Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

Pine forests end at the snow line. Rain closes in. The road climbs. Rain turns to sleet. My feet are soaked, toes and fingers numb. Sun finds a cleft in the clouds. The peaks glisten while I remain in semi-dark. My cheeks suffer a bombardment of ice crystals. I raise the speed by ten kilometres an hour to intensify the pain. I must be crazy. I even stop to photograph the peaks. I kneel beside the road and steady the camera on the crash rail. There, on my knees, illumination strikes. Bike size is of no account. Nor is speed. Age is immaterial. This is the test. The pass mark is having fun. Enjoy yourself under these conditions and you may wear the label proudly: BIKER.
Or lunatic.
Old Man On A Bike  Simon Gandolfi  pp300-1

[Biggles]

My dismounting technique is ungainly - more a semi-fall sideways. I hobble to the lavatory and fumble deep within all the folds of clothing for something to pee with. I sip black coffee in the gas station cafeteria, munch a sandwich, chat with whoever asks where I come from. These are the moments that make the trip worthwhile: so many different people, all content to share with me a little of themselves.
I fill the tank. Backpack, helmet, glasses, gloves: Brrrrmmmm.
Ahead lie a further 150 kilometres.
Is it fun?
In truth?
Fun is the wrong word.
Challenge comes closer. In my seventies, can I ride 22,000 kilometres on a small bike the length of Hispanic America? The start of each day is hardest. I wake and lie in bed and contemplate the distance ahead. One more night in a strange bed. Broken sleep. Every part of me aches - back, knees, ankles. I want to give up. I fumble for spectacles and the lamp switch. Check the ACA route guide. Tomorrow I will be on the final page. Get up, you old fool. Take a hot shower.
Old Man On A Bike  Simon Gandolfi  p310

[Biggles]

He stopped - he had to - and as he manoeuvred his bike to the side of the road and took off his helmet, we were already firing questions at him. He answered in English heavily accented with German. Yes, he confirmed, he was indeed on a world tour by bike. Yes, he would be happy to accept a coffee and answer our questions.
Dinner and a bed for the night? Why yes, he would be delighted.
Ulbrecht proved a mine of information. We ended up giving him a key to our house - something to do with the community of bikers everywhere. We'd been at the receiving end of the same fellow-feeling in the past, and had no hesitation extending it now.
A little later we had a call from Dave in Tauranga.
"You'll never guess who I've just run into'" he said. It was true: we would never have guessed it. Like us, he had leapt into the path of a grizzled-looking motorcyclist tootling along in Tauranga only to discover that he was none other than the proprietor of the motel where we were considering staying in Naryn, in Kyrgystan. Crazy stuff, but once you're in the planning stages of something like this, these little synchronicities just seem to come along.
Silk Riders  Jo and Gareth Morgan  p18

[Biggles]

What's more, if a rider or machine is taken out, everyone is held up while repairs are made so that the trip can continue. Unlike a normal tour, you can't just call up the local dealer to fix the bike, or send the rider to the nearest hospital and continue on. So the more quickly support from other team members gets there, the more quickly the trip can resume.
For these reasons, an expedition ride really only works if each member takes responsibility for the one behind them, making sure they are continually in touch with that rider. The rider in front of you is pretty much irrelevant, so long as they're upright; it's the one behind that matters. This way, when a bike stops with a problem, before long all bikes have regrouped at that spot and the full skill-set of the group is at hand to solve the problem.
All it takes for the team to be compromised is for a single rider to ignore that simple rule, and cruise along looking out only for number one. Others may try to compensate, but this approach is a distant second-best. Long delays and huge double-backs to trouble spots will inevitably ensue.
Silk Riders  Jo and Gareth Morgan  p30

[Biggles]

From Melbourne, we made our way south via the lovely, mellow country of Victoria and South Australia, collecting a speeding ticket and some useful route advice on the way from a couple of undercover policemen dressed as surfies who clocked Gareth and MoD being naughty on the smooth straights and beautifully cambered curves of the Great Ocean Highway. The adventure proper began at Port Augusta, about six hours north of Adelaide, from which they started the infamous Birdsville Track, which heads due north towards the former nuclear facility at Woomera. The land quickly grew more desolate with the temperature sitting around 35 degrees Celsius. At Lyndhurst the rough asphalt gave way to red dirt. That was the last we'd see of sealed roads for 3000 km.
Silk Riders  Jo and Gareth Morgan  p34

[Biggles]

They would overtake anywhere, and if there was a sniff of a gap in our line - we were riding in Indian file - they would cut into it. Before long, we'd be scattered through miles of speeding traffic, none of us having any idea where everyone else was or where we were going. On our stops, we talked about riding in close formation a fair bit. Brendan thought it was just something we had to put up with; he reckoned having everyone fend for themselves was less dangerous than riding in close formation. He had a point, but sometimes when we were having an argument about it, there were only four or five of us present. If we were going to stick together, as we must for safety reasons and for the sake of making decent progress, something clearly had to be done. Eventually, even Brendan agreed.
Our countermeasure was something we christened "the Silk Rider Wedgie", in which we'd form up into a triangle, a lead bike at the apex, two behind to either side with their front axles level with the lead bike's rear sprocket, and three abreast bringing up the rear. This way, we were a compact unit and collectively as wide as a car, and had to be treated more or less like a car by overtaking traffic. It worked a treat. People chafed behind us, leaned on their horns or tried to get amongst us, but we just ignored all that and sailed serenely on.
Silk Riders  Jo and Gareth Morgan  p51

[Biggles]

Bulgaria enjoyed a far smoother transition from communism than its miserable Balkan neighbours, and is a full member of the European Union. Our first
impression was that the general population enjoys a far higher standard of living than the countries to its immediate west. It has the EU membership card -
the fancy, EU-funded autobahn reaching practically right across the country - but no one warned about one peculiarly Bulgarian road hazard haunting this
stretch of superhighway. Gareth, who was leading, passed an intersection with a country road and was confronted by the sight of a young woman standing at the roadside wearing little more than a miniskirt and professional smile. It was the middle of nowhere. It was all too much for a boy from Putaruru. He
experienced his first severe case of tank-slap (the biker's term for the wobbles which accompany losing control through over-vigorous application of the
brakes, which causes bike to fishtail wildly, the handgrips slapping back and forth against the tank) of the trip. He rode on, wondering whether he'd really
seen what he thought he'd seen. A few kilometres down the track, and here was a pair of similarly underdressed women.
Silk Riders  Jo and Gareth Morgan  p64

[Biggles]

From here, we followed a narrow, winding road which had been converted by weeks of rain to a kind of sluggishly flowing river of mud. We slithered and slid our way along, feeling pretty vulnerable for the most part. We were already tired by the time we reached the outskirts of Istanbul, and prepared to take on what had been rumored to be some of the worst traffic in the world. This, of course, entailed forming the Silk Rider Wedgie again and toughing it out. We were beginning to learn that it was to our advantage to put Jo in front, because she was the one who caused the most pandemonium as Middle Eastern drivers just stopped and stared at her, no matter what the prevailing road or traffic conditions, or started gesticulating wildly to get the attention of the first woman they'd ever seen on a motorbike.
Silk Riders  Jo and Gareth Morgan  p71

[Biggles]

As we travelled east through Turkey, Gareth was becoming concerned about the performance of his bike. It had not escaped his attention - nor, to his discomfort, had it escaped everyone else's, for we gave arseholes - that he was going through petrol at a far higher rate anyone else. There must be a fuel mixture problem, he thought, or something of that nature going on. He and Bryan discussed it. Bryan suggested they eliminate the possible causes one by one, starting with the easiest: the rider. They swapped bikes. When they compared consumption at the next fuel stop, it was clear that the fuel economy of Bryan's bike had collapsed underneath Gareth, whereas his bike was doing as well as Bryan's did under Bryan. The cause of the excessive fuel consumption was clear: Gareth's penchant for engine-braking and for impetuously wrenching the throttle open out of corners.
Silk Riders  Jo and Gareth Morgan  p72

[Biggles]

They were still dark about it as they rode into the pretty town of Balykchy on the shores of the lake. Perhaps spleen affected their vision, because they both rode through a red traffic light. There was no traffic, so they survived what could have been a fatal mistake on another road in any other part of the world. But as Murphy's Law would have it, they did it right in front of a bored Kyrgyz traffic cop. They'd gone no more than 100 metres when a large, white, Russian-made car overtook them with siren blaring. They pulled over obediently, and the uniformed officer of the unmarked car demanded to see all their documents - passports, bike registration papers and international driver's licences (the first time any of us were asked to produce these). Unlike the toll collector, the cop spoke enough English to deliver a lecture to the pair as they sat, chastened, in the back of his car, then demanded they hand over an instant fine of US$50. They expressed alarm and dismay at the amount and, between them, settled on US$10 each. The officer tut-tutted and shook his head, but took the money and drove off at a suspiciously jubilant clip. The miscreants were free to go.
Silk Riders  Jo and Gareth Morgan  pp133-4

[Biggles]

Seconds later, however, an even more menacing-looking funnel appeared to his left, apparently lining him right up. He had to make a quick decision: stop the bike and risk being blown, bike and all, off the road and down the steep bank to the side, or accelerate and get bike stable enough to take a very strong side-blast of wind, rain and sand?
Bryan chose the latter, moving to the centre of the road just in time to be engulfed by the tornado. He realised quickly that he had badly underestimated the ferocity of the winds. He later reckoned the wind-speed to be well over 80 km/h, and he's probably right; the wind-speeds in the least powerful of American tornadoes routinely reach almost twice that. The visibility was suddenly nil. It was all he could do to make out his front wheel. His track veered to the right and he found himself at the edge of the road. With his full-face helmet full of wet sand and dust and his eyes stinging, he was, as he later put it, "in praying mode". He opened the throttle and steered to where he guessed the centre of the road to be and then, suddenly, he was out the other side of the maelstrom. He couldn't say afterwards how long he was in the twister, it could have been ten seconds, or even less. It felt like ten minutes.
Silk Riders  Jo and Gareth Morgan  pp153-4

[Biggles]

In one village, Dave found himself on the receiving end of the same kind of prurient attention. He's a big fella, Dave, even the Dave-Lite he'd become through routine Silk Road weight loss regimes. His stature intrigued the diminutive Chinese- women and men, and clearly set them to making wild anatomical extrapolations. At the village in question, Dave became aware of the calculating stares of a group of men who, when he looked at them enquiringly, began making fairly unambiguous gestures in their groin region and raising their eyebrows interrogatively. With a poker face, Dave held up his hands with the palms an improbable distance apart.
On the other side of the ethnological and linguistic divide, jaws dropped. Suddenly, their hands were full of cash. Plainly, they were having a whip-round so that they could see the mythological proportions of the Tauranga cocky's private member. We decided it was time to go, for whatever Dave might try to tell you, here was a whole village full of people doomed to disappointment.
Silk Riders  Jo and Gareth Morgan  p159

[Biggles]

The worst aspect of covering this section of the trip, the southern fringe of the Gobi desert, was that we were forced to do it more or less off-road. There is a beautiful highway traversing the southern margin of the desert, but because our bikes were classed as "farm machinery", we were not entitled to use it. We were relegated instead to the network of gravel and sand tracks that run alongside it. So you'd be struggling along on bumpy, soft, treacherous surfaces, eating the dust of other vehicles, sharing it with everything from donkey-carts and bicycles to farm trucks and tractors, and livestock ranging from pigs and cattle to people, while the superhighway right alongside you, close enough for you to touch the safety barrier, was empty apart from the occasional passing truck. It caused a few foul-ups in our riding order. You'd come across a line of traffic, and perhaps the lead bike would go along the outside while some or all of the following bikes would go along the inside. By the time you all missed one another, there was no way of knowing who was ahead or who was behind. Tempers flared somewhat in the heat. We had several goes at getting our bikes onto the highway, but we were waved off again by officials every time.
Silk Riders  Jo and Gareth Morgan  pp161-2

[Biggles]

I hung round the Signal Office, nervous and excited, for "a run". The night was alive with the tramp of troops and the rumble of guns. The old 108th passed by- huge good-natured guns, each drawn by eight gigantic plough-horses. I wonder if you can understand the thrilling excitement of waiting and listening by night in a town full of troops.
At midnight I took my first despatch. It was a dark, starless night; very misty on the road. From the brigade I was sent on to an ambulance- an unpleasant ride, because, apart from the mist and the darkness, I was stopped every few yards by sentries of the West Kents, a regiment which has now about the best reputation of any battalion out here. I returned in time to snatch a couple of hours of sleep before we started at dawn for Belgium.
When the Division moves we ride either with the column or advance to the halting-place. That morning we rode with the column, which meant riding three-quarters of a mile or so and then waiting for the main-guard to come up, an extraordinarily tiring method of getting along.
A Motorcycle Courier In The Great War  W. H. L. Watson p28

[Biggles]

About ten o'clock on the morning of August 23rd I was sent out to find General Gleichen, who was reported somewhere near Waasmes. I went over nightmare roads, uneven cobbles with great pits in them. I found him, and was told by him to tell the General that the position was unfortunate owing to a weak salient. We had already heard guns, but on my way back I heard a distant crash, and looked round to find that a shell had burst half a mile away on a slag-heap, between Dour and myself. With my heart thumping against my ribs I opened the throttle, until I was jumping at 40 m.p.h. from cobble to cobble. Then, realising that I was in far greater danger of breaking my neck than of being shot, I pulled myself together and slowed down to proceed sedately home.
A Motorcycle Courier In The Great War  W. H. L. Watson pp32-3

[Biggles]

I cut across country, running into some of our cavalry on the way. It was just light enough for me to see properly when my engine jibbed. I cleaned a choked petrol pipe, lit a briar- never have I tasted anything so good- and pressed on.
Very bitter I felt, and when nearing Saint Quentin, some French soldiers got in my way, I cursed them in French, then in German, and finally in good round English oaths for cowards, and I know not what. They looked very startled and recoiled into the ditch. I must have looked alarming- a gaunt, dirty, unshaven figure towering above my motorcycle, without hat, bespattered with mud, and eyes bright and weary for want of sleep. How I hated the French! I hated them because, as I then thought, they had deserted us at Mons and again at Le Cateau; I hated them because they had the privilege of seeing the British Army in confused retreat; I hated them because their roads were very nearly as bad as the roads of the Belgians. So, wet, miserable, and angry, I came into Saint Quentin just as the sun was beginning to shine a little.
A Motorcycle Courier In The Great War  W. H. L. Watson pp48-9

[Biggles]

The Battle of the Aisne had begun.
We were wondering what to do when we were commandeered to take a message down that precipitous hill of Ciry to some cavalry. It was now quite dark and still raining. We had no carbide, and my carburetor had jibbed, so we decided to stop at Ciry for the night. At the inn we found many drinks- particularly some wonderful cherry brandy- and a friendly motorcyclist who told us of a billet that an officer was probably going to leave. We went there. Our host was an old soldier, so, after his wife had hung up what clothes we dared take off to dry by a red-hot stove, he gave us some supper of stewed game and red wine, then made us cunning beds with straw, pillows, and blankets. Too tired to thank him we dropped asleep.
That, though we did not know it then, was the last night of little Odyssey. We had been advancing or retiring without a break since my tragic farewell to Nadine. We had been riding all day and often all night. But those were heroic days, and now as I write this in our comfortable slack winter quarters, I must confess- I would give anything to have them all over again. Now we motorcyclists are middle-aged warriors. Adventures are work. Experiences are a routine. Then, let's be sentimental, we were young.
A Motorcycle Courier In The Great War  W. H. L. Watson p86

[Biggles]

When D.H.Q. are stationary, the work of despatch riders is of two kinds. First of all you have to find the positions of the units to which you are sent. Often the Signal Office gives you the most exiguous information. "The 105th Brigade is somewhere near Ciry," or "The Div. Train is at a farm just off the Paris-Bordeaux road". Starting out with these explicit instructions, it is very necessary to remember that they may be wrong and are probably misleading. That is not the fault of the Signal Office. A Unit changes ground, say from a farm on the road to a farm off the road. These two farms are so near each other that there is no need to inform the Div just at present of this change of residence. The experienced despatch rider knows that, if he is told the 105th Brigade is at 1904 Farm, the Brigade is probably at 1894 Farm, half a mile away.
A Motorcycle Courier In The Great War  W. H. L. Watson pp92-3

[Biggles]

The second kind of work consists in riding along a road already known. A clever despatch rider may reduce this to a fine art. He knows exactly at which corner he is likely to be sniped, and hurries accordingly. He remembers to a yard where the sentries are. If the road is under shell fire, he recalls where the shells usually fall, the interval between the shells and the times of shelling. For there is order in everything, and particularly in German gunnery. Lastly, he does not race along with nose on handle-bar. That is a trick practised only by despatch riders who are rarely under fire, who have come to a strange and alarming country from Corps or Army Headquarters. The experienced motorcyclist sits up and takes notice the whole time. He is able at the end of his ride to give an account of all that he has seen on the way.
A Motorcycle Courier In The Great War  W. H. L. Watson pp93-4

[Biggles]

It was at La Bassee that we had our first experience of utterly unrideable roads. North of the canal the roads were fair macadam in dry weather and to the south the main road Bethune-Beuvry-Annequin was of the finest pave. Then it rained hard. First the roads became greasy beyond belief. Starting was perilous, and the slightest injudicious swerve meant a bad skid. Between Gorre and Festubert the road was vile. It went on raining, and the roads were thickly covered with glutinous mud. The front mud-guard of George's Douglas choked up with a lamentable frequency. The Blackburne alone, the finest and most even-running of all motorcycles, ran with unswerving regularity.
A Motorcycle Courier In The Great War  W. H. L. Watson p125

[Biggles]

Three quarters of an hour later. Curious life this. Just after I had finished the last sentence, I was called out to take a message to a battery telling them to
shell a certain village. Here am I wandering out, taking orders for the complete destruction of a village and probably for the death of a couple of hundred men
without a thought, except that the roads are very greasy and that lunch time is near.
Again, yesterday, I put our Heavies in action, and in a quarter of an hour a fine old church, with what appeared from the distance a magnificent tower, was
nothing but a grotesque heap of ruins. The Germans were loopholing it for defence.
Oh the waste, the utter damnable waste of everything out here- men, horses,buildings, cars, everything. Those who talk about war being a salutary discipline are those who remain at home. In a modern war there is little room for picturesque gallantry or picture-book heroism. We are all either animals or machines, with little gained except our emotions dulled and brutalised and nightmare flashes of scenes that cannot be written about because they are unbelievable. I wonder what difference you will find in us when we come home.
A Motorcycle Courier In The Great War  W. H. L. Watson pp135-6

[Biggles]

Then came two and a half miles of winding country lanes. They were covered with grease. Every corner was blind. A particularly sharp turn to the right and the despatch rider rode a couple of hundred yards in front of a battery in action that the Germans were trying to find. A "hairpin" corner round a house followed. This he would take with remarkable skill and alacrity, because at this corner he was always sniped. The German's rifle was trained a trifle high. Coming into the final straight one despatch rider rode for all he was worth. It was unpleasant to find new shell-holes just off the road each time you passed, or, as you came into the straight, to hear the shriek of shrapnel between you and the farm.
Huggie once arrived at the house of the "hairpin" bend simultaneously with a shell. The shell hit the house, the house did not hit Huggie, and the sniper forgot to snipe. So every one was pleased.
A Motorcycle Courier In The Great War  W. H. L. Watson p148

[Biggles]

These unattached rides across country are the most joyous things in the world for a despatch rider. There is never any need to hurry. You can take any road you will. You may choose your tavern for lunch with expert care. And when new ground is covered and new troops are seen, we capture sometimes those sharp delightful moments of thirsting interest that made the Retreat into an epic and the Advance a triumphant ballad.
N'Soon and myself left together. We skidded along the tow-path, passed the ever-cheerful cyclists, and, turning due north, ran into St Venant. The grease made us despatch riders look as if we were beginning to learn. I rode gently but surely down the side of the road into the gutter time after time. Pulling ourselves together, we managed to slide past some Indian transport without being kicked by the mules, who, whenever they smelt petrol, developed a strong offensive. Then we came upon a big gun, discreetly covered by tarpaulins. It was drawn by a monster traction-engine, and sad-faced men walked beside it. The steering of the traction-engine was a trifle loose, so N'Soon and I drew off into a field to let this solemn procession pass.
A Motorcycle Courier In The Great War  W. H. L. Watson pp151-2

[Biggles]

We despatch riders were given a large room in the house where the Divisional Staff was billeted. It had tables, chairs, a fireplace and gas that actually lit; so we were more comfortable than ever we had been before- that is, all except N'Soon, who had by this time discovered that continual riding on bad roads produces a fundamental soreness. N'Soon hung on nobly, but was at last sent away with blood-poisoning. Never getting home, he spent many weary months in peculiar convalescent camps, and did not join up again until the end of January. Moral- before going sick or getting wounded become an officer and a gentleman.
A Motorcycle Courier In The Great War  W. H. L. Watson pp155-6

[Biggles]

More than a dozen "Varsity" men were thrown like Daniels into a den of mercenaries. We were awkwardly privileged persons- full corporals with a few days' service. Motorcycling gave superlative opportunities of freedom. Our duties were "flashy", and brought us into familiar contact with officers of rank. We were highly paid, and thought to have much money of our own. In short, we who were soldiers of no standing possessed the privileges that a professional soldier could win only after many years' hard work.
A Motorcycle Courier In The Great War  W. H. L. Watson p197