Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

That same day I had ridden carelessly into a deep rut of baked mud and lost control of the bike. I pitched over the handlebars and the bike somersaulted on top of me. I felt it land on my right thigh was sure my leg must have been broken. "Damn!" I said, "you've really done it this time." I said it out loud, but I got up and the bone was intact. The bike lay sputtering like an upended beetle. I switched it off and looked at it. The lights were destroyed, the handlebars revolved through ninety degrees and, worst of all, the forks were twisted. Both boxes were badly damaged, and my belongings lay scattered over the road. Slowly, as my thigh muscles swelled to an enormous size, I lashed everything together and limped on into town.
Riding High  Ted Simon  p241

[Biggles]

The road followed the coast almost due west, and a powerful southerly wind blew up, with freak gusts that threatened to knock me over. Then cold rain fell in torrents, whipped up by the wind. After a short while the throttle seized. Then the engine lost power and before long I was forced to stop.
It was a bleak coast in the storm, and the only refuge I found was a small concrete bus shelter. The floor was inches deep in water, but there was a cement bench. I wheeled the bike in and perched on the bench, wet and cold. It crossed my mind that the bus shelter was exactly like the ones to be seen on the south coast of England, and that the scenery was so similar that I might easily have thought myself sixty miles from London in winter. The thought depressed me all the more.
There was some relief in work. Eventually I discovered that the carburetor main jet had unscrewed itself and dropped into the reservoir. I repaired it, cleaned the throttle slide, cooked coffee and changed my clothes. Halfway through this performance the rain stopped and a troop of little schoolgirls in white nylon aprons appeared from nowhere to catch a bus. They were in the care of a serious senorita. They watched me gravely as I reassembled myself before their eyes.
Riding High  Ted Simon  p243

[Biggles]

Riding the motorcycle was second nature. Sitting on it was as natural to me as sitting on a chair, and more comfortable. Everything about it was customary, the passage of air across my face, the changes of temperature, the scents of hay, dust, sap, dung, diesel, stale urine, whatever was in the air, and though I regretted the loss of silence and my inability to hear birdsong and distant voices, the sound of the engine was comforting, in its way, and helpful to my thoughts. I knew the bike well, believed in it and accepted its faults. I had everything I needed well distributed about me, and I knew that if anything went wrong it would be providence to blame and not me and there was some satisfaction in that too.
Somewhere beyond Bahia Blanca, as I headed inland at last, the bike completed its first twenty thousand miles, and that was a sufficient sign of a healthy partnership, if I had needed one.
Riding High  Ted Simon  p244

[Biggles]

The road led north, back to Argentina. The frontier was at Caracoles, ten ten thousand feet up, and there was one road across the mountain pass to Mendoza, but it was closed to traffic by the Chilean frontier guards. The only way through was by the railway tunnel. I waited for two hours, with a growing company of cars and trucks, until the oncoming train from Argentina had passed. Then I was sent in ahead of the four-wheeled traffic.
The tunnel was three kilometres long, an unlined hole through the living rock. Boards had been laid on either side of one rail, but I was warned to stay to the right, between the rail and the rock face.
There was no lighting. The rocks dripped water on me and on the boards which were slippery with mud. I moved, painfully slow, through the gloom, aware of the car behind me which always seemed to be too close. Again and again I felt my rear wheel slip and slide out of control until at one point I was almost certain that the tyre was punctured, and I wondered how to choose between the twin horrors of risking an accident or trying to repair a tyre.
I went on and on, and on, interminably creeping through that foul hole until, at last, I saw a faint glimmer ahead. Never have I been more glad to see the light at the end of a tunnel. I came out into a glorious valley and as I sped along beside a tumbling mountain stream it became ever more beautiful, ever more enticing. The valley broadened and deepened and my spirits, released from the dark tunnel, expanded and soared, and I was away and on the road and flying again.
Riding High  Ted Simon  pp275-6

[Biggles]

Times were good, then bad, then good again- and always interesting. I made my own decisions, imposed my own demands on myself and succeeded at what was most important. Every day was different. There was always something new to learn and enjoy, so that even the bad times became, in their way, enjoyable. The mistakes I made (there would always be mistakes- without them there could be no life, no evolution) were revealing, often amusing, but not tragic. I was making progress, in the most satisfying way I could imagine, towards the accomplishment of an objective which I, at least, considered quite grand: the mental and physical comprehension of the world. I was not unduly beholden to anyone, and I was free of guilt.
Riding High  Ted Simon  pp303-4

[Biggles]

I dress in three sets of Alpinestar's thermal underwear bottoms, cargo trousers, biker boots. On top are further layers of Alpinestar, three T-shirts, cord shirt, two jerseys, leather bomber jacket. Over all comes a zippered pale blue thermal work suit bought on sale half-price in Ushuaia and I wear two pairs of gloves.
Elastic ties hold a small suitcase above a top box clipped to the cargo rack. I wheel the bike alongside a concrete block and mount it. Half a dozen well-wishers watch as I heave a leg over the saddle. Two kicks on the starter and the engine buzzes.
Graciela kisses me on both cheeks. "Be careful, Little Grandfather."
"Certainly..."
Helmet on, goggles lowered over my bifocals and off I wobble. Imagine a large, pale, grey-bearded blue balloon.
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  p4

[Biggles]

Cars queue in three lines. I complete an Immigration fiche. A Uruguayan Customs officer rips off the original, hands me the copy and waves me through. I suspect that I should say, "Wait a minute. Don't I need my passport stamped or register the temporary import of the Honda?"
What will happen when I try to leave Uruguay?
Weren't my difficulties in leaving Argentina sufficient?
Two tour coaches follow me out of Colonia. Fearful, I watch them in the mirror and have to brake hard to avoid running a red light. Out of town a straight highway shaded by palm trees flows over gentle hills. I slow and ease on to the hard shoulder. The coach drivers wave as they swish by.
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  p56

[Biggles]

A small truck driver with bow legs wears baggy shorts and a Manaus T-shirt. He has never been to Manaus. A big truck driver in jeans and a plain shirt has driven from Manaus this week. He was held up for six days by floods.
Or he may have been on a calamitous six-day surfing holiday- translating from Brazilian Portuguese to my Cuban Spanish is an inexact science- the only certainty, that water featured and wasn't fun.
Communicating, however inadequately, with the truck drivers has rekindled my enthusiasm- back on the bike and ride till dusk. Weary, I pull into a petrol station with an empty truck park and a single-floor hotel, no village, tall shade trees, a couple of shacks. The hotel is shut. Perhaps it was built before trucks had beds. The petrol pump attendant sends a small boy running to one of the shacks and a woman brings a key. The ten-dollar room is half the size of a squash court, cold-water bathroom with rusting fixtures, double bed with clean linen, mosquito netting on the window. The roof extends over a front terrace overlooking the road. I sit alone on an iron chair at an iron table. The woman brings a cold beer. A few truck drivers shower at the back then gather on the terrace. An elderly man (my age?) walks over from the shacks. He points to the registration plate. "Mexico..."
"Mexico," I agree.
Where am I going?
Brasilia, Porto Velho, Manaus, Venezuela, New York...
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  pp70-1

[STeveo]

 

[Biggles]

My bike was built at the Honda factory here in Manaus. I ride out to the factory this afternoon. Manoel Antonio Liborio dos Santos, Director of Production, is my bike's daddy. Manoel summons a cosmetic surgeon and manicurist. They change the rear wheel and the drive sprocket and the petrol tank and the mirrors. I forbid the changing of the rear wheel fairing; the black web of repairs is the biker equivalent of German duelling scars. A Japanese Brazilian, Mario Okubo, and Francisca Viana- both from the Department of Institutional Relations (whatever that is)- conduct me on a factory tour. Manaus is 1,000 kilometres from anywhere. It is in the middle of the Amazon forest. Surely an odd place to site a vast factory? Taxes are the explanation. Manaus is a tax-free zone.
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  p89

[Biggles]

The Honda factory employs 8,000 workers in three shifts. All employees, whether executives or on the assembly line wear the same white overalls with HONDA embroidered on the breast pocket. A new bike comes off the assembly line every 50 seconds- 6,000 bikes a day, thirteen models. Bikes are exported downriver to more than sixty countries and Honda sells 1,200,000 bikes a year inside Brazil in a market of 1,500,000. That is one big market slice. As with the US, Brazil has an internal market capable of sustaining manufacturing. Workers on the assembly line earn 800 reals monthly- well over double the minimum wage. They receive pensions, injury insurance and medical benefits. They don't appear hurried or pressured. What would I know?    
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  p89

[Biggles]

The winding coast road is blasted out of the flank of precipitous mountains. The coast is pierced with coves and inlets and gulfs; the sea is spread with rocky islands. I slow wherever possible to let trucks and cars pass. Don't let them pass and they overtake on the next blind curve. Why? Because this is Venezuela. Suicide behind the wheel is Venezuela's national sport. Every television channel carries a police advertisement featuring blood, guts, crumpled metal, shattered windscreens and this year's death toll: 36,211 and climbing.
Barcelona is draped in red posters and banners. A cop directs me to the historic district. "After dark, it is dangerous," he warns. "Very dangerous. It is full of thieves, degenerates, drug addicts, homosexuals and prostitutes."
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  p110

[Biggles]

Centre for the oil industry, Maracay is a vast industrial sprawl of refineries and tower office blocks. It will be my last city in Venezuela. I am on a six-lane urban thruway. A truck pulling a trailer loaded with steel girders sits on my backside. I slow a second to check the overhead signs and he hits his klaxon. A small Chevrolet whips across from the outside lane to the hard shoulder, overtakes a truck on the inside, swerves back to the fast lane. A pickup shoots from the fast lane to an exit, missing me by inches. I pull into a petrol station and walk to the toilets and confront myself in the mirror over the hand basin. I'm weeping and I can't stop. I don't want to be seen weeping so sit on the toilet bowl with the door locked. The longer I sit the more scared I become of continuing.
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  p114

[Biggles]

European travellers complain of rudeness suffered at the hands of US Immigration and Customs officials (US travellers are equally irritated when entering Europe). Near midnight at Kennedy and passengers wait hangdog in long queues to offer eyeball and passport for computer interrogation. A kindly officer waves me to the kiosk for diplomats. I have saved my pennies by travelling at an unsocial hour. Anya, dearest daughter, doubts my ability to cross a street and has ordered a limo to bring me out to Duchess County, New York. The limo surely costs her twice the price of my Taca Airlines ticket.
The limo driver is accustomed to Kennedy and has allowed hour for officialdom. I am through in twenty minutes and await his arrival. Snow deepens on the roads as we approach the farm. My daughter, belly proud, waits at the door. Love slices me open as would a scalpel. Joyously eviscerated, I disguise my tears behind an inanely sheepish and very British grin. "Hi, Anya! You look great. Thanks for the limo..."
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  p150

[Biggles]

Eight-thirty of a typical evening on a Costa Rican highway the driver swerves. Thump! We've killed a cyclist. No lights on the bike. An ambulance removes the corpse. Cops remove our driver to be held six days pending investigation.
We passengers wait for a replacement coach. In England, passengers would be in shock. Central America, dead cyclists are standard. The small boy in the seat ahead drapes a sheet to make a play house. Even a pair of nuns smile. I keep thinking of the family of the deceased- do they know he's dead? Or are they waiting up for him? And the driver? Horror must be churning his belly. All these lives changed.
I was under a truck in Tierra del Fuego.
Terror almost did for me in Venezuela.
Giving up takes more courage than continuing- the shame factor.
Ten-thirty and finally a local town bus arrives to take us to the frontier to meet a coach sent from Panama City. I sit in the front seat and watch the new driver. He drives with one hand on the wheel while jabbering into his mobile phone. The bus shimmies on the soft shoulder as he overtakes a truck. Surely murdering him would be justified.
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  pp155-6

[Biggles]

The Pan American Highway crosses hill country with magnificent panoramas of Panama's mountain spine. I descend to the western plains and cruise at ninety kilometres per hour. The rear tyre blows. I am on a section of dual carriageway. Klaxons blare as the bike skitters side to side. Tip at this speed, end of journey- yet I don't dare brake and require a good fifty metres to halt the bike. Already breathless from fright, I push the bike up a gradient to a petrol station where a boy helps dismount the wheel. A three-inch nail has shredded the inner tube; fortunately I carry a spare; equally useful would be a spare leg and renewed nerves.
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  p158

[Biggles]

Staying with Gillian and Joe forever isn't an option. The bike waits. Joe is jealous of the bike. He has ridden an ancient Vespa round Europe and the Middle East. He would garage the Vespa for years where so ever his journeying took him, return to reclaim it when the travel bug next struck.
Aged fifty, Joe discovered hot air balloons and forsook all other interests. Gaining a pilot licence, he crossed to Europe, won a bunch of prizes. Kenya came next where Gillian discovered Joe flying tourists over the game reserve. Joe retired from Kenya and professional ballooning aged sixty-five and moved with Gillian to Granada. A couple of years ago he canoed down Nicaragua's San Juan River. Now he seeks a new adventure. He is younger than me by six months and great company. However I prefer to travel alone. Travel with a companion and you talk with the companion rather than with natives of the country through which you pass.
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  pp168-9

[Biggles]

I stop at a police post and ask whether there is a hotel before Copan.
"No, but the road is safe."
"No bandits?"
"No bandits, but don't stop."
Don't stop is hardly a confidence booster.
My Honda is kick-start, no battery; drop the engine revs and the headlight dims. The road twists through mountains. On a climb I follow a slow-moving truck with good lights. The driver knows the road and speeds downhill. I lose touch on the curves and crawl onward alone and somewhat scared. I pull into the curb when cars overtake. I am not having fun. Two more hours of punishment for breaking the most vital of my safety laws for Latin America: Never Ride at Night.
I made the same damn-fool mistake in Venzuela.
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  p174

[Biggles]

Last night's beer is extra weight as I head up the coastal highway. The first sixty kilometres twist through dry hills. Corners are sharp and badly cambered; stray goats and donkeys graze the verge and wander across the road. The country flattens. Beggarly village follows beggarly village, each scented with dry dung and sun-scorched earth. Inevitably I miss a toper [speed bump], brakes screech, back tyre slithers, saddle slams my crotch.
Daylight is on the wane and I have ridden 500 kilometres. I don't spot 24 HOURS painted on a sign outside a small-town hotel. 24 HOURS denotes a house of assignation. The woman seated in the lobby balloons out of a low-cut blouse, short shorts fastened with a gold glitter belt, high heels. She strikes me as a nice woman, a little motherly. She asks why I travel alone; whether I am married; how many children we have; whether Bernadette minds my being away.
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  p205

[Biggles]

The road rises from irrigated fields into a barren land of sparse scrub. A massive rock escarpment towers ahead. The road winds through a ravine to the right of the escarpment only to face a higher barrier. Now begins the true climb famous (or infamous) for 700 hairpin curves. The road is cut into the mountain. Drops are vertiginous. Ahead towers a yet higher wall. Ravines funnel the gale: total calm in the lee of the mountain is transformed at a corner into a tempest that blasts the bike sideways.
Is this fun?
No, terrifying.
I near the summit and expect to look down on Jalpan. I look up at yet higher mountains. On and up the road clambers into a frontier land of sparse pine forest. Turn a corner and ahead rise yet higher mountains. The forest thickens. Sun bakes out the familiar scent of pines. I wear two jumpers beneath a leather bomber jacket; a chill wind discovers cracks and I shiver as I park the bike and look back down at a Martian landscape of creased rock ridges. How far to the final pass: La Puerto del Cielo, Doorway to the Sky?
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  p216

[Biggles]

So why am I so tired? Tired is a misnomer. Even exhausted is an understatement. I have been away from home and on the road eight months, always vulnerable- such was the first days lesson when the truck struck and made fear my travel companion.
Seemingly endless series of packing and unpacking; trying to recall in each new hotel room which direction the bathroom is and where the light switches are- Country to country, monstrous poverty; endless tales of corruption; belief so many have that the system is too entrenched; that there is nothing to be done; even trying is to waste one's life.
Such is the reality of Hispanic America. How does the traveler hold to his optimism? And, by nature, I am an optimist (aged seventy-five, only an optimist would attempt this ride).
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  p221

[Biggles]

The teenagers compete with her in giving directions. My younger sons might understand the teen-speak. The mother recognises my bewilderment and accepts the impossibility of keeping them hushed long enough for a sensible conversation- even if the drenched old Brit on the bike is capable of rational communication (doubtful). "Follow," she says, "I'll drive slow."
She makes a U out of the petrol station and heads right across town to a Ramada Inn.
Many people have aided me on this journey. Few of them will read this account- and expressions of gratitude come easy. Yet I know of a future. I will sit on a bench in our Herefordshire garden, enjoy those few days of sun offered by our English summers and be better warmed by remembered evidence of so much kindness in a troubled world.
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  pp252-3

[Biggles]

I sit in the motel lobby and drool at the lush scents of curry seeping from the owners' quarters. A giant enters, giant in height, giant in shoulders, giant in belly- late fifties and losing his hair- stained jeans, stained sweatshirt, scuffed work boots. He leans against the reception counter. The counter quivers. So does the receptionist.
I am inspected by the giant.
"You look depressed," he says. "The type of depression that goes with needing crutches and owning a small bike with a broken chain."
I plead guilty to the ownership and admit the depression.
The giant extends a massive hand, hefts me to my feet. "Let's go get it fixed."
I remark timidly that bike shops close on Sundays.
"We'll open them."
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  p261

[Biggles]

DUCHESS VIEW FARM
Friday, 11 April 2013

There is a a difference between a love letter and a letter of love. A love letter is written to a lover. This book is a letter of love- and of gratitude to those who made my journey possible; those who picked me up and nursed and mended me when I was broken; sent me on my way with courage restored. It is dedicated firstly to Graciela Abbat Agostinelli- and to her ex-future novio, Fernando- to Pepe Gonzales the one-legged orthopaedic surgeon- to all the residents at the Hostel Argentina,  the oil workers of Rio Grande, my cousins in Buenos Aires, the people of Argentina, a people who proudly portray themselves as tough and macho yet are such softies. They are immensely kind, immensely generous and immensely thoughtful.
Oh that they had better politicians.
My treasured friends, I have waited to write to you until the journey was done. It is your journey. Had I failed, I would have betrayed you.
Old Men Can't Wait  Simon Gandolfi  p267

[Biggles]

Sorry all.  Big hiatus in the publications caused by my having a holiday that's so busy I haven't had time to read!