From the Library

[Biggles]

A few hundred motorcyclists got rowdy in Hollister on the July 4th, 1947 weekend. Townspeople admitted it had been no worse than what the cowboys did each year at the annual stock fair (and in fact the town staged motorcycle races in Hollister again just a few months later.)
A few days after the so-called riot, a photographer staged a photo of a beefy, threatening looking drunk, slumped on a motorcycle surrounded by empty beer cans.
Life Magazine ran it, triggering a media frenzy that lasted well into the 1960s. In a bizarre example of life imitating art, real gangs motorcycle outlaws were formed in response to those stories.
Bathroom Book Of Motorcycle Trivia  Mark Gardiner Day 62

[Biggles]

The Mont Blanc Tunnel is one of the longest and highest tunnels in the world, connecting the highway systems of France and Italy through the Alps. When a transport truck caught fire in the middle of the tunnel, the smoke and flames trapped about 50 people. Of those, 12 survived. All of them reached the mouth of the tunnel saying, "That guy on the motorcycle saved my life."
That man was Pier Lucio Tinazzi, an Italian tunnel employee who rode his BMW K75 in and out of the tunnel - a seven-mile round trip through choking smoke and fumes - to bring people out. On the final trip, he came across an unconscious driver who he could not get onto the back of his motorcycle. He refused to abandon him and dragged him to shelter in a small room off the tunnel. Both men died.
Tinazzi was posthumously awarded Italy's highest honour for civilian bravery, as well as the Federation Internationale Motocycliste (FIM's) gold medal for exceptional courage and service to the sport of motorcycling. Every year, several hundred Italian motorcyclists ride to the tunnel mouth on the anniversary of Tinazzi's heroic deed.
Bathroom Book Of Motorcycle Trivia  Mark Gardiner Day 69