From the Library

[Biggles]

There are no motorways or expressways to speak of in Ireland, so there is a fair amount of commercial traffic on the main roads along the coast and between larger cities.  Leave the main roads, however, and the traffic drops off to a desultory mixture of sheep, tractors, the occasional car, cattle, donkey carts, and pedestrians, all travelling at roughly the same speed and spaced well apart.  Irish drivers tend to be relaxed and easy-going, with none of the murderous seriousness you find on the Continent.  There is a sense of good-natured flexibility and complete patience.  Making time on Irish roads is not in the cards, however, and dragging your knee in corners isn't recommended unless you wish to become one with the back of a haywagon, or are especially fond of sheep.
Leanings  Peter Egan p137

[Biggles]

In the morning we rode out to the Waterford Crystal factory at the edge or the city and watched the glassblowers and cutters at work.  I'd never seen such a cheerful, good-natured bunch or workers in any factory, but then, the last factory I worked at was a gunpowder plant, where anxiety was our most important product.   
Barb and I bought a crystal salt-and-pepper-shaker set, after voting them most likely to succeed in a tank bag.  Wine glasses and chandeliers were out of the question.
Leanings  Peter Egan p138

[Biggles]

"Take off those leather jackets.  Okay, now open the duffel bag.  Unroll that pink thing.  What is that, a  pink tent?  Unroll it. What  are those?"
"Tent stakes."
"What's that other thing in there?"
"A flashlight."
"Let's see it.  Take the batteries out.  That's it.  Put them on the table."
And so on.  Then we were searched and told to empty our pockets on the desk.  Drivers licenses were checked, social security cards, draft cards of course, plans, home towns, and possible criminal records.  One officer took our ID material into his office and began dialling phone numbers.  He talked, nodded, dialled, lit and snubbed out numerous cigarettes, all the while watching us through the glass partition with unblinking reptilian eyes that said he'd seen guys like us before.  It was 1967, a war was on, we were or college age, this was the Canadian border, it was midnight and of course we were on motorcycles. All wrong.
Leanings  Peter Egan p148

[Biggles]

Following the St. Lawrence River, we crossed into Quebec Province and made it to Montreal late in the afternoon.  After being turned down at three hotels with VACANCY signs burning, we learned to leave our helmets and jackets on the bikes while inquiring.  In the end, the effort was wasted.  We found a room in a downtown hotel so cheap that mere possession of helmets and jackets made us something of a success story within its dark hallways.  Most of the patrons were elderly men who talked to themselves and seemed to own nothing but a jealously guarded brown paper bag.  The rest were slightly younger women who kept funny hours.
For the next two days we walked all over the hills of Montreal, sitting in parks, poking abound in bookstores, and looking over the campus of McGill University.  We climbed Mount Royal and looked out over the grounds of Expo 1967.  The second evening we stopped in a topless bar, which at that time was a brand-new concept- or great novelty.  As we sipped on beers, a rather bored-looking woman climbed up on the bar and did some perfunctory topless dancing to Spencer Davis' "Gimme Some Lovin'". Then she sat down at the bar and said "Give me a beer, Ernie."  Donnelly and I looked down the bar for a moment and smiled politely.  She studied us for a moment and didn't smile back.  I don't think she liked my work boots.  It was suddenly too quiet in the bar.  What do you say to a topless dancer?  That was nice dancing?  We paid our tab and left. I felt Spencer Davis had somehow been compromised.
Leanings  Peter Egan p152

[Biggles]

Always wary of being refused service because of our motorcycles, I was overjoyed to walk into the office and find that the place doubled as a Yamaha dealership, of all things.  An elderly woman sat knitting by a  kerosene stove.  She explained that her son ran the Yamaha end of the business and she managed the cabins.  Would we like a cabin for the night or motorcycle parts?  A cabin?  She'd get the stove and hot water turned on for us then, and a clothesline to hang up our wet clothes.   
She explained almost apologetically that the cabin would cost six dollars for both of us. Was that OK?
It was OK. We stayed in a tidy little log cabin with two feather beds and a bathtub on feet.  In the morning the rain was hammering down on the green shingled roof and neither of us wanted to get out of bed.  We discussed staying in the cabin until the rain stopped or until we died, whichever came first.  Lack of money and a driving need for breakfast finally got the better of us however, and we pushed onward into the morning rain.
Leanings  Peter Egan p154

[Biggles]

His Harley had the biggest pile of luggage I'd ever seen lashed onto the back of any motorcycle.  It looked like an overloaded pack burro.  Prominent in this mobile heap of goods was a full-sized Coleman two-burner stove, an ice chest, and the biggest tent I'd ever seen outside a circus.  Ron sipped his coffee and looked in amazement at our damp jackets.
"Don't you guys have any rain gear?" he asked.
"No."  He shook his head.  "Strange . . ."  He invited us to travel with him and said he had a tent big enough for all of us.  The weather at last began to clear, and the three of us cruised along the north shore or Lake Nipissing, across the barren yellow moonscape of Sudbury's sulphur mining district and down to the North Channel of Lake Huron.  It took us a while to get used to travelling with Ron.  He cruised down the road with his feet up on highway pegs, looking around at the scenery, never exceeding 60 mph.  It had never occurred to Donnelly and me that anyone would ever voluntarily go slower than 85 mph, as long as there were no cops 
around.  We rode everywhere flat out.  And here was this guy, motoring along 5 mph under the speed limit, appearing to enjoy himself.  It took some getting used to.
Leanings  Peter Egan p155

[Biggles]

There was also a glassy smoothness that implied to us Britbike fans, a long engine life and a riding experience devoid of lost bolts, loose head-pipes, fractured gas tanks, and headlight filaments shaken to tungsten dust.
Also of interest and pleasure to those of us who used British motorcycles as a standard of aesthetics (if not smoothness) was the general shape and look of the 500 and 550. Hondas of this era looked less. . . well, Japanese, than they had earlier.  They embraced a kind of architectural classicism that paid tribute to both British and Italian design, with just enough Honda thrown in to reassure those who hated walking.
Leanings  Peter Egan p167

[Biggles]

Where the 1200 Trophy exudes a kind of solid, head-of-the-famiiy virtue, the Speed Triple is the wild, good-looking son who smokes cigarettes, runs around with girls, and stays out too late.  It is a lithe, low, and fast cafe-racer that feels dense and compact, as if cast from a single billet It has one of the most charismatic engines to enrich our sport since Ducati got back on its feet.  Responsive and punchy, it has a growly, torn canvas exhaust note that cures depression, boredom, and ailments of the nervous system.
Leanings  Peter Egan p175

[Biggles]

In the morning we rise early and don wetsuits for a whitewater raft trip down a nearby river gorge.  Our raft guide is a lovely woman of outdoor radiant health (does no one look sickly in this country?) who says her name is Ista.
"Beautiful name," I remark. "Unusual."
"Not unusual here," she says. "Ista is a name from the Old Testament.
Edwards and I look at each other for a minute, blandly. "Ah," David says, "Esther."
"Right," she says, "Ista."
After years of canoeing in Canada, I have learned to be wary of water that moves fast enough to rip your arms off.  Nevertheless, we go through some heavy rapids, then over a 20-foot fall with me in the front of the raft and nose straight into the roiling water below like a Stuka with a broken elevator cable.  I am flung out of the raft (holding onto a rope) and then flung back in, with a little help from Ista.  Thrilling stuff, even if I have sprained my thumb and will spend the rest of the trip putting on my right glove with my teeth. Such is the price of glory.
Leanings  Peter Egan p176

[Biggles]

Twenty-five miles later I pull over, flip up my shield, and say to David, "I've been thinking about that jump."
"Me too.
"Let's go back and do it. We'll never be here again."
So, we ride back, pay our money, get weighed (for bungee length), walk out on the bridge, and get in line, David first.  They wrap a towel and a nylon strap around the ankles of his motorcycle boots and latch the bungee to the strap.  David tells them, "I'm kind of worried, because my boots are about two sizes too big for me. They're pretty loose."
The kid who hooks up the rope says, "If it feels like you're going to slip out and fall into the river, just curl up your toes."
David does not laugh as hard at this joke as you'd think.
The man just ahead of David jumps off the bridge and disappears from our sight.  The kid looks over the edge and cries, "Oh, NO!"
"What happened'?"
"Ripped both his legs off!"
David smiles wanly. Then it's his turn.
He bravely jumps without hesitation and disappears into oblivion.  Then I see he's been lowered into the tethered raft on the river below and returned to the riverbank.  He is actually waving and smiling.
My turn.  I hop to the edge of the bridge platform, my feet tied together, and look down.
If there was ever anything that goes against 5 million years of human evolution, it is the concept of diving head first off a 143-foot bridge over cold rushing water with your feet tied together.  There is a special place in your brain set aside for the express purpose of telling you not to do this thing.
Nevertheless, I jump.  The moment of jump is an odd existential experience, but the stretch and triple recoil of the bungee is pure and simple whoopdee-doo fun, like being tossed in a blanket, and is surprisingly unstressfull on the joints, muscles, and spine.  When you are lowered into the raft (like a side of beef) you feel relaxed, refreshed, and loose.  Another triumph of endorphins over reality.
Leanings  Peter Egan p179-180

[Biggles]

As on the Alpine trips I've taken, every night is essentially party night at the hotels, which are well-chosen for their local charm and colour as well as mattress and shower-stall quality.
We eat well, drink lots of good New Zealand beer, wander through towns, and sit around fireplaces telling true stories.  And making friends.  It is an unavoidable part of group motorcycle tours (this is my fourth) that you make friends for life.  This is a natural by-product of hanging around with examples of the world's only known species of consistently superior human, the avid motorcyclist.
Leanings  Peter Egan p181

[Biggles]

Non-motorcyclists take the black leather jacket for granted now, as a mere fashion accessory. Everyone from the Ramones to Madonna has appeared publicly in some version of the Brando-style "Eric von Zipper" motorcycle jacket, so that it has become as harmless a cultural cliche as carhops on roller skates or the 1957 Chevy.
We live in the age of pre-fab charisma, where mere money can buy you an artificially aged (right at the factory) Fender Stratocaster or a pre-stressed 50-mission flight jacket.  Buy the stuff, share the life.  And with a black leather jacket, the spurious risk-image of motorcycling can rub off on you without the inconvenience of learning which is the clutch lever or ever getting wet.  Or crashing. Everyone wants a piece of the danger, but no one wants to get hurt.  We want authenticity to come easy, without too much stress or conflict.
It was not always so.
There was a time in America when symbols had real meaning, and the black leather jacket was a potent one. No one dreamed of wearing a motorcycle jacket without owning a motorcycle.
Leanings  Peter Egan p192-3

[Biggles]

It didn't take Middle America long to connect these jackets with rock-and-roll, overstimulated hormones, greasy ducktails, big sideburns, loud pipes, and the sort of trouble that rode into Hollister, California, one fine day and tore up the town.  Ordinary citizens had seen the photos in Life magazine and they were Not Happy.
You could almost say they were violently, homicidally unhappy.  A wave of revulsion for all things motorcycle swept over the country, and the black leather jacket was its arch symbol.
By the time I was a freshman in high school in the early 1960s, wearing a black leather jacket was an invitation to be ostracized by all but the toughest elements in your hometown.
Even the hoods in my high school quit wearing black leather jackets. They were afraid some older, unemployed biker with three teeth would kill them with the broken-off neck of a beer bottle, just on principle.
Leanings  Peter Egan p194

[Biggles]

Germans- and Europeans in general- seem not to have developed this simmering, Puritanical disapproval of speed you find in America.  Once they are out of the city, Germans simply travel at whatever logical speed is suggested by the road and the capability of their vehicles, be it 65 or 90 mph.  Even in slow vehicles, they don't begrudge other people who can go faster. This makes for nice riding; almost heavenly, by our standards.
Leanings  Peter Egan p199

[Biggles]

On the autobahns, of course, there are no speed limits.  There, I discovered our R1 100RS would hit 215 kph (about 135 mph) if we sat in normal riding positions and did not go into a tuck, but the wind flow and noise were a lot more pleasant below 180 kph, and we settled on 160 (about 100 mph) as the most serene cruising speed.   
Which, where we live- the Land of  the Free- would get us thrown in jail and our bike towed.
Leanings  Peter Egan p200