid by a blind drunken Albanian who couldn't understand Italian and was suffering from the worst hangover in the history of hangovers. The bike was going down as I was going up, it was going left as I was going right and we only shook hands briefly after about three hundred yards. Only luck (and maybe that prayer I had slipped into my pocket) saved me from a rather stupid slide down the road that would have ended the trip there and then. I gathered my wits, shook my head, and reminded myself not to ride like a twat again for the foreseeable future.
Motorcycle Touring "Why Don't I Come With You?" Chris Hardy p42
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Having spent some time growing up on a farm I recognised the tractor for a very old Massey Ferguson. My grip tightened around Theresa's waist as I also recognised what it was pulling. "Chris, you're hurting!" she said pulling a little away. "It's a feckin muck spreader!" says I setting off on a skip run walk towards the bike and trying to tell myself it would be foolish to expend undue energy when my fears were groundless. The tractor was now a few hundred yards behind the bike. It slowed, and I heard it engage the PTO. I now gave up the skip run walk method of travel and belted towards my precious, Susie fingers desperately scrabbling in my pocket for the keys. The tractor was drawing ever closer on its relentless course and suddenly the theme tune from "Mission im-bloody-possible" started up in my head. I leaped onto the bike, thrust the keys into the ignition and quickly turned to see if the tractor driver was only having a bit of a joke all in one fluid movement. He wasn't even looking at me, the shit was flying in a graceful arc closer, ever closer and I smiled over at our lass as I turned the key. The feckin thing stuck. I turned it back, and tried again, and again.
Motorcycle Touring "Why Don't I Come With You?" Chris Hardy p83
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I don't know what it is, all the crap that gets spoken about "Freedom" and "being a rebel" or "living life on the edge" is just that, crap. Maybe it was true when they returned from WW2 or Vietnam in America but come on, let's not pretend. There is something though, something that drives us to get on bloody thing in the first place against 99.9% of the population's advice. Then to drag your arse across a few thousand miles of unfamiliar roads in countries that drive on the wrong side of the road in search of places where English isn't spoken is a bit odd. To do it exposed to all that the elements can throw at you, either freezing, baking, or being thrust into the path of a bloody big articulated lorry by gale force winds is verging on the idiotic. So what is it my mate? What makes the thought of not having a bike so soul destroying? I think the only answer I can come up with is, it's just the way it is, so just sit back and accept it.
Motorcycle Touring "Why Don't I Come With You?" Chris Hardy pp125-6
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Wednesday 23/05/20
Group departure day.
We met up early as planned and set off on what was a sunny day. Pulling out of the hotel it was like the opening scene from "Wild Hogs" with Mark's legs flailing, Andrea over-revving the engine and Jacques looking decidedly unsteady. "This will be fun," I thought smiling to myself. To be fair this was their first run on hired bikes and it takes time to adjust. We followed Alex down to the street to a spot where he could take a good picture with the Kremlin in the background. The traffic was much quieter than I had expected although the ride out of town took forever, passing through some very unattractive suburbs.
Our first stop was for fuel. The "fuel included in the price" party all lined up behind Alex while Graham and I were left to do our our own thing. In Russia you must pay first then fill-up. Thankfully Graham spoke a bit of Russian which made things easier.
Once around the Block - by motorcycle Stephen Mason pp32-3
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Friday 01/06/20
And then there was one.
It was a warm day, so I pulled over to a petrol station to strip off my fleece and change my gloves. As I emerged from the petrol station there were road works which I manoeuvred around as best as I could to get back onto the main road. As soon as I did, I was pulled over by a cop. I stepped off the bike removed my helmet and smiled. "Documents," he said. I tried to explain I was from Scotland, but he was struggling to understand so I tried the bagpipes mimic then whisky. He suddenly smiled and said "William Wallace". I shouted "freedom" and we both laughed. He pointed to a solid white line that I had crossed then to his eyes as a "watch out" warning. We shook hands and I was indeed free.
Once around the Block - by motorcycle Stephen Mason p40
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I knew in my heart that these roads were getting too sandy and that I could not keep up, but desperation made me try. Before long Boris' wheels dug in and I was thrown off quite hard with the Land Cruiser disappearing into the distance. I waved but they were gone.
I had no other choice than try and get moving again. I stripped off the panniers and spare tyres and tried to heave Boris up but I could not get him fully upright. I then used my feet to dig out a ditch under the tyres, so he would effectively slide in. That worked then and I found myself holding him on the wrong side for mounting. I swung my left leg over being careful with my balance, which succeeded. I then started the engine and got him to a stable place.
I was thirsty, so I reached in the pannier for my coffee mug which contained the last of my water. Unfortunately, it was leaking so I had to be content with a sip. While I was repacking, the Land Cruiser reappeared and the guys apologised for leaving me. I was relieved to see them.
Once around the Block - by motorcycle Stephen Mason p50
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Sunday 17/06/2018
I had a decent sleep despite being disturbed by a presumably drunken husband trying to get Stella to open the room door. Stella was the only word I understood but I think I got it right. He would be in a bother in the morning I would imagine.
I checked my iPhone and it was dead. Based on what I read a replacement battery might work. I would try and check that out in Vladivostok. I moved the bike outside the hotel and packed. I had another bad breakfast but I did get a great view of the river with the Chinese town of Heihe on the other side. I could not resist saying "hello old China" which was an old Glasgow way of greeting a friend.
I checked out as they were holding a 2,000 roubles deposit. "We need to charge you for the condoms," said the young receptionist.
"I only opened the box because I thought they were sweets or playing cards. I didn't use them," I replied a tad embarrassed.
"You opened them, so you must pay 100 roubles," she replied.
After picking up my 1900 roubles I was on my way.
Once around the Block - by motorcycle Stephen Mason pp66-7
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Monday 16/07/2018
I awoke just before 6am with a debate in my head. Do I leave now and get through Hannover early or do I wait till 8:30am and leave later? I had a room, Wi-Fi and breakfast being served downstairs. Both would get me to the ferry on plenty of time, what was there to debate? Well you see it's me and movement; I really struggle to sit still when I could be moving but thankfully common sense kicked in. In saying that, I still went to the stage of getting geared up and opening my room door before concluding "this is crazy!"
I set off just after 8:30am and had a fairly clear run on a warm sunny morning. There was a hold up at one point due to a truck crash, but I filtered through it all. I could not believe how good the German drivers were for making space. I enjoy Germany most cases, and enjoy German people even although they always queue jump at borders.
Once around the Block - by motorcycle Stephen Mason p79
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In the early days my mother and father had resisted my desire to get a bike despite having owned a Frances Barnett himself. They finally gave in and he helped me collect and maintain my BSA Bantam. He took me a memorable ride on it down to Galloway before I turned 17, stopping off at a cafe in Newton Stewart. I put my parents through hell by my reckless riding over the next few years before maturing into family life. His mind faded over the last few years, so he was never really connected to what I was doing on my trips. I am sure as a younger man he would have been fascinated and proud of me. That's the thought I will carry forward.
Once around the Block - by motorcycle Stephen Mason p86
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He sent through a picture that first morning of his bike fully loaded and we would then exchange the occasional message on his progress. His last message to me was sent on July 2nd telling me excitedly that he was entering the Road of Bones. I messaged him on the 17th of July asking if all was well. After no reply I tried again on the 23rd and 25th of July. I was aware he would probably be out of contact for some time in such a remote area. I discussed it with Hutch and he suggested I check in with Alex from Rusmototravel. On August 1st I messaged Alex and he replied "Sadly Graham crashed on the Road of Bones." This did lot sound good so I did some internet searching and to my horror discovered Graham died after colliding with a tanker. I was shocked and saddened to learn that on the brink of his 70th birthday this husband, father and grandfather had lost his life. I did not know Graham for long but in our short time together we had connected and I am sure we would have had many adventures together.
Once around the Block - by motorcycle Stephen Mason pp91-2
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I made my way out of town still feeling cold. I stopped to zip up my air vents and switched on the heated grips. The heat gradually started to come through as the sun rose higher. The ride was relatively short and soon I was in Jackson. The unintentional priority of the day was to find a Walmart with a cheap sleeping pad. Sadly, Jackson being a designer mountain town did not have a Walmart or a sleeping pad under $60. I noticed a Staples and had a brainwave. I would buy a roll of bubble wrap and make my own.
I left Jackson complete with a roll of bubble wrap strapped bag. Not long out of Jackson the Grand Tetons in all their splendour emerged. I was in National Park number 3 and $10 to good on my park pass.
Once around the Block - by motorcycle Stephen Mason p104
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I could see Amber in the distance so I rode to the end of the driveway and cheekily bumped up onto the paved area. We hugged and chatted and took some photos, which by chance had an American Flag painted Duck Boat behind us. Out of nowhere this enthusiastic young American guy came up to us and asked if I had seen the "Long Way Round", his all-time favourite adventure show. When I told him, I had and that I had just completed my version of the trip, he was ecstatic. We chatted away and took photos. His name was Jobian Day and along with Amber they helped make my arrival feel special.
505 days and 15,866 miles after setting off from Ardnamutchan lighthouse (Scotland's most westerly point) I had reached Boston. The US section had been epic, covering just under 5000 miles.
I had now ridden "Once around the block". Felt good!
Once around the Block - by motorcycle Stephen Mason p122
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I shattered the silence. I started the Guzzi and the exhaust noise boomed out across the still water. I was barely across bridge when I stopped again. As I changed from first to second gear, the clutch cable snapped. I had seen no vehicles since I left Timmins 30 miles back, and I was unlikely to see any until I hit the paved road 30 miles further south. I was on my own in the middle of nowhere with a disabled bike.
I keep two small canvas military bags on the inside of the Eldorado's fairing. One contains a spare coil and a couple of old spark plugs; the other has various spares: points, fuses, JB Weld and, miraculously a spare clutch cable. I pulled my tool roll from my pannier and within a few moments had the broken cable disconnected and lying on the ground. It had snapped about four inches away from the lever, so there was no possibility of fixing it with a solderless nipple. I connected the new cable fitting at the gearbox end and slotted the nipple into the clutch arm, routing the cable along the frame rail, then up to the headstock. That was when I discovered the problem.
The clutch cable I was trying to fit was too short by about six inches. Darn it! I must have brought the spare cable for my Nuovo Falcone by mistake. When things like this happen, you have to chuckle. It was just so typical.
The Road To Missanabie Nick Adams pp19-20
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This year riding was impossible until the very last day of January, when I managed to sneak out for a couple of hours on the Nuovo Falcone. What a delight it was. I wheeled the bike out into bright sunshine, then had the tricky job of turning it around in the narrow area I'd managed to shovel free. After sitting for more than a month in sub-zero temperatures in my unheated garage I wasn't sure if the NF would be eager to start, but after making sure fuel was on and kicking it over a couple of times to free the clutch plates, I eased the piston over top-dead-centre, opened the choke, turned the ignition on and gave it a swing. And... it started first kick. No, really, it did!
Of all the kick-start motorbikes I've ever been near, the NF is by far the easiest to start. As long as the fuel and ignition are on, it almost always starts first kick. Once that enormous flywheel is moving, it doesn't really have any alternative but to spring to life, which it does with a very satisfying chugga-chugga from the exhaust as the whole bike tries to vibrate its way back into the garage.
The Road To Missanabie Nick Adams p41
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Even more than 40 years later, that stretch of road is still clear in my memory as the place where I sat in my Reliant three-wheeler for a couple of hours, waiting for my Dad to rescue me. Like a fool, I hadn't checked the oil before setting off from Matlock. Come to think of it, I'd probably never checked the oil - ever. Needless to say, my Dad was peeved at being dragged away from home and annoyed with me for ruining a perfectly good engine. He'd brought a rope and a piece of cardboard on which he wrote 'On Tow' and then wired it to the back of my car. The trip home was harrowing. Reliant three-wheelers are unstable enough at the best of times, but they are particularly tricky when being towed, especially when negotiating roundabouts behind a father who's a bit put out and eager to get home.
Chris and I made it to Ashbourne without the need for a tow, as the Honda 250 insisted on remaining perfectly reliable.
The Road To Missanabie Nick Adams pp85-6
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As a teenager, I had viewed the motorcycle imports from the Far East with the scepticism and chauvinism typical of a British youth of the time. Japanese bikes didn't sound like British bikes and they didn't look like British bikes, but as many soon found out, they didn't leak like British bikes and they didn't break like British bikes either. Throughout the whole time we used it, that little Honda used no oil, used very little fuel, nothing broke and it competently carried us without complaint for many hundreds of miles.
But, while the Honda earned my respect, I didn't love it, more than I would love a refrigerator or sewing machine. It did the job it was designed to do with quiet efficiency but lacked that indefinable quality that connects rider and machine. Gallons of digital ink have been spilled across the internet by people more skilled with word and thought than me, trying to define the nature of 'motorcycle soul', so I won't try here. However, for me, there is far more to motorcycling than efficiency, and I was just as happy to sell the Honda when we were done.
The Road To Missanabie Nick Adams pp90-1
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Then, about 5 miles west of Smooth Rock Falls, the Eldorado spluttered, burped and dropped onto one cylinder.
At times like this it's tempting to curse the bike, Italian electrics, Luigi, the spray from the trucks or God, but the fault was all mine. I had been intending to silicone-seal the joints where the spark leads enter the distributor. I'd been intending to spray the wires and distributor with ignition protector. I'd been intending to bring a can of WD40 silicone spray to drive out any water if the electrics got wet. I'd done none of it.
The Eldorado will chug along on one cylinder, so instead of stopping and risking not being able to re-start, I hobbled along. Occasionally the other cylinder would kick in for a few rotations and the bike would lurch forwards, but for the next few miles I stuck close to the edge of the road as the transports rolled by and the rain poured down.
The Road To Missanabie Nick Adams p98
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As with most Moto Guzzis, basic maintenance is absurdly simple. Because the cylinder heads stick out at 45 degrees, it takes no time at all to pull the valve covers and adjust the valve clearances - not that they need adjusting very often. Similarly, oil changes are simplicity itself. Engine, gearbox and final drive-box fluid changes are quick and don't involve removal of any body parts.
Unless it's time to change the oil filter. For some unfathomable reason, probably influenced by the amount of grappa flowing at lunchtime in the Guzzi factory, Moto Guzzi decided to include a spin-on oil filter inside the sump. In order to get at the darn thing, you have to remove 18 bolts then drop the whole sump - making sure to drain the oil first, of course. It's not that it takes a whole lot of time, but it is tedious and a silly inconvenience. And if you happen to install the sump gasket upside down - which, believe me, is easy to do - when you've refilled the engine and taken it for a run, you will find that you now have disturbingly low oil pressure, and you have to undo all those bolts again and flip the gasket.
The Road To Missanabie Nick Adams p113
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In the Motor Car Act it also declared that henceforth all vehicles had to be registered and display a registration number and all drivers had to have a driving licence - although there was still no actual driving test; you just bought one at the post office for five shillings. It introduced the crime of reckless driving, too, although riding a motorcycle in any manner by 1903 could only be described as a reckless act.
The question of speed and speed limits was a hot one for a long time. By 1905, unable to ignore the rising clamour from drivers and engineers alike, a Royal Commission on motorcars was established and it reported in 1907. Interestingly it raised concerns that speed traps were being used to generate revenue in rural areas rather than as a means to secure against accidents in towns. Speed traps as revenue-raisers! Who knew?
A Short History Of The Motorcycle Richard Hammond pp53-4
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[In the USA] by 1910 there were crowds of 10,000 or so spectators turning up at regular race meets where the riders competed for huge cash prizes. It was an amazing spectacle. The wooden bowls around which the riders raced were sometimes enormous. One such, the Los Angeles Motordrome, was built in 1910 and was described in the 'Albuquerque Journal' as:
a perfect circle, a mile in circumference, banked one foot in three. The grandstands are placed above the forty-five feet of the inclined track. The surface consists of two by four planks laid to make a four-inch floor and laminated to give great strength. About 3,000,000 feet of lumber and sixteen tons of nails were used in the construction of the 'pie-pan' - as it has been dubbed.
A Short History Of The Motorcycle Richard Hammond p58
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Beckham is pictured in the popular press commissioning a multi-gazillion-pound custom-built creation every week, Ewan McGregor is in constant danger of bumping into himself on television coming the other way on the long way down, round, up and/or over the world on a BMW and Tom Cruise could shoehorn a shot of himself grimacing over the bars of a superbike into a school nativity play. Net result: people who like watching football and looking at well-groomed men in their underpants believe that bikes are cool; every accountant commuting across the wilds of Kensington does so on a Dakar ready BMW GS and an action movie isn't an action movie without a bike in it. Cool. Bikes, bikers and bike-makers like it when their hobby, passion or profession is popularised; celebrities, movie stars and footballers in expensive underpants get to be seen as ready to step outside the staid world of shiny-floored TV studios and shiny-toothed interviewers, so they're happy, and bike-makers get to show off their wares to the world.
A Short History Of The Motorcycle Richard Hammond pp78-9
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By the 1970s, if you rode a motorcycle you would have trouble being served in a pub. You wouldn't even get through the door, which was why biker pubs became famous. They weren't particularly brilliant pubs, you were just allowed in them if you wore a leather jacket and hadn't arrived in a Ford Cortina.
There was no logic to this unofficial ban. Raping and pillaging by bikers was rare, and besides, many figures in the establishment rode bikes. Sir Ralph Richardson, the famous Shakespearean actor and contemporary of Sir Laurence Olivier, rode a 750 BMW everywhere. Judges, surgeons and schoolteachers rode bikes. I knew a vicar who had a Yamaha RD400.
And then slowly it began to change. Barry Sheene arrived and became grandma's favourite. He was brave, cheeky, good-looking, fun and he didn't wear black leathers. His girlfriend was a model and he drove a Rolls-Royce. He started to change the face of motorcycling.
A Short History Of The Motorcycle Richard Hammond pp90-1
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By the 1970s, if you rode a motorcycle you would have trouble being served in a pub. You wouldn't even get through the door, which was why biker pubs became famous. They weren't particularly brilliant pubs, you were just allowed in them if you wore a leather jacket
No such problem for me in Melbourne. Hammond was only 10 years old at the end of the 70's, what would he know about pubs in the 70's, certainly not first hand experience.
.... and hadn't arrived in a Ford Cortina.
If I wasn't arriving at the pub on my motorbike, I'd be in my Ford Cortina, or later on a HQ PV then a Kingswood.
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Honda had a mountain to climb at the TT races. Riders unfamiliar with the circuit, funny food and bikes that were newly developed. Not surprisingly, the podium in the 125 race was occupied by European riders on European machines with an Italian MV Agusta on the top step. Honda's bikes finished 6th, 7th, 8th and 11th with Bill Hunt falling off and failing to finish. A pretty good result and if anyone was still laughing and making jokes now they were pretty naive. Veteran racers Bill Smith and Tommy Robb could see Honda's potential and wisely visited the Nursery Hotel and introduced themselves.
In 1961 Honda won its first TT race when the legendary Mike Hailwood ripped across the line first in the 125cc and 250cc races. In the latter his 250 had a four-cylinder engine. That was a pretty trick but Honda had many more tricks up its sleeve. In 1964 it produced a 250 with six cylinders and in 1965 a 125cc racer called the RC148 which had five cylinders and revved to over 20,000rpm. In 1966 Hailwood was at the TT on a Honda 500. Now chaps, this isn't cricket. It's all very well bringing along your diddy little bikes with lots of cylinders but the big 500s, that's for the Europeans.
A Short History Of The Motorcycle Richard Hammond p108
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'You meet the nicest people on a Honda.' That was the slogan that Grey Advertising came up with in 1963 when Honda approached the agency for help in cranking up Honda 50 sales in the US. It was a brave call. Industries generally try to focus in on the qualities that people believe their product imbues- the fantasy element that plucks at the consumer's imagination and persuades them to part with their readies. People selling razor blades show adverts featuring racing cars shooting about accompanied by rock music, aftershave manufacturers employ a man whose voice registers in an octave only audible to elephants through their feet to tell us how many panting girls we will be prizing from our manly trouser legs if we splash the contents of their latest bottle on our chin. And yet here was a maker of bikes - machines whose power and appeal was, surely, wrapped up in images of leather-clad dudes sneering at old people and living a life of freedom from rules, traffic cops and soap - showing TV adverts in which immaculately dressed women cruised around Beverly Hills on a Honda 50 on their way to buy expensive shoes.
A Short History Of The Motorcycle Richard Hammond p127
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Standing at the window of our family home in Ripon, North Yorkshire, one day in the mid-eighties I gazed out at the busy junction opposite and dreamed of the day coming soon when I could take to the road on a bike myself. A rack of BMW bikes had pulled up, waiting to cross the junction. They sat there, eight of them, with their stupid fairings and panniers and luggage and waterproof-clad riders and I hated their smug, cope-with-everything attitude. The end rider leaned their bike to one side as they sat there, perhaps to hook a gear ready to set off. They leaned too far, past the point where their single, shaking leg could hold the big machine and it went over. That bike hit the next one, which hit the next one and quickly the whole lot went down, felled as if by a missile. Oil, petrol, plastic fairings and shattered dignity cascaded across the damp tarmac and I struggled to know what face to pull. Bikes, real, valuable bikes had just been destroyed in front of me, through no fault of their own. Which was a tragedy. But they were BMWs. It was like watching toy rabbits being thrown into a blender: unsettling, but nowhere near as awful as if it had been real rabbits. Things would be different now. I have BMWs myself and they are a very, very different proposition today to what they were in my youth.
A Short History Of The Motorcycle Richard Hammond pp147-8
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Today's racers do things on motorbikes that really appear to tweak at the nose hairs of the laws of physics. They slide them, braking, into corners and power slide them on the throttle, leaving black lines on the track. Again, like the elbow sliding, a sliding back wheel on my bike is generally an early stage in a process known as 'losing it', followed by another called 'binning it' and then another called 'hoping at first that your bike isn't as badly damaged as you are and then changing your mind and hoping that you're not as badly damaged as your bike'.
The MotoGP riders really are the cream of motorcycle racers and the very best of this select bunch are known as the 'Aliens', guys whose skills are out of this world. That is one cool nickname and one of the best of the Aliens has his own personal, even cooler nickname: 'The Doctor'. That's what most riders get to see written on the back of Valentino Rossi's leathers as they hang on for grim death and try to follow him around the track in the forlorn hope that an overtaking opportunity will somehow come their way; which, generally, it won't.
A Short History Of The Motorcycle Richard Hammond p177
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The motorcycle is a handy sort of size; roughly the same size as we are, in fact. Maybe that is somehow significant to us, deep down in our inner psyche. A car is bigger; we sit in it and are surrounded by it: we are the operator within. A bike is fundamentally different. We sit on and not in it and we wrap ourselves around it: we embrace it. Maybe this triggers some clunky, archaic old synapse in the human brain connected with dominance, maybe it tickles another that signifies companionship and comfort, but the fact remains that riding a bike is closer to holding a bike than to something so banal and soulless as merely operating it like you might a car or a photocopier. And so a journey on a bike becomes a journey with a bike. Rider and bike travel together, work together to navigate tough territory, tight turns and unexpected events along the way. We experience the same weather as the bike, our body and the bike lean together and react to the same G-forces and if things go wrong are subjected to the same relentless tearing of tarmac or the sudden intervention of a tree. And we do all of this together, rider and machine, united as one.
A Short History Of The Motorcycle Richard Hammond p190
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Suddenly, a Tata looms on my side, slowly pushing into me towards the exit. Aidan and another scooter have just squeezed past, but now the truck has turned too far- and I have nowhere to go. The bike falls over. I manage to jump off, but the truck keeps on turning. The driver slowly pushes on, even though he has seen me. The space between the parked lorry on my right and his turning Tata is getting smaller as the bike disappears under his front nose. I can't pull it out in time. A crowd has formed, staring. No one is helping. Desperate, I run around the side or the cab and scream at the driver. His door is open but my helmet is closed, so I doubt he hears anything. He finally stops resorting to leaning on his horn. Aidan appears and helps me pick up the bike. It starts, but it doesn't go anywhere. The chain has come off. We manage the bike into a gap between parked lorries. The Tata turns and disappears like nothing happened. The chain is so loose, it just pops back on. This is no place to stop- so we ride on. The crowd quietly disperses. I'm unhurt, but tears are flowing freely from the shock. Why did no one help? I can't stop crying, even though I'm laughing under my tears as Aidan pulls up next to me to check how I'm doing.
We pull over for a tea just as the chai stall is packing up. I sit down, trying to calm myself and stop the involuntary waterfall from my eyes. A couple of Tata drivers on break have been watching us. They give us two little plastic bags of chai, which they had bought for later. They look skinny in their torn, sweat-stained vests, and I suspect it's the only lunch they'll afford today, but insist that we should have it. That's India for you: a constant rollercoaster of extremes. First the ice-cold nastiness of the pushy driver; moments later, the infinite kindness of two others.
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends pp4-5
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I found a single track that took me into the infinite solitude of the Mongolian mountains that share a border with China. A half hour of steady climbing later, I was above 2400 metres before topping out on a series vast tablelands. With the track still muddy from recent rains, I chose to go completely off trail.
It was gloriously liberating to head in any direction and ride off-track while shooting across long open plateaus for miles on end. All morning and into early afternoon, I enjoyed high-speed riding on mostly smooth grasslands. In those moments, I wanted every beloved person in my life to be there with me, to experience the sovereignty of unrestricted movement in a land largely unspoiled. Periodically I would come to a stop, kill the engine and even remove my helmet, just to bathe in the freedom and isolation.
Scouting in all directions to each horizon, it was a frontier still untouched and absent the stain of humanity. I felt somewhat ashamed for being there on a motorcycle, its brapping exhaust the only modern blemish on the pristine landscape. Remove my Suzuki DR-Z400, and it'd be impossible to tell if the year were 1219AD or 2019AD. A horse would have been more appropriate.
Higher into the mountains I went, until I was level with the snow line on the nearby peaks of China, a mere ten miles away.
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends pp21-22
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"It is necessary to authenticate your identity and purpose, and you should have a banana," he said, confusing me slightly. I had been off bananas since travelling in Central America, where I lived on the bendy yellow bastards. Boiled banana, fried banana, grilled banana, roast banana. You could eat whatever you wanted, as long as it was made of banana. But I graciously accepted the curved offering as a goodwill gesture. I mean, nobody ever gave a condemned man a banana.
They offered me a chair in front of their headquarters' tent, and some Indian Army tea, while they checked my passport. All very respectful so I sat and sipped my tea from a china cup while a growing crowd of local farmers watched from the road. I asked myself where else would I rather be and wondered what's going to happen next. It's early afternoon, I'm in an Indian army camp, and my Moto Guzzi has a full tank of petrol.
A wave of contentment broke over me as I sat watching the scene unfold before me. For a moment I'm 21 again, off to see the world with the fresh eyes that only youth can see through. I was living by the day, by the hour, not knowing nor particularly caring what would happen next. I didn't know where would sleep that night, or what these feckin soldiers wanted. But I wasn't worried. Something will happen, so whatever! This was one of those moments that travelling is all about. Completely outside any norm, and totally separated from the planned and expected. It was an instance of pure selflessness, not caring about anyone else. It's just me and the bike.
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends pp72-3
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I reached the outskirts of Kathmandu, the road evened out, and I stopped for a photo. Disaster! My iPhone should've been in my back pocket, but the pocket was empty. My phone, camera, GPS- all gone. It must have bounced out one of the times I went airborne. Now most likely flattened by a truck.
Then a lorry parked up next to me. The young Nepalese driver wanted to know if I had lost my phone. "Yes," I said as I climbed up into the cab. The driver and his two mates were all smiling. The cab was decorated like a 1970s brothel, with garish green carpet on the ceiling and fluffy toys hanging in the windscreen. "Is this it?" he said, showing me a Samsung. "No," I said. They laughed and held up another phone. "Is this it?" The three guys were in stitches at this joke. They were playing a game with me, finally taking my phone out of his pocket. Now I laughed too. They explained they were driving behind me when they saw the phone flying out of my pocket. They managed to stop and rescue it. I couldn't believe it. I had the luckiest iPhone in the world. I thanked them profusely and offered them some money, which they wouldn't take.
I pulled into Kathmandu and shut off the engine, I suddenly felt exhausted. I was running on adrenalin since Pakistan, so now I was suddenly and totally wiped out. Travelling alone can be hard work.
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends p77
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Once everything was back together it was time to say goodbye to my hero, the taxi driver. Haval had been helping me for nearly four hours. I'd read about the taarof custom in Iran. This is a customary back and forth of polite gestures when paying, or receiving gifts, often to show respect and for politeness. I understood that it was common for vendors to say, "Don't worry about the bill," several times.
With Haval this went on for 10, 11, and then 12 times. He just wouldn't give me a figure. I tried to put a sizeable wedge of rials in his driver's cab, but he slammed the door in my face with a grin, and then pulled his palm to his chest to show friendship. He got in the front of his cab and the mechanic loaded his toolbox into the boot. I thought this was part of the game, but the taxi's wheels started to turn. I grabbed the back door as Haval began to pull out into the traffic and was nearly mowed down, but I managed to tuck the money into the back seat. There was no way he was getting away from me without any recompense for all his time.
No amount of cash could express my gratitude for Haval's help or indeed the guesthouse owner, the soldiers, the mechanic, or Mr Raza and his daughters, the doctor, the bank manager, or the endless stream of people who have helped me on my trips. Their faces are etched onto my mind. I have so much good karma to repay. I ride with tools in my bags most days, hoping that I may have the one thing someone may need to get themselves out of a pickle. I have experienced the kindness of strangers from many people, but I was humbled by the Kurdish taxi driver of Tabriz. He forever changed my humility.
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends pp95-6
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Having crossed the second crack, I try to make out the island of Ayon in the distance, but I can still only see the frozen surface of the ocean, a thick layer of white snow, hardened by continuous storms to the density of a stone. The cold is biting, and I stop to warm up. In extreme cold, the hands and feet start to be disconnected from the warm blood supply. Heat is directed to vital internal organs bypassing the limbs. Fearing freezing my fingers, I hug the hot engine until feeling returns.
After the second bridge, the cleared road ends, deteriorating into rutted tracks churned up by the trucks. My speed drops, and I struggle to ride in a narrow deep rut. Paddling with my legs, I try to keep moving forward, but the rear wheel spins and the front wheel gets stuck in a rut, throwing me to one side and off the machine. I fall into a snowdrift and the motorcycle stalls. I press the starter button, but the dull sound says that the battery is frozen. The motorcycle will not start. Attempts to push start in a snowy rut prove futile, with the motor rapidly cooling, soon to freeze completely. I'm alone, and in the matter of a few seconds the adventure has become a crisis.
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends p102
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The first half of the crossing was shallow, around 30-50 centimetres deep. The riverbed sharply descended to a metre deep and the water rushed down into my boots. Holding a heavy pannier above my head, it felt like I was forcing my way through the rushing waters with concrete shoes on. Within a few yards we were back up to more shallow rapids again, and repeat.
Now the bikes. The power of the rapids forced the front wheel of the first, partially submerged bike, downstream.
Walter had to yell loudly over the roar of the rapids and the sounds of the revving motor. He instructed me to walk beside and push against the front wheel. That forced the water to send the back wheel downstream while he throttled. So I switched and pushed against the back, and repeat. Eventually we had both bikes across. It was tough.
Looking back across the water at what we'd just achieved. Walter was elated. He said to my video camera with pride, "After 48 hours, we completed the Old Road of Bones, unassisted, just us. And I'm knackered."
We repacked the bikes and rode up the hill to the main road, and a welcome fuel stop. How grateful I was to be sponsored with a Safari long range fuel tank. It would have been much harder to make it to this point without it.
Fuel storage tanks were above ground in this part of the world due to permafrost and at this fuel stop they used an empty tank as an office. In Russia, you have to pay for fuel first, and I knew the drill. Here goes: walk up to the tiny window. The window swiftly slides open and a human hand pops out (I could never see the person inside). Hand over a chunk of Russian Rubles, hoping it's enough. The window slams shut. After fuelling, back to the window where the hand gives back some change (hopefully). The window slams shut.
"Spasiba," I murmured as I walked past the guard dog to my bike.
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends pp143-4
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When I applied for the Chinese visa a week earlier, I made no mention of my motorcycle. I now hoped for a miracle and that somehow, I could sneak the TT in. On this motorcycle journey of four years from Australia across Africa to London and now across Europe and Central Asia, I believed, without question that everything would always work out for me. I lived devoid of worry. I lived energised by a constant sense of knowing an energy moved through me and through us all. It saturated all life. It was a guiding force that helped us fulfil our purpose- our dreams. It was shown to us through chance encounters and coincidences and helped nurture a deep trust in our intuition.
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends p152
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We turn off the bikes' engines and contemplate how to get my rear tyre unsuctioned from the mud. It's really quiet. There is no breeze, just a faint buzzing sound which is growing in volume. A small man on a scooter buzzed into sight. The gentleman is wearing a crisp white shirt, snugly buttoned to his collarbone, and tucked into his pressed black dress-pants, accented by his shiny black shoes. His hair is perfectly parted and held in place by a good cut, and lots of product. He is riding the thin line of solid soil where the jungle ends and the road begins.
The man stops when he sees us, gets off his bike, and without conversation, proceeds to help us clear my tyre of the muck. In minutes he is back on his bike, sitting on the tattered seat; he pulls a handkerchief out of the briefcase strapped to the back and returns the shine to his shoes. As the buzzing sound of his tiny engine diminishes, we look at each other with a common thought. To us this is a great adventure; to him, it's just Tuesday.
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends p201
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The following day, after several hours of wet riding up the not so Dusty Highway, I was flagged down. Another passport check, or so I thought. "Do want to see a snow leopard?" he asked. Why not? I thought. He waved me into a walled compound and closed the metal gates behind me, which felt odd. I realised he wasn't dressed in a police uniform. Four other men stood around. One of the men was cleaning out a white van. I imagined he was washing out the evidence of the last biker they sliced up and fed to the 'snow leopard'. It suddenly hit me. "I'm going to be robbed! How stupid I've been!" At that moment, a man came from behind the building followed closely by an unchained snow leopard.
It seemed huge, but it was just a cub, they said six months old. The first man put the leopard onto the seat of the bike and then thrust it into my arms. Although only a cub, it felt strong and, after a few hasty photographs, it wrestled itself out of my nervous grip and bounded across the dirt. I breathed sigh of relief as the men gathered it up and took it back to its pen. It turned out that they were park rangers and had saved this abandoned cub from a premature death in the wild. Much later, a BBC documentary would make me aware as to how rare these creatures are. It was a truly unique experience.
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends p221
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The colonial French gastronomic influence in Cambodia and Laos complemented the local ingredients. Georgie worked her way through as many crabs and clams as possible, while I noodled, porked and developed a liking for aromatic Kampot pepper. We travelled north from Phnom Peng through the busy junction town of Skuon, which prides itself in serving the finest cooked spiders in Indochina. We were told to head to the bus station where local women sold deep-fried, hairy arachnids to the passengers in need of a snack. These would often be purchased through the open bus windows. Georgie selected an eight-legged treat from a large pile, and crunched hard through the body, taking in four legs at the same time. The video I shot has her talking to the vendor, with the sound of me gagging in the background. Crispy and garlicy was her verdict on the spider. Insanity was my verdict on Giorgie.
Laos seemed to be huge and empty, but baguettes and fried eggs for breakfast kept us fuelled during long days riding up into the jungles. I was trusted to source dinner one night in Luang Prabang and earned extra Brownie points for finding crispy roast belly pork.
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends pp270-1
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H took the plunge and went through the river and right up to the soldiers with no effort. Following his lead, I crossed the river, but just as I exited, bang! The front wheel hit a bowling ball size rock hidden in the soft shingle. The front end of my bike reared up and, as I fell backward, my hand pulled throttle open wide. My bike was suddenly going skyward- but what goes up, must come down. I landed in a boulder-strewn field a good 5O yards from where I started. I landed with me under my bike, whose engine was screaming while petrol leaked onto me with enthusiasm. I could just reach the ignition to kill the engine.
Realising I was trapped, but unharmed, my major concern was that as my leg was twisted underneath the bike, someone would just lift it up, and that would break it! I could now hear all the soldiers running down to help.
I shouted as hard as I could, "For God's sake H, don't let them lift the bike," while Henry did a fantastic Kirk Douglas impersonation and bounced from one giant boulder top to another- and reached me before anyone else. I explained to Henry how I wanted them to lift the bike slowly, so I could corkscrew myself round as they lifted. A dozen pairs of hands slowly eased my bike off me as I untangled myself.
Free of the bike, I breathed a great sigh of relief. A dozen excited soldiers manhandled my bike up to their command post. Once I reached the top and they realised I was totally unharmed, laughing and punching my body armour, they started doing impressions of Superman and me going skyward. The commander appeared with a bottle of vodka and three glasses; handing me and H a glass, he looked me in the eye, flashed a gold-tooth smile and said in broken English: "Stuntman." Filling our glasses, we raised them. The toast?
"Hooray for Hollywood."
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends p289
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I have spent many months in India over the years and, coming from a country where horns are rarely used, the India-wide cacophony remained a mystery until it was explained to me that motorists do not use rear view mirrors and so drivers have to announce their presence to the person in front. Even so, in city traffic jams, it's no holds barred; everyone leans on the horn even when nobody within sight can move! Sometimes I join in the noise just to feel part of the craziness. Not for a minute will a 'No Entry' sign be obeyed if inconvenient, and roundabouts might just as well not be there. On this journey, I am waiting to enter a roundabout. It is in the middle of a town, put at a busy junction to ease the traffic for the smooth transit of all. However, the queue to it is too long for someone wanting to turn right, so the waiting traffic is overtaken to enable reaching the roundabout quicker. Going round it the wrong way and turning right is the norm. Even at a filling station, as I wait for a pump to be free, someone darts in front of me and takes my place. It is not done with any aggressiveness. I am told that there is little concept of personal space, and that no offence is intended when someone queue-jumps.
A railway crossing? Barriers down. Traffic builds up and waits on the left until it's just too tempting to get to the front on the right side. The riders on the other side are doing the same. Once the train has gone through and the barriers are raised amidst much honking from everyone, it's CHARGE! Head on collisions are avoided as riders weave around each other, overtaking slower buses and lorries. I am told that you don't need to pass a driving test in India. Just pay enough money and you're fit to drive. I can well believe it.
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends p326
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Showering at last, I grin under the water, trying to comprehend how we've just come from a long, hot day of riding that included a border crossing and a nasty old lady in her haunted hotel, to a vibrant wedding reception with live techno and free horsemeat. Our first day in Kazakhstan is already proving to be a great reason for coming to the country. I knew we'd find something better than what the woman older than petrified wood offered, and no way would she be showing us a good time right now.
A quick leg-and-armpit shave and I'm ready to party. I have just one semi-nice clothing item to wear - the same green sundress I've been wearing since the beginning of our trip. It's faded from sun and shower-laundering but is far nicer and cleaner than my riding clothes. The dress has an opening in the back that shows my bra, so Dave ties it out of the way using dental floss. Back at the reception, I'm asked to dance by a drunk uncle. The music has shifted from techno to something with a slower beat, and it's hard to find the right moves. Dave remains seated at the round table, eyes darting left to right, clearly terrified that someone's about to invite him onto the dance floor as well. I'm certain he'll fake a sudden knee injury, or bad heart, should there be a solicitation.
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends p338
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We only saw two spills. They were eye-openers, too. I'm not sure if I was pleased, disappointed, or surprised to to find that the average sort of speed we were achieving was around 35km/h. Those sorts of speeds mean that when people did hit each other or fall off, it was done so slowly that potential damage was minimised. With both the accidents we saw, the riders collided, and hit the deck. The rest of the traffic swirled around them, hardly slowing at all. The riders picked themselves up, apologised with straight faces and little bows, helped each other pick their bikes up, climbed aboard their bikes again and headed back into the traffic. No drama, just good manners, and a matter-of-fact attitude. Yes, they and their bikes had collected a few scratches, but that was all. The lack of shock and aggressiveness, or the yelling and outrage that would follow any spill in some more Western countries, just didn't happen. It's against the Vietnamese culture to lose one's temper in public. How nice.
The worst reaction I saw was a cut-you-dead, incredibly scathing look from a young, grey-suited lass on a very tidy bright red Vespa scooter. She'd just been cut up by an idiot with go faster stripes on his 125cc Honda Wave. When she saw that I'd seen her glare, she looked momentarily embarrassed and then giggled under her facemask before roaring off. If you can say that a Vespa roars anywhere! She was wearing a suit with a skirt so short and so tight that she could only sit on the front 10cm of her saddle. If she hadn't, she'd have been unable to dab her shiny black stiletto-heeled shoes onto the road.
The Moment Collectors- Asia Sam Manicom and Friends pp351-2
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On our previous trips Frank and I had used a coffin-like box attached to a motorcycle in lieu of the more comfortable and upholstered standard sidecar, mainly because a box-like structure carried more gear, could not be easily scratched or dented, and was made of much sturdier material. Seeing no reason to stray from this practice, we constructed our box accordingly, with one or two small variations. The box was of one-inch solid planking, fastened with screws at the joints, and the bottom section was made to extend fifteen inches beyond the rest of the woodwork, providing a shelf on which could be bolted the extra petrol container, which was in reality an eight-gallon tank used in the Ford T Model motor cars of the day. A seat was installed a few inches above the baseboard, upon which would rest a circular inflatable rubber cushion. The box was kept narrow enough for spare tyres to be secured on either end with a minimum of lashings, but was wide enough to allow the passenger some comfort. The two end sections were partitioned off to stow essential spares and commodities. Unobtrusive brackets were screwed on either side, one for the shotgun and the other for the heavy repeating rifle, which could then be brought into action at short notice. We knew our skill as marksmen could mean the difference between a meal and starvation, and also took with us a Browning automatic pistol.
Around Australia The Hard Way In 1929 Jack L. Bowers p17
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These are just some of the running repairs we had to carry out with the 7-9 horsepower Harley vee-twin engine. Despite the rough treatment it had received, with the occasional and necessary usage of windmill oil for lubrication, the greatest problem was the oiling up of the magneto in some isolated location or another. However from time to time, we took time out to completely dismantle the engine, scrape the carbon from the pistons and cylinder heads, grind in the inlet and exhaust valves and adjust valve tappets. This usually took us two days and we always reserved this chore until we arrived at a camping site where we would not be beset by a crowd of curious and inquisitive onlookers who might hinder our progress. On these overhauls each of us had his own side of the machine to work on, when it came to removing the engine from the frame.
Around Australia The Hard Way In 1929 Jack L. Bowers p32
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On occasions when we had no suet, we flattened the flour-and-water dough to cover the bottom of the frying pan like a pancake, and fried it very slowly over a low fire. The result looked like a bread board which we cut fair across the middle. Half each, no more, and no less. Spread with treacle it made quite a good substitute for bread and became our regular breakfast meal.
Frank is a bigger, better, and faster eater than I am. Seated on his favourite meal-time seat, the flour tin, he would ravenously devour his half pancake with obvious relish, then sit back silently like a hungry dog, watching me as I slowly ate mine. However, I could not afford to yield a crumb.
Another dish which regularly appeared on the menu, also of flour and water, with a little suet added, was mixed and rolled into little balls, like a golf ball. These would be boiled in the billy until they became almost as large as tennis balls. The billy-can could only hold two. Boiled for twenty minutes, then spread with treacle, they would be our one hot meal of the day.
Almost like dessert.
Around Australia The Hard Way In 1929 Jack L. Bowers p38
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The station cook was most apologetic that we had missed lunch. He had been advised that we were coming by Mac- one of the Brunette hands with whom we had dined the previous evening and who had returned during the night. A matter of 70 miles meant little to the locals, for this was the nearest neighbour anyway.
The cook quickly made us a meal and invited us to tuck in, all the while repeating how sorry he was that we had missed lunch.
An hour later we were on our way once more, but there was a strange sequel to this story. Two years later I pulled into a Sydney service station for petrol, and while the attendant was seeing to my needs I heard a voice I knew inside the building. I also knew the name of the owner so I went inside and there was Mac. I had dined with him at Alexandria station 2,000 miles away a couple of years earlier, and on the following day had chatted with him for a short time at Brunette Downs. It was an amazing coincidence.
Around Australia The Hard Way In 1929 Jack L. Bowers p51
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Our fire was unusually small that night as we cooked our johnnycakes and boiled the billy. The mosquitoes having joined us, we rigged up our mosquito net, crawled underneath it and composed ourselves to sleep. Before long a long drawn-out note of a curlew broke the silence of the darkness, shortly followed by another and yet another until it seemed we were surrounded by them. It became obvious to us that the Aborigines had found us, for curlews do not call to each other in such numbers, and from so many points of the compass.
We had overlooked the fact that our engine made such an unholy noise in this part of the world that we were reasonably easy to locate. So we crawled from beneath the mosquito net took out our rifle, the Browning automatic pistol and the Winchester torch, and sallied forth amongst the trees, flashing the torch beams from left to right. The curlew noises stopped immediately and we returned to the mosquito net, crawled under it once more and fell asleep.
Around Australia The Hard Way In 1929 Jack L. Bowers p64
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If the worst came to the worst we would abandon the outfit and commence walking the 80 miles back to Katherine, carrying the two gallons of water with us, and our flour. At Katherine we could telegraph the Harley-Davidson agency for whatever spares we required. They could then despatch the article by the monthly boat from Sydney to Darwin, from where it could be forwarded to Katherine by the once-weekly train. Then all we had to do was walk the 80 miles back to our abandoned vehicle and commence work. All this could take two to three months.
By the time we retired for the night we had determined that the engine failure was most likely caused by the magneto. We had no spare parts for magneto repairs, so things looked grim.
We were eagerly astir at dawn. There was no wood handy for a fire so we ate remnants of a loaf of bread purchased in Katherine, and commenced work. We pulled the maggie to pieces, carefully examined each part, cleaned everything and put it together again. By this time the sun was well past the meridian. Well, this was it. Would the motor start, or was this the end of the venture?
We jumped on the kick-starter and the motor roared into life. It was music to our ears, beautiful music. The magneto had simply oiled up.
Around Australia The Hard Way In 1929 Jack L. Bowers pp71-2
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One morning we looked for a pinhole puncture in the leaky tyre, but without water to show us the air bubble we could not find it. So, putting all the temporary sleeves back in the tyre, each one covering a wall fracture in the canvas wall lining, we placed the leaky tube back in the tyre, pumped the tyre up once more and continued on our way. Fortunately the much used hand pump never faltered at any time and just as well. We had no spares for hand pumps. We had travelled on just one mile when the tyre blew out with a loud bang. There was no further need to look for a slow leak. We now had a much larger one and we put our last remaining spare tube in, replaced the seven sleeves once again over the seven fractures, and departed.
Around Australia The Hard Way In 1929 Jack L. Bowers p98
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During the four days spent in crossing the Nullarbor we saw no one, except that one lonely family at Eucla and the startled homesteaders at Mundrabilla. Over the distance of 1,000 miles it was as if we were the sole human inhabitants of the earth and we became attuned to this form of existence, blending in with the harsh surroundings and marvelling at what we saw. We would possibly open up a conversation at lunchtime over the lizard that scurried away and totally disappeared before our very eyes; or upon that magnificent dance display performed by a flock of brolgas; or on how we very nearly collected a wayward galah seeking to regain the flock by making a suicidal attempt to cross our path. There were a thousand and one things during the day's viewing to absorb the mind, in addition to a thought now and again about our own well-being. A dingo track in the sandy waste under the front wheel would be commented upon, or a goanna raising itself on those peculiar front legs that made it look like hydrofoil raised upon its foils as it streaked for the nearest tree in which to seek refuge, always spiralling to ensure the tree trunk was between it and the human invader. All these things we observed as we went our way, and were the prime subjects of conversation at stopping time.
Around Australia The Hard Way In 1929 Jack L. Bowers pp117-8
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During the four days spent in crossing the Nullarbor we saw no one, except that one lonely family at Eucla and the startled homesteaders at Mundrabilla ....
Thanks for today's post Bill.
Haven't followed all of your posts, but I opened this thread again today and it brought back some memories, and I wonder if the lonely family mentioned above could've been my Dad with his parents who crossed the Nullarbor in 1929.
Dad told us the story about the crossing many times, particularly the time they broke down and had to wait a number of days for a tow, which was provided by an Afghan camel driver / herder, to the nearest homestead. I seem to recall that this was at the Eucla Telegrah Station where he celebrated his 5th birthday with a toy truck which his Mum had packed before they left Swan Hill. Dad has gone now so I can't ask him the Afghan towed them to Mundrabilla, and he'd be 101 anyway, so he probably wouldn't have remembered.
Dad had for many years expressed a wish to do the trip again, and in a Model T. When we visited Dad & Mum on Dad's 87th birthday he told us that he bought himself a birthday present, a Model T Ford (1st pic).
This T wasn't really up for the trip so a friend, Alan, offered the use of his T (with an overdrive gear, making it capable of 70km/h, 2nd pic), much more suitable, would've been better if it had proper brakes. Sadly, T's didn't.
Anyway, in September 2003 we set off from Swan Hill to Perth. When we got to Eucla we visited the (now) Old Telegraph Station (3rd pic) - Dad was like a puppy with two tails.
Good memories.
:thumbs
Have got the dreaded message, "Your attachment has failed security checks and cannot be uploaded. Please consult the forum administrator", we be back later with the attachments.
In the meantime, hi-jack over, back to normal viewing.
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Have got the dreaded message, "Your attachment has failed security checks and cannot be uploaded. Please consult the forum administrator", we be back later with the attachments.
What type of file were you trying to upload, and what size. I think there is a 500meg (or is that Kb) size limit, and certain file types arent supported.
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Pic 1
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Pic 3
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Upon the final stamping and signing of our card, which by now bore stamps and signatures from all the capital cities in the Commonwealth of Australia, our mission was ended. We could now go home and sleep in a proper bed and dispense with our plain flour, cream of tartar and soda, put our firearms away without fear of molestation by man or beast and lead an ordinary life once again.
Despite the hazards of the last eleven weeks- sleeping in the open under all sorts of conditions, drinking water in which lay dead cattle, and living from day to day always dependent on our skill in handling that heavy, unwieldly outfit in all manner of motoring hazards- despite all these hazards we had made it.
We had returned triumphant and were not only the first to circumnavigate Australia on a motorcycle and sidecar, but the fastest for any type of motorised land vehicle. We had also dispelled all doubts those cautious potential sponsors had about man not being able to live with man for long periods of isolation. We really felt as though we had achieved something. And that's a great feeling.
Around Australia The Hard Way In 1929 Jack L. Bowers pp130-1
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I'd grown used to the chaos and noise of a city like Delhi by this point, but Naiwala Street seemed to step it up a notch. The street itself was barely visible among the abundance of motorcycles, pedestrians, wooden carts pulled by either people or animals, tuk-tuks, food stalls and motorcycle parts on display. But it wasn't long before I became a fixture of Naiwala Street myself. I decided to spend my time gaining some essential repair skills. To me, motorcycle maintenance was like a secret language that only the bikes themselves spoke, drawing from a dictionary written in hieroglyphics. I met Satnam, a man who worked at Shakti Accessories and who was willing to teach me the basics. He had a short goatee and a couple of deep scars on his left cheek. His calm disposition made me trust him. In exchange for his lessons, I bought all the accessories we installed on my motorcycle in his shop.
"I just don't have the additional headlights," Satnam said, clearly disappointed. Then his face brightened. "My cousin has a shop, he does sell them. Come, come, I'll take you," he said over his shoulder while making his way to his moped. "Come," he said encouragingly. I hesitated. I wasn't overjoyed at the prospect of riding pillion with him. I wanted those lights though, so I reluctantly agreed. I'd only just grabbed hold of the grips on the back when he revved the engine and the shabby moped lurched into motion. He skillfully navigated the small streets and kept narrowly avoiding pedestrians, motorcycles, and once even a cart full of gas canisters.
Free Ride Noraly Schoenmaker p16
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The mechanic started by unscrewing the air filter's protective cover. Although I only realized that's where the air filter lived once he took it out and held it up. I'd never seen a motorcycle's air filter before, let alone a dirty one, so I didn't know what it was supposed to look like. Given the look on the mechanic's face, it was far from fabulous. He shook his head at me.
"This is not good. Not good."
He turned the key, started the bike and held the filter in front of the exhaust while his assistant revved the engine- which is apparently how you clean an air filter. The dust cloud that emerged was so large that I broke out into a coughing fit. According to the mechanic the air filter hadn't been cleaned for thousands of miles and I started to doubt Pankaj's optimistic assurances about the bike being "shipshape". I didn't know enough about motorcycles to specifically tell the mechanic what else to check though. For the past three years, I'd just dropped off my Ducati Monster at the dealership in the Netherlands whenever it needed to be serviced. I didn't have the slightest idea what they did to it, or what parts needed to be cleaned or replaced or when. And I knew even less about the maintenance of off-road motorcycles. I opted for a general request.
"Could you check everything?"
The mechanic blinked. "Everything?"
"Well, you know, the most important things," I said as nonchalantly as possible.
Free Ride Noraly Schoenmaker pp37-8
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I turned onto a side street, parked Basanti next to the kerb, and dismounted to inspect my tires. Completely dumbfounded, I stared at my rear tire. There was no doubt about it: the tire was flat. In Karol Bagh, back in Delhi, they had injected some kind of black slime between my tire and the tube. The black goo was now bubbling out and running down one of my spokes.
"With this stuff, you'll never get a flat tire," Satnam had assured me. I had the unsettling hunch that he had been wrong. I shook my head in disbelief.
"But I was so close," I mumbled quietly.
As I was still coming to terms with the fact that my tire was really flat, I hadn't noticed a man and a woman approaching me from behind "You have a problem?" I heard suddenly.
I spun around. "Yes, I have a flat tire," I replied.
I was met with the friendly faces of a man wearing a colorful shirt and a young woman holding a black umbrella, even though it wasn't raining.
"Don't worry, I'll call a mechanic," the man said.
I sighed in relief. In Delhi, during my crash course in motorcycle mechanics, I had learned that when push came to shove, I couldn't repair a tire on my own. I didn't know where these people had come from, but I was glad for their unsolicited help. It wasn't long before the promised mechanic showed up. Without hesitating, he got to work and an hour after discovering my puncture, I had a new tube and was ready to carry on. I paid the mechanic double what he charged me and thanked everyone again. I realized that Southeast Asia might be the best place in the world to get a fiat tire on your bike, seeing as how it had more mopeds and motorcycles than cars. Patching punctures was the most natural thing in the world here. I'd been lucky.
Free Ride Noraly Schoenmaker p58
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I was just exiting the bathroom when I saw a TV crew waiting for me beside Basanti. I felt caught, as if my pants were still around my knees. I glanced down, just to be sure, but thankfully they weren't. I quickly fixed my hijab and walked toward the small group of people that had assembled. A man wearing a dark purple shirt and blue vest was waiting for me with a large microphone. A young woman wearing a chador (kind of like a burqa, but where the face is left uncovered) was ready with the camera.
"How you from?" asked the journalist in broken English.
"From Holland;' I replied.
"Please, welcome to Bafgh," he said.
"Thank you." I didn't know what else to say.
"Welcome to Bafgh and please go to the tourist," he said, pointing at the opposite side of the traffic circle.
"Tourist?" I couldn't make heads or tails of what he was saying.
"You. Go to tourist and television."
Eventually, I understood that he wanted me to come to the other side and that we would film there. Obligingly, I rode Basanti around the traffic circle and stopped at something resembling a market stall. There, the interview began. He asked me why I had come to Bafgh (to pee and have lunch, though I didn't bother to mention the first bit) and what kind of sights there were to see in Bafgh, Yadz, and Kerman (beautiful mosques). He had me shout "Welcome to Bafgh" at the camera a few times, and with that, the interview was over. I got a cup of tea and a fan with the words KHOSH AMADID printed on it, which meant "Welcome". Despite the somewhat stilted interview, my interviewers had succeeded: I really did feel welcome in Bafgh and in Iran.
Free Ride Noraly Schoenmaker pp84-5
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I stayed in Khorog the next day. There was rain forecasted, and I planned a rest day. I needed to recuperate, wash my stinking, dirty motorcycle clothes, give Basanti a thorough checkup, and, most importantly, hear more of Ganesha's stories. While examining Basanti's wheel, I was horrified to find a small piece of metal sticking out of the tire. I instinctively pulled it out, then briefly stood there holding the sharp object. I didn't hear any air escaping from the tube, so I assumed I'd narrowly avoided a puncture. I grabbed my tire pressure gauge to make sure. The reading was the same as always, and I breathed a sigh of relief. If I'd kept going for one more day, the metal would undoubtedly have penetrated deeper into the rubber, and I would have gotten a puncture. I'd been so lucky to discover this now! I rarely checked my tires, something I might do daily if I were a more sensible person. I didn't allow myself the time. In the mornings, I was so eager to start riding that it never felt like I had a moment to spare for something so tedious.
Free Ride Noraly Schoenmaker p134
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When I was some sixty feet away from them, I promptly stopped Basanti in the middle of the road and hobbled to the passenger side of the truck, which had stopped too. The door swung open before I'd even reached it and without any hesitation I clambered up the two steps and swiveled myself inside. I yanked the door closed behind me. Two Pamiris dressed in thick winter coats and fur hats stared at me, their eyes big with surprise. It must have looked pretty comical- a blond woman with a red nose and blue lips from the cold tottering off her overloaded motorcycle and unceremoniously climbing into their cabin. Without saying anything, I peeled the perforated gloves from my hands and showed my white fingers.
"Cold, I'm so cold," I muttered. I didn't bother trying to say something in Russian and simply spoke Dutch to them. The two men looked at each other and then back at me.
"Adin kilometer," said the man sitting next to me. One kilometer. "House."
"House?" I repeated in English. They both nodded. I blew on my hands for a brief second, breathed in the warmth of the cabin, and nodded too.
"Thanks," I remembered to say before climbing out again, back into the cold. The truck stayed put for a little longer, until I had my helmet back on my head and my gloves on. Then its engine fired, it slowly came into motion and honked. I raised my hand and started Basanti as well. One kilometer. Just one kilometer to go.
Free Ride Noraly Schoenmaker p157