Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

This lifted my spirits no end - I had conquered the Road of Bones and was about to get through on the winter road to Yakutsk! I rode on - the channels got deeper and the mud thicker, the bike was struggling and so was I. I was drenched with sweat from the physical effort required to keep the bike upright and move forward. I made it to the corner. Almost there... I could see the end of the mud marked by a bridge and dry road ahead. I rode on for another few hundred metres until I reached a particularly bad patch. I had to stop - the bike had lost traction and I was worried I was bogged. I looked down at the back wheel and found it covered in thick mud, but not bogged. I clicked into gear but the wheel just didn't move ~ no drive. I checked again. I got down into the mud and pawed as much of it away from the drive chain and frame to give the wheel some clearance - again there was no drive, no power to the back wheel. Bugger - what had I done? Why wasn't the wheel moving? I had been OK with minor mechanical issues up until now, but an engine problem three hundred kilometres from the next major town I did not need. I kept working at it - I was convinced something was jammed in the chain stopping it from moving. I spooned the wet mud out with my bare hands from every conceivable part of the bike. My boots and legs were covered in mud. I took off the luggage and panniers and tried again - nothing. I tried pushing in neutral and the bike moved forward including the back wheel so there was nothing jamming it- it just wouldn’t engage in gear and drive forward.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p51-2

[Biggles]

As soon as he slid his finger across his throat and said in his best English "ghum ovah" I knew that the game was indeed over. Lyo-ha carefully pulled the lightly baked clutch discs from the engine and showed them to me. These had worn severely from my incompetent riding and were now slipping over each other giving no traction and hence no drive from the engine. A search party was formed and they went scouring the auto-markets of Yakutsk in vain for replacement parts; for these were proprietary parts and the nearest Kawasaki dealer was ten thousand kilometres away in another country - but at least we had tried. After some complicated preparations, I managed to speak with my local dealer at home; he could have the parts within two days but then it would be over to an international courier to get the parts to me in Yakutsk.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p61

[Biggles]

In the morning, Sergei cooked me a full breakfast and then he and Sasha escorted me out of town and to the ferry across the Lena - some hundred kilometres away. As I sped away across the countryside, my two week stay in Yakutsk didn't seem so bad after all; I had been rescued from the middle of nowhere by am incredibly generous and hospitable man and his colleagues. I had been welcomed into his family and shared many things with them, I had explored a frontier town, hopefully understood the Yakut people and their culture a little better, I had seen fabulous wealth in gold and diamonds, I had seen and touched ten thousand year old life in permafrost and been granted honorary membership of the Nord Brotherhood motorcycle club. What else could I ask for?
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p78

[Biggles]

I spent the morning checking over my bike - it was amazing the number of factory-tightened nuts and bolts that had somehow loosened themselves in the course of riding over these rough roads. I checked each and every one and tightened many. Even the twenty seven mm nut at the top of the steering column was loose so that I could easily turn it by hand! I wasn't exactly sure of its purpose, but I suspected it was important and critical to be tight when riding - I had visions of the handlebars coming off in my hands as I tried (and failed) to corner a dangerous bend, As I went about my work the old lady owner was belting the living daylights out of the carpets that were hanging up in the yard for cleaning. She might have been old, but she sure packed a punch. Note to self: don't argue about the bill when checking out.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p85-6

[Biggles]

There was stuff every where; tyres, panniers, bags, toolkit, helmet, jacket, nuts and bolts - all spewed out onto the platform in a hurry, for the train had to vacate its position to let others come and go. This was a busy station in a large city with many train services both long distance and urban. People came and went too, inspecting my work but not bothering me. It was hot and sunny - over thirty degrees - and I quickly worked up a sweat putting all the pieces back together AGAIN. I sure was sick of doing this job. Within an hour, however, I had it all back together and was riding down the busy platform dodging commuters and travellers. I crossed the tracks with some tractors and cargo moving equipment and was suddenly on the streets of Novosibirsk, solo and dangerous - all I had to do now was ride down through Barnaul, to Semipalatinsk, across the steppes of northeast Kazakhstan to a remote and seldom used border crossing with China in the next eight days.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p102-3

[Biggles]

It felt as if I had been spat out of a time machine, so stark was the contrast between where I had come from and where I was now. I had spent over a month in the far north east corner of Russia in remote parts of Siberia. I had lived on a diet of bread, tea, sausage and tinned food. I had lived with locals and shared in their difficult conditions, stayed in the occasional "hotel", bathed in muddy tap water, ridden through mud, bog, swamp and rivers, drunk too much vodka, shared feasts of the best local food with generous hosts, eaten freshly cooked fish straight from rivers, slept in police stations, Kamaz cabins, workers' camps, apartments and camped in derelict ghost towns. Now I was riding along the wide open boulevards of central Novosibirsk in the hot summer sun.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p105

[Biggles]

By 9:30pm, however, I had made it to the outskirts of Semipalatinsk. It wasn't particularly well lit and there were absolutely no signs and when the road came to a fork I had to stop and ask for directions. I pulled up at a petrol station in the middle of an unofficial taxi rank. Out of the darkness came faces and bodies of all shapes and sizes. This was the place where the Russians had exploded over four hundred and fifty nuclear bombs - right up until the late 1980s - and it looked to me as if most of the guys here were a few chromosomes short of a full deck. It was like I had landed on the Island of Dr. Moreau. One man in particular was very peculiar - he had short hair on the top of his head, but big side burns and long curly hair from both the sides and back of his head down to his chest and I don't know how he ate without puncturing his lips - so badly arranged were his teeth. But he, like all of them, was extremely friendly and curious about me and my bike. It was as if an alien had landed and they were trying to make sense of it - that's impression I got anyway. Another man, dressed in a shell suit and looking the most normal, approached me. He was drunk and insisted I stay with him and his family - an offer I politely declined, but after asking about hotels three of four times it was clear I wasn't going anywhere. We talked about where I had come from and where I was going and they all inspected my bike in detail and were impressed. Some teenagers on motorcycles pulled up and also joined in.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p110-1

[Biggles]

In the morning I awoke to find Mischa meticulously cleaning every inch of my bike with a small rag and a bucket of water. He worked from top to bottom and around both sides for at least an hour, scouring and scrubbing and washing until the bike looked almost brand new. I tried to help, but he wouldn't have a bar of it – insisting that I was his guest and this was a gift from him to me. I ate a huge breakfast of kolbasa, eggs, bread, jam, sour cream etc, etc, and was completely full by the time we headed into town to say goodbye to Bolyat and Olya (sans Lyuba of course). Then the torture of breakfast #2 began. I couldn't believe it, it was an even larger fare than I had just consumed. I didn't know how I was going to manage it, so I just ate very, very, very slowly, chewing each mouthful as much as I could before trying to force it down. I felt they were at risk of breaching the UN charter for the protection of human rights. It took me a full two hours to get through just a fraction of what they had laid out. Luckily they weren't too offended and packed the balance in big plastic bags as add-on luggage for my trip. There was half a loaf of bread, honey, nuts, biscuits, potatoes, tomatoes, eggs and more. This would be lunch and snack food for the next few days.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p121-2

[Biggles]

I waddled down the stairs and flopped onto my bike, said my goodbyes quickly and rode off, following Mischa who had promised to show me the way out of town. But we weren't heading out of town at all. We soon pulled up at a large Russian Orthodox cathedral along the river bank near the centre of town. Mischa motioned that I follow him inside, so I entered the solemn space of the church vestibule facing the wall of icons common to all these churches. The priest was chanting prayers in deep monotones, seeing other people and trying to deal with their issues and requests. Mischa interrupted and politely dragged the priest over to meet me. He explained what I was doing and pulled out of his pocket four tiny golden crosses which he had purchased earlier. Mischa then gave these to the priest who blessed them and then carefully and earnestly hung one around my neck, singing softly in prayer as he did so. He then landed the other three crosses to me for safe keeping (one for each member of my family). Mischa definitely had a tear in his eye now and I was touched yet again by the depth of his feelings and his efforts to support and help me. We composed ourselves (well, Mischa did anyway) and I followed him in his car to the very edge of the town at the start of what looked like a barren and rocky desert. He stopped and got out, we gave each other a big hug, observed a minute's silence (a Russian tradition?) and then I was off across what turned out to be a barren and rocky desert; this was the beginning of the Steppes.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p122

[Biggles]

Omar rolled out a detailed map of Xinjiang Province which had pictures of famous and beautiful scenic locations for tourists plus a little descriptive text. I looked at each scene hopefully and asked Omar whether we would be going there - "No, that's not near our route" he said each time, or "That's close, but we don't have time to go there". He told me that Xinjiang has many beautiful mountain ranges, lakes and pastureland (where most of the scenes on the map were from) and the rest is desert. And where were we going I asked? "The desert"; we were headed along the southern Silk Road, across and around the enormous Taklimakan Desert. At this scale our journey (just in China) looked epic, and even though I had already ridden several thousand kilometres, this leg alone was going to be a few thousand more. It's funny- when I planned this trip I really had no comprehension of what riding a thousand kilometres would be like - distances between cities and across countries were just added up and averaged out in a mathematical exercise to spread the journey out over time. I had no real appreciation of the effort involved or the reality of relentless riding.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p133-4

[Biggles]

He worked quickly with deft hands and had soon removed the engine oil, coolant and all of the engine bolts, placing the removed parts carefully to one side on the pavement on a towel. He worked in silence and alone but the engine cover just wouldn't come off - the long rod that runs vertically and turns on its long axis to push and pull the clutch plates was jammed in position, stuck to the plates preventing the cover from releasing. He tapped, pulled, pushed, inserted screwdrivers from many angles but it simply would not come off. It would move a few millimetres back and forth but no more. Undeterred, Mr. Fan persisted until finally after a couple of good thumps with my rubber mallet (I knew it would come in handy for something) the engine cover came off, and as it did, little pieces of broken metal fell from the open clutch and rained onto the pavement. Mr. Fan looked up at me slowly from his prostrated position and there was no need for words - his expression said it all; it was bad, very, very bad and wasn't going to be fixed quickly or simply here on the side of the road in a remote village. 
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p137

[Biggles]

We found Mr. Shu inside, crouched on his haunches, carefully re-assembling the broken pieces of my clutch plate cover, drilling out the broken and locked-in-place bolts and re-tapping the threads in each of the holes. It was painstaking work, had little chance of being successful in my estimation, and I couldn't believe he was even attempting it, but he persisted and told us confidently that he would have it fixed later that day! He then went on to show us a replacement long bolt (for the one that was bent and stuck in my engine cover) that had been fashioned earlier that day from a piece of scrap metal. It was an exact replica of the broken part but in shiny new metal - it was incredible and I couldn't get over the level of ingenuity here. I still doubted whether it would all work and unkindly reminded Mr. Shu that I still had over ten thousand kilometres to ride to get to Istanbul and I needed any sort of repair work to hold up for at least that much riding. I'm not sure if he was offended or not, but he shook his head violently from side to side and let fly with a torrent of Chinese invective that Omar simply translated as, “Mr. Shu says don't worry, it will be alright for you".
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p141

[Biggles]

They went to work like a swarm of vultures devouring an animal left to die in the desert and soon all that was left of my bike was a skeleton frame - they had taken everything removable off to examine the wiring. I can't adequately describe how disturbing this was for me. There were at least six of them and each had removed different pieces and it was hard to see what system they were using to keep track of all the pieces and the bolts. How on earth would they re-assemble it all correctly? I tried to tidy up a little and keep things organised but I was outnumbered so retreated to the back seat of our car to eat a bread roll - my breakfast. My bike has a moderate level of circuitry but I had no diagrams and these guys just kept going, checking circuit by circuit trying to isolate the problem. It took about an hour but eventually they stopped and started putting things back together which I took as a signal that all was better. I tried to help put everything back together properly but when they had finished one of the kids was still holding a few largish bolts which he handed over to me quickly.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p153

[Biggles]

As soon as I shut off the engine I was overwhelmed by the immense silence and simple stark beauty of the mountains.  The sky seemed a deeper blue up here and it was incredibly still and peaceful - a moment frozen in time for me. I had to pinch myself- for here I was, a rank outsider and amateur who had achieved this part of his unlikely plan - to be alone in the middle of the one of the highest and most remote mountain ranges in the world independently - it was wonderful and I felt special. I thought about my family and wondered where they were and what they were doing at this moment. I imagined a perspective from space looking down at me here, and them, at home. It was a strange sensation and all at once I felt utterly alone but totally connected. I thought about how far I had come, all the wonderful people I had met and all of the help I had received so far: Vassily, Anton and the Caravan of Love along the Road of Bones, Big Mama and Zhenya in Yakutsk, the train crew across Russia, Mischa, Lyuba and Bolya in Semipalatinsk, Mr Shu in Urumchi, the boys in Kashgar and many others. It was already a long list and my journey had indeed been rich in experience for me.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p174

[Biggles]

I stopped at the side of the road on a wide curve high above the plateau on a steep hillside and ate some of my biscuits and drank some of my lemon fizz. But as soon as I did I knew it was a mistake - it was if someone had initiated my own internal gastro launch sequence - my stomach was full of liquid propellant and it had just been ignited. I figured I had about ten seconds to find a suitable launch pad. It's funny how, even in times of great distress like this, where time is critical, you stop and consider things like "now, where can I go to do this in private?" I could not have been more alone, but I couldn't bear the thought of soiling the Pamir Highway so I scrambled down the steep and rocky hillside, loosening my pants as I ran, quickly locating a large flat stone upon which I perched and mercifully relieved myself. My backside hung out over the long valley like a piece of giant artillery and I sat squatting like a fat cane toad in the sun, waiting patiently for this horrible episode to end. Suddenly I heard the crunching of gravel and the heavy grinding of gears above me - I looked up and realised immediately that I was positioned in clear line of sight to the road as a big Kamaz full of road workers passed by, the men in the back smiling and waving to me as the driver honked hard on his horn. I couldn't move quickly, but did manage a small salute.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p181

[Biggles]

By the late afternoon though, the mountains had closed in again and I was riding deep down inside tight canyons on a twisting dirt track teetering precariously at times just above the roaring Pyanj River. The road had deteriorated now to a pulverised mess of gravel, rocks and fine grey powder. Recent landslides frequently spilled out onto the track too, making progress difficult and slow. In places the rock walls went beyond vertical and hung out over the river and the road had been blasted out of the rock face creating gigantic and extended granite eaves which I rode under very nervously, accompanied by the frighteningly loud reverb from my exhaust. What held them up? My, that's a big crack isn't it? What was that creaking noise? Would the noise of a motorbike engine (not heard here often) vibrate the rock ceiling loose? I held my breath instinctively as I rode carefully under particularly large blocks of granite.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p208

[Biggles]

My back wheel fishtailed violently underneath me and I fought hard to regain control. I lost traction and speed, got bogged deep and then fell over. I cursed again. My chain and cogs were coated in tiny gritty granules like fresh sandpaper. The bike, with me on top was far too heavy to continue riding safely on the soft sand so I walked with the bike the last fifty metres or so off the dunes and I rode back onto the track.
I rode out high above the river; the track, carved into the mountainside narrowed, and became hard and rutted, dusted in a thin film of fine grey powder and sprinkled generously with loose gravel. I had to concentrate hard to steer a steady line, but when I did look up I was astounded to see a huge eagle gliding silently just a few metres above my head. It must have measured six feet from wing tip to wing tip. A thick beige stripe ran from one wing tip to the other in a shallow v-shape and then bled into its chocolate brown fuselage. It was majestic and I stopped to watch the beautiful creature glide effortlessly away, swept along by invisible eddies of wind.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p210

[Biggles]

I ate two big bowls of thick delicious meat and potato stew with fresh bread and sweet tea with the other men. I never tired of these conversations where I explained what I was doing, why I was doing it and all of the other ancillary topics that spawned from them and tonight was no exception. A puzzled "Why?" was always the first question. Unlike almost everyone I met on my journey, I could, a) afford to travel, and b) probably travel anywhere I wanted and do anything I wanted - within reason. They knew this and the fact that I had chosen to come here and be with them now was astounding, and I sensed their pride as hosts by their unconditional willingness to share as much as they could of themselves and their culture with me and I felt privileged to be able to receive and experience it so directly. I reflected that like so many of my best experiences so far it was unplanned and spontaneous. 
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p211-2

[Biggles]

I rode directly into the huge blazing orange fireball of the setting sun and had to shield my eyes dangerously with my left hand while steering and maintaining the throttle with the other – I was tired and getting lazy and should have stopped. The road widened into a vast expanse of wide smooth and unmarked fresh bitumen and I sped up excitedly for the last hundred kilometres or so into Dushanbe in the crimson dusk that had now settled over the countryside. Just as I started to enjoy the smooth, easy riding, I was flagged down by two pot-bellied policemen, who came running out from under a tree waving a radar gun at me. I had no idea what the speed limit was, but knew I had been riding too fast and had resigned myself to being fined, but once they realised I was from Australia the conversation quickly turned to kangaroos, Kostya Tsu and crocodiles and, after I had told them that I had come all the way from Magadan - which of course they knew of - I was beyond reproach and immediately elevated to the pantheon of Tajik folklore. I shook their hands and they both slapped me hard on the back before I rode off into the dusk.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p219

[Biggles]

Dushanbe was a watershed in my journey; it had been a complete break from the relentless riding and the hardships of life on the road. I now felt completely rejuvenated, my previously flagging confidence now soared and I felt my mojo, conspicuously absent to date, had finally arrived. Riding was instinctive now - the bike simply an extension of my body as I glided over the landscape on my exhilarating magic carpet ride.  The road continued to follow the narrow river valley and now rose above and away from the river. I hit some muddy road works in a busy but otherwise dusty village and then rode a lonely stretch of more difficult track before emerging into a small secluded valley of striking Arcadian beauty. There were lush meadows filled with flowers and grazing livestock, a crystal clear mountain stream splashed gently over smooth rocks and ran away under a pretty stone arch bridge, an old carved wooden tea platform sat peacefully in a shaded glade by the riverbank and, in the distance, perched on a low hill overlooking this idyllic scene, stood an old stone farmhouse and compound. Beyond the bridge the road ended, abruptly forking at an obtuse angle into two equally unappealing stretches of dry loose gravel track, one rising steeply to the left, like an emergency truck stop ramp straight up the mountainside, and the other, which lead away more gently, but then rose up to meet an endless series of switchbacks slashed into the hulking mountains ahead.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p233-4

[Biggles]

I cleared the village and rounded a hill high above the river and came to a temporary track, recently cut and graded that climbed steeply above the village. The track was loose, soft soil and I watched with some alarm as the fully-loaded jalopy bus ahead of me slid around on the treacherous surface, before being enveloped in the dust cloud that it spewed up. It was difficult to judge how long I spent on the track, or how high above the river it climbed, or how close I had ridden to the edge so intense was my concentration as I rode cloaked in a curtain of thick dust. Eventually, drenched in sweat and with my wrists throbbing painfully from the intensity of my riding, l emerged onto flat open higher ground where the track petered out into two feint tyre tracks as it crossed paddocks, orchards and fields. In a surreal scene, I came to a lone soldier who sat at an old wooden desk at the edge of an  apricot orchard where he manned a checkpoint over a cattle grate. A colourful dilapidated gypsy wagon sat forlornly in the far corner of the orchard. He inspected my papers without saying a word, until I broke the long silence asking simply "Penjikent?" He laughed and told me to keep going. I rode on through a large plantation of tall maize being harvested by sinewy sun-dried women who worked rhythmically removing the precious cobs, unhusked from their stalks, in another age-old back breaking ritual.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p249

[Tully]

If you don't ride....you wouldn't understand

 

[Biggles]

The last few days had been wonderfully stimulating and I felt rejuvenated both mentally and physically, but it felt good to be back on my bike, moving again, almost like this was my natural state now. And riding three hundred kilometres after lunch across the parched plains and thirsty cotton fields of southern Uzbekistan didn't faze me either; I was slowly clearing the bogeymen that I had carried like deadweight for so long. Then I thought about the multi-coloured springs, homemade parts and agricultural blobs of welded scrap metal that currently held my clutch together and a big warning sign flashed in my mind: proceed with caution.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p277

[Biggles]

Eventually the desert receded, quickly replaced by fertile farmland and rustic villages as the road converged again with the Amu-Darya. This was the ancient Oxus - and today it still sustains a narrow corridor of habitation and cultivation running in a gentle arc to the north-west, where it peters out in a semiarid delta as it trickles  into the rapidly receding Aral Sea. But the river here was full and wide and free flowing - albeit shallow and heavily silted - and I crossed it cautiously on a makeshift pontoon bridge of flat-bottomed barges, tied together and joined loosely by sliding metal ramps which sizzled like BBQ plates under the midday sun and moved dangerously underneath me as I negotiated each seam while battling the unforgiving and impatient oncoming traffic. But I didn't stop for fear of the rubber of my tyres and boots melting, and was soon safely across. I drove on through the modern, bustling but ultimately drab city-town of Urgench, before travelling the final twenty kilometres along the bizarre trolleybus route connecting the two towns. Massive and modern, it was an outrageous piece of expensive and unnecessary capital works designed solely to impress foreigners who had visited Khiva during its recent millennial celebrations and was now a white elephant.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p301-2

[Biggles]

I squeezed the ignition and turned the throttle, but instead of the wonderfully comforting soft throbbing of internal combustion, all I got was a hoarse rasping cough and soft splutter and then a cold silence. I tried and tried and tried again with no success. Oh bugger. They both looked at me blankly, as if this was somehow not unexpected. I rested my arms on the handlebars and rested my head on them gently and closed my eyes - selfishly absorbed in my own misfortune. There was nothing left to do but push, so I mounted my bike and slowly heaved it forward with firm strides, pushing past my sleepy-eyed sentry and the now-bewildered hotelier. There was a large open area in front of the hotel where I paddled up and down repeatedly, desperately trying to build enough momentum for a clutch start- all of which ultimately failed. I looked at my watch - 8:45; I certainly wouldn't be meeting anyone, anywhere anytime today at this rate. Eventually my two comrades took pity on me and, without saying a word, came over and began pushing me tirelessly around the square until, after many failed attempts, the bike eventually groaned hesitantly into life. Exhausted, they stood breathless and steaming in the cold morning air, but smiled proudly as they waved me away merrily, and suddenly, I felt bad about my tainted perception of Nukus; I realised that like everywhere else I had been, people were almost always good at heart and predisposed to help a fellow human in need - the only difference here was the extent to which they had been worn down and hardened and had had the life almost completely sucked out of them by their environment and their bleak, empty prospects.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p318