From the Library

[Biggles]

I soon learned that it was necessary to shift down on many of the hills.  The little engine sang soprano as it whirred loudly in the lower gears over Storm King Mountain behind West Point.  Coming down the north side it let out a high-pitched whine as my speed edged up over 65 MPH.  I swore I could hear it saying, "Hold on old man, we're going to Labrador."  I stopped briefly at Jim Moroney's shop in Newburgh before heading into the Catskills.  I got a few chuckles and a few expressions of skepticism about the little bike, but I think no one doubted my resolve - my sanity maybe but not my resolve.
Motorcycling Stories  Piet Boonstra p240

[Biggles]

It did start to rain near the first construction activity about 30 miles out, where a large piece of machinery was cutting a swath through the trees with a huge cutting wheel.  The machine threw chunks of bark and branches all over the place.  I caught a piece of something on the end of my toe that was quite painful.  Around 50 miles out a huge backhoe was digging on one side of the road and depositing its bucket loads on the other side.  We had to time our passing to be between swings of the huge bucket.
Motorcycling Stories  Piet Boonstra p247

[Biggles]

About 20 miles past the construction I thought I saw a deep washout across the road in front of me as we were travelling about 40 MPH.  My clouded, rain-covered face shield blurred my already poor vision.  I thought I didn't want to hit the ditch at that speed, so I went for the rear brake.  Unfortunately I hit it a little too hard, throwing the bike into a slight broad-slide.  Consequently it was crossed up when it struck the minor washout and I did a really ugly departure from the bike, landing on my head.  Jake said when the bike landed it hit first on one side and then did a complete somersault, landing on the other side.  It's amazing how much that little machine can take, not to mention my 72-year-old body.  I bounced along the ground and heard my helmet hit the dirt road three times before I finally came to rest.  As Jake was picking me up, he said I was lucky I landed on my head; otherwise, I might have really gotten hurt! The only damage that resulted from the spill was that the brake pedal got bent, which Jake straightened while I regained my composure.  I sustained a slight concussion and we had to stop a few times to rest when I got dizzy and nauseated each time we took off.
Motorcycling Stories  Piet Boonstra p247-8

[Biggles]

I noticed that from riding a few hours with bare hands, the strong return spring on the throttle had caused all of the heavy skin on the entire palm of my right hand to break loose from the flesh like a huge blister.  It meant that I would have to use my heavier gloves and I'd have to hold the throttle mainly with my fingers and thumb until the skin a chance to reattach itself.  It also meant no more riding with bare hands until I could get different return springs installed.
Motorcycling Stories  Piet Boonstra p254

[Biggles]

It rained the entire day between Beaver Creek and Watson Lake, 570 miles of the roughest part of the Alaska Highway.  Most of the dirt in the 22 miles of construction was soft from the rain and offered no better handling than the loose gravel on the way up.  At least there was no dust and it was still early, so there wasn't much machinery working and I rode through most of it between 65 and 70 MPH.
The road surface was particularly rough around Haines Junction and Lake Kluane.   Going across some of the huge breaks in the pavement at 75, the GS would let out a loud "Brrrrumf," as the paralevers and cantilevers soaked it up like it wasn't there.  Even though I had several extra pounds of air in each tire, the sound it made was sometimes unnerving.
Motorcycling Stories  Piet Boonstra p262-3

[Biggles]

I left the co-op store totally exhausted and thinking, "Oh well, it could be worse; it could be raining with strong crosswinds instead of the head winds."  Almost like magic, the strong winds changed to the side and heavy rainsqualls started.  I cut my speed to 70 and a few times down to 65 when the crosswinds got up to 40 and 50 MPH.  Having had the Gold Wing break traction once with both wheels at the same time in similar conditions, I was very leery of what could happen next.  The BMW was about 250 pounds lighter than the Gold Wing, and my tall tank bag, high trunk, and back-seat luggage all contributed to giving it a huge silhouette and making it want to act like a kite, wind-surfing me across the prairie.   I had to constantly struggle for control and I worked for every mile.
Motorcycling Stories  Piet Boonstra p267

[Biggles]

It got the most hair-raising when trucks coming the other way at the same high speed would momentarily block the wind and I would become entangled in their turbulence.  I would be instinctively making the necessary corrections behind the truck when all of a sudden I would be spit out the other end; which left me to struggle with regaining control on the wet, slippery road, while the crosswinds would again hit me hard from the side.  I'd laugh about it at the time, but after a few of those I tried to find a different track whenever a big truck approached.  The tire tracks on my side were usually filled with water, there was a lot of loose sand along the shoulder, and the center of the lane was shiny with oil drippings; so there wasn't a clear track anywhere, and I was continually aware that the wind could knock the bike out from under me at any moment.
Motorcycling Stories  Piet Boonstra p267

[Biggles]

I also had problems with my eyesight in Saskatchewan whenever I passed long trucks.  I couldn't see far enough to get clear view for my pass and sometimes I would think I had a clear shot when I would start passing a truck moving around 70 or 75 around 80, I would realize that the truck was a tandem rig with two trailers and a huge 12-wheel dolly between the trailers.  Some of those rigs were more than 150 feet long.  I'd usually have the throttle screwed on all the way; but when I would be 3/4 of the way by, I would then see someone coming fast from the opposite direction.  It would be far too late to change my mind and drop back, so I'd have to continue my pass.  Before I could get all the way by, the oncoming car would be there, and I would have to tuck in close to the truck's cab.  The other vehicle would have to take to the shoulder, usually with his horn on high.  I think they should either ban that length truck from 2-lane roads or have a sign on the back informing motorists of the length of the rig; but with my eyesight, I probably wouldn't be able to read the sign anyway.
Motorcycling Stories  Piet Boonstra p268

[Biggles]

Howard had a racer's bias against touring.  He campaigned, sometimes successfully, a highly tuned Honda 350 Four against droves of "off-brand ring-dings" on Midwest road circuits.  He thought touring a tedious penance for some unspecified sin committed in an earlier life.  He also feared and distrusted venerable British Twins.
Howard's last word of advice was that I send a Honda Gold Wing to the post office in Council Bluffs, Iowa, and then pray that I made it that far so I could change horses en route. No thanks, I said. I'd ridden a Gold Wing.
Too easy.  Like taking a tram up the Eiger, instead of climbing the face.
Anybody could get to Seattle on a Gold Wing. Farrah, for-Gods-sake, Fawcett-Majors could get there on a Gold Wing.  It was adventure I was after, not trip insurance.
Leanings  Peter Egan p15

[Biggles]

There was some rain gear, minimum clothes, and a carefully chosen tool kit.  No compass, snakebite kit, or spare shoe laces.  Travelling light on a motorcycle demands ruthless restraint, a fine sense of asceticism, and a big wad of colourful plastic credit cards.  We left before sunup on a Saturday morning.
Two hours of ghostly pre-dawn gloom swirled past, and then at 7 am. the Twin delivered us to the crest of the palisades above the Mississippi River Valley.  The air was cool, but the first rays of the sun warmed our backs and began to burn away the mist.  Only the towers of the bridges below rose out of the fog.  The hills on the opposite bank were golden green in the morning sun.
"Not bad!" I shouted over my shoulder.
"What?" my wife replied.  We were to have many such conversations in the miles ahead.
Leanings  Peter Egan p16

[Biggles]

I loved my Honda 50.  It was a 1964 step-through, C100, two-tone blue, with 6,000 miles on the odometer.  I bought it from a doctor who was cleaning his garage and wasn't sure if anyone would want the little thing, but took a chance on throwing an ad in the paper.  His doubts were understandable.  Who, after all, would want a used $75 machine that takes almost no maintenance, is reliable as a stone (though slightly faster), and takes the owner to work and back all week for 37 cents?
The day I drove out to look at the machine it was sitting in the doctor's driveway, and even as I drove up I could see that the bike was in mint condition.  It nearly brought tears to my eyes.  My Volkswagen was still dieseling as I wrote out the cheque.
Leanings  Peter Egan p23

[Biggles]

My first gas stop, on the second morning, revealed that the Honda had guzzled no less than half a gallon during the 80 miles we'd covered the previous day, at a cost of 32 cents.  That was 160 mpg. John was numb. "Thirty- two cents?  That's crazy!  Hell, I spent over a dollar on granola bars yesterday, just so I'd have enough energy to pedal this bike."
He stared at the Honda with a troubled frown, as if trying to grasp some searing new truth.  "That's plain madness.  You can't make a gas tank leak that slowly, much less run a vehicle."
Leanings  Peter Egan p27-8

[Biggles]

Just outside of town I stopped to install some ear plugs I'd bought to ward off total deafness on the long trip.  After five minutes, I had to stop and take them out.  They worked too well; I couldn't hear a thing.  They made riding surreal, and eerily quiet.  For all I knew, my exhaust header had fallen off and a broken rod was hammering my block to pieces.  I began to fantasize engine and chassis noises, much the way someone wearing stereo headphones constantly imagines that the phone and doorbell are ringing. 
Like those early airline pilots who objected to enclosed cockpits, I preferred to hear the wind in the wires and ignore the instruments.
Leanings  Peter Egan p34

[Biggles]

When I couldn't stand it any more I sold my 160 and bought a sports car- a 1959 Triumph TR-3 with no side curtains and a hole the size of a cannonball in the otherwise opaque rear window of the convertible top.  The Triumph, of course, was no warmer than the Honda, but since it never ran more than three minutes at a time I never had a chance to get really cold.  Also, when you tapped the horn button the steering wheel began to smoulder and melt, which added a touch of comfort in cold weather.  The wiring harness finally burned up and I sold the car for a tremendous profit and bought myself another bike; a 305 Superhawk.  By that time it was summer.  I was done with winter riding for good.
I took the sheet off the Norton, dumped in a gallon of stale lawnmower gas, strapped its trickle-charged battery back under the seat, and went upstairs to dress.  I put on all the clothes I owned and then went down to the garage to get my waxed-cotton Belstaff jacket.  My wife won't let me keep it in the regular coat closet because she says it smells like creosote.  I wrapped a scarf around my face and buckled my helmet.  The Norton's anaemic electric starter went "dit," so I started the bike with just enough kicks to steam up my face shield with hot panting breath.
Leanings  Peter Egan p48

[Biggles]

Motorcyclists in cold weather are always in a quandary over their speed.  Should they ride fast and get it over with, enduring the ravages of high-speed wind, or should they ride slowly, prolonging a slightly less terrible agony.
Jim had chosen Slow Death.  Coming down the highway his bike looked like one of those lone cavalry horses returning to the fort with a dead rider full of arrows slumped in its saddle, stopping here and there to nibble on sagebrush.  I'd never seen Jim ride so slowly, or so stiffly.  And I'd never seen a motorcycle turn a corner without leaning, but Jim did it as he pulled into the parking lot.  He pulled to a stop and sat on his bike; just sat, not bothering to shut the engine off, as though he expected some kind of emergency ground crew to run out of the restaurant and lift him off his Commando.  No help arrived, so he slowly reached for the key and turned it off.  A minute later he tilted his head downward and began to look for the kickstand.  A stiff robot leg caught the edge of the stand and kicked it out.
Leanings  Peter Egan p49