Motorcycle Quote of the Day

[Biggles]

Neil Peart
Another science of paramount importance to a motorcyclist is meteorology- the weather. (As a weather enthusiast, I confess that that seems like a sweet science, too.) Unlike passengers in a car, a motorcycle rider is exposed to every degree of temperature, every drop of precipitation, and every unsettling crosswind. I have noted before that on the motorcycle, I can feel a rise or fall of only two degrees, and of course the difference between riding on a wet or dry road surface changes everything. Temperature and moisture have a direct effect not only on one's comfort level, but on that all-important physical relationship with the road.
Traction, control, margin of error, not falling down.
Then there is the "vision" thing, to see and be seen. Clearly (or not), the weather has much to do with that, as well.
Motorcycle Messengers  Jeremy Kroker (ed)  p74

[Biggles]

When I could bear no more, I pulled in at a small coffee shop to warm up. I had some thermal underwear tucked away in my tank bag and I figured that it would do wonders to keep me warm, if not dry.
With all eyes in the crowded room fixed on me, I walked- squish- squish- squish- as directly as possible to the bathroom, leaving boot-sized puddles on the floor. The patrons turned to watch as I squeezed like a wet sponge through a narrow entry and shut the door. Between the toilet and my magnetic tank bag, which clung to the metal radiator, only a few square feet of usable floor space remained- just enough room to stand in the spreading pool at my feet. I clambered onto the toilet for extra space, but the plastic seat was treacherous. When my feet slipped, I gave a shout as I caught myself against the wall. This would be a very stupid way to die.
Back on the floor, I braced myself against the door to remove my gaiters and outer rain booties, piling them on the ground to stand upon as sort of Gore-Tex bath mat. To unlace my boots, I lifted each one up on to the toilet, dropping them to the ground with a splash and standing on them too, on what was now the only dry patch in the room.
Motorcycle Messengers  Jeremy Kroker (ed)  p81

[Biggles]

Issa Breibish
Morocco, the easiest of the North African countries to travel, has become a petri dish of disaster for us, nurturing the growth of several disparate events into one massive cock-up. An exciting one hundred hours have passed since Nita's heart first showed signs of exploding in Spain and, with alarming regularity, new ingredients have continued to pour into the mix. Her irregular heartbeat brought on severe tunnel vision, then a cascading sweat, along with seized hands and feet- not a great combination for controlling a motorcycle.
Perhaps we should have taken the two hospital visits and ambulance rides in Almeria as bad omens. Instead, in what can only be described as delusional optimism, we just changed our ferry departure to the following day.
Then, at the border at Beni Ansar in Morocco, a stern man who looked like Saddam Hussein in an olive-drab onesie detained me for carrying cameras aboard my motorcycle. He feared that the tiny lenses had caught the commonplace corruption that tends to exist where officials hold power over people.
Motorcycle Messengers  Jeremy Kroker (ed)  pp84-5

[Biggles]

Carl Parker
I did encounter a few negative situations in five years of motorbiking western China, but the overwhelming majority of my experiences there were bridge-building and life-affirming - even if perplexing at times. While the landscapes were physically amazing, what ultimately mattered were the lessons about humanity that continually added to understanding of the personal potential and the fraternal nature of mankind. Regardless of age or era, nothing can replace the new perspectives on life which come from embracing an adventurous spirit.
Life is inherently full of adventure if we make it so. Some of us are adventurers and don't even know it. Riding around the world, just as with starting a family or a business, is a monumental effort we willingly undertake despite the risks and sacrifices. For some, risk is an excuse not to play; for others it's the challenge to overcome through questioning what we value in life, and to choose how to spend our most precious and ever-expiring resource - time. What will we do today, and how will it matter?
Motorcycle Messengers  Jeremy Kroker (ed)  pp112-3

[Biggles]

I idled up to the only tourist shop still open this late in the season. I asked the girl behind the counter about the path. Was it open? Was it a good road?
The girl was unaccustomed to fielding questions like this in English. She could really only talk about the price of her curios. But after searching for the words, she did manage to articulate a warning. "There is snow," she said. "Its too difficult for him." She meant The Oscillator. "He'll fall."
I decided to ride up anyway and take a look for myself. I've ridden in the snow before and I was imagining the dry, powdery stuff I had seen lower in the valley.
With a wave to the girl, I rode into the fog. I'll bet she could still hear my engine when heavy snow forced me to turn around. As the road pushed through the clouds, it entered a landscape of slush. I pressed on, thinking that I might be near the crest of the pass. But the sleet that stuck to my visor provided no traction for my tires.
Motorcycle Messengers  Jeremy Kroker (ed)  p117

[Biggles]

Andreas Schroeder
Nevertheless, the last thing I expected at 7 o'clock in the morning was an oncoming, fully loaded logging truck.
I saw the top of his radiator rise into view above the curve before I saw anything else - but that told me everything I didn't want to know. At five car-lengths long, he had to be cutting diagonally across the corner I was just entering. And at the speed I was travelling, I needed every bit of my lane to get through that corner myself.
There was no time to brake - and no point in braking anyway. Abruptly braking a motorcycle in a situation like this would just have compounded the problem.
There was really only one thing to do - lean the bike even harder into the corner, to decrease the radius of my turn to the absolute max.
Easier said than done - my VTX had a low centre of gravity and limited ground clearance. If I leaned any more, I risked dragging its floor-board on the pavement; if a floorboard hits a pothole and digs in, it can spin a bike out of control so fast, it's more like an explosion.
This all raced through my head in a split second, but went nowhere.
Motorcycle Messengers  Jeremy Kroker (ed)  p120

[Biggles]

Nicole Espinosa
As I slipped further into the automation of daily routine, the idea that it had been three years since my last solo weighed heavily. There was just one prescription to lift that "fog," and that could only be made by the road doctor - Jack B. Nimble, my DRZ.
His prescription: "Three weeks on the road, solo, where I'm the needle, and you are the thread, as we stitch together the most beautiful tapestry of connection with nature, with friends, with ourselves."
"As usual, Jack, you're a wise little bike. Think I'll take heed."
And out the door we flew, after kissing my angels goodbye. You see, my kids have grown up knowing how important these journeys are to me, and to them. They get to witness me living life in a bigger way, and are embracing it for themselves. There will come a day when they, too, will spread their wings and have the confidence to find the highest thermals.
Motorcycle Messengers  Jeremy Kroker (ed)  p153

[Biggles]

For there, emerging before me as a villain through the fog of a nightmare, stood a monstrous tree. Brakes screaming sand between pad and rotor, I skidded to a stop. I would have hit the tree still- if it hadn't been moving along in my direction.
Thank God for that. Where the thick trunk met the ground, where the roots ought to be, this tree had wheels. Now, as I idled behind it, I could see that this tree was really just a large vehicle spilling over with brushwood.
Peering around it with my head over the dotted line, I saw two trailers hitched to a big-wheeled tractor. As I sighted along the trailers, even the machine pulling them blurred into the storm. Aware that Syrian drivers never use their headlights, I understood the blind risk of an attempt to pass.
My headlight would never penetrate this cloud, but I switched it to high anyway before rolling on the throttle. Looking up as I passed, I saw the driver squinting into the wind, his dark robes flapping, his kafiya wrapped tightly around his head. I pulled back in front of the tractor just as an oncoming transport truck swept along, its dark mass creating turbulent eddies of sand that shook the bike. The driver flashed his lights at me, not as a warning, but to remind me that my headlight was on and that I should switch it off.
Motorcycle Messengers  Jeremy Kroker (ed)  p173

[Biggles]

Geoff Hill
When we weren't being toasted, sandpapered, soaked, and baked, there was little to do but appreciate what a Zen-like activity riding long distances on a motorcycle is, since, alone with your thoughts, there's plenty of time to contemplate the stillness at the centre of your being, which (as we all know) in traditional Buddhist thinking is one inch above your navel at a point called the hara. Which is, funnily enough, about the only part of you that remains still on a motorcycle like the Enfield, with its series of rhythms all designed to reduce your bones to marrow and your internal organs to jelly.
You see, whereas German bikes are built on the theory that, like the Third Reich, they will last a thousand years, old British bikes are constructed on the Zen principle that everything changes. At rest on an Enfield there is the slow heartbeat of that huge piston lolloping up and down; cruising speed, a deep purr- like a lion after a particularly satisfying wildebeest- which slowly unscrews all the large nuts and bolts on the bike; and at high speed, there is a finer, more subtle threnody- like the wind in telegraph wires- which loosens all the small ones. Patrick would probably know a technical term for them all, but to me they sounded like the music of the stars.
Motorcycle Messengers  Jeremy Kroker (ed)  p179

[Biggles]

Natalie Ellis Barros
I slowed down to keep pace with a red-tailed hawk. At first, he nearly crashed right into me, but then for almost a whole mile he flew beside me. He was close enough that I could make out the sharp curve of his beak and the bright red of his tail feathers. I smiled from under my helmet, and when my companion finally took off and I went around a bend, knew I could never feel more alive. I've never believed in fate but, if there is such a thing, then this is it. This is what I was meant for.
I startled a bobcat that scampered uphill like a bullet, and I slipped past the ever-crowded Big Sur seemingly unnoticed. I stopped for lunch in Monterrey again and, as I turned inland, I sang Prince at the top of my lungs. The beauty of the full-faced helmet is that you can still look like a bad-ass while screeching "Little Red Corvette" at the top of your lungs. When I finally did arrive home, I was more exhausted and more fulfilled than I had ever been in my entire 23 years of life.
Next stop, South America. Anyone down?
Motorcycle Messengers  Jeremy Kroker (ed)  p233

[Biggles]

What a tragedy that would be, if none of us ventured into the wider world to seek connection and understanding. Ted Simon might never have left England in 1973, at the age of 42, if he succumbed to the fear that taking his journey would forever cast him to the outer circles of society always looking in on the lives of the comfortably secure people. He struggled with mortal fears and self-doubt in the pages of his seminal book, Jupiter's Travels, and aren't you glad he did?
He came back from his adventure with an understanding that, essentially, people are good and kind, and that the more vulnerable a person becomes while travelling, the more hospitable a place the world can seem.
That's where the motorcycle comes into play. We are exposed on these wonderful machines. We are fragile. And we are usually better off because of it.
Motorcycle Messengers  Jeremy Kroker (ed)  pp334-5

[ppopeye]

Quote from: Biggles on July 22, 2017, 09:44:29 AM<blockquote>Geoff Hill
When we weren't being toasted, sandpapered, soaked, and baked, there was little to do but appreciate what a Zen-like activity riding long distances on a motorcycle is, since, alone with your thoughts, there's plenty of time to contemplate the stillness at the centre of your being, which (as we all know) in traditional Buddhist thinking is one inch above your navel at a point called the hara. Which is, funnily enough, about the only part of you that remains still on a motorcycle like the Enfield, with its series of rhythms all designed to reduce your bones to marrow and your internal organs to jelly.
You see, whereas German bikes are built on the theory that, like the Third Reich, they will last a thousand years, old British bikes are constructed on the Zen principle that everything changes. At rest on an Enfield there is the slow heartbeat of that huge piston lolloping up and down; cruising speed, a deep purr- like a lion after a particularly satisfying wildebeest- which slowly unscrews all the large nuts and bolts on the bike; and at high speed, there is a finer, more subtle threnody- like the wind in telegraph wires- which loosens all the small ones. Patrick would probably know a technical term for them all, but to me they sounded like the music of the stars.
Motorcycle Messengers  Jeremy Kroker (ed)  p179




I love the description in para 2. Now I know why some bikes have loose bits. Large and small.😳

[Biggles]

Our room is on the top floor, with views across the rooftops to the Palace of the Parliament - dictator Nicolea Ceausescu's folly. There's an English language tour of this testament to the excesses of the disgraced dictator this afternoon.
Without thinking, Shirl leaves her heated vest on underneath her jumper and this creates a great deal of interest from the security staff. It sets off the alarms when she walks through the metal detector. You can imagine what they must think of the wires inside the vest. Eventually she convinces them she's just a chilly pillion passenger and not a terrorist.
Ceausescu ordered the demolition of 20 per cent of the city to build this massive structure. Hundreds of homes, churches and historic buildings were destroyed after he gave 40,000 people a day's notice to leave their homes. He didn't care that he was destroying history and leaving thousands of people homeless. His people starved as he spared no expense on the building. Its marble and crystal interior and the works of art, tapestries and sculptures throughout the 1,000 rooms prove, in some cases, that just because you have money you don't necessarily have style.
The Long Way To Vladivostok  Shirley Hardy-Rix  p17

[Biggles]

I am in love with Norway and will forgive her the cold winds, rain, hail, sleet and snow because of her beauty.
The country is linked by a network of tunnels, ferries and bridges. The paper map shows a turn we need to take. What we don't realise is that the turn is in the middle of a tunnel! Yep, there's a roundabout in the centre of the tunnel. The wrong turn is easy to rectify - Brian and Dave just do another lap around the roundabout, take the right road and then take the bridge over another fjord. It is easy to get befuddled.
After crossing the bridge, the road leads us to another fjord and another ferry crossing. We're getting used to these. The GPS tells us to 'board ferry'. Two of the deckhands, Odin and Andreas, are intrigued by the bikes laden with luggage and foreign number plates. Chatting as we cross the fjord, they give us a geography lesson. We are crossing the Sognefjord, Norway's deepest and longest fjord. Its hard to imagine, but this fjord is 1.5 kilometres deep and stretches for more than 200 kilometres.
The Long Way To Vladivostok  Shirley Hardy-Rix  p43

[Biggles]

It's cold when we head out, of course. We take the inland route and the countryside is incredible but then we get to the coast and there is the road - a sweeping 'wave' over the water.
On one side is the water, on the other are the islands that dot the coast. The water is calm and the traffic light. It's perfect. We ride over the main bridge. And then we ride back. And then we ride over and back again. Like our first ride through Lysefjordveien we just can't believe the beauty and the thought that has gone into creating this motorcycle nirvana. It's only a short piece of road but it's so much fun.
Riding across I do a double take when I look across the islands. There is a long, slim Viking ship moving slowly across the water - a ghost ship, of course. It's a tourist attraction - row your own Viking longship.
The Long Way To Vladivostok  Shirley Hardy-Rix  p48

[Biggles]

Like all motorcyclists should, I think it's a good idea to 'own' your part of the road. That means riding where the driver of the car would be, close to the middle of the road. In Russia, that is fraught with danger. While I'm sitting at or near the speed limit cars are whizzing past at up to 50 kph faster, and because I'm 'owning' my space on the road being overtaken by cars so close they're almost sucking my boot off. While trying to look forward, my eyes are constantly on the mirrors looking for fast moving cars, usually black limos with tinted windows.
Coming up behind trucks I check the mirrors and pull out to pass, but with some lunatics easily doing double the speed limit it's almost Russian roulette. I don't want to gamble with travelling at their pace. Foreigners on motorcycles are easy prey for police, with a traffic stop becoming a potential wallet-lightening exercise.
I pull into the first service station. I just need to think about how to handle riding and mixing with the traffic here without killing us. I figure that if I see the fast ones coming up behind us I need to anticipate their passing and, at the right time, move towards the edge of the road. Here's where a pillion comes in handy.
Righto Shirl, your job is to watch in the mirrors for fast-moving cars and let me know. Two sets of eyes are better than one.
Back on the road and working as a team we do okay and get used to dodging pot holes, tractors, trucks, donkeys and fast-moving limos.
The Long Way To Vladivostok  Shirley Hardy-Rix  p90

[Biggles]

There is a mural map of the Silk Road outside the main city gates, showing the road weaving across Persia, India, Central Asia and Europe. A French biker is there taking a photo of himself and his bike with the map. He's just come out of Tajikistan, the next stage of our journey. We've heard there's been a massive landslide.
He missed it by just 100 metres. The road is closed and people are suffering. That could mean a change of plans for us.
Damien goes overland to get the sidecar into the square so we can get our photo of the bikes with the Silk Road map. The bollards which presumably were set up to prevent such activity, pose a problem but he gets around them.
No matter how hard we try, we never hit the road early. It's 9.30am before we are on the road to Bukhara, another ancient town on the Silk road. It's getting hot already.
The roads have been appalling since we left Russia. Each day has tossed up bad roads, worse roads and, very occasionally, reasonable roads. Today is no different until we hit a 140-kilometre stretch of perfectly sealed, brand new highway. It ends as abruptly as it began without any warning signs. It was nice while it lasted.
The Long Way To Vladivostok  Shirley Hardy-Rix  p165

[Biggles]

The owner helps bring our luggage down and I load up the bike out the front of the hotel with only a small audience. After the obligatory photo he presents us with a small ceramic jug and plate to welcome us to his country. Shirl wraps them in her clothes in the top of the pannier to keep them safe. I don't think I can even fit a cigarette paper on the bike!
He also has some advice for us about the road to Dushanbe.
"It is good apart from one seven-kilometre tunnel. That will be dark and have water in it. I suggest you take the route over the pass. The scenery is very nice."
I've heard about the tunnel - dubbed the 'Tunnel of Death' or the 'Tunnel of Fear'. It bypasses the Anzob Pass. Built by the Iranians, it is dangerous. Water constantly runs through the tunnel and this hides the potholes that may be shallow or deep. They may be just a hole or they may be disguising sharp bits of steel reinforcing from the road.
I don't have to look at Shirl to know she's not happy about the prospect of a ride through the tunnel. Friends who travelled this road last year told us it was awful but they lived to tell the tale and I'm sure we will too.
The Long Way To Vladivostok  Shirley Hardy-Rix  p185

[Biggles]

Shirl has fallen off from a fair height because of the width of the panniers and hit her head on a rock. She seems a bit dazed. I can't help her straight away because the bike is in the middle of the track. As I've come off I've re-torn my calf and it's bloody painful. I'm working against gravity to right the bike uphill. Stupid. I need to turn it around and use the slope.
Chris comes around the corner and the first thing he sees is Shirl sitting on the edge of the road. Farther around the bend he sees me, struggling with the bike. He dismounts and helps me move the bike just as a 4WD comes around the corner and just misses us.
Shirl can't believe they didn't stop to help.
When I get to her, she's crying and saying she can't go on.
I feel responsible. Sure I wanted to do this road, and I believe she did too but the elements, the incessant truck traffic and raging river we know is in front of us all seem too much right now.
When we do these trips it's for both of us. Shirl is okay. She's not hurt but has a bit of a headache. As we sit on the rocks I tell her we are a team. If we think it's getting too hard then okay, that's it, we go back. We've achieved our aim of getting down into the Pamir and the Afghan border.
The Long Way To Vladivostok  Shirley Hardy-Rix  pp206-7

[Biggles]

Hopefully today's ride will be a simple one.
The road is sealed - at first.   On this good section of road taking along the Afghan border, heading south before we turn north for Dushanbe, we pass a group of Russian bikers. They tell us the road is good and then bad and then very bad and then it is all clear sailing to the capital. We knew it couldn't be this good the whole way.
On the first gravel section Shirl tells me something hit her foot. Our tracker has fallen out of the tank bag. Luckily the bright orange device stands out on the road. It would have been a drama if we'd lost this. Every day it sends a message to our family at home, telling them where we are and that we are safe.
It seems like everyone thinks this is the best way to get to Dushanbe. The traffic is much heavier than over the pass. There are numerous small towns, with police checks, so the going is slow. Many of the drivers are keen to get a close look at us - so close it's dangerous. The trucks are spewing out black fumes. The air is so dirty you can feel it on your face, in your eyes and in your mouth.
I think I prefer the road less travelled than this nightmare of traffic congestion where drivers don't use indicators and most of the vehicles don't have brake lights. It is a test of man and machine.
The Long Way To Vladivostok  Shirley Hardy-Rix  p213

[Biggles]

I leave Shirl washing the bike gear, making the most of the balcony to get it dry, and head to Muz Too. The bike needs some TLC and the Swiss-owned business is just the place. I know they have a mechanic who speaks English and you can use their tools to work on your own bike for a small fee.
I ride through the back streets of Osh with the GPS directing me down little narrow dirt streets and lanes. Just as I think I'm lost, I spy a two-storey house with a small garage and a bike parked out the front. I'm waved through into a big open courtyard in front of an open, barn-like shed with heaps of bikes parked, many with foreign registrations. This is Muz Too.
There's a young hippie couple loading huge backpacks onto a sagging KLX 650 Kawasaki and a mechanic pulling apart a gearbox. I am welcome to use any of the facilities for a donation of the equivalent of US$20 and the price of any parts I want, not that they have much for BMWs. They hire out robust old Yamaha 650cc singles and have enough bits and pieces lying around to build three bikes, I reckon.
The Long Way To Vladivostok  Shirley Hardy-Rix  p220

[Biggles]

I love spending time with Carol. It's good to talk through some of the problems we have on the road, from a female perspective. The bike being too heavy is always the major issue when travelling two-up. We've sent home all manner of stuff - excess clothes, souvenirs, spare parts, camping gear we are unlikely to use - and still the bike is heavy.
"The only way to get any real weight off the bike is to remove the pillion passenger," Carol says with a laugh. It is funny, but true. Carol's actually offered to travel by bus and meet Ken at night to lighten the load. I haven't gone that far. A heavy bike is just the reality we all have to deal with.
The hard ride through Tajikistan, the heat and the bad roads take their toll and it is good to have a whinge with a woman who understands. I need a home base and I'm missing ours right now. I know life will improve soon. It only takes a couple of good rides, some interesting cities and I'm thriving on our life again.
The Long Way To Vladivostok  Shirley Hardy-Rix  p241

[Biggles]

As we ride down a street a small, clapped-out old Lada pulls alongside us. Like so many cars in this part of Russia it is a right-hand drive. The driver winds down the window and a huge fug of smoke rolls out. A hand appears with a cigarette clenched between the fingers.
The driver shouts something at us.
"What did he say?" I ask Shirl.
"It sounded like clubhouse - follow me."
And so I do. The Lada weaves its way down narrow side streets, past a school and small houses until it stops outside a simple, wooden building that looks a little like an American barn. On the wall above the double doors is a stylised image of a motorcyclist.
We have arrived at the Mogocha Iron Angels clubhouse.
The driver of the car and his passenger leap out and wrench open the double doors and signal that I should ride the bike inside. The ramp is reasonably steep, but it is sealed so I gun the engine and ride up.
The Long Way To Vladivostok  Shirley Hardy-Rix  pp281-2

[Biggles]

The ride from Paris towards Switzerland is the first day of covering distance with a 350 mile journey into a grey wall of rain and wind. For hour after hour we're blasted sideways as the temporary shelter provided by juggernauts is gone as we pass into the space in front, only for the bike to be picked up and launched sideways again, the conditions sapping our strength.
Petrol stops come and go in our well-established routines of 'how to handle Cathy being blind'. Our routine consists of the bike stopping at a pump as Bernard gives directions and describes the surroundings. Standing up on the bike's pedals, I swing my leg over the seat to step off the bike before waiting for Bernard to direct me towards the safest place. Usually this involves following the bike backwards to the large aluminium back box. All the time he watches as people around me do not realise my blindness as cars come and go inches away from me. Only at this point, when he is sure I am safe, does he climb off himself.
Listening, the sound pattern builds into recognisable sequences with their familiarity. Each small thing becomes numerous facets which a blind person separates to create understanding, to give meaning to events. Thus, the side stand clicks down; the bike tilts left to take the weight; he climbs off himself; shifting upwards, the bike slowly comes back towards me as a 350 kg bike is pulled onto the centre stand. A simple thing. Click, tilt, rustle, movement, movement, clunk. After two such stops in a day of cold rain we have had enough and Bernard is starting to go quiet on me, unlike virtually the whole of the day.
Touching The World  Cathy Birchall  pp9-10

[Biggles]

The bike hums softly through the foot pegs all day as I start to tune into the feel of the thousands of mechanical bits and pieces whirling around, and down, round and round. Creating their own symphony, I am aware of their distinctiveness against the backdrop of the tyres going over different road surfaces as 180-degree bends through Swiss mountains fill the early hours. Mad German-plated bikes flash past diving past us around corners in a wall of noise as they accelerate hard before braking at the last minute. Their rush to pass the inconvenience of cars and trucks blocking their path contrasts with our thumping along gently, separated from their urgency, from their madness in many ways.
Touching The World  Cathy Birchall  p12