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#81

General Discussion / Re: From the Library

Last post by Biggles - Sep 10, 2025, 01:09 AM

It was also freeway riding at its worst for me. My hands were numb again from a combination of the engine vibration running up through my bike's frame and still holding on to the handlebars too tightly. I couldn't feel my fingers, which made it difficult to use the brake and make turning signals, and I was constantly being buffeted by hot gusts of turbulent air as trucks and cars tore past me. I just hung on to my motorcycle for dear life for the next two hours as we headed towards Yuma and Arizona.
Right behind me was Anne. She had absolutely no problem with freeway bike riding and was running rings around me. If she was frustrated with her scared and pathetically slow husband she didn't show it, instead keeping up a constant conversation via the intercom on things that she had just seen or wanted me to look at as we rode along.
There And Back Again To See How Far It Is Tim Watson p64

#82

General Discussion / Re: From the Library

Last post by Biggles - Sep 09, 2025, 02:11 AM

My motorcycle, being all black, was heating up nicely in the fiery desert sun. The matt paint was absorbing all the sun's rays while the air-cooled V-twin engine, which relies on the bike being kept moving to remain cool, was slowly cooking the lower part of my body.
I had also learned early on this trip to read the road signs. In a car I tend to ignore the suggested cornering speeds at the side of the road. On a motorcycle they are invaluable. The road surface through the desert was excellent, but it had some odd cambers that threw you off balance in the middle of a corner. I really had to begin concentrating and spend less time admiring the landscape.
The bug population seemed to have increased dramatically and my screen was now awash with debris and the remains of insects. I was having a hard time looking through all the blood and guts that were smeared across it, and I found the only way I could see the road ahead was to stand up a little on my bike's footpegs and peer over the top of the windshield.
There And Back Again To See How Far It Is Tim Watson p60

#83

General Discussion / Re: From the Library

Last post by Biggles - Sep 08, 2025, 06:05 AM

Our family house was surrounded by farmland and I rode for hours with my Jack Russell terrier balancing on the fuel tank. I loved that BSA, but there was another motorcycle that had already caught my young eye in the form of my stepfather's Triumph 750cc Tiger. It was definitely off limits to a teenage boy, but I seized my chance one weekend when my stepfather and mother went away leaving me in charge of the house, some fine classic cars and the motorcycle.
My stepfather rarely used the Triumph but I found it fascinating. It looked fast just standing still and was painted in metallic orange that sparkled seductively in the sunlight - a splendid combination of speed, amazing looks and danger. That weekend I decided I would try to ride it. No insurance, no licence and absolutely no on-road motorcycle skills: the perfect combination for an idiot teenager. And it was the start of that mantra - it seemed like a good idea at the time.
There And Back Again To See How Far It Is Tim Watson p15

#84

General Discussion / Re: From the Library

Last post by Biggles - Sep 07, 2025, 04:54 AM

My quick-fix solution to all my troubles was to go out and buy myself a Harley-Davidson. I have no idea why I bought it, but I found myself consciously pretending that I wasn't having a mid-life crisis - indeed, that it was perfectly normal for a man of my age, experience and responsibilities to go and do just this, it was back to an old mantra that has dogged me all my life: it seemed like a good idea at the time.
There were a couple of other issues I had not quite thought through properly. For instance, I had not ridden a motorcycle since my teens; I had no motorcycle licence; and I knew I was the epitome of the middle-aged biker trying to recapture his lost youth. I was trying to make my mark in life, which to all intents and purposes might probably be a hideous bloody mess at the first road junction that I came to.
There And Back Again To See How Far It Is Tim Watson p14

#85

General Discussion / Re: From the Library

Last post by Biggles - Sep 06, 2025, 04:51 AM

The downside of motorcycles is that they have the capacity to scare me absolutely rigid, so it is hard to explain to anyone who has never ridden one why I would want to do it. Perhaps it's some latent masochistic streak in my personality that I need to frighten myself as a reminder of my own mortality. Or maybe I am just plain stupid.
 On the other hand, riding a bike on an empty winding road on a warm summer's day without another human being around is simply exhilarating. Riding a motorcycle and riding it well heightens my senses and somehow makes me feel more alive, allowing me to focus on just staying upright and staying safe and nothing else. There is no time to worry about money, friends, whose birthday I have forgotten, taxes or what needs to be done around the house. All the trivia and cares of modern life disappear as I struggle to maintain my balance and control 1,584cc of engine slung beneath a fuel tank on a two-wheeled missile that is guided by handlebars, has two brake levers and a throttle so sensitive that I can go from walking pace to 60mph in just a twist of the right wrist.
There And Back Again To See How Far It Is Tim Watson p7

#86

General Discussion / Re: From the Library

Last post by Biggles - Sep 05, 2025, 08:31 AM

I picked a lane at random, dodging buses, trucks and cars and edged forward to the little booth where the Greek border official reached out nonchalantly to take my papers, not even bothering to look at me as he did so. He flipped the pages of my passport deftly but without emotion, like a bank teller blankly counting cash notes, as he looked for a suitable place to land his stamp. And then something strange happened; I watched him closely as his eyes bulged and his expression changed from one of casual interest to deep astonishment, as he slowly pieced together my entire route from the jigsaw of visas and entry and exit stamps that littered my tattered passport - from the remote gulag town of Magadan in Siberia, a world away, across the entire continent of Asia. The cogs inside his head turned and ground as he computed what stood in front of him now. And then, finally, with some obvious emotion, he thrust his hand through the small window and shook mine vigorously, saying over and over again "Congratulations! This is incredible!" And that's when it started to register with me: my journey had ended, but it had indeed been extraordinary. But it would take a long time for me to fully process this.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p397

#87

General Discussion / Re: From the Library

Last post by Biggles - Sep 04, 2025, 01:05 AM

Upon reflection, the great joy of my trip had revealed itself slowly, delivered in a complex and seemingly unrelated series of events and encounters. But now, suddenly, all of these fragments resolved themselves in an epiphany: the source of my quiet elation and deep tranquility was absolute and fundamental: the simplicity of life on the road (eat, sleep and ride), the spontaneous generosity and genuine camaraderie of the people I had met, the immense, diverse beauty of Nature and the wonder of Man's achievements.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p396

#88

General Discussion / Re: From the Library

Last post by Biggles - Sep 03, 2025, 01:54 AM

And I knew it was time to finish when, just a few days before the end of my journey, I came to a fork in the road where a muddy unmarked dirt track led off in one direction and a neat sealed and signposted roadway continued on. Where once I would have instinctively taken Frost's "road less travelled" I now craved the certainty and reliability of the big, wide easy path - the bigger the better - for sadly, the highways and freeways had now become my preferred domain; I had simply lost the desire or gumption to explore and take risks anymore.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p395

#89

General Discussion / Re: From the Library

Last post by Biggles - Sep 02, 2025, 10:24 AM

Depressingly, I could now trace my remaining journey on a single map and could count the days left until I finished with my fingers. Whether the road actually got better from here was almost a moot point now; for I was certainly going to finish. The roads were all well made and paved, people spoke English, there was solid and reliable infrastructure, and barring any mechanical disaster or traffic accident, nothing really stood in my way anymore. The goal that had seemed so Far And Away when I set out from the Pacific shores of Russia up near the Arctic Circle and had then became a pipe dream, as I broke myself and my bike in the bogs and marshes along the Road of Bones, was now becoming a reality. It was a strange sensation that left me feeling melancholy.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p385

#90

General Discussion / Re: From the Library

Last post by Biggles - Sep 01, 2025, 03:10 AM

"You want us to open up the engine?" he said bewildered.
"Ah... yes... please" I said, a little perplexed, wondering how I could have been any more explicit. "But what if we find something wrong?" he shot back.
"What do you mean?" I said - a little exasperated. "My clutch has been re-built with scrap metal by a little Chinese man who lives in a closet and works on the pavement under a beach umbrella. I've ridden thousands of kilometres across deserts, along rutted mountain tracks, through rivers and been bogged knee deep in sand dunes. My bike needs to be examined and repaired properly! That's why I came here!" - I was ranting now.
The office manager listened politely and with great restraint, sensing my growing frustration, and said calmly, "Well, you know, the clutch, it is a complex piece of the motorcycle."
"You're telling me... I stuck a wrench in there two months ago and almost killed myself!"
"You know, it is illegal to ride bikes larger than 250cc in Iran; we have never actually serviced a bike like this before..." he confessed. The Mexicans looked away.
"But I saw a bike like mine in your showroom!"
"Shipped here in error... it's only on display because we have nowhere else to put it and can't afford to return it. We don't know how it works."
"No problem, just do your best," I said cheerfully.
The Road Gets Better From Here  Adrian Scott p363