Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

Dressing in my floral shirt and best underwear for luck, I crept down the dark stairs. No one else was up and I quietly packed Panther and rode through the gates into the bracing dawn air. I'm not a morning person, but there's something magical about riding a motorbike at dawn as the world is just waking; the ghostly grey light suggestive of Other Worlds and Unseen Beings. Heading north west through the fairy tale landscape of Phong Nha Khe Ban National Park, I barely saw another human - unusual for Vietnam. High peaks of limestone karst rose imperiously out of the paddies, floating above a sea of mist, and to my far left were the sheer ramparts of the mountainous border.
At 7 a.m. I stopped to buy some bread - banh mi, pronounced bang me - from two women. They held up one finger, asking was I alone; laughing when I said yes. Urging Panther on, I reached a record speed of 35 miles per hour along the stretch of an old MiG runway before starting the slow climb into the mountains. A silvery vapour hung in the valleys and swirled around the jungle-clad slopes, occasional rays of sun flooding the scene with an ethereal light. It was breathtakingly beautiful, and again I felt that rush of exhilaration, that purity of solitude. I wouldn't have wanted to be anywhere else.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p91-2

[Biggles]

I watched the jeeps rumble across then rode down a steep sandy bank towards the waiting canoe. The old man held the meagre vessel steady as I crept Panther forward to the bow, walking my legs along the foot-high sides for balance, only a few inches spare either side of my tyres. I heard two extra passengers squat down behind me and with a thrust and a wobble the aged pilot pushed us slowly off the bank. Thrust, wobble, thrust, wobble - I gritted my teeth and swore quietly as we lurched forward, my passengers laughing at my outburst.
“Think yogic, think yogic,” I muttered to myself. “Just look straight ahead, balance and don't move.” I knew if I panicked and moved, all of us would be in the water.
Gripping the handlebars, hardly daring to breathe, I watched the opposite bank inch closer noticing, out of the corner of my eye, a large green lizard paddle past, eyeing me with a beady yellow eye. Sweat and suncream ran down my face, stinging my eyes and collecting in small pools at the base of my neck.
Finally the canoe slid onto the opposite bank and I paid the toothless man 6,000 kip - about eighty pence - pulled the throttle and rode shakily away, Digby cackling as he filmed my escape. That definitely counted as a significant small victory.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p115-6

[Biggles]

Panther lay on her side in a large puddle, her front basket bent and caked in mud. Shards of glass from the smashed left wing mirror glinted in the dirt. Hauling her upright, I saw her left foot peg was bent backwards and a section of paint had been scraped off. She no longer looked like the pristine pink city girl that had left Hanoi ten days earlier.
That'll teach me to go around waving at everyone like an imbecile, not looking where I’m going, I thought.
By now about ten people had gathered around, watching intently as I opened the top box and extracted the toolkit. No one spoke a single syllable of English, but it's amazing how far you can get with sign language and a smile. A young man in dirty blue overalls took my hammer, kneeling down to knock the basket and foot peg back in to shape while I unscrewed the useless wing mirror. To explain that I was from Ang – England - I handed out postcards of the Queen, Buckingham Palace and Big Ben. A little girl in a ripped, dirty orange dress poked Queen's face and said 'Mama' delightedly, as if recognising her. I doubt they had ever heard of England, let alone ever seen Her Maj. An old man then pointed to the mountains, made thundery noises and shook his head sympathetically, as if saying 'Don't worry, it's not your fault, it's the rain'.
With a cheery wave and a throbbing shin I set off, leaving them to puzzle over their unexpected morning interlude. The incident reminded me that an adventure isn't an adventure until things go wrong. Falling in that puddle had forced me into a pleasant interaction with the villagers, which I hope had brightened their morning as well as mine. If I ever pass again, I hope to find the Queen's face still adorning several of the huts.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p124-5

[Biggles]

At Ban Dong I stopped for a Vietnamese coffee- rocket fuel laced with viscous condensed milk. As I drank it, a small Vietnamese woman pulled up beside Panther on a moped. Or at least I think it was a moped, for it was piled with such a peculiar paraphernalia of objects you could barely see the wheels. The woman was perched on an inch of seat in front muddle of fishing nets, cooking pans and pink plastic bonsai trees. Either side of her, panniers made of chicken wire and wood bulged with flip flops, sandals, packets of instant noodles and more cooking utensils. Another basket attached to the handlebars contained plastic helicopters, spotted headbands, T-shirts and tracksuits. Somewhere in there she probably had an inflatable shark, a kitchen sink and an antique hatstand.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p156

[Biggles]

The farther I went, the harder it became: steep hills, horizontal slabs of slate-grey rock, deep ruts and that nefarious orange mud. We bumped and slid down, revved and clanked up. Panther's poor little engine strained and wheezed and her tyres spun in the mud, struggling for hold. Several slopes were so steep and rocky I paused at the top, wondering how on earth would do it. Resting Panther on her side stand I walked ahead, picking out the best path, usually a narrow strip of harder mud right at the edge. Wedging my right boot on the back brake, holding the front one on with my right hand and dragging my left boot in the mud for extra braking and stability, we would jolt down. Go too slowly and I’d lose balance, too fast and I'd lose control and risk going over the edge.
On the hardest, rockiest inclines I put both feet down, took weight off the seat and heaved her up with all my strength, the engine struggling in first gear.
It was the toughest riding I had done yet. Keep buggering on, I told myself, and metre by metre, mile by mile we nosed forwards. All I could think about was that moment, those rocks, that deep rut, which gear I was in - nothing else mattered except that place and that instant in time. As hard as it was I felt fully engaged, spurred on by the same fire of determination that had ignited in me on the road from Ban Laboy.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p172-3

[Biggles]

Panther, it seemed, was less keen. Numerous attempts at her kick-start produced no more than a loud pop, then ominous silence. I had seemingly done the impossible; I'd killed my C90. Dialling Cuong's number, I explained her symptoms and asked his advice.
“It sounds like the cam chain,” he diagnosed. “You'll never find decent mechanic in Kaleum, get the bike on a truck to Sekong and find a Vietnamese mechanic there. Whatever you do, find a Vietnamese mechanic, Lao ones no good.”
Sekong was the provincial capital, about fifty miles from here. Getting a truck would be expensive. Digby called back a few minutes later.
“'Look, if the worst comes to the worst we can always send you a new engine. There are worse places to be holed up for a few days than Sekong.”
 Strangely, instead of worry, I felt a frisson of excitement. Seemingly disastrous situations like this often lead to memorable incidents. Or as motorcycling legend Ted Simon d of saying: “The interruptions ARE the journey.” Whatever my immediate future, it would likely be interesting.
Watched by the one-eyed cook and the transvestite from the hotel, I pondered my predicament beside the stricken Panther. Almost instantaneously, a man walked up to me and said in faltering English, “You need mechanic? I'm Vietnam. There's Vietnam mechanic just up the road.”
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p192

[Biggles]

I took a few photos s and kicked Panther into action. But the lever slipped uselessly between first, second and third. The gear mechanism had gone. Without gears I couldn't move an inch. Flicking to 'Chapter-1: Engine and Gearbox' in the Haynes Manual, I was confronted with a terrifying-looking exploded diagram of the inner workings of a C90 gear system. Since the geary bits are inside the enginey bits, it meant taking apart the whole engine to see what the problem was. I'd become pretty good at basic tweaking but I feared this was beyond me.
Crouching in the dust, I fiddled with my spanner set and peered at the diagrams. Several overloaded pick-up trucks rattled by, the drivers and passengers all hanging out to shout, “Pai Sai?”
“Attapeu!” I shouted back hopefully, not wanting to ask for help yet.
They laughed and burnt past without taking their feet off the gas, engulfing me in a storm of dust. So much for chivalry in Laos.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p225

[Biggles]

Racing the storm and time, I leant forward over Panther and twisted the throttle, nearly jumping out of my skin as a deafening thunderclap cracked over my head.
Something at that moment made me remember it was Easter Sunday. It was 3 p.m. About now, back in England, my parents would be belting out hymns in church and my nephew and niece would be tearing open Easter eggs, their faces smudged in chocolate. How far away that all seemed from my present situation - not enough food and water, no idea where I would sleep tonight and about to get drenched by a tropical thunderstorm. But I was happy; happy to be alone, happy to be pushed like this, enlivened by the adventure. Easter eggs could wait until next year.
It was on days like today that I really revelled in the solitude. I was engaged, focused, determined. On my own, there was no one to help me and no one to complain to. If I was with Marley I probably would have grumbled about my leg hurting, the thunder, being tired. But so what? So what if my leg hurt?
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p229

[Biggles]

Lao children like these are a world away from our mollycoddled urban offspring. Smart as bobcats, by the time they're eight they can hunt, fish and look after each other, roaming the jungle in feral packs. This raggle-taggle bunch of Mowglis may have only come up to my waist but they were tougher than most British adults would ever be. Small as they were, I had to trust them. I jokingly made strongman gestures with my arms, at which they giggled and bounded off through the trees, naked bottoms glinting in the sun. By the time I caught up with them they were swarming around Panther, the leader hacking at lengths of bamboo with a machete, marshalling his tiny troops. It was a scene straight out of The Lord of the Flies. Removing my luggage, I watched as they thrust two long poles through the spokes and hoisted my precious Panther over their heads.
The leader barked his orders and in they all dived, five or six children on either side. I stood on the bank with the smallest ones, clapping and whooping with encouragement. The bamboo buckled. Brown water lapped at the wheels, but slowly they wobbled across. Triumphant, they put Panther down on the far bank and hurtled back for their money. The leader took my fistful of notes and sat on a rock, divvying out the booty with the professionalism of an Irish bookie. When it had all been snatched away he looked at me with imploring eyes and said, 'Dollar, dollar.' I knew then I wasn't the first foreign biker to come this way.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p238-9

[Biggles]

When Mr D arrived just after 8 a.m. I was kneeling on the gravel beside Panther, replacing her blackened spark plug.
'Where you get your bike from?' he asked, looking at Panther disdainfully.
He screwed up his face when I told him. 'Your friend in Hanoi no good - why he not get you better bike?'
Biting my tongue, I looked over Panther's seat at his hired 125-cc Honda Wave moped and asked if it was any good.
'Better than yours,' he said curtly, cupping his hands to light a cigarette.
 If he carried on like this we were not going to enjoy a harmonious relationship. Panther may have let me down a few times but she was my Trail partner, and I was fiercely protective of her.
Armed with the old and new maps we set off east towards the Vietnamese border along the same unblemished tarmac of Highway 78. Mr D rode in front of me, slouching over the handlebars, flip flops hanging off his feet. Several times we overtook mopeds carrying wide trays of water snails, their drivers advertising the slimy snacks with the aid of crackly megaphones. Lightly cooked in chilli they were quite delicious, insisted Mr D. Judging by how people rushed out of their houses waving for the mopeds to stop, he wasn't the only one who thought so.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p267-8

[Biggles]

South of here lay the Tonle Srepok River and a single dirt road known as the Mondulkiri Death Highway. Really a skein of oxcart trails, the road ran 30 miles south to the town of Koh Nhek in Mondulkiri province. From there it continued another 60 miles to Sen Monorom, a popular trekking destination. The Chinese had just started work on upgrading it but for now it a dirt track through uninhabited forest, notorious enough for the Lonely Planet to dedicate half a page to it. It warned that the road was impossible in wet season, and that in dry season it should only be attempted by 'hardcore bikers' with 'years of experience and an iron backside'.
 I'd heard about the road, I'd read about it in the Lonely Planet, but never for a second did I consider not attempting it. The North Vietnamese boi dois had walked this same route, trudging the last few hundred miles towards Sen Monorom and Saigon. The only other way south was a 300-mile diversion back via Ban Lung and Stung Treng. Panther and I had survived the Truong Son, surely there was nothing we couldn't tackle now.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p281-2

[Biggles]

Early the following morning Panther and I were ready to hit the road again. There she was outside the mechanic's shack, sunshine glinting off her glossy pink flanks, her idling engine purring like a contented cat. The freshly-showered mechanic squatted beside her, a clean red sarong wrapped around his pint-sized waist. Through Nisse's Cambodian stepson, who come to help me translate, he explained that the whole bike had been taken apart, washed and rebuilt. She'd had a new piston and valves, a new cam chain - the fourth one – a new clutch, a new crank shaft, a new gasket set and an oil change. Since the new piston needed to be kept cool for the first hundred miles, he had rigged Panther to a homemade drip. A 10-litre water container had been strapped between the seat and the handlebars, from which a tube dripped onto a damp cloth wrapped around the cylinder barrel. It made her look like she was fresh out of intensive care.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p297-8

[Biggles]

Blue sky, scudding cotton wool clouds, hot wind, scorching sun and the smooth quiet buzz of Panther's drip-cooled engine. It was a beautiful day to be riding a Cub in Cambodia. But as I rode west towards the Mekong town of Kratie on that same dull Highway 78 my mind interrogated the events the past few days. Should I have turned back when the first man warned me about the mud? Was I too hasty in giving the engineer and his driver water and lending them Panther? If I'd left the two men under the tree, ridden on to Lumphat and sent help back to them I would have probably been OK. Was I right to leave Panther and walk for help or should I have stayed and waited for someone to pass? Did I panic unnecessarily? Round and round the questions tumbled, exploring, questioning, doubting, blaming. The engineer had shafted me. That was for sure. If I had a crash between now and Saigon and died of head injuries, it would all be that bastard's fault.
No. Stop.
Dwelling on the engineer or my missing helmet was futile. Anger wasn't going to get me to Koh Nhek or get my helmet back. Maybe the helmet thief needed it more than me. Maybe day it would save him in an accident. What had happened had happened. It was all part of the adventure. I must accept it and ride on.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p298-9

[Biggles]

'Don't you get lonely?' he asked me. 'I mean, what did you do on all those nights in Laos when there was no one to talk to?'
I considered his question, thinking about those nights in Ta Oi, Kaleum and Attapeu; those long days of riding. I'd felt alone at times, yes, but never lonely. Not once. When I wasn't occupied with Panther or fiddling with equipment I'd spent contented evenings just sitting, watching, thinking, writing. I had revelled in the simple art of observation, undistracted by companionship or television. Consumed by the purpose of my journey, I hadn't had time to feel lonely. Backpacking can be a purposeless occupation; drifting between towns, islands, hostels and air-conditioned buses, only talking to people if you have the courage. I may have been alone in the jungle, but I always had the Trail.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p303-4

[Biggles]

I wasn't finished yet. I had to remain in the present, drink it all in, concentrate on the road. Anything could happen between now and the Palace.
 My anxiety gave rise to indignation as to Vietnamese driving habits. I may have been used to them by now, but I was far from understanding the illogic or it. How could people turn onto a busy road with neither a glance to the left nor the right? How could people never ever look in their mirrors and think it was fine to swerve all over the road while texting, smoking or holding their baby? Why did young girls cycle the wrong way down the road in the middle of the counterflood of traffic? Several times the same people I had cursed then slowed down to wave, smile and ask me questions. People paid so little attention to other road users they might as well drive blindfolded. Their traffic sense defied every iota of human survival instinct.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p330

[Biggles]

I pictured Mick and John, the Lumphat road workers, the mechanic in Kaleum, all the people who had helped me along the way. I thought of those days in Laos when I'd fought to get Panther through the mud, sand and mountains. At the time I had cursed those execrable roads, but twenty years from now I knew those to be the days I would remember. I thought about Cu Chi and how, beyond the mannequins and propaganda, it epitomised why America could never have won. United by a mission to unify their motherland, the Vietnamese communists would have fought to the last man.
More than anything else my mind dwelt on how futile the War had been. More than six million men, women and children from Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, America, Thailand, Australia, South Korea, New Zealand and the Philippines died. Tens of thousands have died since from UXO and the after-effects of Agent Orange. And for what purpose? The Reds won anyway. The outcome would have been the same if America had never fired a single shot.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p334

[Biggles]

Panther had spent her last night in a shed next to the hotel, in the company of several other mopeds and a resident old couple. 'Hanoi?' said the man, as he watched me check her over in the morning tuning her for the home run.
‘Hanoi, Lao, Cambodia, Saigon!' I replied, hardly believing it myself.
His face creased into a smile and he shook his head, gabbling something to his supine wife. She rose from their mattress to watch, and the two of them waved goodbye as I cranked the kick-start and rode away through the palms.
On the final 30 miles into the heart of the metropolis there was no countryside anymore, just a seamless stream of little concrete houses and bending palms funnelling me south. Today was 20 April, ten days before 'Liberation Day', the anniversary of Saigon's capitulation and the end of the War. Already commemorative flags lined the roadside, red and gold silk fluttering between the trees. Riding in the midst of them I thought about those last days of the War in Vietnam, how almost thirty-eight years ago to the day communist tanks were streaming down this very road. All the key southern cities had already fallen to Hanoi; only Saigon was left. In the end the tanks rolled into the city almost unopposed, along streets strewn with the abandoned uniforms of the deserting ARVN. The last Americans had fled in helicopters and most foreign correspondents had been evacuated. Among the very few who remained were the English writer and poet James Fenton and the soon-to-be-fired Rolling Stone journalist Hunter S. Thompson, who had flown in with $30,000 in cash strapped to his body. Both survived to tell the tale.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p335-6

[Biggles]

Thanking her, I kicked Panther into life. But the kick-start sputtered and popped. The engine remained silent. I realised what had happened at once. In my anxiety to find my way and reach the Palace in one piece I'd entirely forgotten about petrol. Now, 5 miles before the end, I had run out of fuel. What an idiot! As luck would have it, there was a petrol station less than 400 metres up the road. I wheeled Panther there along the pavement, laughing at my ineptitude.
Now it was truly the final furlong. We inched towards the finish line, pulled along in ten lanes of traffic, a tiny particle in the city's endless two-wheeled cavalcade. Half an hour later the New World Hotel rose up on my left. I must be close. Outside it, the traffic lights turned red and I stopped in the front row amid a battalion of revving mopeds.
'Does anyone speak English?' I asked, addressing neighbours.
'I do!' replied a teenage boy, leaning over the handlebars of his moped a few rows away.
'Brilliant! Do you know where the Reunification Palace is, please?’
'Yes. I'm going that way, follow me.' What a stroke of luck.
The lights turned green and a hundred tiny engines thrummed into life, leaping forward; the charge of the Honda brigade. The boy ducked and dived through the streets, past grand French buildings and down leafy boulevards. Every time I thought I'd lost him I caught sight of his brown helmet, bobbing like a cork on the sea of traffic. Then, there they were, the grey iron gates of the Reunification Palace, the same ones the NVA tanks had surged through on 30 April 1975.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p337-8

[Biggles]

The boy said goodbye and I waved as he vanished into the traffic.
This was it. I rode Panther slowly towards the gates, savouring the last 100 metres of our journey, stopping only when I felt the front wheel bump against the gates and knew I couldn't go an inch further.
'We've made it, Panther,' I said out loud, leaning over the handlebars. 'We've bloody made it.'
A group of Japanese tourists stopped photographing the Palace and looked at me.
I didn't want to get off my beloved Pink Panther. I couldn't believe we'd actually done it. For ten minutes I just sat there, staring at the white facade, smiling, savouring the moment. Six weeks, three countries, 2,000 miles, four engine rebuilds and one hell of an adventure later, my Ho Chi Mission was finally over.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p339

[Biggles]

I considered if the experience had changed me, if I was returning to England a different person. Fundamentally I didn't think it had. Bar a few kilos less, a new scar on my left shin, a much-improved knowledge of mechanics and a vault of extra memories, I was still me. I hadn't undergone a spiritual transformation or 'discovered' myself in some ecstatic epiphany. But I had learnt a few things on the Trail; insights that could only have come from travelling alone. In times of adversity, when the mire and the mountains had conspired to beat me, I had faced myself and passed the test. I hadn't cried or given up; I'd stuck my chin out and kept on going, mile by muddy mile. For someone as self-critical as me, this felt like a significant achievement. I hesitate to use the word proud, as it reeks of vanity and arrogance, but I did allow myself to feel a smidgeon of pride. Whatever the future held, I would always have the knowledge that I'd cajoled an ailing twenty-five-year-old Cub over the Truong Son. If I could do that, I hoped I could overcome a lot of life's difficulties.
A Short Ride In The Jungle  Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent  p348

[Biggles]

Sorry for the hiatus. Been out to Carnarvon Gorge- no phone, no TV, no internet.  Would drive one nuts!

'Mr Carter?' he enquired, looking at his clipboard, then scanning the otherwise empty room.
 That's me,' I tried to say, stumbling to my feet, but actually said something like 'haaaaashme' in the style of an asthmatic drunk, owing to the fact that my legs were no longer working and my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth.
'I am your examiner. Mr Pass,' he said, offering his leather- gauntletted hand. The words of W. H. Murray flickered once more across my mind.
‘Is that really your name?' I asked, looking for the cameras.
'Yes,’ came a voice, deadpan, from somewhere beneath the helmet, in the manner of a man who hadn't heard anybody point out the absurdity of his name. Well, not for 10 minutes anyway. 'Shall we start?'
I managed to dodge the souped-up Novas and weekday shoppers of Neath, and when we eventually pulled back into the riding school, Mr Pass went through the litany of cock-ups that I'd managed to squeeze into 30 minutes of riding.
These included failure to indicate, failure to execute life-saver and failure to resist taking the piss out of his name. Though the latter was not officially listed on the charge sheet.
I was braced for 'You're a disgrace, Carter, what are you? Drop and give me 20.’ But instead he said, 'You’ve passed.' I thanked Mr Pass for passing me and uttered something about being happy that I’d avoided Mr Fail's shift, which went down about as well as my original comment.
Uneasy Rider  Mike Carter  p16-17

[Biggles]

I got back on the coast road heading north. Shortly after, a biker overtook me. On the back of his jacket was embossed: 'If you can read this, my bitch has fallen off.' Then another passed, and another. I looked in my mirrors.  All I could see was a great snake of beards. They turned off into a ferry terminal and, owing to my hangover and my new map-free life, I followed them.
'Where are you guys going?' I asked the nearest Hagar the Horrible.
We are going to Gotland,' he grunted, cigarillo gripped between his teeth, 'for Scandinavia's biggest biker festival. We get very messed up, ya. You should come.'
Gotland. It sounded Gothic and sinister, like an island shrouded in mist where a princess, guarded by a dragon, lay imprisoned.
I weighed up my options. Arguing most firmly against going to Gotland was the fact that I would have to share it with Hell's Angels from all over Scandinavia. Now, I didn't have anything against Hell's Angels per se. What consenting adults got up to with live chickens was no business of mine But unless I could somehow hook up with the Quaker chapter, I doubted my liver in its current condition would survive the week.
Uneasy Rider  Mike Carter  p67

[Biggles]

Tent erected (25 minutes), I walked up a nearby slope. From there, there was a view over the entire campsite.
All I could see for miles was canvas and motorbikes, each bike stationed outside its tent like a guard dog. There must have been a few thousand bikers milling around, stopping to admire the machines and draw on the bottles they produced from their pockets.
Nearly all the bikers were men, mostly corpulent middle-aged, wearing leather caps and waistcoats, studded wristbands and extraordinary configurations of facial hair. It was like a huge open-air gay bar where everybody had let themselves go a bit - although that was an observation I kept to myself. The air was suffused with beery breath and the fug of farts.
Uneasy Rider  Mike Carter  p69

[Biggles]

Then the tunnels started. On the road to Bergen there were 45 in all, drilled through the mountains. The first went sharply uphill and then corkscrewed, like a Disney ride, shooting me out high above a fjord with waterfalls tumbling down the massive bluffs and minuscule white cruise ships humbled below. Then, plunging back into another, over 15 miles long, this time the road falling away from me steeply down into a diesel fug, like a descent into hell.
I took in the clutch and (look away Kevin Sanders) let myself roll, bottling it when the speedo glowed 60 mph and I was still accelerating. After an eternity in the gloom, I was fired back blinking into the bright light again and flying, leaning sharply into the bends, buttocks clenched, the tyres slipping slightly. Inside my helmet I was screaming at the top of my lungs. For this was the landscape I had imagined when I first dreamed of hitting the road: majestic and vast, wild and remote.
And whether it was because I'd got a few thousand miles under my belt or something else, I didn't know, but for the first time it was difficult to feel where the bike ended and I began.
Uneasy Rider  Mike Carter  p81

[Biggles]

I logged on to the Internet again. It had been over 45 minutes since I'd last checked. There were dozens of messages from the motorbike site inviting me to come and stay in countries on my route. This only confirmed my growing conviction that motorcyclists, along with gardeners, are the nicest people on earth. Put motorcycling gardener on your CV and I guarantee St Peter will have you down on the VIP list.
One Aussie couple, Joe and Sue, emailed me to say they were riding around Europe and were currently heading for Poland. After that, they'd be going to Romania and Bulgaria and Turkey. If our paths crossed, they said, it would be great to tour around together for a few weeks. I emailed them back.
‘Would love to,' I wrote. 'Hopefully see you in a few days.'
Uneasy Rider  Mike Carter  p155