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The Motorcycle Diaries

All In One

….the story of one man’s love/fear relationship with motorcycles

Excerpts from “A Squandered Life”

251224 pm

Introduction

Triumph Trophy 500
BSA Starfire 250
BSA Thunderbolt 650
Norton Commando 750
Hodaka Ace 100
Fiat 500
MZ Trophy 250
MZ TS 250 (red)
Honda CB 360
MZ TS 250 (black)
Kawasaki GPZ 500
Honda CB 125 #1 (blue)
Honda CB 125 #2 (black)
Kawasaki GPZ 600
Thai Rentals
Kawasaki GTR 1000
Honda Nighthawk 750
Lexmoto 125
Suzuki VX 800
Vintage

Introduction

I can’t remember precisely when my mild obsession with motorcycles began. It may have been my first ride, courtesy of my godparents, when I was an infant on what looks like a Royal Enfield in the only surviving photo. No clear recollection of that moment I have to admit, but perhaps something went in subliminally.

Or possibly via my neighbours on the shores of the St Lawrence River. Although I wasn’t impressed by the eldest son himself, he had a British bike which he would rev up and down the road on occasion in the spring and sometimes in the middle of high summer. He didn’t seem to be a proper biker as the bike would only appear periodically but, to me, that otherwise unimpressive guy instantly became the essence of cool.

But my first conscious ride was courtesy of my older, more mature buddy Jeremy. Not necessarily the coolest of dudes himself, he totally dropped my jaw when he rolled into our driveway on a raucous Triumph 650. I was blown away long before I ever got on it. Just looking at and listening to it was like rich experiential eye and ear candy. It even smelled impressive, a mixture of exhaust fumes and heated oil. After some time just looking at the thing, he said, “Come on then, I’ll give you a ride.”

Without any hesitation (or coaching) I got on behind him and we shakily set off down the drive. On the road he throttled it and I got the first rush of that minor G force which came to be a mild addiction. I was so unprepped that as he was taking a curve I assumed I should lean outwards and found myself virtually looking down on him as we swerved. He had to stop the bike and lecture me about staying directly behind and leaning with the rider – a lecture I was to repeat many times to aspiring passengers of my own in the years to come.

It wasn’t a long ride, and in fact, to this day, I don’t enjoy being a passenger on a bike, but the hook was set. I could feel an obsessive compulsion building slowly and inexorably like the incoming tide.

After some fraught beginnings (see below), motorcycles started to figure more or less permanently in my adult life. Never a full on speed junkie or cafe racing daredevil or a fully attired and equipped tourer or even part of a biker buddy network, I nonetheless found life slightly less inspiring if I didn’t have direct access to one. Nor did I ever really come to consider myself a fully competent rider as I continued to find myself in situations over which I seemed to have little control.

1. Triumph Trophy 500

1.1. Montreal ‘66

Around 1965/66 my obsession with motorcycles was escalating to boiling point. I had a few hundred bucks set aside for this. I recall being mesmerised by dreams of unfettered personal mobility – plus that attraction of looking (and sounding) so cool.

Understandably, my family were fairly dubious about this obsession but it became, for me, a factor in my manly strides towards independence. We had a family friend, a beardy university graduate called Alex, who was old enough to hold his own with adults but young enough to identify with my foolish determination and he offered to help sort out a good machine. This won plaudits from father Henry and mother Mari-Ann who felt I would be guided by better judgement than my own. Alex came with me to look at a couple of privately advertised possibilities. He endeared himself to me forever by saying, as we looked at a terrifyingly huge and oily Royal Enfield 750, “I don’t think this is a good buy at all, but if you really want it I’ll tell your parents that I think it is.”

We eventually settled on a beautifully stripped Triumph Trophy 500. I tended to fall in love with every motorcycle I saw, but even I could see that this was special. The owner was a semi-hells angel type, but quiet and proud of his abilities as a bike mechanic. It had slightly raised handle bars but wasn’t “chopped” (it still had rear suspension). It was simply clean and uncluttered. No unnecessary add-ons or badges; a slim functional seat and practical but minimalist mudguards.

And it sounded heavenly. As Alex drove off up the road for a quick test run, dragging his feet either side as he shot off, I knew this was the one with an almost physical ache. We did the deal and the guy dropped it round our new town house the next day. I was too nervous to try to ride it that first day but psyched myself up for a trip out to the Lakeshore next morning.

Madness, now that I think about it. Never having ridden a bike before, I got up next morning and, dressed in jeans, sandals, and a short-sleeved shirt (no helmets in those days), pushed my new 500 out into the alley way and proceeded to climb aboard and get to grips with the kick start. Never as easy as it looks, it took me a few tries before the engine caught and spat out that invigorating parallel twin splutter. Gingerly, I let out the clutch and nearly hit the opposite wall.

Teetering precariously, I half rode / half walked the bike out to the street and eased my way out into the city traffic. Once in motion balance is never a problem and I began to savour the gyroscopic properties – leaning into curves and generally defying gravity. It was gloriously sunny day and I headed out towards the Lakeshore without mishap, only occasionally twisting the throttle forcefully to feel the G forces and shoot past cars as if they were mere mortals. I followed the dual carriageway to the Dorval roundabout and exited smoothly and swimmingly, until I had my first experience of a panic freeze. I was going too fast around the roundabout and, instead of easing off on the throttle or applying brakes as a sensible human might, I simply froze up, hanging on with whitened knuckles as the bike shot up on to the curb and stalled in the grass about a foot away from broadsiding the concrete foot of the overpass.

Suitably chastened, I shakily kick started the bike again and rode cautiously back on to the tarmac and jittered off towards the Lakeshore Road.

It wasn’t long before I found myself feeling relaxed and cocky again. Intoxicated by sunshine and summer air and the cool breezes off the lake, I wended my way to my old friend Jeremy’s house. I wanted to show my bike off to him just as he had done to me a couple of years before, but, in the absence of any planning or foresight, I discovered he wasn’t at home.

Unfazed, I simply got astride my beloved beast again and prepared to head back. As I reached the centre of Pointe Claire I encountered a queue of traffic. From where I was at the back of the queue, I couldn’t see what the problem was but there was no traffic coming the other way so I swung majestically out into the oncoming lane and accelerated magnificently past the stalled mortals, the sun in my face and the wind caressing my shirt and my hair – until I suddenly saw why all the traffic had stopped.

The car at the front of the queue was turning left! This was my second experience of a panic freeze and, just as before, I was powerless to do anything intelligent and simply rode the bike straight into the side of that car. How I wasn’t killed I’ll never know, but something made me stand on the pegs at the last minute and I found myself sailing across the car, gashing my chest and stomach on his broken aerial in the process (hey buddy, how bout fixing that aerial), and landing in the middle of the road on the other side with a perfectly respectable somersault and a splatter into the front of another car waiting patiently for the car I’d just hit to make his turn.

Time came to a virtual standstill as all this unfolded in slow motion until I found myself slowly getting to my feet. Without noticing anything else, I staggered back round the car I’d hit to see my poor motorcycle lying on its side, bleeding oil into a growing pool. Slowly my hearing came back and I found myself, blood flowing through my torn shirt and slowly soaking into my jeans, being hollered at by just about everybody in the immediate vicinity, not least the driver of the wronged vehicle. I have very little recollection of the immediate aftermath, but the citizens of Pointe Claire must have been further and significantly pissed off as traffic piled up, police were called, and assessments made as to who was the biggest arse in all this.

Clearly and incontestably that was me, and, after I’d been sufficiently harangued by all interested parties (including the police), I was left to pick up the bike and see if I could get it home. The bike had a cracked engine case and a bent exhaust pipe and foot peg on the right side. The front wheel was no longer true and the forks and the steering were badly skewed, but I could roll the bike to the nearest garage. I tried to untwist the forks a bit and topped up the oil, and, gambling that I could get home before it all drained out again, jumped on the kickstart. Mercifully it started beautifully and I wobbled my way back on to the road. At a little above jogging speed, I and my abused machine limped home as the sun set and darkness hid our infamy.

I’d managed to clean myself up before any family spotted me, but the bike took a bit of explaining as it stood twisted in the back drive. I eventually got it to a recommended bike shop to discover that repairs were well beyond my current financial capabilities. In the end, I sold my poor distorted steed to a friend of a friend who took it on as a rebuild project.

Thus, apart from lingering insurance issues, closed the first chapter on my book of motorcycling. On the plus side, I had a pretty impressive scar to show my buddies back at university.

2. BSA Starfire 250

2.1. Red Deer, Alberta ‘68

I n the spring of ‘68, my last year of teen age, I found myself working at the Alberta School Hospital (for kids with extreme learning difficulties) in Red Deer, Alberta. As the spring juices began to flow and take hold, I found my morbid self-destructive attraction to motorcycles re-surfacing. This may have been brought on by the occasional false spring peculiar to Alberta – the magnificent Chinook which brought unseasonably warm weather down from the foothills. In its gentle embrace one would suddenly find shirtsleeves were enough to walk across the snow to work. The ice and snow itself would relent and give up the locked in scents of earth and fresh water in a way a fully fledged spring might, only to lock it all up again as the Chinook winds changed directions and became something else. But I was also still stung with shame at having trashed that beautiful Triumph 500 and had a nagging compulsion not to accept defeat and to have another crack at getting it right. What kind of a man could I be if I couldn’t ride a motorcycle?

There was a bike shop in Red Deer full of mouthwateringly menacing and shiny English motorcycles, heavy with gravitas and presence, and I kept being drawn to its showroom like a dying moth. A true man would, of course, be drawn to the 650’s, but, surprisingly sensibly, I felt constrained by my budget and my previous. No point in getting another big bike if I was only going to fall off and trash it again.

At this time BSA had brought out a line of blue and white 250 singles called Starfires. Previously, their smaller capacity bikes had looked just like that – smaller capacity bikes, mopeds even. These 250s however looked light and elegant yet substantial and convincing. They looked like proper motorcycles; like bigger bikes. And they had a healthy long stroke chortle which, despite a slight metallic note at idle which they told me was “piston slap” audible due to the aluminium alloy head and barrel which embraced the iron cylinder liner, sounded very authoritative for a bike that size. It pushed all the right buttons (looks and sound) and I resolved to put my money down and engage in the first and only hire purchase scheme of my career.

I rode that bike very tentatively, especially as whenever the Chinook departed I was dealing with ice and snow again, but my confidence grew and I began to feel as though I might be a bona fide motorcyclist after all. I spent many days off on my own, sometimes in warm, bright sunshine; sometimes in sub-zero weather, exploring the side roads and trails around Red Deer.

As I analysed my ineptitudes, it seemed that the biggest problem emerged from my use of the back brake. The pedal for the back brake, on British bikes in those days, was on the left. For people used to driving cars, in which the universal braking foot is the right, this is counter-intuitive. Add to this a sub-conscious reluctance to put too much emphasis on the hand operated front brake – because, whereas a back brake can be forgiving and simply fishtail if you lock it, a front brake with even a hint of lock will often have you on your arse in the blink of an eye. I flashed back to my glorious day as a 500 Triumph rider and realised that, in my moments of crisis, my right foot was grimly and foolishly stomping down on the gear lever. No wonder I could never stop the damn thing in time!

These tendencies were, as you’d expect, acutely exaggerated in ice and snow. This meant my ability to stop in a hurry was severely compromised, and I learned two valuable lessons. The first is that, whatever the crisis, first response should always be to shut the throttle down. Sounds obvious, but not to an instinctive nervous system tuned to compel its limbs to do something else altogether. The second is that, by and large, a motorcyclist cannot afford to get into a crisis at all. Instead, he or she must get into anticipating trouble in the way car drivers don’t. This means you don’t simply watch the tail lights of the car in front. You keep that sort of detail in your lower peripheral vision, but your primary mission is to keep watching as far down the road as humanly possible. This is to allow you to see the trouble developing, before it is actually trouble, for the simple reason that if you don’t see it developing it will probably be too late to react at all.

With these few lessons burned in I managed not to trash my 250 and even gained some kudos among my fellow male nurses who began to wonder if they themselves should blow their life savings on a motorcycle. (Interestingly, I don’t think any of them did – probably because the real king of cool was a guy called Lester who drove a vibrantly yellow Corvette Sting Ray and poo poo’d my motorcycle at every opportunity. Just to emphasise the point, he would occasionally depart the parking lot in front of the staff residence in a tortuous squeal of rubber, leaving smoke and skid marks in the way a dog might re-assert his territorial rights if he had the same technology.)

As summer approached I resolved, for reasons of economy mostly, not to ride the bike out west but to hitch-hike. With this in mind I approached my quiet and sensible buddy Louis to see if he would take over the payments whilst I was away in exchange for use of the bike. A pretty good deal really, so he agreed.

Care and possession free, I headed off over the Rocky Mountains and spent the summer wandering the Pacific coast of Canada and the US (for more detail, see “A Squandered Life”).

When I got back to Red Deer I found that some of my erstwhile pals and colleagues had rented rooms in and around the town and I flitted between them as I set about girding myself for a return to the east. My beautiful little blue and white 250 was in good shape having spent the summer with the careful Louis. True to his word he had kept up payments on the finance in exchange for using it whilst I was away.

I got out my compromising wad of traveller’s cheques – my worldly savings – and paid off the dealer. I recall seeing the 650 Thunderbolt in the shop and asking how much they were selling for. The dealer looked at me and said. “I don’t understand you young guys. You buy a motorcycle and then a few months later you want a different one.” I wasn’t aware of being part of a trend but I know what was going through my mind. I was still chagrined and embarrassed at having crashed that Triumph 500 and felt I couldn’t hope to be a full grown adult until I had owned and rode without fear or crashing a “proper” motorcycle, ie a 650 or larger. The 250 was a lovely bike but it was a constant reminder of my failings as a rider.

Nevertheless, there was no way I could afford another bike at this stage, and the 250 was going to be my ride home to Montreal come hell or high water.

2.2.Mid West

Winter was approaching as I eventually set off south for Calgary and then east. No Chinooks to alleviate those cold north winds as I sat frozen in my seat and held on grimly while the engine puttered bravely beneath me. The ram rod straight prairie roads from Calgary through places like Medicine Hat, Moose Jaw, and Regina to Winnipeg was essentially a 1300 kilometre endurance trial. Very little sweeping and swaying through long curves. Mostly just sitting upright and clenching teeth against the cold. I stayed on as long as my body could take it, stopping for nature, snacks or sleep when I couldn’t take any more.

After Winnipeg I was faced with a geographical decision. I could either swerve north of Lake Superior and stay in Canada or swing south into the US around the southern shore of the huge lake. In the end I figured I didn’t have the stamina for what I was certain would be the colder option, and headed south through Warroad and Baudette towards Duluth, Minnesota.

Somewhere in northern Wisconsin my endurance gave up. I stopped outside a combined roadside diner and 2 story clapboard motel and tried to pry myself off the bike. Stiff as a starched boiler suit, I dragged myself up the stairs into the diner and sat staring at the menu. With blue fingers I counted out my money and considered my options. The man behind the counter came over to see what I would like.

“Have you got a room for the night?” I asked.

“Yessir we do,” he said.

There was slight a pause as I contemplated my options.

Finally I said, “Have you got any work around here that needs doing?”

“No son,” he said, “I’m sorry, we don’t.”.

“Okay,” I said, “Could I have a cup tea?”

“Sure,” he said and went off to get it.

There was a bit of delay in the service. I could hear him nattering to what I took to be his wife in the back. I was shivering uncontrollably as I wondered how long it takes to make a cup of tea. In due course he returned and gave me my tea, but kind of hovered, apparently slightly embarrassed. I looked up at him and he said:

“We’d like to give you a room and a meal if that’s okay with you.”

I gazed at him as it took a moment or two for his words to sink in, but I eventually managed to smile and mumble some clumsy words of thanks. He nodded and smiled and went off to get the day’s special. Later, full and warm, I was shown up to a bare room with a single bed and a wardrobe. I lay down and didn’t wake up till dawn.

I rose early and sort of quietly snuck out the front door to my bike. I’d left a note of copious thanks but still felt embarrassed to have been on the receiving end of such generosity.

It was another 600 kilometres to Sault St Marie in Ontario but I was completely wiped again. As night fell I pulled over on the outskirts of town, sat still on the bike for some moments, and then took off my hat and gloves and tucked them inside my jacket to warm them up. Suddenly a beautiful young girl appeared magically beside the bike. She was peering at me.

“Are you alright?” she asked.

I assured her I was, and we chatted for a bit. I mentioned I was looking for a place to stay. She looked up and down the dark empty road as if she was thinking. She turned and looked straight at me, directly into my eyes, and immobilised me.

“I’d really like to take you home, but I can’t.” she said. “I live with my parents and they wouldn’t allow it.”

As I slowly registered what she was saying, I experienced a peculiar combination of sadness and disappointment coupled with suddenly feeling refreshed and invigorated. We chatted some more and she eventually pointed me in the direction of a cheap boarding house. We parted, regretfully, like an established couple of some years standing. She stood there on the side of the road, watching, as I looked back and motored off towards the lodgings.

My budget wouldn’t allow for a meal, but I couldn’t have slept outside. So I got into that room and prepared to pass out. As I was brushing my teeth I glanced up and, possibly for the first time in several weeks, noticed myself in the mirror. I was struck by how gaunt I looked, but also realised I hadn’t had my hair cut for several months. As I stared at my face it seemed I was seeing, for the first time, not a boy but a young man. I began to grin at myself like a complete fool as I clocked that some kind of change had taken place in the course of that summer.

On the last leg, still 1000 kilometres from Sault Ste Marie to Ottawa and then on to Montreal, the weather eased up. I started taking it easy. I could sleep outside again and my budget could give me more leeway in the matter of eating. No major events as I puttered interminably on, but at last the familiar skyline of Montreal hove into view.

And at long last, I found myself pulling into the back driveway where, a year or so ago, I’d hesitantly kicked my ill fated Triumph 500 into life. There was more than one car there and as I entered the back door I realised there was a party taking place. I stepped into the living room and saw a whole gaggle of people sitting and standing around chattering enthusiastically. Then my lovely mum suddenly spotted me (I hadn’t written of course, and there was no internet in those days). She dropped her drink and stepped over some reclining legs and hurled herself at me. I was home after over a year.

It transpired that among the party-goers in attendance was Sarah, a girl I’d known in childhood who had grown up to be a strikingly beautiful young woman. Over the next few days, impaled by her beauty and charm, I hung out with her before she left for France.

2.3. Montreal ‘68

Somehow or other, I guess through the Labour Exchange, I got a job measuring distances between telephone poles. There were six of us working in teams of two. We were issued with orange implements which looked like snow shovel handles attached to a small bicycle wheel. These had little clicking odometers attached and would simply clock up any mileage along which they were pushed. One guy would set the thing to zero at one pole, walk it along in a straight line to the next pole, and read out the number to the other guy who would enter it on to a clipboard. Zero the thing again, march to the next pole, read out the number, enter it on the clipboard, and repeat. Ad infinitum. Day in day out. If it looked like rain, we would sit at drawing boards in a down town office and draw each and every one of those poles on to street plans of the area we’d been surveying. This is probably why I got the job – on the strength of my course in Technical Drawing at High School. You had to place the poles, draw the connecting lines, and enter the precise distances as substantiated by our orange wheelie things. And no smudging….

As luck would have it, the area we were surveying was my old stomping grounds out on the Lakeshore. There were two younger guys I alternated with in the two man measuring teams. One was a slightly pudgey Italian Canadian called Neil. He lived not far from me in the city centre and I used to give him a lift out to the measuring grounds on the 250 Starfire. By this time I was getting cocky on motorcycles again and would throw it around into curves and between lines of traffic. I used to take sadistic delight in hitting about 80 mph and then ducking down suddenly so that the full force of the wind hit Neil square in the face, causing him to shriek and clutch wildly at anything to hold his place. He would curse and punch me hard and painfully in the kidneys but it seemed a small price to pay for the evil pleasure.

In the end, I couldn’t face going back to university again so I left the bike stored in the cellar, hitched to Newfoundland, and caught a plane to Europe.

3. BSA 1968 Thunderbolt 650

Next stop, Prestwick, Scotland. In those days it was cheaper to land there and then hitch down to London, so that’s what I did.

My plan, pure and simple, and notwithstanding the Starfire 250 sitting in the cellar back home, was to buy a bigger British motorcycle and tour the continent.

How I long for the empty-headedness of those long days.

3.1. London ‘68

So the centre piece of this less than brilliantly conceived plan for the year in Europe was to buy the British motorcycle of my dreams and prove to myself once and for all that I could be a proper biker without falling off at every opportunity. The other element of the plan was that I would ship it back to Canada at the end of the year to sell it and cover my costs. In those days you could still make a substantial saving on buying in Canada, even taking airfares and shipping into the equation.

I’d done a lot of research – consisting mostly of drooling over pictures of motorcycles – and the preferred outcome was the BSA A65 Thunderbolt 650 single carb twin. I felt this had all the grandeur and credibility I required but with less of the explicitly murderous edge of the dual carb high-lift cam BSA Lightning or the scary Norton Commando 750. I spent a lot of time mooching around bike shops and drooling even more heavily over the huge shiny beasts “in the flesh”.

My biker friend Alex, who had advised me in the matter of acquiring the Triumph 500, lived near the Angel tube station with a BBC producer called Charlie and a beautiful hippy chick called Kate. I could never quite figure out how their relationships worked, but they seemed to work fine. They were very hospitable and welcoming and Alex didn’t seem to mind that I wanted to pick his brain about motorcycles again.

“You mean a brand new one?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said. I was going to get a brand new man-sized British bike and drive around Europe.

“Sounds like a plan,” he said. But he advised me against getting a twin.

“Twice as many things to go wrong,” he reckoned.

But I already knew a single wasn’t enough. I was hooked on the sound of a British twin, and I didn’t like the visually implied imbalance of only one exhaust pipe. That’s how my mind worked in those days.

I hadn’t brought all my cash with me, thinking it would be more prudent to get to England, open a bank account, and get the money transferred over. What I hadn’t bargained for was the tedious and stuffy old school people and methodologies in English banking. Opening an account was more akin to applying for a job. I had to be interviewed by some stuffed shirt and had to produce references for heaven’s sake. I opted for Barclays – perhaps the stuffiest of the lot and who later achieved international notoriety as the main financiers of apartheid South Africa – because my grandfather Nils banked there and was happy to write a letter on my behalf.

Then I discovered that transfers between accounts, which in Canada took days, in England took months.

By this time I had already decided on the specific machine I was going to go for. It was a beautiful black and chrome Thunderbolt sitting magnificently in state in the showrooms of Harvey Owen on the Walworth Road, South London. I felt I had drooled and dithered long enough and because it was by now 1969 and this was “the last of the ’68 models at the ’68 price”, I foolishly paid a deposit. I didn’t initially think this would be a problem because I thought my grandad, Nils, was loaded and wouldn’t hesitate to lend me the difference.

To my surprise he said, “But how do I know you’ve actually got the money in Canada?” This seemed a fair question coming from the prick I had to deal with at Barclays, but from my own grandad? He eventually agreed to lend me a third of the £300 required on the condition that I secure the rest from other sources. This didn’t seem like much of an offer to me but I set off up to London to see if I could convince anybody else to lend me money.

My first port of call was my cousin Little Henry. If he was taken aback by my querie he didn’t show it and with unstinting generosity immediately agreed to stump up a hundred quid and took me out for yet another Indian meal.

My second port of call was my Canadian friend Debbie from Hudson. She didn’t seem troubled by my request but confessed she didn’t have the funds anyway. “But you know who does? Claire has got a couple of hundred sitting in her account.”

“But she doesn’t really know me,” I responded. “Oh she won’t mind,” said Debs, “She knows me and I know you.” So I thought, okay then and we whiled away the time prior to Claire’s return from work.

As soon as Claire came through the door, Deb leapt up and said “Guess who’s here?” and Claire turned towards me to say, “Oh hi, how nice to see you.” “Yeah,” added Debs, unexpectedly yanking the rug out from under me, “But wait till you hear what he wants.”

There was a moment of awkward silence which I broke, prematurely and, given the rug-yanking, half-heartedly by explaining my predicament. “But how did you know I had the money?” she asked, at which point, following my glance at Debs, I guess she realised. I said “Look, don’t worry, I can get it from somewhere else,” but she simply said, “Just give me a few minutes to think it over.” We all had supper together and did some late hours ouija board and I stopped the night. In the morning Claire was first up. She came to wake me and said, “Sure, I’ll lend you the hundred.” and left to go to work. Still bleary, I didn’t even have a chance to say thank you. I found a cheque on the kitchen table when I got up.

I made my way back to Tunbridge Wells to tell my grandad. “Really?” he said, plainly impressed by my ability to raise finance so quickly, and a week or so later, I set off to Harvey Owen’s to pick up my bike.

When I’d paid the deposit the back room boys had said they needed to “set the bike up”, but I’d asked if I could just hear it and sit on it. They humoured me and wheeled it out of the showroom and into the garage at the back, started it, put it on its side stand, and waved their hands. I got aboard and felt that gentle 400 pound giant bursting with life. A totally gormless grin must have broken out all over my face as I sat there absolutely intoxicated by the sound, the suggestive vibrations rippling up through my body, the smell of warm oil and exhaust, the feel of the handlebars, the hint of power at the throttle, and the dreamy promise of limitless romantic distances to come. I looked up to see the mechanics gawping at me in mild amusement. They probably hadn’t seen a lot of middle class North Americans getting emotional over the machinery they took so much for granted.

On the day of my victorious return to take possession of my iron steed I was shaking with fear and anticipation. As the same mechanics, watching me closely for signs of weirdness, wheeled my bike out into the sunlight on the lane at the back of the shop, my primary concern was that I should at least make it to the end of the lane and out of their sight before I fell off. The only optional extras I had were a small chromed steel luggage rack on the back and similarly chromed “crash bars” on the front of the frame to protect the engine in the (in my view very likely) event of my dropping the bike. I hadn’t even bought a helmet as they weren’t required by law at that time and it seemed an unnecessary expense. I fiddled about lashing my shoulder bag on to the rack, hoping the mechanics would go back to their work inside the garage. As it became evident that they weren’t going to miss this for the world, I got aboard the machine for the second time in both our lives, and kick started. Nearly dizzy with rush after rush of adrenalin, I slowly let out the clutch and wobbled off down the lane. I successfully negotiated my way out on to the main road and set off south towards Tunbridge Wells.

I was deliriously happy. I rode sedately in the glorious sunshine, hearing and feeling that massive thudding engine doing its work without question. By this time in my life I knew enough not to crank the throttle without significant care, attention, and pre-planning but I wasn’t even tempted to race. The machine was so classy, so full of the promise of power, that I was happy to carry on cruising sedately. And it wasn’t just me. Heads were turning all around me as they heard the muted thunder and saw the magnificent black and chrome beast glinting like a massive industrial jewel in the spring air.

I got clear of south London without incident – not bad considering I was driving on the left and stopping regularly to consult my “A to Z”. In due course I appeared outside the front of the flats were my grandparents lived and went up to get Nils. As an investor, he had a keen interest and came down for a look. It was clear that he too was impressed by its stately presence. “Want a ride?” I asked, to which he responded, “I suppose I’d better.”

I started it up again and he climbed aboard, my first passenger. We didn’t go far and I drove carefully, but at one point I goosed the throttle a little harder than I should have and I heard him go “Whoa!” behind me as he clutched my sides and nearly tumbled off the back.

I left him back at the flats and carried on to my auntie Ursula’s at the nursing home where I had work. In the unmarked back lanes I forgot about driving on the left and nearly had a head-on with a car coming out of the Birchfield estate. The old girl driving was freaking as I came to a stop on her side of the road. Gesticulating madly she drove round me and disappeared down the road. I discovered later that she was one of the benefactors of the home. We recognised each other when I was introduced to her as the new Canadian orderly. “Oh of course,” she said, “I can see now why you were on my side of the road….”

Ursula too was impressed by my acquisition. Observing my “western” handlebars, she astutely pointed out, “It’s so much more sensible than those motorcycles with low handlebars that look like they’re racing everywhere. At least you’ll be able to see where you’re going.” She was of course referring to the “clip on” handle bars that the cafe racer boys preferred as they crouched low and chased the ton at every opportunity.

I rode that bike around the Kent countryside and on trips into London whenever my time off and good weather coincided. My relationship with a local girl, Andrea, blossomed as this added dimension joined the blend. Our first major expedition was over the Kentish Downs towards Brighton to visit my funny paralysed friend Andrew who had returned home. We sailed through the spring air like the windblown personification of all motorcycle advertising. She held her arms around me with her hands pushed deep into my jacket pockets where she could reach my nethers.

What else could I ever need? What else need I ever be doing? We cruised down those roads and lanes in a state of grace and perfection.

We also sailed into London and visited my friend Alex to whom I wished to show off my bike and my woman. He had a short admiring toot on the bike but both he and Charlie were clearly more taken with Andrea. After supper they closed round her like vampires to draw whatever sustenance they could. To be fair, Charlie’s ears pricked up when we mentioned the faith healing centre we’d just come from. I could see his TV journalism kicking in as he contemplated the potentiality of this story. I think, in the end, it seemed too tame, but I always wondered what Ursula might have made of a television crew arriving to do a documentary.

Andrea and I rode back in the early hours, under moonlight and through empty city streets and then wide open uncluttered country roads. I was suffused with the flawless endlessness of the moment as she hugged me and gripped my parts and we swung like migrating geese from one long slow curve to another.

It couldn’t last. The next day she went in for her dental procedure and the next time I saw her she had her jaw wired shut and couldn’t speak. Nor would her mother let her leave the house. I’d had to knock on the doors of the grand brick house to see her but I was clearly persona non grata as far as mum was concerned. Andrea was still wired shut when I left Birchfield a week or so later.

3.2. Paris ’69

The day came when, with my worldly goods, a sleeping bag, and a waterproof poncho strapped on to the chrome rack of the BSA, and wearing a pea jacket and a leather jerkin, I said my goodbyes to Ursula and one or two others who happened to be around and chugged off down the winding drive to the main road. I was bound for the Channel ferry at Dover for the shortest sea trip to mainland France. My plan, if you could call it that, was to “see” Paris and then head south in search of warmer weather and travel around Spain, stopping in Gerona where I had a contact who would “almost certainly” offer me some work. As the year progressed, I would then follow the warm weather back up north to Germany and then to Scandinavia where I would explore the homeland of my mother and bask in the midnight sun.

I approached the ferry docks and, after passport control, was waved to the front of the waiting queue of cars and trucks. As the gigantic end of the ship opened up, I was ushered up the ramp, into the cavernous space, and along to the front where I was tucked up close to the side superstructure. I dismounted and watched as the seamen strapped my bike down to lugs in the steel deck, then went upstairs to watch the mystical white cliffs fade into the distance. At about the time the cliffs disappeared, the coast of France appeared in the distance and slowly grew to fill the horizon as we pulled into the landing docks at Calais.

I headed off gingerly, remembering to keep my right shoulder nearest the curb. It was a grey day and nothing struck me apart from the flat land and the straight lines of trees down each side of the road and the fact that, judging by the sign posts, I seemed to be covering a lot of miles in relatively short order. Then it dwned on me that, of course, they were posting in kilometres.

Typically, I had only the vaguest of plans for Paris. My friend Jerome had suggested I look up his ex-sister-in-law whom I’d met a couple of times at his place. After some dodgy moments on the Périphérique and one or two of the frighteningly massive roundabouts, I stopped to buy a city map and ask directions. Although I could get by asking the questions, my school French wasn’t helping much as I tried to fathom what was being said in response. At one point, quite near I thought to my destination, a lady responded to my query by pointing repeatedly down the road and saying, “Tous droit, tous droit.” I naturally assumed she was saying turn right and right again (yes, she was saying, “Straight ahead, straight ahead”) and I was soon lost again. It was near nightfall when I finally found the address. I was confronted by a fierce concierge who looked me up and down disdainfully and informed me that, of course, they were all away on holiday.

S o to Plan B, except that I didn’t have one of those either. As I cruised aimlessly around, I spotted a row of abandoned derelict terraced houses in varying states of collapse. After a bit of foot reconnaissance, I drove the bike up a rough footpath and through a doorless doorway, into a small half roofed room off to the side. I spread out my sleeping bag on the sagging floor and slept the sleep of the sublimely unaware.

In the morning I awoke to the sound of engines and movement outside, then silence. As I got up there was a tap tap at the shutters still in place on the front window. I wasn’t expecting visitors but I opened one of the shutters to see, standing well back in case there was trouble, a fully geared up riot policeman. And arrayed behind him was a phalanx of about thirty similarly dressed policemen all looking my way, and behind them again a row of corrugated snub nose Citroen police vans with wire mesh bolted across their front windscreens.

“Bonjour,” I said to the one nearest me. He asked me what I was doing there. I said I was just getting up, having slept the night. “Is there anybody else in there?” he asked. “No,” I said. He didn’t look as if he believed me and glanced off to his left. I leaned slightly out of the window to follow his glance down the tumbling terrace. There, a couple of doors down, stood a neighbour of whom I’d been totally oblivious. A tiny ancient white haired lady in her kitchen smock was peering out of her ramshackle doorway and regarding me with incriminating suspicion. I can’t have been less surprised than she. I couldn’t have imagined anybody actually making a home in this dilapidated setting, but there she was – clear as day and clearly affronted.

“She reported many people in here last night. There was a lot of noise,” said the policeman. “No,” I said, “only me.” He asked for my passport and, having studied it, concluded I wasn’t a threat and said, “Go. You cannot stay here.” He went back to his men and they all rested their shields and pulled out their Gauloises. I went back into the room, packed the bike, kick started it, and rode out through the front door again.

To my horror, all the cops had thrown away their fags and grabbed their shields and stood braced for what they must have assumed was an armoured charge. I stopped the bike and switched it off to calm all our frazzled nerves. The officer again approached me, more angrily, and I had then to produce papers for my bike. In the end we parted without blows. I looked nervously back as I rode away. The tiny white-haired lady, still standing in the doorway of her precarious façade, glaring fiercely after me, was still plainly the most affronted of all of us.

Heading south from Paris I began to discover that the people, too, warmed. They were much friendlier and much more forgiving of my halting French. I lived on baguette, Camembert, and tinned peaches and slept wherever I could stash myself and my bike away from passing view. I savoured the effortless pace of my motorcycle, the rich aromas of the passing fields, and the generous warmth of the sun whenever it chose to emerge from the clouds.

One night I found myself outside a youth hostel and thought I might fancy a bed just for a change. I could see the rates were cheap, and it was early in the season so there was plenty of room. In fact, I booked in and found I was the only person in the male dormitory. I was half asleep when someone else came in. This was an Arab guy; an Algerian it turned out. He sat down on the bunk next to mind and started chatting. I complied as best I could, drifting off from time to time. At one point I noticed he’d moved over and was sitting on the edge of my bunk. Then I woke with a start when he put his hand on my leg. I shot upright and, without thinking, punched him straight in the face. He recoiled but didn’t seem too upset. He apologised profusely and retreated to a bunk on the other side of the room.

In the morning, presumably feeling remorse, he invited me to go for coffee at a cafe he knew. He said he’d buy me coffee and a croissant. I was feeling a little remorseful too, thinking perhaps I’d over-reacted, so I agreed. We went out and along a few blocks and into a very Arab cafe. There were quite a few men in there smoking and drinking strong teas and coffees. My pal went over to one of the tables and engaged in an Arabic discussion. The men at the table glanced over at me a couple of times, but from that point on my pal totally ignored me. No introductions, no coffee, no croissant. I eventually left wondering what that was all about. I’m guessing he was showing me off to his buddies as the guy he’d shagged last night in the hopes of gaining some kudos points. Who knows?

I simply went back to the hostel, got on the bike, and carried on my charmed journey south.

3.3. Spain ‘69

Somewhere near Perpignan, I encountered a young South African guy. We got to chatting and, as his planning was easily as vague as mine and he was heading for Barcelona, I offered him a lift. He was a blonde surfer type guy who I thought initially was Australian. South Africa hadn’t fully entered my consciousness at the time but he brought me up to date on his views which, in a nutshell, were that “outsiders” had no right to comment on what was happening there. I’d never heard the term “munts” before, as in “You don’t know what it’s like to live with the munts”, as though he was talking about an extraterrestrial species. He was a nice enough guy but even then this part of him sounded ugly, as if he had some kind of ghastly deformity of which he was completely unaware.

As we set off up the winding road into the heart of the Pyrenees, it got colder. Nearing the top of the pass we began to encounter snowflakes, and then it started snowing heavily. The bike ploughed steadily through what became a thick blanket on the road. There was very little other traffic so, for the most part, we were thudding through virgin white. Thick and surprising (I hadn’t expected to encounter snow in Spain) as it was, I wasn’t overly troubled as I’d encountered this sort of thing back home, but my passenger was getting more and more worried. He thought we might get stranded and freeze to death. We reached the border at the top of the pass and went inside to warm up and show papers. Franco’s border guards were as charmless as one might expect. I’d been cultivating a beard but, as my passport photo was bare faced, they ordered me to shave it off. Nor did they invite me in to anywhere there might be hot water. They simply pointed to an outside shed with a cracked mirror over a grotty sink, a fifth of a lump of soap, and a trickle of all but freezing water. I had to borrow a razor from the South African and scraped at my face until I was able to pass muster.

About a kilometre beyond the top of the pass the weather miraculously changed. Suddenly there was no more snow and the land looked as though it couldn’t imagine what might have been happening on the other side of the mountain range. We could at last believe that we were indeed in sunny Spain. We swept down the switchbacks and out into the foot hills and on across the green rolling country till we were knackered enough to pull over by a small forest to park up and camp.

3.4. Barcelona

Later the next day we hit the rambling semi-industrial outskirts of Barcelona and nosed through its mazes and boulevards until we found the Ramblas and parked up.

Neither of us had a plan beyond “getting there” but as we wandered about we came across the bull ring with crowds milling about outside. We decided to see if we could get in and negotiated tickets from a tout standing by the main entrance. The interior of the ring was magnificent, with steep seating (behind a pillar for us as it happened, courtesy of our tout) and an expectant intimacy. The gilded matadors and their ornate support crews paraded decorously to the polite applause of the crowd. The ring cleared except for one matador and a hush descended. Suddenly some wooden doors swung open and a massive shining black bull exploded out of the shadows into the sunlight in the middle of the ring. There was a loud cheer from the crowd as he stood there dazed for a moment. A flick from the matador’s large cape caught his attention and without a moment’s hesitation he charged. The matador stood his ground as the bull crashed past him into the empty space behind the flowing cape. A few more passes like that and, to the cheers of the crowd, the matador strode off court to be replaced by a succession of gloriously dressed mounted picadors and quick banderillos who pranced about the ring like exquisitely balanced circus professionals, but who devoted their skills and attention to stabbing the massive muscles at the back of the bull’s neck. In due course he was bleeding profusely, running from the nose and mouth, and struggling to keep his head up. At this point the matador reappeared with a much smaller cape. He engaged closely with the wounded bull, standing still as the massive creature hurtled around him close enough to brush him with blood and saliva. The bull slowed, taking longer and longer between futile charges, breathing heavily, trying to take stock as his fate closed in around him. In the end he stood still, exhausted, gasping, dripping as the matador pirouetted in front of his glazing eyes with arms raised to the applauding crowd. The matador then drew a slightly bent sword from the cape he had been using, approached the bull front and centre, and, standing poised in front of the bull’s lowered head, took aim with his sword as if he was drawing a bow. A silent pause, then he thrust the sword up to the hilt between the bull’s shoulder blades and leapt back. The bull staggered for a moment, fell to his front knees, and collapsed onto his side. A cheer rose as the matador again raised his arms and, balletically stepping around the ring, acknowledged his adoring audience. A team of horses appeared from the wooden gates and wheeled around at the back of the expired and now forgotten bull. A crew attached chains to his back legs and he was dragged off unceremoniously through the dirt. More crew appeared with rakes to cover even the drag marks which signalled his passing and returned the stadium floor to its pristine undisturbed state.

After a bit of faffing around, the ring went quiet again as another matador took his place in the ring and awaited the thunderous arrival of yet another huge glistening animal bursting with life and energy. An identical routine followed, with the foregone conclusion awaiting all parties at its denouement. As they dragged the second bull away I’d had enough. My South African pal opted to stay so we shook hands, said our goodbyes and I left him there. Outside I felt guilty and ashamed about what I’d been a witness to and, finding my bike, decided to leave the city right away and headed north again to Gerona and San Filieu.

3.5. San Filieu de Guixols

San Filieu de Guixols was a charming little coastal resort with an exquisitely curved beach laid out before a semi-circle of rocky hills sparsely clad in stoney pastures, rock walls, and Mediterranean pine.

The man I was looking for was called Juan de Gris and he was a commercial diver. I’d got his address from an associate of my friend and erstwhile patient Andrew in Brighton. This associate promised to write to Juan to let him know I was coming and to recommend me (on the strength of having met me once) as both a dependable worker and a competent diver. I found the address easily enough, but there was nobody home. It was getting late so I started looking for a place to crash.

From the beautiful little beach I looked up to see a set of abandoned broken down farm buildings on one of the hill sides above the town. As the Mediterranean light began to fade, I headed back up the town’s main road to find a track that led over to the abandonados. The bike ascended the track without any problems and I found myself just within the little gaggle of stone enclosures and parked up. I had a view over the sea and the moon was beginning to splatter its magic over the rippling wavelets. I spread my sleeping bag out on the ground such that I could gaze across the glittering water between a set of crumbling stone walls. Off to my left stood my black and chrome motorcycle; it too reflecting moonlight with a supernatural effervescence. I drifted off to sleep thinking I’d hit upon another intersection of perfection in space and time.

In the morning I woke up to find a large peasant farmer in a rough white shirt and dark waistcoat casually rolling a cigarette and regarding me with mild interest. Equally casually, he had a shotgun tucked under his arm. Fearing some kind of ghastly reprise of the Paris encounter, I said, from my place on the ground, “Buenas dias.” He turned out to be a nice enough guy who seemed to carry his gun around most of the time as he watched over his goats and kept his eye open for edible game. We had a friendly pidgin chat but he concluded by implying I couldn’t stay there as my shiny bike was unsettling his goats. I packed up and headed back into town to see if Juan de Gris had come home.

This time I was greeted at the door by Juan’s blousily exotic blonde French wife. I explained who I was and why I was there and she invited me in for coffee and croissant. Juan himself appeared about twenty minutes later, a large relaxed dark haired man, and joined us at the kitchen table. He said he hadn’t heard anything from anybody in Brighton for about ten years but that, yes, he had some work coming up for which he could use some extra help. There was some new build taking place along the coast and, as it was easier than trying to dig it into the rock, fresh water pipe was to be laid on the sea bed and run up to the shore. He was awaiting confirmation on a contract “mañana”. “Come back tomorrow morning,” he said. On the strength of this I went back down to the beach and checked into a rough looking hotel in one of the back streets.

The room was as spartan as one might expect but the communal shower was fully functional. As I luxuriated under the spray I heard live American soul singing coming from a couple of stalls down. The guy was still singing away as I left to head down to the beach. There I encountered another American soul singer called Winston who began chatting as if he’d known me for years. He and his buddy were touring Europe looking for paying gigs in bars and restaurants as they went. This sounded like such a brilliant plan when compared to my own, and I was full of admiration.

H is buddy Jamahl eventually appeared and joined us but refused to acknowledge or make eye contact with me, even when his friend introduced us. “He thinks you’re a racist,” said Winston, adding, in response to my palpable surprise, “Don’t worry. He thinks all whites are racist.” “They are,” his pal retorted with not a little hostility. In spite of the lop-sidedness of this burgeoning relationship, we later had supper together at the hotel. Winston did most of the chatting but, towards the end of our meal, Jamahl suddenly turned to me and said, “When you look at us do you see black men?” “Uh, yes,” I said. “You see,” he responded, turning to Winston. “Yeah man but that doesn’t mean he’s a racist.” An increasingly volatile discussion then took place between them with me as a muted bystander. I have to say that I felt some sympathy for Jamahl’s position. I hadn’t met very many black people up to that point in my life and I always felt vaguely apologetic and guilty when I did and supposed that this too was a kind of inverse racism. I guessed you had to know somebody for a while before their most obvious characteristics faded into background, and thought, for some reason, of my friend and former patient Andrew whose frozen face I had come not to notice after a while.

At about this time, perhaps prompted by my soul buddies who both sported them, I resolved to grow a moustache. It was difficult keeping up a regular shaving habit on the road anyway, but I had already discovered that the only thing I hated more than shaving was beards. Not only were they unsightly (on my face), they were also itchy and uncomfortable and made sleeping face down – often the best way to rest aching legs – less attainable. I also had a complex about my mouth which I felt too easily gave me away as being undecided, self-conscious, and not having a clue. I also reckoned that having a moustache with a few days of facial growth mitigated against looking slovenly unshaven. With these impeccable principles in place, I left my top lip untouched by a razor for about the next twenty five years.

For the next couple of days I developed a modest routine of checking with Juan to see if the contract had been landed, hanging out on the beach, cultivating my moustache, and sitting in on heated arguments between Winston and Jamahl about whether or not I was a racist.

As enjoyable as the routine was, I was concerned about my depleting funds and one morning levelled with Juan. He confessed that “mañana” could be a couple of weeks away so I asked if I could park my bike in his garage while I went hitching for a week or so. He agreed and, entrusting my beloved steed to his garage and saying farewell to Winston and Jamahl (who ignored me), I set off with, to me, the considerable saving of not having to fuel up from time to time.

It was on this hitch tour that I met a guy by the name of David Monaghan who became a good friend. We hitched together from Zaragotha to Portugal and Sevilla where we sadly parted ways – he went north and I went south east.

3.6. Nice

After a couple of weeks of hitching around Spain and Portugal and gradually realising that my Spanish contact was unlikely to offer me work in anything like the foreseeable future, I fired up the BSA again and headed north and east with the slowly approaching summer. En route I met a young American who was doing the same thing as me. He’d bought a 500 Triumph and was touring Europe prior to shipping the bike back home. We cruised and picnicked together for a while. Then we split as I went east and he went north to Paris.

I swung along as close to the Mediterranean coast as I could. Apart from the industrial blemishes of places like Marseilles, there were bits of coastal road that allowed for gentle breeze-blown riding in the saintly presence of that timeless azure sea. The closer I got to Nice, the more enhanced this experience became as I entered the fabled land of “the Riviera”. Seemingly populated by the world’s most opulent, with enormous sun decked mansions and vast luxury cruisers becoming more and more evident with every bend, the place was clearly intended to serve the rich.

Even though we weren’t rich, I had childhood memories of Nice from the time my family holidayed there in ‘57. As a boy, I’d loved the place. We’d stayed in a rented house on the Rue Gondolphe, well off the designer shopping strips but near enough to walk to the sun kissed immaculate beaches.

This time a cruised along the sea front feeling totally out of place among the Ferraris and Daimlers. At the eastern end of the front there’s a rocky hill and I noticed that there seemed to be human activity up there. I parked up and wandered up and found myself, astonishingly, in the midst of a Communist Party festival!

3.7. Grenoble

I drifted towards Grenoble in search of Sarah who had moved there since I last saw her in Montreal. In Grenoble, I booked into a youth hostel and encountered yet another American. A really charming older (than me) guy who was in the throes of wavering between his life as a semi-pro skier and going back home to “settle down”. I was 21 and wrestling with a similar conundrum, albeit with less urgency. I was relieved to find that he was 27 years old. In the peculiar logic I was able to generate in those days I concluded that, as I was only 21, I had at least another 6 years before I had to worry.

This guy was also the man who introduced me to coffee. I never liked the stuff; always preferring a nice cup of tea – a bit of a tricky preference in France. But he said, “No, really, it’s cafe au lait. You drink it with a lot of hot milk.” and proceeded to potter about the hostel kitchen to produce the most gratifying drink I had ever consumed. Especially after a long bike ride, there was never anything like it for restoration. And thus began my lifelong addiction to the bean. A cafe au lait and a croissant became the staple of my ride-break rituals whenever possible thereafter.

In due course I set about trying to track Sarah down. I eventually found her in her flat near the town centre. She was, of course, with a man – a handsome geezer named Jean Claude who was making a healthy living on the back of the burgeoning French nuclear industry. He was very accommodating and, as he was just on the point of heading out of town on business, he offered me his own flat.

Neat manoeuvre really. No point, therefore, in staying at Sarah’s. He kindly showed me his place and said help yourself to anything.

But later on Sarah came to visit me in that flat and we wavered between consummation and not. I was torn between my lust for her and the trusting generosity of her friend who’d just loaned me his flat. I recall kissing her gorgeous stomach but couldn’t bring myself to try any further advancements. “Un peu timide”, she summarised me towards the end of the evening, and I have to agree. It became one of those eternally re-lived “what if” scenarios that can come to plague one’s life.

In any event, I was running low on cash and had to make a dash for my godfather’s place in Germany in the hope that I might get some work there. After an aching and slightly teary farewell, I set off on the next leg of my purposeless journey.

3.8. Selb

I remember really getting into the rhythm of my bike at this point. It was summer and I only wore a shirt and sandals and swung and swerved along the back roads heading north like the birds. On the straights I could put my feet up on the crash bars. This way I could even put my elbow on my left knee and prop up my head in my left hand whilst holding the throttle in my right. Very relaxing, and stupid.

Around this time I began to notice a slight oddity in the melodious note of the engine. It sounded a bit to me like the slightly metallic sound I used to hear on the Starfire 250. And I noticed the oil was very gradually dropping. Worrying stuff. I would occasionally dismount and crouch beside the engine to listen more closely, but didn’t really know what I was doing.

At one point a black US military guy pulled up beside me on a totally impressive Lightning – the dual carb, high performance version of my bike. We exchanged face splitting grins and pulled over for a chat. It turned out that he, AJ, lived not far away on one of the US bases and invited me over. He said he had some tools and could have a look at my engine. This we did, but, despite having a nice time swapping stories, he couldn’t do much more than check the points and the timing. In those days European petrol (gasoline) was considered inferior to British and high compression engines sometimes suffered from pre-ignition or “pinking”. AJ managed to eliminate the pinking but was as puzzled as me about the hint of metallic sound we could both detect.

After a snack and a beer I said my thanks and carried on towards Selb.

My godfather, Philip, lived in a massive place called “Schloss Erkersreuth” on the north side of town. I cruised in what I considered to be a gentle manner through the town but noticed I’d picked up a police tail. I combined keeping an eye on my rearviews and looking out for Schloss Erkersreuth. I had the sense that the police were about to pull me over when I spotted the drive and turned suddenly in to a spacious gravel yard with low-lying out buildings to my left and an enormous pile of a mansion on my right.

I stopped by an imposing stone staircase leading up to the front door of the pile and realised the police had pulled in behind me and were getting out of their car and coming my way. In front of me what looked like a mechanic appeared out of a side door, dressed in a boiler suit and wiping his hands. A strong, competent looking man, he looked at me and then at the two policemen approaching behind me.

All four of us were now standing around my silent bike and a discussion in German ensued. The police wanted to see my papers and generally be a nuisance. Seeing my complete bemusement, the mechanic guy asked me in English who I was and what I was doing. I said I was looking for my godfather and there was a pause. I couldn’t understand the German, but I had a sense that the mechanic told the police to piss off because they immediately got back in their car and drove off.

It turned out that the mechanic was Karl, Philip’s all-purpose handyman and fixer. He motioned me up the staircase and took me inside the cavernous main entrance and up another flight, across a broad landing, and into a fairly modest kitchen. And there, standing in the sunlight streaming from the window behind her, stood Lavinia, Philip’s attractive wife and, notionally, my godmother.

Philip Rosenthal was a very large man in just about every respect you could imagine. As a boy and his godson, I had admired and revered him for his brash and confident manliness. Not fat, but tall, broad shouldered, strong, and master of the respected Rosenthal china factory down the road, he was always loud and restless. Now, emerging out of his home office behind a massive but hidden leather clad door set into a leather clad wall, seemed reasonably pleased to see me. I’m sure I had written that I was coming but he had probably not seen it or forgotten. He and Lavinia both came outside to see my motorcycle. “My god, it’s huge!” said Lavinia, to which Philip immediately responded, “Ach, it’s not so big.” but I could see he was impressed by it’s shining presence.

We had lunch and talked about my family until the children appeared (I think there were three or four) accompanied by the au paire Agnetha. We all trooped out into the massive back garden and kicked a football around.

I had written to ask about work in the factory and raised the topic again. I believe it was Lavinia who actually called up and arranged an “interview”. She took me down the next morning and escorted me to an office were she translated for a panel of three white-coated managers. I got the job and Lavinia then drove me round to a block of flats and introduced me to a large one bed en suite room with a bright, airy, wide open window over looking green countryside and a bit of the town off to the right. “Will you be alright here?” she asked and I said, yes, I would. She briefed me that I was to appear at the factory gate to sign in next morning when I would be shown my place of work. We drove back up to the schloss where I loaded my worldly goods onto the bike and rode back down to the flats.

During the next several weeks I commuted from the flats to the factory on the motorcycle, with weekend forays up to the schloss for meals and family life. I was employed removing hot china plates from massive internal railway carts fresh from the kilns, stacking the plates on smaller trolleys, and pushing the rail carts back along the circuit and out of the way in readiness for the next one being pushed up to our unloading/stacking station. My colleagues were Italian and Turkish immigrants with smatterings of english and plentiful hand gestures and broad smiles. I actually came to enjoy the entire process.

Family life included mixing with Agnetha and the kids out in the back garden, downstairs in the indoor swimming pool, and in and out of their various bedrooms and play areas. Philip was rarely present but Lavinia was usually on hand in the kitchen preparing food and smoking the occasional cigarette. On one occasion Philip appeared in shorts and runners and challenged me to a run. This was an extension of something he’d usually done whenever he visited our house when I was a small boy in Canada. The custom was that we would charge off together and then, as I lagged behind, I would eventually peel off and trudge home again. This time we charged off and I, hardened by years of running for the school, set my own pace and Philip lagged behind. About halfway to the Czech border a car pulled up beside me with Philip on the passenger side. He said, “I think I’ve pulled a muscle and I’m going back. You carry on to the border and I’ll see you back at the house.” – and off he zoomed back the way we had come. I dutifully ran on until I could see armed guards preparing to halt me and turned and jogged my way back to the schloss. Philip never offered to take me running again.

Factory life suited me as I accumulated funds and ate and slept well. This was my first exposure to duvets, and I loved the comfort and simplicity of this European standard. But spring was swelling into summer and I began to get restless. Agnetha had taken an interest in my pointless journey and mentioned friends she had that I might like to visit on my way north. One was in Berlin and another was in Malmo, Sweden. She said she would write to them.

At the factory I’d taken to jumping over a low wall and dropping down about 6 feet into the car park below where my motorcycle was parked. This precluded the interminably slow filing out the main gate where everybody else was heading. At one point I was approached by a German fork lift driver who angrily opined that I shouldn’t be doing this. I said something like “Bist du ein vorarbeiter?” (are you a foreman? – I knew he wasn’t) and jumped over the wall. A few days later I was approached by, I believe, the same white-coated trio who had “interviewed” me and was informed that I mustn’t jump over the wall. They were horrified when I, in my spring fever, responded by announcing that I was quitting. They may have had some sleepless nights thinking Lavinia might appear and demand an explanation, but I jumped over the wall one last time and packed for the next leg of my journey.

3.9. Berlin

The road to Berlin in those days was a “protected” corridor through East Germany. Plenty of traffic coming and going but at no point were there any identifiable points of access or egress. Just one long run from the East / West border to the sanctified island of capitalism in its sea of communist hostility. The western half of the city itself seemed like any other major western centre of commerce and culture – hustling and bustling along wide boulevards and narrower back streets, full of gaudy advertising and neon light extravaganzas. I motored through sedately, just chugging around, rubber necking, until I spotted a news agent next to a cafe and pulled over for a map and a coffee. Sitting in the sun I managed to pin point the address that Agnetha had given me and slowly wound my way through the city to find her friends Marietta and Hans. A very welcoming couple, they immediately took me in and offered to show me around the city. We went clubbing and to the cinema (Hans was a doctor and was always being offered free tickets). We picnicked at the complex of fresh water lakes on the outskirts, the only bit of nature to which besieged West Berliners had unfettered access. And of course, “the wall”. It would pop up here and there, creating unexpected cul de sacs, hard and uncompromising in its thirty foot high grey splendour.

Whenever I was out and about on my own I would be drawn to that wall – most specifically to Checkpoint Charlie where I could stand at a viewing platform and gaze across no man’s land to the concrete pill boxes and towers on the other side. More often than not, I would find myself the target of bored East German border guards’ unflinching binoculars. Who knows what they might have been thinking as they watched western tourists gazing languidly across their patch of field of fire.

After a few days I headed for that checkpoint again – this time to pass through. I’d discovered that you could pick up a ferry to Sweden from Rostock to the north and thought, “why not”. It felt heady and peculiar as a succession of fully armed and intense looking border guards went through my documentation and, despite themselves, stole admiring glances at my motorcycle. After all the checks and double checks, breaking through to the other side felt like stepping through Alice’s looking glass. On the other side of “the wall”, the streets were virtually empty, complete even with the ghost town touch of grass and weed shoots appearing through cracks and between cobble stones. Pedestrian traffic too was meagre compared to the western side. What there was would inevitably stare as I motored gently past. I couldn’t see many welcoming cafes and very few identifiable shops, but, in stark contrast to next door, there were absolutely no hoardings or neon bric a brac. When I stopped outside a tiny bar I was struck too, as soon as I switched the engine off, by the silence. You could actually hear bird song and snatches of human conversation. Occasionally a tram would come by, or maybe a lorry, but apart from those periodic intrusions, the sound of internally combusting civilisation seemed a distant memory.

I carried on out the north end of the city and into lush and even less mechanised countryside. The road surfaces were in need of repair but, as there was hardly any traffic, I was free to use as much or as little of the surface area as I liked. It was truly a green and pleasant land. It was as if I was in a massive conservation area – an enormous world heritage site whose walls the forces of western consumer madness had thus far failed to breach. Not a little conscious of the irony of riding my own form of consumer madness through this seemingly unblighted countryside, I nevertheless felt a harmony with a less frantic pace of life, a less frenetic urgency to feed an ever over-gorged but always insatiable “market”. I encountered the odd ancient tractor whose driver would appear shocked out of deep reverie as I passed and had to stop for a herd of cattle crossing the road without any obvious sign of human intervention.

I recall one or two trucks and a bus but am pretty certain I didn’t see a car. Mostly it was just open dilapidated road. At one point I encountered a couple of young guys on a sputtering pre-war BMW, complete with trailing link front suspension. They waved and we pulled both bikes over and stopped for a chat. I had no German and they had very little English so our exchange was limited to admiring each other’s rides and swapping some bread and cheese and good German sausage. With handshakes, hugs, and slaps on the back we re-mounted and went on our respective ways.

3.10. Rostock

On the outskirts of Rostock I re-encountered largely empty weeded streets with few overt signs of activity. I kept my eyes peeled for ferry signage, but couldn’t readily identify any. I simply kept heading north and then for the sea when I began to see bits of it. I arrived at the ferry port just as a boat was leaving and discovered, at the massive harbour gates, that I would have to wait several hours for the next one. I parked up by some broad sweeping steps leading up to what looked like a government office and rummaged through my baggage for a book. I sat down on the steps and gazed across the road at the harbour. Like the rest of this world behind the wall, it seemed all but abandoned. Up the road off to my left, at the end of the quayside but outside the heavy steel harbour fencing, I saw a small crowd of people who appeared to have been waving to the departing ferry. They were slowly dispersing as I settled down on the steps and immersed myself in my book. Perhaps 10 or 15 minutes later I heard a sound by my bike and looked up. I was startled to see a small crowd formed in a loose semi-circle around me and my bike. In complete silence they stood there and stared at both of us as if we’d landed from off planet. And behind the semi-circle another one was forming as more of the crowd returning from waving to the ferry slowly gathered loosely around the smaller inner circle. Nobody was smiling. They simply stared, first at my bike, then me, then my bike, then me again, quietly muttering in small sub-groups. After some futile attempts at smiling and engaging, I began to get nervous and paranoid and it seemed to me that an atmosphere of menace was slowly building.

Just as the tension was becoming unbearable (for me) and I was wondering how to extricate myself, a couple of police motorcycles arrived with lights flashing, ploughed their way through the loose gaggle, and began waving everybody away. As the people slowly dispersed the police turned their sullen attentions to me, gesturing for passports and documentation and going through the meagre baggage lashed on to the bike’s luggage rack. Keeping my papers, they mounted up and indicated I should start up and follow. They led me through steel gates into the dockyard and to a grim building at the quayside. We parked up and I was led indoors, behind a counter, and into a back room full of filing cabinets and desks. They dumped my papers on to a desk and showed me into yet another room. This room was windowless and furnished with a bench. Without any attempts at communication they then simply left the room and locked the door. I waited there staring at the grey walls (I didn’t even have my book) for two hours until the next ferry arrived, at which point they unceremoniously unlocked the door, stuffed my papers into my hands, showed me to my bike, and pointed to the ferry boat embarkation area.

On the boat I got talking to a British commercial traveller, looking, even then, to flog western consumerism into the eastern block. He happened to spot that I was wearing a modest sheath knife on my belt. “Good lord,” he said, “Good job you didn’t get picked up by the police. They would have locked you up double quick.” I guessed I should count my blessings…

3.11. Malmo

The ferry took me to, I believe, Trelleborg in Sweden, the homeland of my mother. From there I travelled up the main road to Malmo.

Malmo had a lovely stretch of beach not far from cafes and mini-markets and I spent some time lying in the sun, recuperating from my travels, and having the odd coffee. I had been given another contact here by Agnetha, but when I knocked on the poor woman’s door she refused to open it! Apparently she’d seen me getting off my bike, and I probably hadn’t shaved for a few days….

At one point, after a bit of lolling on the beach, I came back to the bike and found a couple of guys nosing around and admiring it. It turned out that they were Austrians and travelling around in a tough looking suped up Mustang. We mooched about together for a few days (they were sleeping on the beach too) and watched the beautiful girls strut their stuff. They even went to see the woman who wouldn’t open the door and convinced her that we weren’t murderers and she came to the beach once or twice herself. By way of exchange they took me to see a contact of theirs, a beautiful woman who startled my heart. Her name was Lillian Rittri, a name I always remembered because she was so beautiful and her name sounded so poetic.

Also around this time I encountered some Swedish hell’s angels. Inevitably we started discussing the pros and cons of bikes and I happened to mention the slight metallic tone I was still hearing in my engine note. To my surprise they offered to take it to their workshop for a proper look. I said “sure” and followed them to their club house. In the blink of an eye, they had the head and barrels off and were studying the cylinder linings.

“Look,” they said and showed me two parallel groves running the length of the left hand side of both sleeves. It appeared that the circlips holding the gudgeon pins (fixing the pistons to the connecting rods) in place had been left out on one side of each piston. The pins had gradually worked their ways sideways and had been lightly scoring the inside of the cylinder sleeves. Very very poor show for BSA quality control!

The guys discussed what might be the best thing to do and, as the bike was still under warranty, they decided to take me to see a bonafide BSA dealer up the road in, I think, Lund. As four or five angels were sorting themselves out to go (I was going to go on the back of somebody’s chopper) a non-angel pal of theirs showed up. Not only was this pal not an angel; he was also riding a Honda!!!

This was a total disgrace and the angels gave him a severe ribbing. However, he came along for the ride with us to Lund, and in the course of this ride, he showed us what that bike could do! He nipped back and forth among us, shot ahead, weaving in and out of traffic, then braking hard to get us alongside again, only to shoot away again. None of the angel bikers could keep anywhere near him. The guy was quite tall and seemed to have his knees up by the handle bars and had to hunch to stay on board, but there was no doubting his abilities or the performance of that bike.

W e stopped somewhere en route and I took a closer look. It was the now legendary Honda 450 Black Bomber. That short stroke twin came to mark the beginning of the end for British motorcycle dominance. The guy patiently explained all the ways in which the engineering and finishing (let alone the performance) was superior to anything produced in the west.

“Look at the crank case,” he said. “It splits horizontally. No leaks!” We glanced briefly at the bikes we’d parked up in the lay by, all gently dropping tiny droplets from their vertically split cases. And, as we were on our way to sorting out a glaring production problem on my BSA, it was tough for me to counter his arguments. Even the hell’s angels were finally at a loss for words. They couldn’t even comment on the silly pressed steel silencers because the guy had already replaced those with shorties, which sounded Grand Prix heavenly!

It was also at this time that I heard first news of an absolutely unheard of 4 cylinder motorcycle – the now ubiquitous Honda 750! This just didn’t seem possible at the time. I and the hell’s angels didn’t actually believe the rumour until we began to see posters. Those 750s didn’t look subtle. Honda slapped four separate pipes and silencers on them just to emphasise the point. But they looked super cool and we could imagine the sound, especially with the silencers replaced. It all added to the vaguely depressing sense that British bikes were going to be the uncontested kings of the road for not much longer.

The dealer in Lund was a very nice guy but couldn’t do any work on the barrels without referencing back to BSA in the UK. So for the next few days I alternated with hanging out on the Malmo beach with Lilian Rittri and the Mustang boys and going to outdoor biker parties in the nearby forests with my angel buddies.

A couple of days later we learned that BSA wouldn’t let the Lund dealer do the work without breaching the warranty, so he gave us a couple of circlips and all we could do was include them in the reassembly of the engine and hope for the best. And, apart from a little bit of oil consumption, the bike performed flawlessly until I got it back to the BSA factory in England. Even that irritating metallic note was gone.

As I was packing up my bike on my last day at the beach, a couple of girls came over and asked if I was an “easy rider”. I hadn’t a clue what they were talking about, but apparently there was a new film out by that name and it was taking the youth of the western world by storm. I didn’t see it until about 3 years later.

3.12. Stockholm 1

As I headed out across country towards Stockholm, I was struck by how similar the landscapes seemed to Lawrentian Canada. Lakes and forests; rivers and foothills. Miles and miles of it. A particularly long stretch of coastal lake alongside Lake Vattern. Much more freedom in terms of stopping and snoozing. But not much detailed memory. Just sweeping bends, grand vistas, and gorgeous warm summer air.

I was looking for Daniel and Elisabet with whom I’d worked at the hospice/care home in England, but first I went into Stockholm itself to park up and wander around. There were always hippies in the parks in those days so I was often in good company as I slept out. Loved the old town – Gamla Stan – and all the bridges and islands of the beautiful archipelago.

But Daniel and Elisabet lived in Storvreta, near Upsala so I headed yet further north to see if I could track them down.

After some directions from helpful citizenry, I navigated myself into a sort of gravel compound with clapboard buildings along two sides. I switched off and dismounted and looked up to find myself staring into the vivid blue eyes of Daniel, with a phalanx of family arrayed behind him, all curious to see the source of the motorcycle sounds. It took a few moments for him to clock who I was, but within minutes I was in the bosom of that family, eating and drinking and telling stories. I was hooked, and stayed over a week. At various points Elisabet turned up as well. She was working in a local hospital and living in Upsala.

Daniel’s dad was a big burly guy and, apparently, a pastor of some standing. His mum was small, nervous, and constantly emitting short intakes of breath to indicate the affirmative, but she was an endearing woman who seemed to keep everybody going with interminable flows of healthy food and drink. It turned out that the compound was also a sort of hostel for wandering christians. There was a young bearded American guy staying there who talked about hitching over to Finland where he knew some people. He (David) and I began to hatch a plan to hitch over there together.

As I had in Spain, I entrusted my motorcycle to an empty garage. Daniel promised to look after it until I got back.

3.13. Finland & Norway

Although technically, as I’d left the bike back in Upsala, not really a part of the Motorcycle Diaries, it always felt very much a part of the same trip. We got the ferry from Stockholm to Turku, sailing across a clear blue sea which gradually became cluttered with more and more islands; so many islands I was instantly transported back to the Thousand Islands in the St Lawrence River. Every island seemed to hold so much promise that, as we drifted by, I ached to stop at each one.

We landed at Turku and set off on the main road towards Helsinki. We turned south near a place called Vilikkala and looked up David’s friend. We found her with a bunch of other young people who seemed intent on spending the summer loafing in the sun by the endless lakes and rivers. They all spoke English and seemed to savour the chance to exercise it. We smoked dope, ate and drank, and spent time sweating in various wood-burning saunas. We’d sit in there as long as we could, then leg it for the nearest body of water and flop in. Glorious. The endless midnight sun kept us going for as long as we might wish.

I encountered yet another American, a girl who had been staying locally in order to learn Finnish. I was hugely impressed with her evident fluency and she and I hatched yet a further plan to hitch north, skirting the Gulf of Bothnia to get over to the west coast of Norway. A great trip. Hitching is always easier with a girl and she was able to charm and chat away with the drivers such that we scored the odd free meal or coffee.

Not so easy in Norway where neither of us could engage, but we had rides aplenty and made good progress across to Trondheim and then on down along that glorious west coast.

Finally in Oslo, I was profoundly struck by Vigeland, the sculptor’s park. Apparently Gustav Vigeland spent the years between 1924 and 1943 creating over 200 sculptures in this one setting! Working in bronze, granite and wrought iron, the man clearly had a vision and a daily routine to serve it. I imagined him setting off each morning with a packed lunch – to work in that beautiful setting, knowing his work would outlive him by centuries.

3.14. Stockholm 2

B ack in Stockholm I went to the northern suburbs in search of Jonathan Howard, a friend of my parents. He was gobsmacked, particularly as my parents had written to him to ask if he had seen me. I hadn’t been in touch since telling them I was setting of through Checkpoint Charlie to pass through East Germany. They thought I might have been arrested and sent to a gulag somewhere. My bad.

In the full Swedish summer I swapped between hanging out with the Upsala people and some Finnish girls in a tower block in Stockholm. Upsala was all about swimming and partying in the forests and lakes under the midnight sun. The quality of that light is other-worldly. In the city I slept chastely on the girls’ balcony and smoked up with acquaintances in the parks overlooking the waterways. But all things must pass and I eventually got back on the bike to ride to Gothenburg and the ferry back to England.

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3.15. Back to England

On the ferry I met a woman from Bridgewater in Somerset. She was ferrying a little herd of ponies from Sweden for her enterprise in Bridgewater. I never saw the ponies. They were below decks in a truck, but she offered me a spare bunk in her cabin for the duration of the crossing.

Ulrich n Babs ?

Monaghan ??

BSA Factory

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3.16. St John’s ‘70

So the 650 was at the BSA factory who promised to ship it and I was back in Montreal. I didn’t fancy the idea of riding the 250 to Newfoundland to continue my erratic higher education, so I flew to St John’s.

For the first week or two I stayed in a boarding house in central St Johns, but then I bumped into my friend Cal from university. He had found a flat with his girlfriend Anne out on the Portugal Road, so I moved in with them. We commuted from there to university in a rusty old Ford Econoline van he’d procured.

In due course, my big beautiful BSA Thunderbolt arrived from England in good shape and beautifully crated by the boys at the BSA factory. Cal and Anne and I went down to the harbour shipping depot to pick it up in the van. It was an emotional reunion for me and we unpacked it with care outside the depot and rolled it into the back of the van. Outside the front door of our flat I cleaned and polished it up and poured in lubricants and fuel. Cal looked on enviously as I kick started that machine and it sputtered and purred into life. Clambering aboard was just like the first time back at Harvey Owen’s on the Walworth Road, except that now I was reasonably confident and comfortable and roared off like like an industrial knight. This was before winter had set in and the roads were clear and the air was still warmly enveloping. The bike and I became inseparable for several days as I re-discovered those old pleasures.

My other bike, the 250 Starfire which I’d left in Montreal the year before when I left for Europe, appeared a few weeks later, courtesy of my father and brother, who’d crated it and shipped it with equal care. Cal and I again went down to the harbour but this time to the railway station at the southern end. The little blue and white bike was nowhere near as impressive as the Thunderbolt but it was still a gem and looked good stuffed into the hall back at the flat.

As winter came on I carried on riding the 650, freezing as I rode through snow and ice, driving slowly and carefully, refraining from ever touching the front brake. Not quite the same experience as blasting down warm roads on sunny summer days, but it was transport and gave me independence of movement and a certain amount of cool. In fact, I think it was the bike that first attracted the attention of women to whom I might find myself drawn.

3.17. Carol

The first of these was a lissome dark haired blue eyed beauty I first met hanging out with a fellow student called Gus. Gus was a maritime champion wrestler for the university whom I’d known through a guy called Earl Pike, a former Doyler who also wrestled for the university. Earl knew I’d wrestled at High School and urged me to come and try out for the university squad. Unfortunately, the guy in my weight class was Gus and I could see at a glance that I was never going to make it to the first team. Gus was very softly spoken (I often couldn’t understand what he was saying) but had massive shoulders and arms which spoke volumes. He earned spare cash as a bouncer at university Student Union functions. He introduced me to Carol at one of these functions. I was immediately taken with her, and she’d already seen my bike so there was a certain amount of chemistry. A day or so later I checked with Gus as to what his intentions might be and he said, as near as I could make out, “It’s all right. I don’t mind.”

Shortly thereafter I offered Carol a ride on my bike. What could she say but “okay”? I took her down the Portugal Cove Road and into our luxury flat. She didn’t seem put off by either the flat or Cal and became a regular visitor. It turned out she was a nurse at the General Hospital and not a student at all. She lived in the towering nurse’s residence, a fabled building during my time at Doyle because of its copious human reproductive potential.

This meant she had to be summoned to a reception area on pick up and returned before allotted hours at set down. At the beginning of our relationship this created an interesting frisson, but became a bit wearing as I struggled to achieve consummation. Carol eventually agreed to an over-nighter on the condition that I didn’t “try anything”. This too had its frissons but, again, over time, became a problem as my hard wiring battled to achieve its sordid genetic ends.

After a few sleep-overs of dizzying fumblings and embraces and misguided ejaculations I got pompous and said “this can’t go on”. It did of course, until, in the course of one night of particularly intense wrestling, I managed to remove that source of both tantalising rapture and suffocating frustration – her skimpy panties. With this flimsy technical barrier out of the way she succumbed and I was able to achieve my wicked evolutionary purpose and we became lovers of an intensity I could hitherto only imagine. All my previous immersions in the wonders of physical intimacy with the female of the species had seemed urgent and fleeting, with no time to build up the familiarities and soft sub-routines which make longer term mating the holy grail that it is. Her gentle unresisting white body became like a home to me. I was always wanting to go back and couldn’t get enough of it. Sometimes, picking her up at the nurse’s residence, it took all my will power not immediately to drag her into a dark corner and explode into her. She quite clearly sensed this and would tease me in the lobby with glimpses of thigh or breast and on the bike with surreptitious gropings until we got back to the flat where she would get her come-uppance in spades. When she wasn’t on duty I would never get to the campus to pursue studies, let alone do any “home work”. When we weren’t in bed we were on the bike, touring the coast roads and the bays and the fishing villages with only the occasional foray into town or to one of the new shopping malls for essential purchases.

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Regrettably, Carol didn’t smoke weed and nor did she appear concerned or interested in the cultural upheavals taking place at the time. As evidenced by this sorry journey through a squandered life, I was (and am) useless in terms of getting properly to grips with the underlying issues of the day and playing any meaningful part in resolving them, but I was nevertheless overwhelmed by a residual anger and bitterness as the panoply of injustices continued to be rolled out at every level in front of me. My two years of wandering had at least clued me in to some of this. It all seemed to conspire against my ardour in exploiting her lovely white body and I could feel myself drifting away and, by the time I was getting ready to go home for the summer, our relationship was on its last legs.

3.18. Quentin

For reasons which now escape me, it was arranged for my youngest brother Quentin to fly out to visit me. When he arrived there was still snow on the ground and I had to go to the airport to pick him up on the motorcycle. He arrived, skinny and bouncing on the balls of his feet with blonde hair straggling into his blue eyes. I watched him step into the arrivals area and felt an unexpected rush of love. At twelve years old he was a good ten years younger than me. He and his even younger sister sometimes seemed like a different family altogether. They were both blonde and airy Scandinavians like their mother whereas the rest of us were more dark and brooding Swiss like our father.

We, the elder ones, had a default feeling that these two were blessed in so many ways. Apart from being taller and more beautiful, they also seemed to benefit from a more relaxed upbringing at the hands of parents now well experienced in the ways of bringing up children. Parents who seemed to me to be going through a golden age of their own, also seemed happier to let these two find their own way to and from experiences and to draw their own conclusions.

All this was rapid reeling through my mind as he bounced across the airport lounge towards me, smiling shyly. We hugged and, taking his duffel bag off him, I apologised for the transport he was about to experience. He didn’t seem troubled and, as I strapped his bag on to the luggage rack, he donned his winter jacket and the spare helmet. I cautiously navigated our way over the frozen ruts and troughs of the car park and then on to the road home, with only the occasional burst of speed where a short stretch of straight smooth surface might appear.

Nor did he seem troubled by the bare-bones impoverished life style he encountered back at the flat and fit in quite nicely. Ray and the American girl had moved out so he had his own small room at the end of the bike-stacked hall and was free to join us in nonsensical discussions in the kitchen or our bedrooms or to retire for a bit of peace and reading on his own. It wasn’t always easy to take him places because I couldn’t always use the bike. If it was particularly wintry I would have to hitch hike into university standing on the road outside our front door.

Sometimes I used to bring him in to classes and introduce him to my professors and fellow students and he would listen in politely to the presentations and Q & A. We would go to the canteens and coffee shops and occasionally pop down to the harbour and have free-wheeling and inconclusive chats about the meaning and/or purpose of life as we strolled purposelessly about. But sometimes he would opt to stay at the flat and wander off through the forests and around the lakes or even up to the baloney shop as he saw fit.

In the evenings friends might appear with a bit of grass and I recall feeling quanderised as the joint came round my way with Quentin sitting next to me in the loose circle. It seemed rude and churlish and high-handed to bypass him without comment, so I would offer him a puff. My recollection is that he politely declined, but my sensations of guilt were compounded by feelings of profound paranoia I was encountering at the time. I couldn’t seem to get high in the old unfettered and happy way I used to. There always seemed to be dread implications, possibly brought on by all the talk of police busts and secret informers which seemed so rife at the time. Perhaps too it was all the darkness brought on by the incessant horrors of what we, the west, were inflicting upon the poor people of Viet Nam. It seemed a vicious and conspiracy ridden world, only the very tips of which we were ever able to glimpse.

But Quentin was a good companion, a pleasure to have around, and my friends thought he seemed mature beyond his years and liked him a lot. It was a sad emotional moment for me to see him bobbing back into the departure area at the airport, looking slight and vulnerable. Years and years later I mentioned to him that I felt I might have neglected him but he generously reminded me that no, quite the contrary, I had taken him around the town and in to my classes and generally included him in whatever was happening and that he had nothing but warm memories of his visit.

3.19. Jennifer n Deb

In the course of my studies and wanderings about the university I was struck time and time again by some of the beautiful young and not so young women I encountered. In particular, I began to notice two physically different but similarly lively and vivacious young women, each of whom always seemed to be at the centre of some crowd or other. They were both slim and beautiful, but one was shorter, blonde, and generously busted. The other was raven haired and much taller, with long arms and legs and broad shoulders. They didn’t dress in any way to accentuate their natural beauty, but simply in jeans and sweatshirts in the laid back style of the day. I noticed them separately and found myself drawn to them for subliminal, inexplicably connected reasons. The busty one was usually in the company of a large bear of a man who was reputed to be one of the more politically active on campus. The taller one was usually in the company of a gifted musician who seemed to have his finger on the pulse of all the local counter-cultural happenings.

In the late spring of that year I was preparing to ride my motorcycle home to Montreal. In a typically pretentious way I’d named my bike “Crow, the poet” (hey, it was black and produced cadence) and hand painted it in spidery white on the side panels. In an effort to reduce costs I put up a notice in the student union saying “Crow the poet has one spare seat going to Montreal” with a contact phone number. A few days later I was doing some shopping in a grotty mall not far from the campus. I returned to my bike to find, in perhaps one of the most pleasurable first encounters of my life, both these women sitting together on the tarmac and leaning back casually against my bike. They were yakking away and didn’t even notice me as I first approached and I stood there for a moment, awkwardly holding my shopping. They eventually looked up and clocked me. “Hello”, they said without getting. “Are you Crow the poet?” “Er, no,” I said, feeling even more pretentious, “the bike is.” “Oh,” they said, glancing at each other and absorbing this subtle distinction. “Well,” said the busty one, “are you and the bike going to Montreal?”

It turned out that they both wanted to go to Montreal but hadn’t yet decided who should get priority. They introduced themselves as Jennifer (the busty one) and Deborah (the tall and lissome one) and I discovered that they were in fact sisters and the whole puzzle of the inexplicable subliminal connectedness fell into place. They invited me back to their house which was just around the corner. Their place was actually their family home but Mom and Dad and younger sister had gone to Toronto where Dad’s career had taken them. This left them and an older brother, Herb, in charge and, of course, free to party and smoke dope and whatever else seemed a good idea at the time. It was a big house with plenty of space. Herb seemed to have taken over the ground floor while the girls had taken over the top floor and it was up there they led me. We had a few puffs and listened to music and chatted about life and the universe. Jen was the elder and seemed to have a little bit of authority associated with her seniority and, although they said they were going to mull it over for a few days, by the time I left the house it seemed clear to me that it was she who was most likely going to be my passenger.

In the days that followed I would occasionally bump into them and was introduced, piecemeal, to their various circles. Jen’s bearded bear of a man, Andy, was, unsurprisingly, immediately suspicious, brusque, and dismissive and would go to great lengths to ignore me completely even when I was standing in front of him. Strangely, for such a big man, he had a clear high pitched voice almost completely devoid of timbre which gave the impression that he was complaining most of the time. Deb’s musician, Brian, was another story. A relaxed and confident guy, he hung around the university like an old pro but, it transpired, he wasn’t even a student. I was in awe of his guitar playing and his front for getting up and performing in front of people. Although he was clearly an outsider, he nevertheless seemed to host musical events at will in the various campus venues. Single-handedly, he imported John Hammond, the New York city blues player (son of the guy who discovered Bob Dylan) who appeared miraculously in the Student Union. Brian eventually found his way into acting and, many many years later, starred in the cult sci-fi series “Lexxus”.

As it became more and more apparent that Jen was going to make the trip, my non-relationship with Andy suffered further while my relationship with Brian matured. Andy had a tough time ignoring me more than he had from the outset, but that didn’t stop him trying. His voice would get even more strident as he spoke over me at every opportunity. But the die was cast and the preparations (such as they were) for the expedition were inexorably under-way.

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Paint the flat with petrol

xxxx

3.20. Montreal ’70

Jen and I were finally loaded up and on our way. On one of those heaven sent sunny spring days we motored up the Trans Canada like migrating birds. As we travelled stretches of road familiar to me from previous hitch hiking expeditions I felt twinges of syrupy nostalgia rise up through my chest, adding to an already heady mix of emotions as I carried off this woman, away from her city and into an unfettered future. She didn’t seem fazed by my routine of sleeping rough wherever nightfall found us and we set up our first camp by a shallow rushing river passing under a highway bridge. After a short reconnoitre up stream, I stayed by the river lighting a fire while Jen went back to get things from the bike. All I could hear was the babble of the river but when I looked up I saw that a car had pulled over by the bike on the bridge and a couple of guys were talking to Jen. Immediately feeling protective (although she never ever needed it) I hustled back up there to see what was going on. One of the guys turned out to be Adam, the slightly dubious drug dealer/alleged informer I had encountered some months before whilst hanging out with Roy. He and his pals had just happened to be passing by when they spotted Jen at the side of the road. Adam was clearly hitting on Jen and, after a perfunctory exchange of “hi” I began to feel what Andy must have felt like for most of the time he was in company with Jen. She drew men like flies and couldn’t help being her lively vivacious self. They eventually fucked off and we parked up the bike off road and went back up stream to our chosen campsite by the river.

On our first night together, out in the open near the fire, Jen explained that, much as she “would like to”, we couldn’t consummate our relationship because she was suffering from some mild infection. To say I was disappointed would be understating. I was mortified. The optimistic spring journey stretching out before me dropped several notches on the euphoria scale, but we had lovely rambling chats and slept together and found other ways of cementing our palship.

Part of the plan was to visit a couple of Jen’s relatives en route. She had an auntie she referred to simply as “Blackie”. It seems Blackie had married above her economic weight to a reputable English doctor who had for less than clear reasons opted to live in one of the small isolated coastal communities. So the next day, after some sedate cruising on the tarmac highway, we turned off at a sign-posted but otherwise nondescript side road and followed our noses. We wended our way down some gravel roads, asking directions whenever humans appeared, and eventually pulled up outside an enormous suburban palace still in the throes of being finished. Blackie was extremely welcoming and very pleased to see her niece and insisted we had to stay the night.

Blackie’s other half, Lawrence, wasn’t as welcoming. He wasn’t opposed, he just seemed distant and vague. His mother Agnes was visiting and the two of them closeted themselves together for extended periods of time. We were shown to a large bare bedroom and Jen, returning from a shower whispered, “Have you seen the cockroaches?” I hadn’t but I did when I took my turn in the shower. Monster cockroaches scuttled in and out of view in time to my movements. It turned out to be a very unhappy household. It seems Dr Lawrence had proposed marriage after Blackie got pregnant from a drunken one night stand. Agnes had flown in on some sort of damage limitation mission because not only had Lawrence apparently married well below his English upper middle class station, but he was also flirting with a morphine habit facilitated by the access routes open to his profession. Agnes, to her credit, seemed very composed and well turned out in spite of the bleakness she must have been feeling. Blackie was a very engaging hostess and, in the absence of the others, filled us in on as much of the detail as she could. She thought Lawrence had come to Newfoundland on the run from some scandal or other and that she’d only recently realised he was jacking himself up. It was she who had signalled Agnes which had precipitated the current visit. Our stay was characterised by whispered conspiratorial chats with Blackie punctuated with outbreaks of sunny denial whenever Agnes appeared and occasional darker episodes whenever Lawrence materialised. We were relieved to be on our way again the next morning, waving at a lost and distraught looking Blackie as we motored back up the gravel road.

Our next stop was Jen’s Uncle Jimmy just west of Grand Falls. This was a completely different story. Jimmy was a tall relaxed man, happy and comfortable in his setting. He cooked us cod tongues and regaled us with tales of ships he’s piloted into the bay over which we looked from his big front window. “Sometimes I used to put the bows into that little beachhead over there,” he said, pointing, “and have the helm thrown hard over to bring the stern up close to the docks just down there.” Although it sounded like he was talking about row boats, he was actually talking about proper sea-going ships. I tried to imagine such an enormous undertaking playing out before us down there. He’d been a ship’s captain in his prime but had settled down here where he specialised in knowing the intricacies and currents of this particular bay better than any man alive. He was a charming soft-spoken man, highly respected in his local community and would have been the perfect role model for an empty-headed youth on the road to nowhere.

We left Jimmy’s and, after a few hours of smooth highway cruising, and for reasons not entirely clear to me now, headed off tarmac again. We followed a long wide gravel road along the shore of the

xxxxxxxxx

Northern Peninsula / White Bay in search of a gaggle of artists we’d somehow heard about.

xxxx

Gerry artists, logy bay grey, Stuart, hitting on Jen,

smoked cod,

cal’s place,

high winds, truck driver offer,

horse ride,

helmets in Maine?, fine ??

farm, topless, montreal acid?, ian hesketh,

xxxx

greeting from Cela, skateboarding in the rain

3.21. the Maritimes ‘70

With David Nichols’ Norton 750 finally repaired (see below), we did a couple of short trips together. He came up to Montreal to go to a bike dealer’s where we could accessorise our bikes. He wanted raised ¾ handlebars like mine, and I wanted “shorty mufflers” like his. I could never understand the extravagance of the enormous stock silencers on my pipes. Sure they kept the sound down, but they were about three feet long and very heavy. The shorties were a revelation. Less than a foot long and weighing about a fifth of the stocks, they produced a sound that much better suited the status of the machine. It was a coughing chortle at idle, but rose to a sonorous blatt under acceleration. My simple mind was completely blissed out by the sound. Similarly, David was pleased with his raised bars and felt he was enjoying the experience of cruising more than he had before. We began to talk about longer trips, and at one point I said, “Why don’t you come with me when I head back to university. You could turn back at any time you like and I’ll just carry on.” David thought about this for a week or two, consulting with his family about how they might make do without him, and eventually said, “Yeah, I can do that.”

On the eve of our departure David showed up at our house in Montreal with a modest back pack strapped on to the back of his bike and parked up next to my BSA in the back yard. Early the next morning, with elements of my family hovering for the final wave, we fired up and set off up the back lane in T shirts, jeans, and no helmets (didn’t need them in Quebec in those days). We wound our way through the Montreal traffic, crossed the Jacques Cartier Bridge, and entered the flat lands of the Eastern Townships. It was a long time since I had toured with anybody and we did foolish things like passing and re-passing, riding side by side and chatting, getting up close behind lorries to free-wheel in the back draft, and generally savouring the warm weather and the open road to nowhere.

When it got dusky David asked where I thought we should stop. I said, “Anywhere. It doesn’t matter. We’ll just get a late meal somewhere and then find a place to sleep in a park or a layby when it’s dark.” David was impressed. It allowed for much more flexibility in the matter of planning – or non-planning. We occasionally looked at maps but mostly just kept heading east and following roads on an instinctive basis. I think we took a short detour to have a quick look at Quebec City and slept in one of the generous parks.

3.22. New Brunswick ??

Later on, in the course of one of our map reading occasions we had pulled up to the side of the high street of a small French Canadian town. We resolved that we had to turn around and back track a bit. Just as I was pulling out to do a U turn I caught sight of an absolutely stunning brunette on the other side of the road. She had long flowing hair, a loose fitting blouse, the skimpiest of denim shorts showing off long muscled legs, and the most engaging smile beaming straight at me. I saw her eyes shift and her smile vanish as I heard a screetch of tyres. In that familiar old slow motion I turned to see a heavy grey Ford Thunderbird convertible turning broadside and sweeping into me. I was hit hard and after a brief close up of his back seat I was flung off my bike and sent skittering down the road on my arse. I must have passed out briefly because the next thing I remember is looking up and seeing the woman among a small gaggle of people looking down at me. Also in the gaggle were David, a fat sweating Thunderbird driver, and a small wispy looking guy with a beard and tattoos and an “outlaw” sleeveless denim jacket. I got to my feet feeling, as ever, a complete toss pot, but trying to assure everybody I was all right. As my hearing kicked back in I realised the fat man was giving me a lot of grief, but my attention was of course drawn to the woman in the denim shorts who looked as though she wanted to embrace me. “If only,” I was wishing when we were joined by another woman who seemed to be a friend of the first one and the ensuing rapid fire French Canadian discussions escalated in volume and pitch.

In due course I’d exchanged details with the sweaty T Bird guy and he drove off. My bike seemed okay but for a twist in the front forks and I seemed okay except for a throbbing right leg. It transpired that my muse for disaster was called Denise and that she was staying with the other woman, Bernadette, in a house just opposite. The strange wispy guy, looking not a little like Charles Manson, turned out to be a passing biker called Jean Guy who had pulled over in brotherly sympathy. Bernadette invited us all into her house, into which she and Denise were already dragging me while David and Jean Guy picked up my bike and rolled it to the side of the road. In a nutshell, Bernadette, a divorcee, was harbouring Denise, an aspiring divorcee, in her home until such time as Denise could sort herself out. Jean Guy was a member of a local Hell’s Angel-type chapter who assured us that he could help sort out my bike.

My first concern had become my throbbing leg which seemed to have taken on a life of its own, quietly thumping away to its own drummer and waiting for me to wear down enough to enquire about hospitals. The women had no transport but Jean Guy offered to take me on his chopped Honda 405 Hawk. The Hawk was considerably more technologically advanced than our British bikes but had nowhere near the class. Nevertheless, I took him up on his offer and we howled off as David made himself comfortable with the ladies.

At the hospital Jean Guy and I were taken through to an examination room where a doctor and a nurse proceeded to have such a rapid fire discussion with Jean Guy that I couldn’t follow it at all. Occasionally they switched to English to ask me a question or to remove clothing. I stood there (no chairs to be seen) un-trousered while they contemplated my leg and continued the animated discussion with Jean Guy. The discussion seemed to run its course and for a couple of moments all four of us stood around staring at my leg in complete silence. “Alors, on y va?” Jean Guy finally said and I pulled on my jeans and we said our good byes. “They don’t think anything is broken,” he said on the way out, “but to come back if the pain doesn’t go away.”

Back at the house Bernadette had already offered us accommodation for the night – on the understanding that there was no misunderstanding about any implications. “Oh,” said Jean Guy, “You’ll be completely safe with these guys”, which I wasn’t entirely sure how to take.

The next morning, the women’s virtue still in tact, David and I went out to look at my bike. To our surprise, Jean Guy was already there and removing the front wheel. We set about extracting the fork shafts and Jean Guy then took us over to a garage where they straightened them and handed them back. I’m not even sure that money changed hands, but the straightened shafts and a little bit of handle bar wrenching on the re-assembled front end seemed to do the trick. David and I spent the rest of the day chatting with our three friends in the course of which Jean Guy explained how he survived without a regular job. “It must be wonderful,” said Bernadette, “You are as free as a bird.” I’d already asked Jean Guy to join us as far as Prince Edward Island but he’d declined and I couldn’t help retorting, “Yes, he’s free as a bird but he doesn’t go anywhere.” My leg was throbbing less but still seemed to bring out the crankiness in me.

We stayed another virtuous night (despite my incessant lustings for Denise) at Bernadette’s and, after a generous breakfast, we stepped out front to find Jean Guy waiting to say goodbye. We all hugged and kissed and promised to keep in touch and they waved as David and I chugged away.

3.23.Prince Edward Island

There was no bridge or causeway to PEI (until 1997) so we caught the ferry in Cape Tormentine, New Brunswick and were transported to Port Borden on PEI’s south coast in about an hour. In the gentle sunshine we followed the TransCanada highway, motoring across the island to the north coast. We were both struck by the pungency and the legendary red earth of the island. We had a cruise through the National Park on the north shore and, as it was getting late, decided to pay up for some formal camping.

There are so many camp grounds there now. I have on idea which one it might have been, but probably in the national park itself. It was still relatively sunny and gloriously pungent and felt naturally welcoming as we pulled in.

N ot far from the entrance, the first thing that caught my eye (first time I’d seen one in the flesh) was a magnificent burgundy Honda CB750, the mystic rumoured 4 cylinder, parked outside a pair of pup tents. I was so struck by this apparition that I lurched to a halt and David nearly ran into me. But then David too was caught up in the wonder as his eyes followed mine and saw the glowing machine. There was a big blue Suzuki 2-stroke twin by the other tent but we barely noticed it. We must have sat there for a couple of minutes staring in silence when we were approached by two girls walking up behind us from the beach across the road. Not being bikers, they were more impressed by our thudding British twins than by the shiny dormant Honda and began chatting. We switched off and made some small talk as our eyes kept swerving to the 750. They were lovely girls and invited us to pull into their little camp area opposite the burgundy beast. We didn’t have tents anyway so we pulled in and talked some more.

Beverly and Lucy were from Halifax and had come camping for their holiday. As we gradually turned our focus away from the bike, I clocked that Bev was the prettier and more engaging, but that Lucy had the most incredible body – slim and athletic with lithe movement to match. Their campsite also consisted of two small pup tents each side of a circular fire area plus a couple of drying lines in the trees for towels and swim wear. As we parked up and chatted, a two guys and a girl approached from the beach and said hi to our companions. It turned out that these were the bike campers. Russel and Jan were with the Suzuki and tall, rangy, tousle-headed Doug was the calm owner of the Honda.

So conversation was quickly dominated by motorcycles and Doug took us over to look at his machine. He switched it on and fired it up. What a slick sound – more like a sports car than a motorcycle. He revved it a bit and it voom voomed – hinting more at a formula 1. It was a truly thrilling sound.

They all decided to party up and have supper together and kindly invited us to join in. We all swapped stories about where we’d come from, but the only one that stuck for me was Doug’s. He was a student of palaeontology working at one of Toronto’s museums. As night drew in, everyone with drew to their tents and David and I went to one of the covered picnic areas and slept on the heavy wooden tables. I distinctly recall my right leg beginning to throb from the incident with the T Bird in Quebec. This became an irregular feature of my rough sleeping for about a year. It just flare up, for no particular reason that I could identify, throb with the most intense pain for 20 or 30 seconds – and then fade away. I would quietly curse through gritted teeth for the duration, and then relax into an exhausted wary sleep.

In the morning, Bev and Lucy had already left for the beach but the others wanted to jump on the bikes and go to a different one. Surprisingly, Russ and Doug were ogling our rides, especially David’s Norton. David had decided he had better get back to the farm in Vermont and, after an emotional embrace and promises to do another trip soon, he fired up and motored off.

I agreed to go along to the other beach, but was gob-smacked when Doug asked if we could swap rides. I was tickled pink and happily agreed. After a minimal talk-through, I got gingerly aboard and pressed the electric start (a stunning novelty in those days) and the machine hummed into life. The smoothness was beyond compare. It pulled away smoothly, accelerated smoothly, braked smoothly – all accompanied by the smoothly subdued but sporty exhaust note from the four separate pipes. In terms of motorcycling, it was a revelation. The dials didn’t wander; the handle bars didn’t vibrate; the mirrors didn’t blur; all the switches were near to thumb and worked properly. I drove carefully, but, in the mean time, Doug was having a whale of a time accelerating and braking and maxing the relatively thunderous roar of the BSA with a massive grin plastered across his face.

We spent the day out there and returned to the campsite as the sun was waning. The girls were back and we all had camp supper together again. The moon emerged and Jan and Russ retired. Bev asked Doug and myself if we’d ever swum by moonlight. “The water’s really warm,” she said. So the four of us trooped down to the beach across the road and waded into the water. Sure enough, it was warm and welcoming and magical, with touches of phosphorescence to enhance the picture. For me, the most alluring image burnt into my brain (to this day) was seeing Lucy’s miraculous body silhouetted against the moonlit dappled water with the sparkling phosphorescence illuminating her sanctified legs as she waded through the accumulated glitter.

As I recall Bev and Doug had sloped off somewhere, and Lucy turned to me and shyly asked me if I would like to share her tent. I was utterly blissed and crept in with her and relaxed into the intoxicating warmth of a truly heavenly embrace. Such times stand still, like the top of a swing’s arc, just before the return.

But return they must, and in the morning I heard voices outside and Lucy asked, with shy urgency, if I could do her a favour. “Sure”, I said, deeply in love, “Anything.” “Could you please put your trunks back on?” she asked. Sensing a problem I complied as quickly as I could while she did the same. She peered outside, and then quickly signalled me to get out. I scampered out and, instinctively, quickly stepped several spaces away. I then saw Bev, catching my eye but engaged in chat with three or four guys, evidently keeping their backs to me. I casually wandered over to Doug’s tent as he was emerging and chatted nonsensically. I watched as Bev led the guys over to Lucy’s tent as she, in turn, emerged. She was kissed and hugged by one of the guys and the inevitably dawning realisation punched me in the heart.

In fairly short order, Lucy had packed her things up, and, with a briefly lingering glance my way, got into a car with the guys and drove off.

Bev came over and announced to us that she was leaving today too but had had a lovely time and hoped we might meet again soon. Doug and I wandered over and helped her pack her stuff into her car. As she was pulling away, she passed me a bit of paper and said, “Come on over to Halifax if you have the time.”

Another day of swapped motorcycles and beaching but everybody was resolved to leave the next morning. Emotional hugs and farewells and promises to meet up again, and I was alone in the empty camp ground.

I looked at Bev’s address on the bit of paper and thought, “Why not?” I was in no hurry to get back to university so I headed off to the other end of the island and caught the ferry to, I think, Caribou, Nova Scotia. It was only a couple of hours to Halifax from there and I found Bev’s place fairly easily. She was pleased to see me but was bursting to tell me what had happened with regard to Lucy. I’d already worked out much of the overview but, for reasons best known to herself, she wanted to fill in more detail. It transpired that Lucy had broken up with her boyfriend and Bev had suggested a holiday in PEI to get over the sadness. That had seemed like a good idea and after a week she was beginning to recover when David and I arrived. By the time the moonlit evening arose, they had both decided to pick a man each and propose the midnight swim. The next morning, of course, the boyfriend showed up, full of remorse, wanting to make up. Bev had tried to keep them distracted until Lucy could wake and decide which way to jump. Clearly the jump was not in my favour, but what did I have to offer. I was en route to St John’s and Lucy still had work and a life in Halifax.

That night, Bev took me out to a lobster restaurant south of Halifax where she knew some people. We got a massive free meal and some drinks. The lobster was the best that I had ever tasted, then or since, and my bruised heart was already on the mend. I slept chastely on her sofa that night and set off early next morning for the Cape Breton ferry.

3.24.Newfoundland

Logy Bay? gay guys and camper van,

arrest for no helmet (see Alternate Press for copy?)

xxxx

3.25. back to St John’s ‘70

Alternate Press

Ian Wiseman, Sharon Grey, the mine, fat cat hill, camping,

motorcycle helmets, (lift quote from AP)??xxxx

no helmet arrest

summer camp, Carol bicycle crash,

sold it to my friend Dennis

4. Norton 750 Commando

4.1. Enosburg Falls ‘71

T he summer of ‘71 seemed a particularly long one. It may have been the one in which I spent the most time down on the Vermont farm. It also meant I got to know some of the neighbourly assets a lot better – prime among whom was David Nichols. David was the son of a farmer up the north road from the crossroad in front of our house. He was about my age, had worked on the farm since high school and hardly ever left the neighbourhood, but already seemed a lot more worldly than me. He was built squarely and had massive work-worn hands with arms to match. He had a quiet practicality about him which to this day I envy. A problem was never an impasse for him. It was always just a blip in the process of getting a day’s work done. One morning I wandered up to his place and found him standing just outside his barn examining a piece of oily cogged machinery in the sunlight. At my greeting he looked up and said, “I’m great thanks. Just gotta fix the tractor.” He then led me back into his barn and there, laid out like an artistic agri-industrial tableau, was his tractor, split in the middle at the gearbox, with the massive rear wheel section rolled back and to the side. Both ends of the tractor were supported by heavy wooden blocks and I was staring into the black bleeding bowels of each. David calmly walked over and squatted and began to push his arms into those bowels. “It was missing on one of the gears so I had to replace one of the cogs,” he explained. Stupefied I said, “And you just happened to have one?” “Yeah,” he said, gesturing, “I took one off that old one over there.” I looked where he’d pointed and saw a straw and dust covered engine and gearbox split and lying on its side in a dark corner vaguely illuminated by powdery shafts of sunlight coming through the loose boarding of the barn walls. “I’ll be finished before lunch,” he added.

Another time I went up there and David’s normally congenial eyes were clouded with anger. I’d never seen him like this before and asked if he was okay. “Yeah,” he said, “I just knocked out one of the cows.” It seems one of the cows, in a rambunctious moment, had head butted his sister to the ground. Incensed, David had grabbed a massive rock in both hands and clobbered the cow on its head with such force that the cow passed out and was lying in a heap in the pasture. The sister and the cow both recovered fully and neither seemed to bear any grudges. The latter was calmly awaiting milking with the rest of the herd later in the day.

Although I’d read books about internal combustion engines, I’d never had the opportunity to pull one apart and many of the concepts seemed impossible to me as I tried to imagine everything happening fast enough to power a set of wheels. David used patiently and graphically to explain four barrel carburettors and performance cams and power bands to me to fill out my scanty knowledge. He always had a couple of cars on the go, one for clattering about in; the other for pulling apart and putting back together. He would occasionally go to the local drag races and win awards in his class simply because he had the engine tuned to absolute perfection.

David also had a motorcycle – a menacing Norton 750 Commando. It was a hard, unyielding machine with stiff suspension and a harsh, irregular and vaguely threatening chortle at idle. By comparison, my stately BSA seemed overweight and soft. One evening David showed up for a party at our house on his Norton and made the mistake of offering me a spin. I got aboard and kicked the thing into life. It immediately bucked and heaved like a bronco. I put it into gear, let the clutch out, and nearly whip-lashed my neck as I pulled out onto the gravel road. I rode gingerly across the gravel ruts, making for the paved road a few yards on. The light was dimming so I switched on the headlight. The paved section was straight so I twisted the throttle and was at the end of that straight so fast that I nearly overshot the end. More sedately I turned left on to another gravel section and headed off on a loop that would eventually bring me out back by the house.

In the back sections of the loop I rode relatively sensibly and, by the time I was on the return leg and could see the lights of our house, I was feeling pretty cocky. Thinking the people at the house would be impressed by the throaty roar, I hit the throttle again for the home straight. Unfortunately, the straight was only straight if you were travelling at a tractor’s pace. The slight bend at the kind of speed I was beginning to hit was suddenly much more pronounced than I’d imagined and, in a blink, the bike’s headlight was shining into brush. The Commando hit the turf edge of the rode with sufficient force to throw me down the road and high-side itself into the brush. In slow mo I watched the headlight illuminate a receding tunnel into the brush as I skittered on my back down the gravel road. We both came to a halt at about the same time and there was a moment of silence as the engine stalled beneath its glowing light in the trees. I got up in a daze and began to hear voices coming up from the house. Feeling as complete an arsehole as I’ve ever felt, I wended my way through the grasping brush to find the bike twisted and lying on its side, its headlight still calmly illuminating the ghastly scenario I had engineered for it. By this time David and a few other party-goers began to arrive on the scene, scrabbling through the brush and calling out. I was dumbstruck with mortification as David was the first to arrive. “David, I….” “Are you all right?” he interrupted without so much as a glance at the bike. “Are you okay? What have you done to your shirt?”. I looked down. My shirt seemed fine if a little loose fitting. I pulled at the sides and found tattered shreds. The back had disappeared and I realised my back must be pretty unsightly as well. David wouldn’t let me mess about trying to get the bike up. “Just leave it there. I’ll get it in the morning.” he said, ushering me back to the road and down to the house. Feeling like the biggest dumbass the world had ever known, I retired to a hot bath, soaked all the gravel out of my back, and missed the rest of the party.

The next day David and I went to retrieve the Commando. It was a bit twisted and had torn undergrowth and bits of sapling wedged into all forward facing gaps, but it started on the second or third kick. We drove/pushed it back up to the road and he limped it home. Despite David’s objections, I insisted on covering all repair costs and giving him my BSA for the duration. My summer of bike freedom was set back for a few weeks. On the plus side, David really liked my bike. “It’s really comfortable,” he said, “It’s more relaxed and I drive much more slowly.”

It was later that summer that we took off together on our bikes – me to go back to university; him for the ride as far as Prince Edward Island.

5. Hodaka Ace 100

5.1. St John’s ‘71

My flatmates Jonathan and Lenore, inspired by my 650 BSA, were beginning to develop a motorbike obsession of their own. Jonathan had been looking at Hodaka trail bikes. He thought off-roading made a lot more sense given the kind of wild country we had around us, just outside the city limits.

After some considerable hemming and hawing, they each ordered one, and waited impatiently for word of their arrival down at the railway station.

Allowed by Jonathan and Lenore to occasionally ride them, I found that these 100cc 2 strokes had astonishingly long travel front forks which allowed you to transcend significant potholes and even small ditches almost imperceptibly. It was on these bikes that I discovered that you can drift on gravel without falling off. Initially very gingerly taking taking curves on dirt roads I gradually realised that leaning over and spinning the back wheel didn’t automatically mean that you lost traction. If you kept the throttle steady, the back wheel continued to “re-find” its grip with each rotation. It seemed counter-intuitive to me but, as my confidence increased and my eyes opened to the possibilities, those dirt roads became speedways. I realised I’d discovered this before Jonathan when, as he kept up speed on the straight behind me, when we hit a sharp curve I suddenly saw him out of the corner of my eye sailing straight off the road and into the brush as he froze on the bend.

(The history of Hodaka (now defunct) is a fascinating story in its own right. Well worth a bit of research if you feel so inclined.)

In contrast, my BSA began to seem heavy and too sedate and I became envious to the point that I began to think about swapping it for a dirt bike like theirs.

Probably for the best, I was on my way back to Europe before I could indulge that particular fantasy.

We had a mutual friend called Graham who was a rather eccentric Englishman working as a radiologist at the central hospital. Graham had a super-hot Pontiac GTO convertible but no driver’s license. This meant we often had outings where any of us might be the driver with Graham, grinning and excited, riding shotgun. He often challenged me by offering to show me a dead body. Unfortunately, on the occasion that I actually took him up, all the hospital morgue drawers were empty.

One day I dropped by his place to see police gathered in front and up the external staircase to his door. I kept my distance but later learned he’d died in slightly mysterious circumstances. Some said suicide. Some said overuse of hospital pharmaceuticals. I never found out. But shortly thereafter we got a phone call at the flat from a woman asking for Lenore. It turned out that this was Graham’s mum who’d come over for the funeral. Apparently he’d been telling her that Lenore was his “best friend” in town and she wondered if she could meet up. Lenore was hesitant, but agreed and shot off on her Hodaka.

Jonathan and I were left puffing weed and wondering why Graham hadn’t mentioned us to his mum. Initially feeling slightly affronted and left out, our mood slowly switched to suspicion and then mild terror as we suddenly thought perhaps Lenore had been led off into some kind of psycho trap. She’d written down the address but taken it with her so we were suddenly running through all the possibilities of where they might logically have agreed to meet. No mobile phones in those days, so in the end we jumped on our respective motorcycles and shot off in different directions to see if we could spot her bike before she got murdered.

We spent all afternoon dashing fruitlessly around the town, only to find her relaxing back at the flat when we eventually got home. No drama. No murder plots. Just a sad, quiet chat about what a nice guy Graham had been.

6. Fiat 500

6.1. Bielefeld ‘72

Okay, so this isn’t a motorcycle. But when I returned to England thinking I could repeat the trick of a couple of years before – ie, buy a British bike, travel, ship it back to Canada, and cover the costs of my trip – things had changed.

First of all, the British motorcycle industry was in a state of virtual collapse. The Japanese multis were killing them dead. And the rising cost of atrocious, class-ridden management was no match for the far eastern approach which included, among other things, serious respectful dialogue with the shop floor. This was unheard of in the UK where the economy was managed by private school boys taught to look down on everybody else.

Secondly, the value of money had dropped considerably. What British motorcycles there were had price tags well in excess of my financial planning.

So I resorted to hitching around the second hand bike shops of England, and then, forlornly, hopelessly, almost aimlessly, extended my search to France and Germany.

In Bielefeld, not far from Dortmund, I was introduced by friends to this little car. It was considered the successor to the 500 “Topolino” which, Nino, my bicycle tutoring mentor of many years ago used to drive when the family lived in Switzerland. It was only about 3 metres long and was powered by a 499 cc two-cylinder, air-cooled engine. It was allegedly designed as the Italian (and, in its Seat version, the Spanish) answer to post-war peasant mobility. In much the same way as the Model T Ford in America, these 500s and the later, slightly larger 650s, propelled the rural parts of the two nations into the magic world of private motorised transport. (The Citroen 2CV was the French solution.) And prosperity slowly followed as otherwise isolated rural families could go further afield to buy and sell goods and services. Hitching in Spain I would often be offered lifts by such families. With maybe 5 people already aboard, there was always room for one more.

I took the plunge, parted with my cash, and fell completely in love with it.

It came with four seats, but I took out the front passenger seat to make more room for baggage. If I gave anyone a lift they could sit in the rear passenger seats which were only fractionally further back and didn’t inhibit conversation at all.

1972 was the year of the first international conference on environment – the Stockholm Conference. I had a number of reasons for wanting to attend. First, by virtue of my canoe paddling expedition (see A Squandered Life), I now considered myself an environmental campaigner. Second, I was still drawn by my maternal genes towards Sweden. Third, I thought it would be nice to see Daniel and Elisabeth and family again. Fourth, Lenore’s dad was reputedly attending the conference on behalf of a Canadian organisation of some kind and might have access to some of the higher-flying, more exclusive events. By my standards, this seemed like a lot of good reasons.

I fired up the little Fiat 500 and headed north.

This time I went via Denmark, sleeping on sandy Baltic beaches whenever tiredness overcame me. Having the car gave me a lot more flexibility in this regard. I could leave my worldly goods locked up more safely and abandon the vehicle for longer periods of time than I could a motorcycle. Also, night driving and bad weather weren’t nearly as exhausting. And, at a pinch, I could sleep in it in the middle of a city. On the down side, I didn’t mix as easily with indigenous populations – stuck as I was inside my own metal box and carrying my own atmosphere with me wherever I went. Hitching and motorcycles were much better for meeting local people. Instead, I found myself picking up the odd hitch-hiker which meant most of the time I was meeting young North Americans like me – the last kind of person I wanted to be meeting.

I spent a couple of days bumming around Copenhagen like a low-grade tourist and then caught the ferry across the strait to Malmo and set off straight up the main road, through miles of Canada-like lake and forest, to Stockholm. The days were already very long and the hours of night already getting shorter as I progressed north. Just the other side of Jenkoping I picked up yet another American youth who turned out to be heading for the enviro conference himself. Regrettably, he was such tedious company that by the time we got to Stockholm central I contrived to lose him and headed on almost immediately for Upsala where I hoped to find my earnestly christian friends Daniel and Elisabeth.

At Daniel’s family seat there was a huge party going on. I pulled my dusty little car into a drive full of parked vehicles and wandered over towards the main house. In the garden were tables and chairs and brightly dressed people milling about. It turned out that Daniel had just got married – but not to Elisabeth. They were still friends though and it was a joyful reunion. Daniel didn’t stick around for long as he and new wife Vaika set off for their honeymoon. Instead I found myself hanging out with his siblings – two younger brothers and a younger sister. One of the brothers was a hardline socialist but the other two were also “aspiring” christians. The christian brother was tedious and boring but the sister, Birgitta, was beautiful and I was drawn to her like a moth to flame. She had a little boy but was separated from the dad. She and I and the little boy shared some local travels (which wouldn’t have been possible on a motorcycle). Happily, she rationalised our burgeoning intimacy by saying, “I’ve already sinned by having lascivious thoughts, so I might as well sin by doing.”

Later I met an eccentric Greek woman called Veroniki who was a student of film and was aching to get cracking on some film-making. She was heading back to Athens but we hatched a crackpot plan whereby I would come to Athens (where she, allegedly, had contacts and financial backing) and make a film.

Somewhere in Stockholm my little car went clunk and the clutch stopped working. I immediately stopped and got out for a look. I couldn’t see anything obvious, but I found a broken bolt on the ground. Birgitta and I went round a few Swedish garage workshops with the lost bolt an eventually worked out what had happened. There were six or eight bolts holding the clutch plates in place and one of these had snapped off and was in my hand. Replacing it would cost more money than I had so I resolved to head back to the UK, clutchless, where I knew I could find friends and more affordable resources.

So, I bade my painful farewells to Birgitta and others and, refining the technique of revving high, letting off and ramming into neutral, and then revving high and ramming into the next gear, I limped toward the ferry in Goteborg.

In England I managed to park up in my uncle’s garage, dismantle the rear engine assembly (which included removing the entire rear chassis and bumper assembly), replace the clutch plates, and get on the road again.

The little car served me well for the next few months, visiting friends and heading for the hopfields of Kent for seasonal work. But it began to suffer from overheating. By then I was in the process of acquiring a 7.5 ton TK Bedford, ex-railwayman’s mobile tool and snack truck so, sadly, I gave the car away to a guy who promised to be nice to it.

7. MZ 250 Trophy

7.1. St Ives ‘73

Having ended up in St Ives, Cambridgeshire with my Canadian girlfriend Lenore, we found ourselves longing to hit the road and travel through Europe. I’d met a whacky woman called Veroniki in Sweden the year before and she’d said “Come and find me in Athens and we will make a film.” In those days, this was all I needed to think something sounded like the basis of a plan and Lenore was happy to go along with it.

At the time we were living in the back of my TK Bedford truck and working in a local factory producing packing crates for parts of the UK blue streak missile programme. The TK was too big and expensive to run for a continental tour so we were exploring other options. I fancied getting another motorcycle but Lenore was adamant about not wanting to be a passenger. And we couldn’t afford two motorcycles could we?

Or could we….

We discovered a dealer in Cambridge selling East German “MZ” (Motorenwerke Zschopau) motorcycles. These were peculiar looking 2 stroke 125s and 250s and seemed like the two-wheeled version of the Trabant – the illustrious eastern block standard-issue car. I was highly dubious. There was no way these creatures met my demanding and idiosyncratic criteria for either sight or sound. They were ugly as sin and 2 strokes always sound like shit. However, one of the mechanics managed to demonstrate to us that these were, for the price, actually good bits of engineering. And the price was certainly right. They had a second-hand 250 there and they offered a good price for that plus a brand new one. After some hemming and hawing, I overcame my prejudices and we bought them.

The Cambridge dealer set them up and we took delivery a few days later. We spent the next couple of weeks riding around and getting used to them – including mixing the petrol! The petrol caps had a small measuring cup on the underside so we would fill up the tanks with specific amounts and then measure and add the 2 stroke oil. Clever really. And they were reasonably quick, if slightly cumbersome. The front suspension was “leading link” – the axle was in front of the suspension arm pivot. This incorporated a massive fixed mudguard which stayed put as the front wheel bounced up and down. All this coupled with the hefty integrated headlight/fuel tank unit (a single shaft steering column came up through it) made for occasionally dodgy low speed manoeuvring. But we grew to like them as we became more confident.

7.2. France / Switzerland / Italy

The day came when we quit our jobs at the missile packing factory, packed our bikes, and set off for the Dover ferry. We were steady enough on those bikes and managed to get across northern France in good order. Lenore was as up for sleeping rough as I was, so overnighting was never a problem out on the roads. In the cities was different of course and we tended not to linger in them.

However, my sister Vanessa happened to be living in Geneva at the time so we dropped by hers. She only had a room in a fairly formal residence so dossing there was out of the question, but she introduced us to some friends in a nearby flat. We had a jolly supper with them. In the course of the general chat and jollity, they mentioned they would be out of town for the next couple of days. On the strength of knowing us for two hours and a little publication of mine which they’d previously read and absorbed, they asked would we care to stay in the flat for the duration? Pleasantly surprised we readily agreed and spent a couple days exploring the city and the lakeside with Vanessa.

Leaving a note of copious thanks, we set off down what is now the A40 towards Chamonix, heading for northern Italy and what was then Yugoslavia. I can recall glorious mountains and seemingly endless switchbacks in the Alps. As we descended into Italy the weather turned bad and we hit motorway as we skirted Milano and headed for Trieste. We also discovered that these bikes could get a high speed wobble on when it’s wet. We tried redistributing load, but nothing seemed to affect this tendency. We simply had to slow down till the wobble stopped and then slowly pick up speed again. Very peculiar.

It’s discouraging to wrack one’s memory banks and come up with so little detail of entire legs of this trip, but I recall the warm coastal road running alongside the Gulf of Trieste as a prelude to entering the city. I’ve always had a soft spot for cities with harbours, but Trieste appeared particularly magical. Although whole sections of the city seemed to be in the throes of falling down, it had an old world charm and at least one park big enough for us to sleep in unnoticed. In the morning we checked out one of the many beautifully chromed and tiled ice cream parlours, complete with rich grainy coffee, before wandering down to soak up the placid sunlit beauty of the harbour and the ships it was gently accommodating.

7.3. Yugoslavia

From there we went overland to hit the coast road again at Matulji. Sticking to the coast we passed through Rijeka and stopped at a smaller port beyond. Looking on gmaps now, I think it must have been Bakar. We were attracted by a dockside hotel/cafe which looked like a combination old railway station and windmill. We got talking in faltering English to a nice guy who sat at table nearby. I think his name started with a Z. Zlatan or something. He hung with us for the rest of the day, introducing us to friends and buying us drinks. At the end of the evening he came with us as we took our bikes a little way out of town to some fields (I remember the sea being on our left) and we set up our tent. Zlatan said good night and staggered off back to town.

Later, we were awoken from a deep sleep by what we gradually realised was the sound of stones being thrown at the tent. Amidst images of being circled by mad townspeople we began to panic. We crept out of the tent and stayed close to the ground under a nearby tree. We could still hear stones landing on the tent so we assumed whoever it was hadn’t clocked that we’d exited. As we adjusted to the situation and the darkness, we spotted some lamplight fishermen out on the water. We hatched a whispered plan whereby Lenore was to go down to the shore and call to the fishermen while I circled round to get behind our encirclers. As Lenore was calling, a man stood up from behind a tree and I lunged into him. Of course, it was Zlatan, pissed and feeling stupid. I dragged him down to the shore to explain to the slowly incoming fishermen what was going on. He called out to them and they went back to their fishing and Zlatan sloped off towards town, again.

The next morning we met him again in the cafe. He was duly ashamed and embarrassed. I was curious to know how he’d explained things to those fisherman. “What did you say,” I asked. “I just asked them how was the fishing?” he said, adding, after a pause, “They said it was good.”

We carried on down along the gorgeous winding coastal route (very reminiscent of Highway 1 on the US Pacific coast) as far as Sibenik. There the road curved inland a bit, but still had occasional stunning and glittering views of the Adriatic. We passed through Split and Dubrovnik, stopping at the ubiquitous ice cream parlours, with the coffee getting stronger and grainier the further south we went.

When we hit the Albanian border, we were forced to go inland again. Apart from a few ships and the occasional smuggler, nobody could get in or out of Albania in those days.

The landscape changed dramatically as we headed inland. More mountainous, with much poorer roads and much less traffic, we passed a lot of peasantry with goats and overloaded donkeys. We also saw a lot of those “walk behind” tractors hitched to trailers such that the driver could steer whilst sitting on the trailer.

7.4. Greece

This was by far the most common form of motorised transport as we passed through Macedonia and descended towards the bay of Thessaloniki. Here we turned right to follow the west coast of the bay.

Somewhere along that old coast road we pulled into a little seaside cafe off the southern tip of a small village. We sat at a table and got talking to a couple of locals who turned out to be brothers. They had very reasonable English and we even got into explaining our “mission” (film-making on a shoestring in Athens). They were intrigued and encouraged us to make camp a little further down the beach with the promise of some paid work in the morning.

In the course of setting up camp we found we had a neighbour. An older guy, a runaway Albanian I think, pulled up on a battered scooter. He gestured greetings and laid out a blanket and a small tarpaulin, wrapped himself up, and went to sleep.

In the morning, true to their word, the brothers showed up carrying some net bags and a couple of masks and snorkels. They led us (and the Albanian) out along a low lying spit and into the water where we spent the rest of the day diving for mussels. When we’d filled the net bags we heaved them back to the beach side restaurant who were pleased to buy them off us. It was enough to cover us for a jolly feast for all and then some. We staggered back to our little tent drunk and knackered.

W e spent a couple of days enjoying this little routine. On about the third day the brothers asked us if they could join us on the trip to Athens so that they could catch the boat to Crete. We said “sure” and they packed a few things and cambered on the backs of our bikes. Bidding the Albanian farewell, we wobbled off towards the main road.

The brothers were great at finding the right (cheapest) places to eat and even found a tiny back street cinema showing, of all things, “Fiddler On The Roof”. Inside we looked up and saw that there was no roof! Just the beckoning stars and the cool night air. The film was subtitled in Greek so we had the full benefit of english entertainment.

xxxx insert Deb’s piece about crossing the railway…. xxxx

In Athens they showed us a dodgy looking “medical” establishment where they paid for good blood. We sold a pint each!

We dropped the brothers off at the port of Pireas and said we might meet them out there depending on how things worked out for us.

The next stage of “the plan” was to track down the address that Veroniki had given me. after some diligent navigating we found her family home but, perhaps unsurprisingly, she wasn’t there. Her family indicated she might be back in “a few days”. So we had a wander around the city, checking out the Parthenon and the Acropolis, but then resolved to head down to the Pelopanese – something I’d wanted to do for years.

We toured in a gentle unhurried manner, stopping at beaches and bays whenever they attracted our attention – especially if they had a seaside cafe. I was particularly taken with the beautiful natural harbour at Pilos – home of Nestor in the days of the Iliad. We looked down upon its natural beauty from the high coastal road to the north. We spent the night up at the ruins of Nestor’s palace on the heights above the other side of town. In those day you could walk (and sleep) among the ruins and see what Nestor must have seen every morning. I’m guessing it’s all steel and glass barriers and expensive parking there now.

By and by we made our way back to Athens to discover that Veroniki was neither at home nor, apparently, even in the country. So much for planning by postal service. How much easier it would all have been with the comms of today.

But it didn’t really matter. We were enjoying the journey so much that planning the return was as much fun as planning the outset.

We headed north again, taking in Delphi en route. Here the tourist industry was much more developed as rows of coaches came and went, but you could still walk among the dusty ruins.

We saw the brothers again for one more evening of eating and drinking by the sea and then set off again for Yugoslavia.

This time we came back inland via Sarajevo and Zagreb, wanting to get a sense of the interior. Initially we shared the mountain roads and tracks of Macedonia and southern Yugo with our old friends the peasants with their donkeys and tractor/trailers, but then the roads descended and became a lot busier and more hectic. They were also a lot rougher than the gentle sweeping coastal roads we’d come down on. Massive dust swilling trucks would thunder by with minimal regard for either other traffic or, it seemed, for any road regulations.

The cities were hot and dry and less inviting and we decided to swing back to the sea after Zagreb. We were tired and dirty and promised ourselves a night in the hotel at Bakar where we’d coffeed at previously.

Zlatan and his buddies were there, came to see our hotel room, and insisted on taking us out for a meal, but mostly I remember soaking in a hot hot bath for quite a long time.

From there all a bit hazy. I think we went via Austria (Graz)? Germany? to Denmark

7.5. Aarhus

rendezvous with someone?? (Irish Jo?)

met Jerry

7.6. Vendages

Jerry told us about the Vendages, the French grape harvest. You start in the south, and follow the autumn slowly north. He reckoned he had contacts in Beaujolais who could guarantee us some work. Seemed like a more tangible plan than the Greek film making expedition so we offered Jerry a lift and headed south.

And, sure enough, after a bit of searching, we found the place, bunked in a barn, and started work. The grape harvest was reputed to be tough, but it was nothing compared to the tobacco harvest experiences I’d had in southern Ontario. For me it was a doddle. Good fun. Good company. Good food, and plenty of wine.

We worked there for a couple of weeks before gravitating north to Macon where the white grape harvest was just starting.

7.7. Flers

vendages

Blondine de Beaufort

La Fonte

Gerard n Lucienne

les sapins

visitors – Tim & Mary, Vanessa, vendagers, Verena

8. MZ TS 250 Sport #1 (red)

8.1. Harston ‘77

I was living in Harston, just south of Cambridge on the A10, with Ros, my girlfriend at the time. Despite my (less than luminary) degree in Anthropology, I’d never had a full time non-manual job. To my surprise, I actually succeeded at an interview and landed one!

The down-side was that it was based in Watford, some 50 miles away. The plan was to get accommodation down there during the week and come back to Harston for weekends. In fact, as I recall, I had the ulterior motive of “needing” a motorcycle in order to do this. So my interview success meant an immediate trip to the bike shops.

I had in mind the then relatively new Honda 400 4, but it was well out of my price range and I wasn’t entirely sure I wouldn’t smack it up if I took the hire/purchase plunge. In the end I found myself drifting back to the place where we got the MZ ES 250s several years before. They now had this much sportier and more sensible looking MZ ETS 250. No more of that strange steering and front suspension, just a nice set of telescopic forks with rubber gaiters. It was still basically the same 2 stroke engine, with all the fuel mixing hassles, and the super long silencer producing nowhere near the sort of sound a motorcycle should, but it was quick and nippy and handled beautifully.

I took delivery of a bright red and chrome one and proceeded to dance about the back country roads in preparation for my approaching commute. My American acquaintance Henry had just got a Suzuki “Ram Air” GT380 2 stroke triple. Multi 2 strokes had become popular with the advent of the Kawasaki “kamikaze” series. They sounded as rubbish as 2 strokes always do, but they murderously quick. Light and high revving, the accelerated like shotguns. Henry got a bit carried away on one of our trips and I lost sight of him. As I came round a sharpish bend I saw him staggering out of the ditch on the off side. No harm done, but hugely embarrassing. He was cursing and muttering inside his helmet as I helped him heave the 380 out.

8.2. Watford ‘77

I’d procured a room in lodgings with a very kind lady called Mrs Brown. This worked for a while but eventually I looked for something nearer to work and with a little more freedom to come and go. An advert came up for a shared flat on the Cassio Road which was only a few minutes walk away. I went round and met a young woman called Sarah who worked as a costumier at the local theatre. We had a brief chat whilst watching her TV and she later rang me to say I could have the front room if I wanted it. I moved in the following week.

It was a big room, high ceilinged with a large bay window. Bright and spacious, the only problem was the traffic rattling by just outside the single panes, but this tended to calm down at night. From this base I began to explore more of the town on weeknights, but, as planned, hitting the road for Harston on Fridays after work.

T here were plenty of route variations available and, in the course of the next couple of years, I probably tried all of them. The bike was a pleasure on the back roads but struggled a bit (and consumed a lot more petrol) on the faster paced main roads. It was a good re-entry vehicle though. Having not touched a bike for four or five years, it was the right size and weight to minimise the chances of killing myself.

But it was two stroke. It sounded awful and didn’t give you back pressure when you shut down on the throttle. These were major inhibitors for me and nearing the end of my time in Watford I met a guy who was wanting to sell his Honda CB 360.

9. Honda CB 360

9.1. Watford ‘’79

I still had a residual subliminal resistance to Japanese bikes, but when the Honda 360 came up I thought it’s got to be cooler than the MZ. The guy offered me a test ride and I took him up on it without really thinking it would do anything for me, but it was a real eye-opener. The power to weight ratio seemed just right. And that little high revving four stroke engine seemed unbustable. I remember having a flashback to the BSA 650 days in Sweden when the guy with the Honda 450 blew us away with the high-revving effortless handling and performance of his Black Bomber. This bike seemed like a revisitation of that moment and a late awakening to the possibilities of Japanese engineering.

I was still using the red MZ 250 but, as mentioned, I couldn’t stay happy with a 2 stroke, so I sold it to my friend Marc and paid cash for the 360.

Ultimately, it was one sweet bike. My long distance weekend commuting took on a whole new flavour. Although heavier than the MZ it handled just as lightly. And it had a 6 speed gearbox! Unheard of as far as I was concerned. In fact, although it often felt like a gear too many, I began to use top gear exclusively as an “overdrive” on longer straighter stretches. That bike could cruise at 80 all day and still return a respectable “miles per gallon”.

When the Watford contract ended I had broken up with Ros and moved back to my “estate” in Great Leighs, Essex.

9.2. Great Leighs ‘80

I n a state of semi-retirement from the Watford job, I was a bit cash rich for once and I began to look at “mods” for the 360. One of the problems with it was the relatively small petrol tank which required filling more often than a good tourer would wish. I saw an aluminium tank specially designed for this model being advertised in the Motorcycle News. I took the plunge and found it fit perfectly. It was twice the capacity and had a businesslike, unbranded look. Next step became, of course, to alter the riding position to go with what that tank implied – racing / speed / performance / long distances.

I couldn’t be arsed to try to fit clip-ons, but I found a nice set of ace bars which achieved almost the same thing. I added a rear set foot peg kit, complete with extensions for gear and brake levers and I found I had a very sporty touring bike. As it was also very economical, I suddenly had much more mobility than when I tried to run my small Morris van.

And my romantic life improved! I met two sisters who were impressed by my snappy steed and I got fairly deeply involved with one of them. When she ditched me I found the other one was keen to take her place on the condition of confidentiality. That suited me, but one time I was waiting for her on the bike in front of her house as she emerged from the main door. Halfway across the lawn she was called back by the cleaning lady who said she was wanted on the phone. As it happened, the call was from number one sister and the cleaning lady had let slip that the girl was just about to leave on some guy’s motorcycle. Well number one sister put two and two together and apparently did a rage over the phone. Number two sister re-joined me in a much more subdued fashion and later explained what had happened. I don’t think they spoke again until number two sister ditched me as well.

Around that time I’d acquired a bonafide ex-military tank driver’s all in one suit. It was huge and I could wear a complete outfit underneath and simply step out of the suit at destination. With a tank bag in place to cushion my chest, I found I could really chew up the miles without breaking rhythm.

9.3. Bruxelles ‘81

Whenever the novelty of my life in Great Leighs began to wear thin I would start to think about a trip. One time I packed a few clothes and a sleeping bag and headed for the ferry. I landed at Calais and motored up to Brussels in my usual totally unplanned fashion. I’d been there before and stayed with Isabel, a friend from the vendanges, and her friend Corinne. I remembered roughly where they lived and found the place. Unsurprisingly, they weren’t there any more but, surprisingly, the inhabitants had a forwarding address. I made my way to this address in the east of the city and found Corinne knocking about in a large mansion (her father was a diamond merchant) with a boyfriend who seemed an even bigger loser than me. I wasn’t far wrong because Corinne came to me in the middle of the night to apologise for not sleeping with me because she was in the process of breaking up and he would be “upset”.

But things looked up the next day as a party had been planned and Isabel would be turning up. She too had an older boyfriend but, by the end of the evening, perhaps swayed by the sight of the lean and efficient looking 360, she had agreed to come with me back to England for a little side trip of her own. A couple of days of substance abuse later she and I set off for the ferry – this time to Ostende which in those days had boats going to Harwich. It was great having her on the back and the bike didn’t seem to notice. When got to the ferry she asked how fast we’d been cruising and I said “quatre-vingts”. She seemed surprised and I realised she thought I was speaking in kilometres. She was much more impressed when I pointed out I was speaking mph. She stayed in Great Leighs for a few joyous days but, sadly, I had to take her back to the ferry as our life forces pulled us apart again.

9.4. Chichester ‘81

In ‘81 I signed up for a government sponsored retraining scheme. I was going to be an electrician and began another round of weekend commuting trips – this time between the college in Chichester and Great Leighs. During the week I stayed in a seaside room in Bognor Regis and biked in and out of college. The 360 served me unfailingly throughout.

About a year later I decided to move up to St Ives, Cambridgeshire where exciting developments were taking place with my friends Tim and Mary. I was driving a van again and, as the bike was beginning to develop unfathomable (for me) problems, I left it behind in Great Leighs. I later transported it to “Bluefields”, our ill-fated alternative technology centre project, where it got caught in the floods during the hurricane of 1987. It was then sadly but totally dysfunctional and I eventually gave it away to a buddy as rebuild project.

10. MZ TS 250 #2 (black)

T his is an interesting one because I cannot remember how I came by it. And I only have the very fleetingest of memories but these are shored up by hard and fast photographic evidence of the bike in my garage. It must have been a giveaway because I can’t imagine buying yet another MZ, even a sensible one like the ETS. It might have been the guy who also gave me his unroadworthy Citroen 2CV.

The first fleeting memory is that I came off it en route to a Labour Euro campaign meeting in Cambridge. It was a foggy day and I was, as usual, impatient. I thought I’d reached a stage of the A14 with an extra inside lane and, being trapped behind a slow moving lorry, I decided to slip past him on the inside. The fog shrouded the fact that I was actually on the beginnings of a slip road on an earlier part of the highway. I accelerated past the lorry and suddenly saw the road veer left in a sharp curve. All I could do was hold on as I hit the curb at full speed and was launched into the air and a forced landing on the grass verge beyond. The bike and I were separated as we slithered to our respective stops. No serious damage to either, but I was late for my meeting!

During the hurricane of 1987, along with my 360, it got caught during the flooding at “Bluefields”, our aspiring alternative technology centre near St Neots.

It ended up in the garage at my new abode in Northampton and was eventually sold to someone on my local LETSystem.

11. Kawasaki GPZ 500

A fter years of hiatus, I realised I couldn’t really call myself a biker any more. To be a biker, you need a bike. Seems obvious really, but I learned that if you get out of the habit of actually owning a bike, the years can slip by unnoticed and, before long, you’re an ex-biker.

Based on past experience, I thought I shouldn’t go for anything too muscly. Apparently “returners” are the most likely to come a cropper. We think we know what we’re doing without realising how far the technology has advanced. So I settled for a modest 500 twin advertised as being “ebony” in colour. The vendor was local and he very kindly let me take it out for a thrash before buying.

I was gobsmacked. That bike, a four stroke, revved up to 11000 rpm without a hint of reluctance, releasing a very fine Formula 1 style racing sound in the process. I took it out to the M1 motorway and hit 90 before I realised it. It also had a 6 speed gearbox, so there was always room for up or down change. Delirious with excitement, I bought it then and there.

It did me good service. It was quick but economical; light and manoeuvrable. But, eventually, bit like my old 250 BSA, I realised it wasn’t manly enough for me.

I wanted a multi.

12. Honda CB 125 #1 (blue)

I’d always admired the Honda 125s for their basic simplicity and functionality. Classic and beautifully proportioned, they look like a proper motorcycle should look.

On the occasion of my first marriage, I took a couple of months of unpaid sabbatical to enjoy an extended “honeymoon” in southern Spain where I had a share in a former goatherd’s house in the mountains north of Malaga. Reasoning that the Kawa 500, still sitting in the garage, was too big, I’d acquired a blue 125 for the trip, thinking I could leave it down there for on-location transport.

Sarah and I filled my new VW LT (really a Mann) van with timber, tools, and other resources for some maintenance and upkeep on the place. In amongst all this we managed to squeeze the 125. We took the ferry all the way to Santander and drove due south as soon as we landed. Up over the beautiful Sierra del Escudo mountains south of the coast, then straight and flat across the midland plains. One night sleeping in a layby, and then we were there.

I recall seeing my neighbour Dieter on the side of the road in the home stretch. A huge, bearded, and normally gruff kind of guy, it was a genuine pleasure to see how surprised and pleased he was to see me. He and Marina, our nearest neighbours, immediately made us both feel completely at home in no time.

Dieter and Juanito, our other neighbour, were mightily impressed that, along with everything else, we had a motorcycle in the back of the van.

And what a boon that little bike was. Most of the roads in our area were not paved in those days, so biking seemed at times a little like trail riding, but that 125 never faltered. We would wake up in the morning, pick a distant peak, and head for it as far as the tracks would let us. Then we would hike up to the tops and look back upon our little valley. In a short period of time, we’d been to the top of every peak visible to us from the house. Something, strangely, I never felt sufficiently motivated to do when only four wheeled transport was available. I came to know the immediate locale better than I ever had before.

Sarah herself became adept at riding that bike and was often tooting around on her own.

13. Honda 125 #2 (black)

F or some obscure reason, I decided not to leave the bike there after all so it came home again with us. Sarah was so enamoured of it that, when we got back, we bought her a black 125 for her exclusive use.

In the end, when we divorced, she actually took both the blue and the black one. With her father’s misinformed help, she loaded them on his trailer and drove off when I was not about. At that point our relationship had become so fractious that there were no channels of communication any more. Her family were exhausted and lawyers were too expensive, slow, obtuse, and incompetent. So I reported the black bike as stolen (the only time I’ve ever put the police on to anyone). They were hopeless of course, but word got round and her dad eventually showed up with the black one and returned it with apologies.

Eventually, I swapped the black one with my friend Suzie for a high end mountain bike.

14. Kawasaki GPZ 600r

S o, my 500 twin not being manly enough, I felt it was time to acquire my first multi. I’d spotted a lean, mean Kawa 600 in a local bike shop and couldn’t stop thinking about it. I was actually at a formal meeting at the Co-op Bank HQ building in Manchester and announced that I had to pop out “for an important call.” I rang the shop worrying that the bike might have been sold, but it was still there. They offered a good part exchange on my 500 so we closed the deal and they promised to hold the 600 for me.

The GPZ was a four cylinder, water cooled, 600r (the r was for “racing”, although I never did) with a full but slimline “sport” fairing. The handlebar controls plus the dials and gauges inside the top of the fairing had the business-like look and feel of a Spitfire cockpit. At its debut, this was the first of what became the new class of 600cc water-cooled “sports bikes” – the bikes that the really intense cafe racers fling around with edgy abandon on the bendy UK back roads. Water-cooled meant all the tolerances could be much tighter, raising compression and making the engine much more explosive. By the time I got it, of course, it was well behind the standards of the day but it was still beautifully vociferous and undeniably authoritative and, interestingly, the fading black and purple colour scheme was touched with a bit of pink splashing.

At only 100cc more than the 500, it had noticeably more presence. At 217 kilos, it was only about 20 kilos heavier but felt much much more substantial. But it never felt strained. That engine just churned away in any of the 6 gears with a hugely generous and forgiving power band. It felt just as safe and rock steady on the more sedate and winding back roads as it did doing the ton on the motorways.
In fact, apart from the fact that rear-views couldn’t see past my elbows, perhaps not since the old BSA 650 did I feel so fully satisfied with a motorcycle. Without any modifications (it already had a 4 into 1 exhaust) at all, it felt complete and competent and, most importantly, looked and sounded just right for me at that time.

The problem tended to be that all that “r” technology combined with the crouched riding position inspires riders to do foolish things. Taking that curve or slipping between those queues of traffic had to be done at speed, with braking applied as minimally as possible. I recall occasionally doing especially stupid things – like tail-gating Porsches at 130mph just to piss the tosspot bankster drivers off. One time I was belting down the fast lane on the M1 when traffic suddenly came to a stop! With tyres screeching and smoking all around me all I could do was slip into the space between the outside of the lane and the concrete barrier. I’d slowed dramatically but, finding this space unencumbered, I eased off on the brakes and began to throttle up again. Ahead I could see a car had, inexplicably, stopped in that fast lane. As I prepared to zoom past into the empty lane beyond, the driver opened his flipping door! With no time to react, I shot past, barely missing the murderous outer edge of his door and all but scraping the concrete barrier on my right.

But I also remember feeling totally focused when on that machine; watching as far ahead as humanly possible, knowing that reaction time was always going to be pretty limited at best. Wind and miles would flow by like jet streams; accompanied by the kind of buffeting I imagine one might feel towards the end of a long fall from an aeroplane.

On one occasion, early in the morning on an empty back road in the midst of strands of morning mist, on my way to the motorway for Leeds, I was totally alone and in the rhythm. I came flying over a slight rise and into a misty dip – and was suddenly confronted with a herd of cows straggling across the road!

How they got there god only knows, but there they unmistakably and immovably were. I clamped the brakes but worried that I might lose grip, slither into their feet, and bring big, kicking cow bodies down upon myself. As the bike fishtailed, I saw the glimpse of an opening in the herd. I distinctly remember feeling a cow body bumping off my right shoulder followed immediately by one bouncing off my left shoulder, and then I was through. Shaking and adrenaline pumped, I continued, more slowly, on my wobbly way.

O n another occasion I was on my way to a conference in Rouen when, before I’d even got to the coast, the back wheel suddenly locked up. Fishtailing madly, I managed to stay upright and come to a stop at the side of the road. A quick examination revealed one of the brake pads had somehow broken up and got jammed against the rear disc. A bit of poking and prodding with a screwdriver and I managed to pry the remnants of both brake pads out such that the wheel could spin again. This meant, of course, that I had to complete the trip with only the front brakes.

Years later I was living on a wide-beam canal boat in Bristol Harbour whilst working on contract for the City Council. I kept the bike up in one of the Council car parks near the office, but used it every day as I darted about the city checking on the various projects for which I was managing the funds.

On one occasion I was heading out on the Bath Road and foolishly tried to pass a slow moving articulated lorry on the inside. He had no idea I was there of course but swung left such that his trailer bumped my shoulder and I thought I was going to be squashed against some parked cars. But a gap fortuitously appeared and I was shunted up the curb and on to the pavement (sidewalk). Luckily, thank christ, there were no pedestrians in sight, but as I shot along a guy emerged from the left, coming out of a shop doorway. He looked mildly surprised but stopped as I apologetically twisted back off the curb and on to the road again. I glanced back at the now stationary lorry but the driver appeared to be reading a document and clearly had no sense whatsoever of my existence.

On another occasion I was happily, probably too quickly, filtering through stalled traffic up the Gloucester Road, just north of the railway arches. As I was flitting past a stationary bus, a car, emerging from the side and cutting in front of the bus, suddenly appeared before me. Completely instinctively, within a millisecond, I did all the right things – shut the throttle and hit both brakes hard but not losing traction – and came to a halt, still upright, about a centimetre from the car’s door and staring into the face of the aghast woman driving.

Bob Marley once said, “You don’t know how strong you are until you got no choice.” Well I often felt I didn’t know how good a rider I was until I had no choice and, alarmed and shaken as I was, I was also pleased that my reactive neural pathways had, on this occasion and at long last, delivered to perfection.

Although I was working in Bristol, I was occasionally co-habiting with Georgie, my wife-to-be, in Bath. Her little house stood down a little alley-way off the Lower Bristol Road. You couldn’t get a car anywhere near the place, but a motorcycle slipped neatly up there and I used to park it just below her bedroom window.

O ne October morning I looked out and noticed some broken glass in the alley. I looked more directly down to where I’d left the bike and, to my horror, it was gone!

I rammed on some clothes and dashed down stairs and out into the alley. Sure enough, the glass was identifiable as one of the lights on the bike. My beautiful 600 had been stolen. I followed more bits of glass to the top of the alley where some paint scrapes indicated that the bastards had dropped it, but the bike itself was nowhere to be seen.

The police eventually found it, trashed and twisted, and informed both myself and the insurers. It turned out that a little local shithead by the name of Daniel Chiverton had taken it for a joy ride and, fuelled with drink, smashed it into a wall. He was disqualified from driving for 6 months and did 100 hours of “community service”! When the “victim support” people got in touch to say “is there anything we can do?”, I said I’d like to meet the bastard, but the little shit didn’t have the balls for it and declined. (If you ever happen to be reading this Chiverton, I’m still keen to meet.)

In fact the insurers, without so much as a by-your-leave, whisked the bike away to some yard over by Hertford. They eventually offered me a paltry sum but wouldn’t return it if I accepted. I was insulted and incensed and rejected the offer, insisting that they return the bike back to Bath. Acknowledging that the cost of shipping it back could be added to a slightly enhanced paltry sum meant that they improved their offer and I eventually got nearer market value for it, but it was a sad time and I missed that bike.

For a few months, half-heartedly, I occasionally looked at other bikes. My local one man bike dealer, Terry, showed me a vibrant yellow wicked looking Triumph 900 “sport” triple and insisted I take it for a test ride. I did, and smooth and mighty as it was, I felt the combination of top speed, weight, and general explosiveness would ultimately be my undoing. I suspected I would end up indulging in stupid things and die cartwheeling across a road somewhere. It also had a very slightly metallic sound like the old BSA Starfire of years ago, and a bit of a whine from the dynamo which was apparently completely normal put had the effect of getting in the way of the sweet sound of the triple’s exhaust. “Sorry,” I said to Terry. “No probs,” he replied.

15. Thai Rentals Honda C90 / 125 Trail

I n 2003 I went with my wayward erstwhile IT business partner Angelo to Thailand, ostensibly for an IT event and marketplace. In the course of our wanderings we went to a couple of the islands (or Koh) in the Gulf of Thailand.

On Koh Samui we hired a pair of Honda C90s. Apparently the C90 is far and away the best selling motorcycle on the planet. Perhaps this is easier to understand when you realise they’ve been in production, virtually unchanged, since the early 60s. Even more so when you see them loaded up with entire families. I counted two parents and four kids on one, and even a live, bound goat on the back of another! Even in busy Bangkok traffic you would see these massively overloaded C90s wending their way through the flow.

Koh Samui is a national park and, at that time, had no cars, so we could whip up and down the dirt roads at will. No helmets, sometimes three or four to a bike, it was wonderful and carefree.

At one point my C90 conked out and wouldn’t fire up. I went into a nearby bar to recuperate and got talking to a one-armed man from Northumbria. It turned out he’d been a mechanic years ago so he came out and had a tinker. Within about 5 minutes he had that bike up and running again.

We also went to Koh Chang and went slightly up-market with a pair of 125 trail bikes. These were even better for going up some of the side trails. Angelo got sidetracked into some sort of dodgy business deal but I bumped into a young guy calling himself “Scoob” (apparently after Scooby Doo, the cartoon dog!).

I’d just had coffee in a little wooden roadside cafe, complete with passing logging elephants, when I came across this guy waving me down by a gaggle of local people bunched up by the side of the road. I stopped and he asked if I could give him a lift “past the snake”. I looked down the road and saw the problem. An enormous bright green and yellow snake had coiled itself up in the middle of the road and was flicking its tongue out as it sensed the gathering gaggle of humans. The locals seemed suitably wary so we guessed that snake might be suitably venomous. Nobody was willing to walk past the beast and everybody was waiting for it to move on. Being westerners, Scoob and I were in a hurry – places to go, people to see. So he clambered aboard and we headed off gingerly as close to the edge of the road as we could get. Then, keeping our right legs as high as we could in case he should strike, we gunned past that shiny green tongue-flicking bad boy as fast as the 125 would take us.

N o strikes. No bites. The snake and the human gaggle may still be there for all I know, but Scoob decided to hire a bike himself and over the next day, setting off in the opposite direction, we checked out the entire length of the Koh Chang main road. On the southernmost tip of a fishing pier off the southernmost tip of the island we dined on a seafood lunch caught and served by a smilingly hospitable local fishing family .

A day or two later I was down a trail looking for some legendary waterfalls. I’d got off the bike and was walking down a trail by a small river. On my right I saw a little family group sitting in the front of their house-on-stilts. I called over to them the (now forgotten) Thai word for “waterfall”, pointing. They nodded vigorously, also pointing. I waved and carried on but noticed that a young girl and what I took to be her mother had detached themselves and were setting off from the stilted house on a path converging with mine. We met up and they gestured that they were going to show me the way!

And sure enough, they did. We clambered up no less than seven separate sets of falls, each more stunning than the last, churning and spraying in the midst of thick hot rainforest and flickering sunlight. The young girl and I swam, fully clothed, at every opportunity as the pools below each set of falls were more inviting than any luxury health spa.

When we got back to the house on stilts I was invited up the ladder for tea and a sort of poppadom. Through a mixture of hand gestures and drawing stick figures and arrows in my notepad, we managed to exchange the basis of who we were and what we were doing. It turned out that the young girl was the granddaughter of the hosting couple and that the young woman was not her mother at all but a refugee from Cambodia. She and her husband, who also appeared and joined the little group, had apparently trekked a long way to get to this point and it was not at all clear what their options were going forward. From what I could make out, it seemed that they were not even related to the old couple but had simply been taken in out of decency and natural hospitality.

16. Kawasaki XXXX GTR 1000

A s mentioned above, in 2004 Georgie, my wife to be, and her lovely daughter Isla came into my life. They lived in Bath and I began to look for work in Bristol – eventually landing a 3 to 5 year contract with Bristol City Council. I let out and re-mortgaged my Northampton house and acquired a 60 foot broad beam canal boat in Bristol Harbour (for more detail regarding “Trouper” have a look at “A Squandered Life”). This was an absolutely wonderful period for me, involving a gentle introduction to family living, full work satisfaction, and gentle commutes between Bath and Bristol. This was usually accomplished on the GPZ 600 but often, especially on weekends, on the glorious River Avon aboard Trouper itself – mooring up anywhere along that beautiful stretch that offered an overhanging tree branch and the opportunity to jump in for a swim. We had some great parties on that majestic ship.

In the last year of my Bristol City contract (which coincide nicely with my official retirement), Georgie and I resolved to let out her little house in Bath and set up shop together at my place back in Northampton.

On the basis of a bit of a whim and the crude rationale that now, as I was still working in Bristol but weekending in Northampton, I would need fast transport that wouldn’t be affected by the inevitable traffic snarls between those destinations, I began looking at touring bikes. With the demise of the GPZ 600, I’d been hankering after a shaft drive tourer for some time and this seemed the ideal opportunity.

I spotted one on eBay, liked the description, and, as it was located a bit far away, paid for it up front before I’d even had a look.

Nevertheless, I was mightily impressed up close and in real time. It totally looked the biz. I could see myself touring endless miles on that thing just by sitting on it.

In reality, in use, as I started to eat the miles between Northampton and Bristol, I discovered a few drawbacks.

It was a heavy bike with a fairly high centre of gravity and, occasionally, when the carrier box was loaded, top-heavy. Combined with the fairly high seat height this could be a problem. I actually dropped it (gently) when I stopped on a slight incline and it leaned downslope before I could catch it. Hugely embarrassing. I quickly learned to put only the lightest of stuff in that top box, and kept my laptops and batteries and books in the side boxes.

But it was a sweet ride. The flawless, soundless, maintenance free shaft drive was a revelation. And it would do ninety to a hundred absolutely all day if you wanted, with occasional jaunts up to 130, no questions asked and no lack of stability. On the downside, it whipped through the fuel like nobody’s business at those kinds of cruising speeds. I also learned that the “R” in “GTR” meant “racing”, which meant the riding position was a bit “sporty”, ie the foot pegs were set back and the handlebars were virtual clip-ons. The substantial touring fairing was so good that I never got wet, but it actually generated a back draft, and this, combined with the sporty seating position, meant I tended to carry a lot of weight on my arms. Great for building up those biceps, but a bit wearing on the 240 mile weekend round trip. Having a tank bag helped of course, and I used to stuff it with clothing to make a soft cushion for my chest. Even so, my wrists used to get pretty achey.

daughter Hazel on board

J ust like in the old Watford/Harston days, I began to explore all the different route permutations. It was just so much more fun cruising the bendy roads beneath the flickering trees, alongside the pungent farm fields, and through the smaller towns and villages with a few gear changes and touches of brake and throttle here and there. A stark contrast to crouching still in top gear and belting down the endless straight motorways packed with erratic traffic.

When my contracts finished I couldn’t really justify keeping the GTR on, especially as I was now also running a Honda Nighthawk (see below). With a heavy heart I posted it for sale on a free, dedicated GTR owners website http://www.kawasaki-gtr1000.co.uk/ (many thanks Chris). After a couple of weeks I got an enquiry from a very nice chap – in Norway!

Yes, Norway. Apparently it was cheaper for him to buy here, fly to the UK, and ride and ferry the bike back than to buy second hand in Norway itself. We skyped a few times which meant I could show him around the bike as per his requests. “It’s very shiny,” he said, more than once.

He came to stay for a couple of nights in August 2009 and, after a final look over and a test ride, he paid cash for it. I waved him and the GTR away from a wayside cafe on the road to the Felixstowe ferry.

17. Honda 1991 Nighthawk CB750

I acquired this bike in the throes of trying to encourage a work acquaintance to get re-interested in his motorcycle so he could join me on trips. Instead, he kept trying to sell it to me. When it got to the point of a virtual give-away, I caved in and took it off his hands. I was thus the perplexed owner of two Japanese multis but quickly found that the 750 was ideal for tooting around Bristol whereas the monster 1000cc Kawasaki tourer was by far the better ride for the weekend commuting.

W hen I left Bristol, I parted ways with the Kawa 1000 (see above) and the 750 became my main ride. One of the first things I’d done with it was to whip off the, rusting, standard 4 into 2 exhaust system and replace it with a Motad 4 into 1. This was more pleasing in so many ways. It was immediately lighter of course, but it also looked better – more stripped down – and the exhaust note was, to my ear, far more satisfactory. I added semi-raised handle bars and a small, elegant headlight fairing to keep the buffeting wind off my abdomen without generating a back draft.

Still one of my rides at the time of writing (2025), the bike looks so much cooler now and, in fact, looks not a little unlike my old BSA Thunderbolt. Even in it’s less than brilliantly cared for state and despite being over 30 years old, it still draws admiring looks from passers-by and other bikers. And it’s still got enough poke to blow away the occasional rev-nut at the stop lights or mucking about on the dual carriageway.

I don’t do much touring any more. The old body isn’t as resilient as it used to be, and the upright seating position is hard on the back after more than an hour or so. I have been thinking I could pop it into the back of my van, take it to different parts of the world, and then ride around like a local. Maybe. But really it’s just totally pleasant to roll it out of the garage on a sunny day and cruise out to a not too near coffee shop.

It was also such a terrific pleasure to take my family out (individually) on rides. Georgie and Isla and I had been joined by Hazel in 2009. When Hazel was old enough, she used to get – and give – a special charge of joy on such outings. Like me, she loved a bit of the G force on acceleration and the quasi flying sensation of leaning into those long curves.

Throughout the years from 2019 to 2021 we began a graduated move back to Georgie’s roots in Devon. She and Hazel went ahead and rented while I endeavoured to bring the Northampton house up to scratch for letting out. Apart from motorcycles, I’ve always had vans as well, so spent a lot of time on the motorways carrying bits and pieces back and forth until we eventually bought a bungalow in the village of Georgie’s upbringing.

18. Lexmoto XXXX 125

I still had work to do in Northampton and had the 750 in the garage, but it was just a little too far for my stiffening carcase and the ageing machine to do the trip by bike so I was vanning it most of the time. However, I still hankered for a ride whilst on location in Devon.

Good old eBay provided an affordable Chinese 125 and I packed it in the van and began swanning round the Devonshire lanes and up on to Dartmoor at every opportunity.

The novelty eventually wore off as it was just too small and under-powered for me and, vitally, the sound was less than impressive. I began hankering for something with more presence. Georgie was interested in getting back into bike riding (she still had a license) and the Lexmoto eventually became hers.

19. Suzuki 1991 VX 800

I n I 2024 the hankering became an uncomfortable itch and I began looking more seriously. I found that, just as in the old days when I was scouting for that BSA in the late 60s, my criteria were simple and not entirely logical. I wanted something that looked the part (ie a “proper” motorcycle) and sounded good. I also fancied something relatively maintenance free, such as the GTR 1000 shafty mentioned above.

In due course I spotted a VX 800 on the internet. I’d never seen or heard of these bikes before but it very much looked the part – a V twin with shaft drive – and the price was manageable. I was drawn, and I arranged to go and see this shiny looking machine via email and eventually turned up outside an enormous warehouse complex.

I was greeted not by my correspondent but by an eastern European “friend” of his. He jumped into my van and guided me around to the back of the complex where a much lower warehouse squatted in the dust and the broken concrete. We got out and my guide hauled back on a massive creaking door and led me into the darkened innards. There at the back were a number of car and bike wrecks under grubby tarpaulins. He pulled off the tarp covering a very sad looking VX with bits of wiring and missing bits of hardware showing. The battery was flat so there was no chance of starting it up at that point. I suggested this was not the bike advertised and he proceeded to ring up my correspondent and passed me the phone. This man, another eastern European allegedly calling from Ireland, insisted it was the same bike but suggested I make an offer. I declined and wrote off a wasted afternoon.

H owever another one popped up a few weeks later and looked a lot more promising. This guy, an older guy called Steve, was much more forthcoming on the phone and I arranged to go and have a look (and a listen).

On arrival I was immediately drawn. Steve (as requested) fired it up from cold and it spun to life in an instant. He wheeled it on to the road and gestured. I climbed aboard and shot off for a short toot. Plenty of G force and, despite having the slightly subdued sound of a civilised and well muffled Japanese product, plenty of “blatt” on acceleration. It didn’t have the offset chortle of a Harley (due to being perfectly opposed on the crank) but it was good enough. I was very chuffed and paid up then and there.

The VX is currently my main ride in Devon. The CB750 is semi-retired in my Northampton garage and occasionally brought out when I arrive in the van to work on the property. I take my breaks on that bike when the sun is shining.

Back in Devon I thrash about on the lovely winding lanes with the occasional charge into Exeter on the dual carriageway of the A30. It is blessed with a clear plastic windscreen set low to reduce back drag. The only downside is a minimally padded seat which, for some strange reason, slopes forward – forever easing me (especially on braking) closer to the front of the bike. I’m looking for a better seat and perhaps some shorty mufflers, but am otherwise totalled enamoured of this machine.

Both current rides

20. Vintage times

A s I wander around the venerable, undying British steam rallies – complete with fully functioning, heavily smoking, and highly polished steam engines of all kinds and sizes – I inevitably drift towards the fringe vintage areas.

Here you can also see beautifully restored road vehicles of the bygone eras – except that, more and more, I’m finding examples of vehicles I actually used to own and drive myself!

This is especially noticeable in the motorcycle sections. There, shining in their pristine restored glory are more and more of the very machines I used to ache for and, in some cases, possess and ride.

Always chastening as I have to acknowledge the passing of time, these moments are also surprisingly emotional as I look upon the machines almost as if they are old and long lost friends.

The Motorcycle Diaries

All In One

….the story of one man’s love/fear relationship with motorcycles

Excerpts from “A Squandered Life”

Contents

Introduction

1. Triumph Trophy 500

1.1. Montreal ‘66

2. BSA Starfire 250

2.1. Red Deer, Alberta ‘68

2.2.Mid West

2.3. Montreal ‘68

3. BSA 1968 Thunderbolt 650

3.1. London ‘68

3.2. Paris ’69

3.3. Spain ‘69

3.4. Barcelona

3.5. San Filieu de Guixols

3.6. Nice

3.7. Grenoble

3.8. Selb

3.9. Berlin

3.10. Rostock

3.11. Malmo

3.12. Stockholm 1

3.13. Finland & Norway

3.14. Stockholm 2

3.15. Back to England

3.16. St John’s ‘70

3.17. Carol

3.18. Quentin

3.19. Jennifer n Deb

3.20. Montreal ’70

3.21. the Maritimes ‘70

3.22. New Brunswick ??

3.23.Prince Edward Island

3.24.Newfoundland

3.25. back to St John’s ‘70

4. Norton 750 Commando

4.1. Enosburg Falls ‘71

5. Hodaka Ace 100

5.1. St John’s ‘71

6. Fiat 500

6.1. Bielefeld ‘72

7. MZ 250 Trophy

7.1. St Ives ‘73

7.2. France / Switzerland / Italy

7.3. Yugoslavia

7.4. Greece

7.5. Aarhus

7.6. Vendages

7.7. Flers

8. MZ TS 250 Sport #1 (red)

8.1. Harston ‘77

8.2. Watford ‘77

9. Honda CB 360

9.1. Watford ‘’79

9.2. Great Leighs ‘80

9.3. Bruxelles ‘81

9.4. Chichester ‘81

10. MZ TS 250 #2 (black)

11. Kawasaki GPZ 500

12. Honda CB 125 #1 (blue)

13. Honda 125 #2 (black)

14. Kawasaki GPZ 600r

15. Thai Rentals Honda C90 / 125 Trail

16. Kawasaki XXXX GTR 1000

17. Honda 1991 Nighthawk CB750

18. Lexmoto XXXX 125

19. Suzuki 1991 VX 800

20. Vintage times