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#31
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Feb 12, 2026, 01:23 AM"Giz a go!" I screeched unthinkingly, convinced I'd never get one, but I was a little maddened by the smell of burning oil and exhaust fumes.
"Can you ride?" he asked. A fair question, given Gronk didn't know me very well.
"Yeah!" I lied, fully aware that a detailed rundown of how I crashed a two-stroke Rockhopper into a tree six years before was clearly not what Gronk would want to hear at this pivotal moment.
He shrugged and got off. I had a quick look around to see if there were any teachers nearby, and got on. My toes could barely touch the ground and the bike felt vast. It was hot too, and seriously heavier than I had imagined.
Suddenly I was a little scared. My mates all stood around me, honking and giggling and keeping a look out for teachers, so there was no question of a change of heart In the eyes of my peers, a backdown would be tantamount to admitting you preferred kissing boys. It was a ride-or-die moment.
I revved it. Nothing happened.
"Put it in first!" Gronk instructed.
Easy for him to say. I had a vague notion he was talking about gears, but none at all about where they might be found.
"Hold the clutch in!" he demanded, tapping helpfully on the lever.
I duly pulled it in and held it. He kicked the bike into first for me, via a small lever near the left foot peg, and I felt the Honda lurch a bit.
"Now give it some revs and let the clutch out slowly."
And that was pretty much that, as far as my riding lesson went.
It also pretty much sealed the deal on the sale of my soul to the infernal two-wheeler. I was doomed before I'd even pogoed madly out of the car park and onto the street, helmetless and in school uniform - an instant and irredeemable motorcycle tragic, world without end, amen.
I couldn't sleep that night. I had never got the bike out of first gear, stalled it 100 times and ripped open my leg kick-starting it 101 times. But something profound had occurred inside my head in the hour I'd spent 'riding' Gronk's bike in the streets behind my high school - and it was playing on a constant loop as I lay awake in my bed. The sheer atavistic rush of speed that only a motorcycle can provide is so addictive it makes crack cocaine look like a bitch.
My Mother Warned Me About Blokes Like Me Boris Mihailovik p8-9
"Can you ride?" he asked. A fair question, given Gronk didn't know me very well.
"Yeah!" I lied, fully aware that a detailed rundown of how I crashed a two-stroke Rockhopper into a tree six years before was clearly not what Gronk would want to hear at this pivotal moment.
He shrugged and got off. I had a quick look around to see if there were any teachers nearby, and got on. My toes could barely touch the ground and the bike felt vast. It was hot too, and seriously heavier than I had imagined.
Suddenly I was a little scared. My mates all stood around me, honking and giggling and keeping a look out for teachers, so there was no question of a change of heart In the eyes of my peers, a backdown would be tantamount to admitting you preferred kissing boys. It was a ride-or-die moment.
I revved it. Nothing happened.
"Put it in first!" Gronk instructed.
Easy for him to say. I had a vague notion he was talking about gears, but none at all about where they might be found.
"Hold the clutch in!" he demanded, tapping helpfully on the lever.
I duly pulled it in and held it. He kicked the bike into first for me, via a small lever near the left foot peg, and I felt the Honda lurch a bit.
"Now give it some revs and let the clutch out slowly."
And that was pretty much that, as far as my riding lesson went.
It also pretty much sealed the deal on the sale of my soul to the infernal two-wheeler. I was doomed before I'd even pogoed madly out of the car park and onto the street, helmetless and in school uniform - an instant and irredeemable motorcycle tragic, world without end, amen.
I couldn't sleep that night. I had never got the bike out of first gear, stalled it 100 times and ripped open my leg kick-starting it 101 times. But something profound had occurred inside my head in the hour I'd spent 'riding' Gronk's bike in the streets behind my high school - and it was playing on a constant loop as I lay awake in my bed. The sheer atavistic rush of speed that only a motorcycle can provide is so addictive it makes crack cocaine look like a bitch.
My Mother Warned Me About Blokes Like Me Boris Mihailovik p8-9
#32
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Feb 11, 2026, 06:22 AMMy mum will not share in your pleasure. I'm not even sure I want her to read this book. You see, my mum really believes that one day I shall come to my senses and stop riding these wretched, stupid and improbably perilous motorcycles. She has believed this since the first day I started riding them, more than thirty years ago.
It is a constant in our relationship.
Every time she sees me she asks me if I'm still riding bikes. I tell her I am. She frowns and advises me, yet again, that they're very dangerous.
Because I love her, I refrain from telling her that that is exactly what attracts people like me to motorcycles in the first place. Instead, I lie to her and assure her that I am always careful. I know she doesn't believe me, but I tell her anyway.
The uncomfortable truth is that I actually came to my senses the day I started riding bikes. I so very much came to my senses it was simply not possible to come to them in any greater degree. All the senses there ever were for me to come to, had been arrived at on that fateful day. And the ensuing decades of riding have only served to confirm that arrival.
My Mother Warned Me About Blokes Like Me Boris Mihailovik p2-3
It is a constant in our relationship.
Every time she sees me she asks me if I'm still riding bikes. I tell her I am. She frowns and advises me, yet again, that they're very dangerous.
Because I love her, I refrain from telling her that that is exactly what attracts people like me to motorcycles in the first place. Instead, I lie to her and assure her that I am always careful. I know she doesn't believe me, but I tell her anyway.
The uncomfortable truth is that I actually came to my senses the day I started riding bikes. I so very much came to my senses it was simply not possible to come to them in any greater degree. All the senses there ever were for me to come to, had been arrived at on that fateful day. And the ensuing decades of riding have only served to confirm that arrival.
My Mother Warned Me About Blokes Like Me Boris Mihailovik p2-3
#33
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Feb 10, 2026, 12:56 AMBoris drained his can, crushed it on his forehead and let fly with a sonorous belch. "Now we go to the Pit. Follow me!"
By now, Boris had perhaps drunk enough to not be considering anything more complicated than falling over. But for some reason he thought it a good idea to jump on a powerful motorcycle and speed off through the Zagreb traffic. Just in case balancing on two wheels wasn't difficult enough, Boris rode the first 50 metres pulling a wheelie.
"The cops here are idiots, plonkers. They never pull over bikers in Zagreb," Boris told me at the next set of traffic lights.
We waited for the lights to go green.
"But if they try to stop us," Boris added, "we will make a run for it. We can cut across the parks. They'll give up. Just follow me and everything will be cushtie."
It seemed to me somewhat unfair that my blood had been refused when, if anybody was showing the signs of a fondness for tainted Aberdeen sirloin, it was Boris Trotter here.
"Let's go," he yelled. "Yeehaa!" And he was off again on one wheel.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p303
By now, Boris had perhaps drunk enough to not be considering anything more complicated than falling over. But for some reason he thought it a good idea to jump on a powerful motorcycle and speed off through the Zagreb traffic. Just in case balancing on two wheels wasn't difficult enough, Boris rode the first 50 metres pulling a wheelie.
"The cops here are idiots, plonkers. They never pull over bikers in Zagreb," Boris told me at the next set of traffic lights.
We waited for the lights to go green.
"But if they try to stop us," Boris added, "we will make a run for it. We can cut across the parks. They'll give up. Just follow me and everything will be cushtie."
It seemed to me somewhat unfair that my blood had been refused when, if anybody was showing the signs of a fondness for tainted Aberdeen sirloin, it was Boris Trotter here.
"Let's go," he yelled. "Yeehaa!" And he was off again on one wheel.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p303
#34
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Feb 09, 2026, 01:21 AMI had no idea of what was going to happen. For a split second, I stood there, all the benign and quixotic explanations rushing around my brain. They're out hunting with AK47s? They're lost? He wants to look at my bike? He's from northern Cyprus and wants to practise his English? It all went into slow motion. I stared at the scarf tied around his face. Then I stared at the gun. I remembered the border guard's warnings. I thought about Herr Flick. He was about 60 yards away now.
My legs were growing rapidly heavier and my hands had started to tremble. Any longer and I would become frozen and whatever was going to happen would happen.
Weirdly, there was a grain of comfort in this thought, the passive prostrating before the aggressor, curling up in a ball, at the mercy of others. Fifty yards. It was now or never.
I swung my leg over the bike, kicked it off the stand and pressed the ignition. As I smashed the bike into gear and released the clutch too quickly, causing it to stutter before catching, I hunched my shoulders, waiting for the sound of the gun. The bike picked up speed, I stayed in a crouched position on the saddle, braced for the impact. It never came.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p283-4
My legs were growing rapidly heavier and my hands had started to tremble. Any longer and I would become frozen and whatever was going to happen would happen.
Weirdly, there was a grain of comfort in this thought, the passive prostrating before the aggressor, curling up in a ball, at the mercy of others. Fifty yards. It was now or never.
I swung my leg over the bike, kicked it off the stand and pressed the ignition. As I smashed the bike into gear and released the clutch too quickly, causing it to stutter before catching, I hunched my shoulders, waiting for the sound of the gun. The bike picked up speed, I stayed in a crouched position on the saddle, braced for the impact. It never came.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p283-4
#35
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Feb 07, 2026, 08:17 AMI came round a bend. Ahead of me was a crowd gathered in the middle of the road. As I drew nearer I could make out the body of a man, lying on his back, hideously twisted and contorted into an impossible shape, thrown clear from the mangled wreckage of the car some 50 metres away.
I noticed a big, dark stain on his trousers around his crotch, and then the woman, a wife or girlfriend maybe, bent over him, bloodied, sobbing. I pulled over and sat on my bike at the side of the road, some distance away, smoking a cigarette. I don't know why I didn't just ride on. It seemed somehow more respectful to wait, quietly.
An ambulance arrived, and they gently, tenderly, straightened out the man, put him on a stretcher and loaded him into the back. Then the woman climbed in, too, slowly, reluctantly. I followed them down the mountain, hurtling along, sirens blazing, although there was little traffic on the road now.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p246
I noticed a big, dark stain on his trousers around his crotch, and then the woman, a wife or girlfriend maybe, bent over him, bloodied, sobbing. I pulled over and sat on my bike at the side of the road, some distance away, smoking a cigarette. I don't know why I didn't just ride on. It seemed somehow more respectful to wait, quietly.
An ambulance arrived, and they gently, tenderly, straightened out the man, put him on a stretcher and loaded him into the back. Then the woman climbed in, too, slowly, reluctantly. I followed them down the mountain, hurtling along, sirens blazing, although there was little traffic on the road now.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p246
#36
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Feb 05, 2026, 12:14 AMI rode south from Cappadocia, across the Anatolian plateau and up into the Taurus Mountains. I was flying quickly around the bends, recklessly even, the false sense of invincibility that can infect you on a motorcycle - like riding with angels - burning strong. I was in a hurry to get to Bodrum.
But there was an atmosphere on the roads that day, a dissonance, like there sometimes is, where the synchronicity was missing.
Everybody seemed nervous or distracted, things that you are far more attuned to with the vulnerability that comes with riding a motorbike. You can instinctively tell if somebody is on their mobile, or having a row with their passenger. Bad driving just becomes so obvious.
Maybe it was the full moon, but the near misses came thick and fast. Something was going to happen; I knew it, everybody else on the road seemed to know it.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p245-6
But there was an atmosphere on the roads that day, a dissonance, like there sometimes is, where the synchronicity was missing.
Everybody seemed nervous or distracted, things that you are far more attuned to with the vulnerability that comes with riding a motorbike. You can instinctively tell if somebody is on their mobile, or having a row with their passenger. Bad driving just becomes so obvious.
Maybe it was the full moon, but the near misses came thick and fast. Something was going to happen; I knew it, everybody else on the road seemed to know it.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p245-6
#37
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Feb 04, 2026, 12:59 AMI'd never ridden along listening to music before, because clearly that would be hazardous on a motorcycle. But whereas listening to music on a normal road might prevent you from hearing a car horn, and thus failing to take evasive action, I doubted that, on a deserted road in these parts, hearing an incoming RPG would leave you much time to do anything apart from mutter: "Fu-"
I put on my headphones, replaced my helmet, clicked play, from my Best of MGM Musicals came the soothing tones of Debbie Reynolds: "Good mornin', good morrrrrrrrnin."
It's something the world has seemingly known for some time, but only latterly discovered by me, about just how totally music can affect your moods. In no time, I was riding with a happy heart, joining in with Debbie and Gene and Donald, all thoughts of snipers and landmines and RPGs gone.
The iPod shuffled into its next song. If there's another disadvantage to listening to music on a motorcycle, it's that, what with the thick gloves and the iPod being tucked away in your pocket, and the desirability of keeping two hands on the bars, you're kind of stuck with what you get shuffled.
On this occasion it was 'The Ride of the Valkyries'.
On the shadowy ridges, there were small figures moving everywhere I looked.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p234-5
I put on my headphones, replaced my helmet, clicked play, from my Best of MGM Musicals came the soothing tones of Debbie Reynolds: "Good mornin', good morrrrrrrrnin."
It's something the world has seemingly known for some time, but only latterly discovered by me, about just how totally music can affect your moods. In no time, I was riding with a happy heart, joining in with Debbie and Gene and Donald, all thoughts of snipers and landmines and RPGs gone.
The iPod shuffled into its next song. If there's another disadvantage to listening to music on a motorcycle, it's that, what with the thick gloves and the iPod being tucked away in your pocket, and the desirability of keeping two hands on the bars, you're kind of stuck with what you get shuffled.
On this occasion it was 'The Ride of the Valkyries'.
On the shadowy ridges, there were small figures moving everywhere I looked.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p234-5
#38
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Feb 03, 2026, 12:55 AMI stopped at a garage for petrol. As ever in Kurdish Turkey, and most other places in Turkey for that matter, I was immediately mobbed by men looking at the bike and asking me questions: always "How fast?" followed by "How much?", then gazing at the bike with awed reverence. It was always men. Women, I had disappointingly discovered- were supremely indifferent to motorcycles; if women responded to them the way that men do, I'd still be on the road. Perhaps next time I'll ride a giant shoe.
Tea was always brought out as a matter of course and, as at every garage in Turkey, I was presented with a man-size box of tissues. Finding space on a motorcycle for dozens of breezeblock-sized boxes of tissues was problematic. Refusal was impossible without causing major offence. Believe me, I'd tried.
And so I took them graciously and cleaned my visor with them, my sunglasses, my windscreen, my exhaust pipe, rocks by the side of the road, mopped up oil spills, plugged holes in dams and, just when I'd managed to get through a whole box, the petrol gauge would start flashing and soon I'd be saying "125mph", "£9,000" and "Thanks for the tissues, just what I needed".
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p232-3
Tea was always brought out as a matter of course and, as at every garage in Turkey, I was presented with a man-size box of tissues. Finding space on a motorcycle for dozens of breezeblock-sized boxes of tissues was problematic. Refusal was impossible without causing major offence. Believe me, I'd tried.
And so I took them graciously and cleaned my visor with them, my sunglasses, my windscreen, my exhaust pipe, rocks by the side of the road, mopped up oil spills, plugged holes in dams and, just when I'd managed to get through a whole box, the petrol gauge would start flashing and soon I'd be saying "125mph", "£9,000" and "Thanks for the tissues, just what I needed".
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p232-3
#39
Far Road Rides / Re: IRode Tassie #9 Saturday 3...
Last post by Carsten - Feb 02, 2026, 09:38 AMDone and dusted. 1014 km for the ride. Perfect riding weather, amazing. Did the west coast on Friday, little traffic and some new roads. Ended up with 830 done and an easy ride to Carrick to finish off. Lunch with Pete, Matt, Nannette and my wife Laura. Capped off with a beautiful warm night at Festivale in Launceston. Cheers
#40
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Feb 02, 2026, 12:58 AMWe stood there for a minute, awkward. I was frustrated that I couldn't ask him anything about his life. I had so much I needed to tell him. So much I wanted to ask.
He looked over at my bike again.
I pointed to him, then I pointed to myself, then I pointed to the bike. His face broke into a huge grin.
I lifted him up on to the pillion seat, climbed on myself and fired the engine. Then I took off across the scrub, slowly at first, then getting faster, faster, in the rain. His hands dug through my T-shirt and into my skin. I could hear him screaming. I slowed down. The screaming stopped. I turned the throttle, the screaming started again.
Finally, I pulled up outside the tent, put the bike on its stand and lifted him off. He stood there grinning. He didn't look old any more. He looked like a boy.
He put his arms around me and squeezed tightly, then he ran off towards the tented village.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p230
He looked over at my bike again.
I pointed to him, then I pointed to myself, then I pointed to the bike. His face broke into a huge grin.
I lifted him up on to the pillion seat, climbed on myself and fired the engine. Then I took off across the scrub, slowly at first, then getting faster, faster, in the rain. His hands dug through my T-shirt and into my skin. I could hear him screaming. I slowed down. The screaming stopped. I turned the throttle, the screaming started again.
Finally, I pulled up outside the tent, put the bike on its stand and lifted him off. He stood there grinning. He didn't look old any more. He looked like a boy.
He put his arms around me and squeezed tightly, then he ran off towards the tented village.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p230