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#41
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Feb 01, 2026, 04:03 AMSo, as the bike pointed due west for the first time in three months, I opened the throttle and hurtled, helmetless, across the desert, touching 70, maybe 80, miles per hour, egging the bike on, patting it on the petrol tank, slipping and a sliding and a hollering and a screaming in the pouring rain; the exhilaration and sense of freedom quite indescribable.
For about two minutes, anyway, until the smell of burning filled my nostrils. I pulled up and killed the ignition. There was smoke rising from my radiator grill. The engine was oil-cooled. I'd only discovered this a couple of days before when the same thing had happened after I'd pulled in for petrol.
Seeing me looking puzzled at the smoke pouring out of the bike, the garage owner had come over.
"Your bike is oil-cooled," he'd said.
"I know that," I'd said.
"Tsk. In this heat, it will use much oil."
"I know that."
"You need to fill it up more often here."
"I know that."
"Or else it will overheat."
"Obviously," I'd said.
"Tsk. Would you like to buy some oil?"
"Of course," I'd said. "That's why I stopped here."
He'd gone off, returned with a bottle of oil and handed it to me.
"Thank you," I'd said.
We'd stood there for a minute or two. I was subtly scanning the bike.
"Nice garage you've got here," I'd said.
"Would you like me to show you where the oil goes?" he'd asked.
"Yes, please," I'd said.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p228
For about two minutes, anyway, until the smell of burning filled my nostrils. I pulled up and killed the ignition. There was smoke rising from my radiator grill. The engine was oil-cooled. I'd only discovered this a couple of days before when the same thing had happened after I'd pulled in for petrol.
Seeing me looking puzzled at the smoke pouring out of the bike, the garage owner had come over.
"Your bike is oil-cooled," he'd said.
"I know that," I'd said.
"Tsk. In this heat, it will use much oil."
"I know that."
"You need to fill it up more often here."
"I know that."
"Or else it will overheat."
"Obviously," I'd said.
"Tsk. Would you like to buy some oil?"
"Of course," I'd said. "That's why I stopped here."
He'd gone off, returned with a bottle of oil and handed it to me.
"Thank you," I'd said.
We'd stood there for a minute or two. I was subtly scanning the bike.
"Nice garage you've got here," I'd said.
"Would you like me to show you where the oil goes?" he'd asked.
"Yes, please," I'd said.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p228
#42
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Jan 31, 2026, 02:04 AMIn Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Robert Pirsig talked about his motorbike and the moods it had and its living, breathing soul. And you think, "For crying out loud, I know you've had a nervous breakdown, matey, but it is only a machine."
But here's the thing. You spend hour after hour, day after day, listening to your bike, and you do begin to hear it speak. Some days, there's a sweet mellifluous, contented purr and on others a distinct grumbling and weariness.
And the really weird thing is, you start to talk back to it encouraging it, patting it gently on the petrol tank like you would a horse when it's done something desirable, like stop in time in an emergency, for example, and gently scolding it when it does something not so clever, like wobble or slip on a bend.
And you know logically that this is arrant nonsense, that maybe you need to seek out more human company, that a BMW R1200GS is not a horse, despite its dead-sheep saddle and coterie of flies, but simply a marvellous piece of Teutonic engineering, that the only variable here is the lump sitting astride it, and that if I were reading this instead of writing it, I'd be making that twirling gesture against my temple, but...
I'd been talking to my bike a lot in Turkey.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p224
But here's the thing. You spend hour after hour, day after day, listening to your bike, and you do begin to hear it speak. Some days, there's a sweet mellifluous, contented purr and on others a distinct grumbling and weariness.
And the really weird thing is, you start to talk back to it encouraging it, patting it gently on the petrol tank like you would a horse when it's done something desirable, like stop in time in an emergency, for example, and gently scolding it when it does something not so clever, like wobble or slip on a bend.
And you know logically that this is arrant nonsense, that maybe you need to seek out more human company, that a BMW R1200GS is not a horse, despite its dead-sheep saddle and coterie of flies, but simply a marvellous piece of Teutonic engineering, that the only variable here is the lump sitting astride it, and that if I were reading this instead of writing it, I'd be making that twirling gesture against my temple, but...
I'd been talking to my bike a lot in Turkey.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p224
#43
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Jan 30, 2026, 05:29 AMI rode through one of Europe's last primeval forests in Bialowieza, and as I emerged an acute pain shot up my left leg. At first I thought I might be having a stroke, but then it occurred to me that it was possibly even worse: there was a wasp in my boot.
Ignoring the sensible action of pulling over and removing my boot, I started to smash myself in the left foot while riding one-handed through the traffic. This only seemed encourage the wasp to intensify his attack.
It also encouraged the attention of the local police who'd been sitting in their squad car in a lay-by and, in this most Catholic of countries, probably concluded that here was some kind of self-flagellating tour of penitence.
They drove behind me and gave their siren a quick toot. I pulled over, dismounted Frankie Dettori style and hopped around in circles, simultaneously punching myself in the foot while trying to get my boot off, shouting "Wasp! wasp!", which, in all probability, was not the Polish for wasp. The two policemen looked confused, unsure of what the appropriate action was to take.
The stings kept coming. Finally they stopped. I removed my boot and a battered wasp fell out. Can wasps smile? This one looked pretty happy. The policemen looked pretty happy, too.
"Wasp, wasp," I said, pointing to the lifeless stripey corpse.
"Osa, osa," they said together.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p168-9
Ignoring the sensible action of pulling over and removing my boot, I started to smash myself in the left foot while riding one-handed through the traffic. This only seemed encourage the wasp to intensify his attack.
It also encouraged the attention of the local police who'd been sitting in their squad car in a lay-by and, in this most Catholic of countries, probably concluded that here was some kind of self-flagellating tour of penitence.
They drove behind me and gave their siren a quick toot. I pulled over, dismounted Frankie Dettori style and hopped around in circles, simultaneously punching myself in the foot while trying to get my boot off, shouting "Wasp! wasp!", which, in all probability, was not the Polish for wasp. The two policemen looked confused, unsure of what the appropriate action was to take.
The stings kept coming. Finally they stopped. I removed my boot and a battered wasp fell out. Can wasps smile? This one looked pretty happy. The policemen looked pretty happy, too.
"Wasp, wasp," I said, pointing to the lifeless stripey corpse.
"Osa, osa," they said together.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p168-9
#44
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Jan 29, 2026, 06:52 AMOn the single-lane 'motorways', the tarmac was warped from wear and cold and heat, and the ruts trapped my wheels from time to time like tram tracks and took them off towards the oncoming juggernauts. Target fixation's not an issue in Poland. It's perfect midlife crisis territory. You just get in a rut and see where it takes you.
Leapfrogging a track at a time was the only way to progress - escaping the fog of exhaust, a brief face-off with a wall of metal speeding my way, a sonorous blast of a horn, and a return to a warm lungful of diesel. It was like a perpetual game of chicken.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p167
Leapfrogging a track at a time was the only way to progress - escaping the fog of exhaust, a brief face-off with a wall of metal speeding my way, a sonorous blast of a horn, and a return to a warm lungful of diesel. It was like a perpetual game of chicken.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p167
#45
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Jan 28, 2026, 12:40 AMI logged on to the Internet again. It had been over 45 minutes since I'd last checked. There were dozens of messages from the motorbike site inviting me to come and stay in countries on my route. This only confirmed my growing conviction that motorcyclists, along with gardeners, are the nicest people on earth. Put motorcycling gardener on your CV and I guarantee St Peter will have you down on the VIP list.
One Aussie couple, Joe and Sue, emailed me to say they were riding around Europe and were currently heading for Poland. After that, they'd be going to Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. If our paths crossed, they said, it would be great to tour around together for a few weeks. I emailed them back.
'Would love to,' I wrote. 'Hopefully see you in a few days.'
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p155
One Aussie couple, Joe and Sue, emailed me to say they were riding around Europe and were currently heading for Poland. After that, they'd be going to Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey. If our paths crossed, they said, it would be great to tour around together for a few weeks. I emailed them back.
'Would love to,' I wrote. 'Hopefully see you in a few days.'
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p155
#46
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Jan 27, 2026, 03:10 AMThen the tunnels started. On the road to Bergen there were 45 in all, drilled through the mountains. The first went sharply uphill and then corkscrewed, like a Disney ride, shooting me out high above a fjord with waterfalls tumbling down the massive bluffs and minuscule white cruise ships humbled below. Then, plunging back into another, over 15 miles long, this time the road falling away from me steeply down into a diesel fug, like a descent into hell.
I took in the clutch and (look away Kevin Sanders) let myself roll, bottling it when the speedo glowed 60 mph and I was still accelerating. After an eternity in the gloom, I was fired back blinking into the bright light again and flying, leaning sharply into the bends, buttocks clenched, the tyres slipping slightly. Inside my helmet I was screaming at the top of my lungs. For this was the landscape I had imagined when I first dreamed of hitting the road: majestic and vast, wild and remote.
And whether it was because I'd got a few thousand miles under my belt or something else, I didn't know, but for the first time it was difficult to feel where the bike ended and I began.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p81
I took in the clutch and (look away Kevin Sanders) let myself roll, bottling it when the speedo glowed 60 mph and I was still accelerating. After an eternity in the gloom, I was fired back blinking into the bright light again and flying, leaning sharply into the bends, buttocks clenched, the tyres slipping slightly. Inside my helmet I was screaming at the top of my lungs. For this was the landscape I had imagined when I first dreamed of hitting the road: majestic and vast, wild and remote.
And whether it was because I'd got a few thousand miles under my belt or something else, I didn't know, but for the first time it was difficult to feel where the bike ended and I began.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p81
#47
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Jan 26, 2026, 02:51 AMTent erected (25 minutes), I walked up a nearby slope. From there, there was a view over the entire campsite.
All I could see for miles was canvas and motorbikes, each bike stationed outside its tent like a guard dog. There must have been a few thousand bikers milling round, stopping to admire the machines and draw on the bottles they produced from their pockets.
Nearly all the bikers were men, mostly corpulent middle-aged, wearing leather caps and waistcoats, studded wristbands and extraordinary configurations of facial hair. It was like a huge open-air gay bar where everybody had let themselves go a bit - although that was an observation I kept to myself. The air was suffused with beery breath and the fug of farts.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p69
All I could see for miles was canvas and motorbikes, each bike stationed outside its tent like a guard dog. There must have been a few thousand bikers milling round, stopping to admire the machines and draw on the bottles they produced from their pockets.
Nearly all the bikers were men, mostly corpulent middle-aged, wearing leather caps and waistcoats, studded wristbands and extraordinary configurations of facial hair. It was like a huge open-air gay bar where everybody had let themselves go a bit - although that was an observation I kept to myself. The air was suffused with beery breath and the fug of farts.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p69
#48
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Jan 25, 2026, 07:11 AMI got back on the coast road heading north. Shortly after, a biker overtook me. On the back of his jacket was embossed: 'If you can read this, my bitch has fallen off'. Then another passed, and another. I looked in my mirrors. All I could see was a great snake of beards. They turned off into a ferry terminal and, owing to my hangover and my new map-free life, I followed them.
"Where are you guys going?" I asked the nearest Hagar the Horrible.
"We are going to Gotland," he grunted, cigarillo gripped between his teeth, "for Scandinavia's biggest biker festival. We get very messed up, ya. You should come."
Gotland. It sounded Gothic and sinister, like an island shrouded in mist where a princess, guarded by a dragon, lay imprisoned.
I weighed up my options. Arguing most firmly against going to Gotland was the fact that I would have to share it with Hell's Angels from all over Scandinavia. Now, I didn't have anything against Hell's Angels per se. What consenting adults got up to with live chickens was no business of mine But unless I could somehow hook up with the Quaker chapter, I doubted my liver in its current condition would survive the week.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p67
"Where are you guys going?" I asked the nearest Hagar the Horrible.
"We are going to Gotland," he grunted, cigarillo gripped between his teeth, "for Scandinavia's biggest biker festival. We get very messed up, ya. You should come."
Gotland. It sounded Gothic and sinister, like an island shrouded in mist where a princess, guarded by a dragon, lay imprisoned.
I weighed up my options. Arguing most firmly against going to Gotland was the fact that I would have to share it with Hell's Angels from all over Scandinavia. Now, I didn't have anything against Hell's Angels per se. What consenting adults got up to with live chickens was no business of mine But unless I could somehow hook up with the Quaker chapter, I doubted my liver in its current condition would survive the week.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p67
#49
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Jan 22, 2026, 01:25 AM"Mr Carter?" he enquired, looking at his clipboard, then scanning the otherwise empty room.
"That's me," I tried to say, stumbling to my feet, but actually said something like "haaaaashme" in the style of an asthmatic drunk, owing to the fact that my legs were no longer working and my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth.
"I am your examiner. Mr Pass," he said, offering his leather-gauntletted hand. The words of W. H. Murray flickered once more across my mind.
"Is that really your name?" I asked, looking for the cameras.
"Yes," came a voice, deadpan, from somewhere beneath the helmet, in the manner of a man who hadn't heard anybody point out the absurdity of his name. Well, not for 10 minutes anyway. "Shall we start?"
I managed to dodge the souped-up Novas and weekday shoppers of Neath, and when we eventually pulled back into the riding school, Mr Pass went through the litany of cock-ups that I'd managed to squeeze into 30 minutes of riding.
These included failure to indicate, failure to execute life-saver and failure to resist taking the piss out of his name. Though the latter was not officially listed on the charge sheet.
I was braced for "You're a disgrace, Carter, what are you? Drop and give me 20." But instead he said, "You've passed." I thanked Mr Pass for passing me and uttered something about being happy that I'd avoided Mr Fail's shift, which went down about as well as my original comment.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p16-17
"That's me," I tried to say, stumbling to my feet, but actually said something like "haaaaashme" in the style of an asthmatic drunk, owing to the fact that my legs were no longer working and my tongue was stuck to the roof of my mouth.
"I am your examiner. Mr Pass," he said, offering his leather-gauntletted hand. The words of W. H. Murray flickered once more across my mind.
"Is that really your name?" I asked, looking for the cameras.
"Yes," came a voice, deadpan, from somewhere beneath the helmet, in the manner of a man who hadn't heard anybody point out the absurdity of his name. Well, not for 10 minutes anyway. "Shall we start?"
I managed to dodge the souped-up Novas and weekday shoppers of Neath, and when we eventually pulled back into the riding school, Mr Pass went through the litany of cock-ups that I'd managed to squeeze into 30 minutes of riding.
These included failure to indicate, failure to execute life-saver and failure to resist taking the piss out of his name. Though the latter was not officially listed on the charge sheet.
I was braced for "You're a disgrace, Carter, what are you? Drop and give me 20." But instead he said, "You've passed." I thanked Mr Pass for passing me and uttered something about being happy that I'd avoided Mr Fail's shift, which went down about as well as my original comment.
Uneasy Rider Mike Carter p16-17
#50
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Jan 21, 2026, 12:49 AMI considered if the experience had changed me, if I was returning to England a different person. Fundamentally I didn't think it had. Bar a few kilos less, a new scar on my left shin, a much-improved knowledge of mechanics and a vault of extra memories, I was still me. I hadn't undergone a spiritual transformation or 'discovered' myself in some ecstatic epiphany. But I had learnt a few things on the Trail; insights that could only have come from travelling alone. In times of adversity, when the mire and the mountains had conspired to beat me, I had faced myself and passed the test. I hadn't cried or given up; I'd stuck my chin out and kept on going, mile by muddy mile. For someone as self-critical as me, this felt like a significant achievement. I hesitate to use the word proud, as it reeks of vanity and arrogance, but I did allow myself to feel a smidgeon of pride. Whatever the future held, I would always have the knowledge that I'd cajoled an ailing twenty-five-year-old Cub over the Truong Son. If I could do that, I hoped I could overcome a lot of life's difficulties.
A Short Ride In The Jungle Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent p348
A Short Ride In The Jungle Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent p348