From the Library

[Biggles]

It's late on a blazingly hot Sunday afternoon as I take shelter with Austin in the cool air-con of the local chicken shop.  It only takes a couple of sips of his Passiona to see Austin's intense belief in the everyman bringing the extraordinary bubble to the surface.
"You have these people that put themselves on television, and in their minds they think they are doing something incredible; it's painful, and they get away with it!... Meanwhile the really cool people are being ignored," he says.
Maybe it's the heat, but at that moment a classic Hunter S. Thompson quote completely engulfs my thinking:  "The Edge, there is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over."  Is this their intent, to try to explain that true adventure is possible for the everyman, to show us 'the edge' isn't as Far And Away as we'd been led to believe?
Free Wheeling Magazine #1. p54

[Biggles]

When my mood gets too hot and I find myself wandering beyond control I pull out my motor-bike and hurl it top-speed through these unfit roads for hour after hour.   
My nerves are jaded and gone near dead, so that nothing less than hours of voluntary danger will prick them into life.
T. E Lawrence in She's A Bad Motorcycle frontispiece

[Biggles]

Riding on the back of a friend's bike through southern Germany's excessive picturesqueness, I took in the passing sights secure in the knowledge that he was as able a rider as they make.  We took the turns at a good lean, overcoming an instinctual fear to emerge into the pleasure of having done so. Then a light drizzle started washing the streets to a gleam, and everything changed.  My seat noticed it first, a slight side-to- side motion that I almost thought was in my head.  When we stopped, I asked if I had in fact felt something, and my friend just looked pale in response.  So I mounted up behind another member of the party, whose experience was equal but whose rear tire was less bald. Confidence returned, even though the rain now fell in hard sheets.  The beer at lunch I allowed myself as consolation for being a mere passenger was having its effect under the canopy of trees. The next thing I knew my hands thrust themselves into the air.  Every sinew pulled itself tight.  In a flash the seat had gone out from under me, shimmied curtly side to side to side.  Then a second it was over, and we were going on as before.  Who knows?  It could have been a bit of patched paving, slippery tar, some chameleon oil behind the sheen of wet.
Melissa Pierson in She's A Bad Motorcycle p3

[Biggles]

The small glow emanating from the lighted dials is a portable beacon that remains both ahead and calmly with you.  The sight of the instrument panel's little light in the greater dark puts me in mind of a tiny spaceship floating on its way through a benighted universe of unfathomed spread.  The headlight glances off the slick leaves at the edge of the road, and what is beyond that quick beam waits there for you to arrive upon it and briefly launch it into existence before consigning it back to what is behind in the black.
Melissa Pierson in She's A Bad Motorcycle p4

[Biggles]

But Hell's Angels started riding Harley-Davidsons mostly because, unlike today, they didn't have much choice.  In 1957, it was either ride a Harley or settle for a Triumph or BSA.  They'd already stopped building Indians.  It's always been important for Hell's Angels to ride American-made machines.  In terms of pure workmanship, personally I don't like Harleys.  I ride them because I'm in the club, and that's the image, but if I could, I would seriously consider riding a Honda ST1100 or a BMW.  We really missed the boat not switching over to the Japanese models when they began building bigger bikes.  I'll usually say, "%&@# Harley-Davidson.  You can buy an ST1100 and it will do 110 miles per hour right from the factory all day long."  The newest "rice rockets" can carry 140 horsepower to the rear wheel, and easily do 180 miles per hour right out of the box.  While its probably too late to switch over now, it would have been a nice move, because Japanese bikes today are so much cheaper and better built.  However, Japanese motorcycles don't have as much personality.
Sonny Barger in She's A Bad Motorcycle p35

[Biggles]

I had drifted into the Pagans earlier that Spring.  I had sold my car and bought a motorcycle.  A 650 cubic centimeter Triumph.  Harley- Davidson is forever associated with the outlaw image.  And for good reason.  When you saw a pack of outlaws most of them were riding Hogs.  But the truth is that if you rode a Harley you needed a car.  Hogs broke down a lot, and they were hell on wet ground or snow.
The Triumph and BSA (that's pronounced Beeser) started in all weather.  The front ends were the best ever made.  You could even ride them on snow and ice.  Just put your feet down and glide along slow.  If rear wheel went sideways, you could catch your balance with your feet and straighten the bike out.  Try this with a hog, and you broke your leg.  But best of all the Triumph and BSA were also designed for off-road use.  If a cop was chasing you down the back roads of Berks County, you could take off through a cornfield.  You could never get away with that on a hog.
I rode through the winter.  And I froze.  On weekends my Triumph was the only bike parked outside the Gaslight East on Hempstead Turnpike.  In the summer the place was a motorcycle hangout with fifty bikes lined up in the street.  But in the winter these guys travelled by car.  They weren't outlaws.
John Hall in She's A Bad Motorcycle p177

[Biggles]

I am a man, in a time when it has become anachronistic to be masculine, I am a man.
It's my fifty-seventh birthday and I have heart disease.
It had not and has not yet killed me and to my great surprise I am somehow two years older than Columbus was when he died. Twenty-two years older than Mozart.
I have accomplished more than I ever thought I would.  Certainly more - considering the rough edges of my life - than I deserve to have accomplished.  My children are through college and launched, my wife is set for life, and yet.

And yet.  Just that.  An unsettling thought, like a burr under a saddle, rubbing incessantly until at last it galls and still it was and is there...
There had been a time when I was content.  Not completely, and only briefly, but at least enough to settle, to accept, to live - shudder - within an accepted parameter.  Then it changed and in the change I learned a fundamental truth about myself; I saw a weakness that was a strength at the same time.

It is very strange what saves a man.
I had a friend caught in the blind throes of bottom-drinking alcoholism who was going to kill himself, had the barrel of the .357 in his mouth and the hammer back and pressure on the trigger, ready to go out when he saw a spider weaving a web and became interested in it and forgot why he wanted to kill himself.  Another friend, a soldier, was saved on a night patrol in Korea because Chinese soldiers ate raw garlic and he smelled them coming and hid.  As I drove into Mankato, there was a Harley dealer, and that dealer saved me as sure as if it had been a spider or garlic.
Gary Paulsen in She's A Bad Motorcycle p181-2

[Biggles]

"I'll buy it." It was out before I thought.  I couldn't stop it.  Years of waiting were in back of it, a frustration-powered blurt.  "Now."
"I don't know how much the boss is asking for it."
"Go find out."  He left but I stayed with the bike until he came back.  "Nineteen" he said.  "Nineteen thousand plus tax and license.
I nodded.  "Done."  And then I thought of the first place we'd bought when we went north to live in the bush and run dogs; the whole farm, eighty acres and buildings, cost less than this bike.  We lived then on two thousand dollars a year and all the beaver and venison we could eat.  We could have lived for nearly ten years on what this Harley was costing. 
"Half an hour," the mechanic said, smiling like a drunk who has met somebody to drink with.  "Just have to check her out."
Gary Paulsen in She's A Bad Motorcycle p187

[Biggles]

I felt strange but in some way whole.  It was like an extension of my body, and I cradled down in blue steel and leather and chrome and sat that way for a time, perhaps a full minute, and let the bike become part of me.  I know how that sounds but it was true.  I would meet hundreds of men and tour women who owned Harleys and they all said the same - that the bike became an extension, took them, held them.  This is one hell of a long way, I thought, from clothes pegging playing cards on the fork of a bicycle to get the sound of a motor when the spokes clipped them, but it had all started then.  The track from that first rattling-slap noise in the spokes led inevitably to here, to me sitting on Harley, sure and straight as any law in physics.
I turned the key, reached down and pulled the choke out to half a click, made sure the bike was in neutral, took a breath and let it half out, like shooting an M1 on the range.  Then I touched the starter button with my thumb.
Gary Paulsen in She's A Bad Motorcycle p189

[Biggles]

If you have a Harley, there ain't a damn thing wrong with you unless you're a blatant asshole.  But even if you are an asshole, a Harley can personality spackle in that it will cover over any deficiencies.  That's why balding midlife crisis boys get them.
Sadly enough, Harleys are usually the bikes you see broken down on the side of the road.  I think they're better for riding around your block and showing off like a mating bird, but I don't know how far I'd wanna go.  A whole lotta myth, and not known for being reliable.  But you won't have to tap on people's shoulders and tell them how cool you are, because a Harley will do it for you.  Once you get a Harley you don't even need a relationship.
Erica Lopez in She's A Bad Motorcycle p235

[Biggles]

Later that afternoon I had my first riding scare of the trip.  The extremely high temperatures all day had softened the road tar in Holbrook, Arizona to a consistency where my front tire began to pick up wet tar and sling it up under the fender.  The road surface actually got slippery and I almost lost control of the bike a few times right in town.  The sticky tire would pick up gravel and sand that gradually built up on the wheel like a snowball rolling downhill.  It built up to where the front wheel began to scrape and bind against the inside of the fender.  I managed to get through town without mishap, but the tar stayed under the fender for several days and the clearance was reduced to almost nothing.  For days every time the tire picked up even the smallest stone it would rip loudly through the close clearance and the wheel would bind a little.  That night I had tar on the engine, the windshield, the tank, my shoes, and even on my face.
Motorcycling Stories  Piet Boonstra p12

[Biggles]

In that next 161 miles I didn't see a house, a car, or even a sign that anyone had ever been there, except that someone must have built the narrow dirt road and the small single-lane wooden bridges across the many brooks and white-water streams.  Several hours I enjoyed total solitude.   I was able to maintain between 50 and 55 MPH most of the way.  I stopped at some the most beautiful spots, shut off the engine, put the bike on the center stand in the middle of the road, and I proceeded to oil the chain.  There were no sounds at all.  I would look around for several minutes admiring the incredible beauty and serenity of it all.   The dark-blue lakes reflected a mirror image of the evergreen trees and snowcapped mountains in the background.  The lakes were so clear I could see pebbles very clearly through several feet of water.   I took many photos and regretted not having brought a better camera.
Motorcycling Stories  Piet Boonstra p26

[Biggles]

When I stopped for gas at Jake's Corner, I saw a sign at the pump, "Do not operate pump yourself."  Another sign said, "Free ice cream with fill-up."  Jake didn't come out right away but I figured if I ignored the first sign and pumped my own gas he'd probably get mad and I wouldn't get the free ice cream.  He looked annoyed when he finally did come out and he said gruffly, "Whadda you want?"  He was a big, burly guy with long red hair and a big red handlebar mustache.  When I said I wanted a fill-up he jerked the nozzle from the pump and jammed it hard into my already open tank with a single sweeping motion.  He put only about three gallons in the tank, which didn't quite fill it.  As he was hanging the nozzle back on the pump I asked if he would please top off my tank.  He answered gruffly, "You're full!" and he put his hand out for the money.  He scowled when I handed him a credit card because he had to walk back to the office to get the imprint and it was uphill all the way, with some steps included.  After signing the receipt I asked politely if I could have my free ice cream now.  He stood for a few moments glaring at me but finally he walked back up into the office a second time for the tiny cone.  He returned and handed it over very begrudgingly.  I smiled and said, "Thank you."
Motorcycling Stories  Piet Boonstra p30

[Biggles]

That night I adjusted the spokes for the first time and the chain for the third time.  About ten spokes on the rear wheel and four on the front were quite loose.   
The rear tire was totally bald and almost showing its casing.  I noticed several deep rock cuts that did reach the casing.  Whitehorse was now my only hope for a fresh tire since none were available in Dawson City.
Day 19 - The weather was perfect when I left Dawson at 9 AM.  I definitely had to forego earlier plans of a ride up the Dempster Highway due to the condition of the tire.  I learned that the Dempster was completed to just beyond the Arctic Circle at Mile 245.  Gas was available at two maintenance camps - at Miles 129 and 231.   
My problem now was getting to Whitehorse 355 miles of rough dirt road away.  I spent a nerve-wracking day dodging millions of sharp stones on the Klondike Highway.   
I tried not to think about how much I might get torn up if the tire blew and I came into contact with some of the sharp stones in the road at that speed.  I kept pushing between 60 and 65 MPH though, because I was worried that the cycle shop, if there was one, might close before I got there.  That evening I found a sports shop and bought the only 400X18 motorcycle tire they had which was a soft-composition Yokohama sport tire.  I changed it that night outside my hotel.
Motorcycling Stories  Piet Boonstra p40-1

[Biggles]

I stopped at a McDonald's for a mid-morning snack although I also snacked on peanuts while I was moving.  I would put both feet up on the highway pegs and hold the jar between my knees to remove the cap.  I could then drink the peanuts from the jar as I rode along.  I couldn't possibly take both hands off the handlebars at the same time because the front end of the bike would immediately start to wobble and shimmy no matter what speed I was travelling, which was due in large part to the poor weight distribution.
Motorcycling Stories  Piet Boonstra p53