Issue 182 September 2013

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Back to Contents Page Contents... 4. From the editor… 17. The Boy Biker 64. Another World 146. Revival Time Mind expanding travel Passing on the passion The sort of old school Blez provides a pictorial country shows that aren’t prelude to Goodwood’s 7. Rider’s Lives 21. A View from the Group dampened by a little bit annual nostalgia fest Tim might be a W Bench of rain relative newbie but he A reminder of the 162. Ask a Policeman can’t get enough of it significance of good 96. Bloodrunner Time for a little brakes and tyres Roadcraft revisited Dostoyevsky? 8. Image of the Month Dream installation 23. The Naming of the Bike 108. Devil’s Bridge 167. Motorcycle Girl Racer Wizzard wonders why Motorcycle only parking Even stranger goings on 10. Six & the City manufacturers have on Sundays and Bank at Stonehenge Tinks went missing so we blown this important Holidays! had a search in the archive basic so many times 171. Book Review 123. Incredible India Our cultural correspondent 12. Paddy’s Perspective 32. Hey, I’m With The Team A brief snippet en route unzips the ubiquitous Anti-social political Stuart gets the inside line from Wollongong to black leather jacket and suicide on club racing Woolwich has a good look inside

Editor Contributors Cartoons Contacts Dave Gurman Tinks, Paddy Tyson, George Smith, Ian Dunmore, Simon Kewer Editorial Assistant editor Wizzard, Stuart Jewkes, Oldlongdog, Antony Loveless, Dave Gurman Peter Martin Nick Lojik, Will Wilkins, Paul Blezard, Graham Pierce, +44 (0) 20 8707 0655 Design Jonathan Boorstein +44 (0) 7948 897093 Simon Gardner [email protected] Web site Photographs Advertising Andy Cadney Stuart Jewkes, Dave Gurman, Oldlongdog, The opinions and comments of contributors Peter Martin Antony Loveless, Nick Lojik, Will Wilkins, within this magazine do not necessarily reflect +44 (0) 7973 818579 Paul Blezard, Graham Pierce the opinions of the editor. [email protected]

2 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 3 of the circumstances in their I received a letter the next children in this country (which country of origin. month reminding me that is the same percentage of the I was chatting to Tiffany, the NHS was far from free and population as there are in the From the editor... who’s the very American wife I responded in my editorial US without health insurance) Travel, it’s said, broadens to keep the air conditioning the other way and the kind of Digest designer about saying, “Judging by Clive’s who couldn’t get one when the mind and it’s difficult to running and a steady flow of of unprotected drops that the weather (and, in spite of rejoinder, I struck a nerve they really needed it. And in imagine how it could fail to water to fill the pool and keep make my nuts tighten and various language similarities, last month when I made the spite of my woefully inaccurate do so. Having said that I know the lawns lush. my head spin just looking at in many ways the US of A can mistake of suggesting that we description of health service there are plenty of tourists If narrow-minded ex- photographs! And don’t even be as alien as they come). She enjoy ‘free’ universal health funding, I think my American who’ve been all over the globe pats, cruisers and resort get me started on venomous was saying that she has been care in the UK. Of course he’s friend understood that it needs and returned with stacks of holidaymakers tend to miss tropical bugs, snakes and all here since 2007 and this was right, there is no such thing as to be paid for, he just thought stunning photographs, who out on the complete cultural the other shit that would be the first real summer she had a free lunch (expense account that it sounded like a good use have somehow managed to experience, it would seem just waiting to get me… experienced since she arrived lunches for some maybe, but for his tax dollars to be put to. learn precisely nothing about that it is nigh on impossible to So while I might have no – she honestly believed until then even they’re not free – “Geoff Thomas (AKA Blue the lives of the local people travel independently on the intention of doing so myself, it recently that the Great British except for the people who 88) witnessed an enormous beyond how they impacted, road (where available) without doesn’t stop me feeling envious Summer was the same as are fortunate enough to be range of political and cultural positively or – heaven forbid developing a few insights into of less timid riders who have unicorns and the Loch Ness eating them!). So although variety in his 28,000-mile – negatively, on their ‘holiday the way the people around the balls – or the ovaries(?) – to Monster! However, it wasn’t the NHS is free at the point of trek around the world and experience’. you live their lives. In 1960 take on that sort of challenge. the chat about weather that delivery, it obviously has to be his entertaining monthly Obviously it’s a lot easier when Steinbeck decided that If travel is mind expanding, marked a major cultural financed. But surely Clive you reports of his adventures to do this if you are sailing as he was making his living then genuine adventure travel difference between this side don’t believe that the whole of were clearly just the tip of the around on a gargantuan cruise writing about America and must be mind-blowing, not of the Atlantic and the other your 20% income tax, National iceberg, nonetheless they ship that delivers destinations Americans, it was probably least because, getting back to (as far as I know bitching about Insurance, 17.5%VAT and fuel provided all of us with some overnight like a floating about time that he explored my original point, everything the weather is universal, it’s tax go to pay for the NHS? fascinating insights. He signs conveyor belt, or if you’re his country again to see what I’ve read suggests that it’s always too something) it was Because although it is the off this month, so I’d like to cossetted in all-inclusive resort they were like up close and impossible to travel very far after we moved onto the NHS country’s biggest employer, take a moment to thank him in Sharm el-Sheikh, where the personal. He chose to do this on a bike without getting to and she confessed that the there are innumerable other for sharing his travels and only suggestion of military in a camper (which he named know something about your first time she visited a doctor demands on the ‘public his thoughts with us in such coups and mass shootings Rocinante after Don Quixote’s hosts, not least because a here, she’d felt guilty when she purse’. Aside from all the an honest and openhearted come via the cable TV – on mount) with his French motorcycle provides the same walked out without paying! usual communal services like manner and to wish him well exactly the same news channel standard poodle Charley for sort of conversational leverage It reminded me of a education and care for the for all his future plans (watch you could be watching at company because experience as Steinbeck’s dog. conversation I’d had with elderly, bailing out the people this space).” home. had taught him that a dog is Fortunately, given my the young fella who picked who’ve enjoyed years of multi- Well, I’m glad to inform you Then there are the always a good conversational faint-heartedness when it me up in a truck after the million pound bonuses (and that the NHS is still hanging ‘Englishmen Abroad’ whose icebreaker. comes to travel, I grew up in Rocket III I’d been riding expense account lunches) has in there despite everything it ex-pat mentality means that I’ve never done any one of the world’s major cities gave out somewhere in the been pretty costly and the has endured recently and that they live in the midst of an adventure riding myself, I so while I might not have backwoods of Connecticut. As wars in Iraq and Afghanistan “Ashes to Boonville”, the long entirely alien culture, without learned to ride in London and done much by way of exotic I reported in issue 134, “Travis hardly come cheap, so I guess awaited first part of Geoff’s ever giving a thought to any if I’m honest I only really feel at travelling, I have had the had real difficulty grasping it’s just a question of priorities. ‘Poor Circulation’ trilogy is of the realities that might be home on decent Tarmac (not good fortune to meet people the fact that after I mashed “For myself, in the same now available via Amazon happening outside of their that there’s much that in the from around the world and my leg, everything from the way as I’d be perfectly happy (or by order from any good gated community. But they’re Metropolis these days!). I’m been exposed to a veritable ambulance that picked me to insure my bike every year book shop). Top notch mind not travellers, the only reason uncomfortable riding across cornucopia of cultures. It up, to the first rate treatment I without ever having any expansion from the comfort of they’re not at home in Blighty a few hundred yards of loose could be argued that anyone received when they delivered reason to make a claim, I’m your own sofa. is because, either they’re on a gravel, let alone a few hundred I meet here is by definition me to the closest A&E and quite sanguine about the Dave Gurman lucrative contract, or they’ve kilometres of the worst the living outside of what would my later knee replacement, idea of subsidising thousands retired and they demand ‘developing world’ has to offer. be the societal norm in their was entirely free at the point of life-saving operations guaranteed sunshine and Then there are the seemingly native circumstances, which is of delivery. He… couldn’t without getting my fair cheap labour. They certainly compulsory rickety bridges undeniably true; nonetheless get his head around the fact share – in fact I find the idea aren’t interested in learning over bottomless ravines that talking to someone who wasn’t that throughout the whole very comforting. I would anything about the natives link the rough mountain tracks born here and hearing their process, nobody had asked however be considerably less Catch Dave Sunday between – just as long as they have a complete with intermittent take on life in the UK can help to see an insurance policy or a comfortable if there were 10pm and midnight (BST) on consistent electricity supply kamikaze truckers coming to provide an understanding credit card!” 10 million men, women and www.bikerfm.co.uk

4 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 5 Riders’ Lives

What bike would you most What do you think is the like to ride/own? worst thing about I’m 6’6” with long legs, which motorcycling? rules out most sports bikes, so I wonder if I’ll make it home naturally I want one. I reckon I every time I get on the bike. I could set up a matt white KTM wish I could lighten up about RC8R just right. the whole thing but I’m still a bit neurotic about the risk What was your hairiest because I’m fairly new to moment on a bike? riding. Drivers making phone I binned a trail bike up a calls on the M25 wind me mountainside in Spain; right up. next time I’ll pay more attention and hopefully Name an improvement avoid breaking bones again. you’d like to see for the Name: Tim Arrowsmith next generation? What was your most Development of battery What was your first memorable ride? and motor technologies motorcycling experience? In 2010 I rode from the Queen that lead to petrol vehicles When I was about 11 on a Mary in Long Beach, Ca to of all kinds being purely family trip to Jersey, for some Del Mar to take photos at the recreational objects. The Tesla reason my motorcycle-phobic GoodGuys custom car show. I Supercharger network shows parents let me hammer a rode down on a rented Road what’s possible.. miniature scrambler round a King which was a piece of junk dirt track for an afternoon. I but cruising along the Pacific How would you like to be loved every minute of it. It only Coast Highway on a Harley remembered? took me another twenty-odd ticked some big boxes for me. I only went to University in years to get my licence. my mid 30s and am very lucky What would be the ideal to now study and research What is your current bike? soundtrack to the above? motorcycle subcultural An ‘09 Tiger 1050 I’ve had from Dennis Wilson’s Pacific Ocean history at the London new. It was my first bike and Blue on endless repeat. College of Fashion. If I can we fit together nicely, whizzing provide something new and round the UK and Europe in all What do you think is interesting to the academic weathers. I’m proud that it’s the best thing about world then I’ll really feel I’ve British and it’s utterly reliable. motorcycling? done something useful. Failing I usually ride to meetings up The unique combination of that I’m probably doomed to to 500 miles from home – absolute focus on keeping be referred to as Mr Anna that’s how much I like it. the thing the right way up Span, husband of the porn It copes with my overnight combined with the feeling of director… bloodrunning callouts for freedom that only a bike can SERV Kent but is also fun in provide. The free parking is the twisty stuff as well. nice too.

6 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 7 ©Photograph By Dave Gurman

8 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 9 Saturday In quite an accented voice as we cross paths, almost like It’s happened. he informs me I’ve lost my twins – totally getting the all- Luca at Sondel Sport and number plate. in-black leather, bike, visor Rev’it have all delivered on “Eet fell off back at ze big combo). Six and the City their promise and I now stand ‘ouse.” But stopping to let other clad head to toe in skintight Sorry? bikes out of T-junctions? black leather! “At ze big ‘ouse, your To me, it’s not always It’s a very tasteful set of number plate, eet fall off.” a good idea. Time and a matt black trousers that are So it has. Bugger! place etc. boot cut and go over my Sidi’s “You going to go back Lovely of the chap on and an exceptionally well for eet?” the black uprighty thing tailored jacket that does not Mate, I’ve got to work out (new ER-5?) on Duke Street look like a box with a couple what the hell you mean before St James’s this morning to of arms stuck on. It’s longer I go anywhere. slow for me to pull out but than the usual ladies jacket So I thank him graciously I had to shake my head and and has lots of elasticated for his information, and scoot decline cos I noticed that the panels that pull in at all the in to work ASAP; only stopping car behind him couldn’t see right places, and it’s one of the briefly to let a couple of bike why he was slowing and very most comfortable jackets with plod go in front of me – “No, nearly ploughed into the back hard protection I’ve ever tried no, after you, I insist”. of him. on. Park up at work, get Yup – you could say the car What I particularly like changed and put my trainers driver should have been paying is that they are very discreet on in readiness to retrace more attention, but in the real and I can walk down the street my steps. world we know that’s not going without them screaming, ‘I’ve Big house? WTF? to happen. got a motorbike’. Penny drops – that’ll be In Mr Uprighty-could- And even if I do say so Buckingham Palace then. be-an-ER5-thing’s defence myself – I look damn fine in Friday though, it may well have had them… so there. I do like to think that within something to do with my Tuesday our powered two wheel world, bum in my new, tight, black Hooning in to work on the we have an unwritten set of leathers on a gorgeous black hoonmobile and enjoying myself rules and manners that more R6 that made him want to slow immensely charging down Pall or less everyone agrees with. down… yeah… right… ’course Mall, when I notice a well dressed Like nodding at other it was. chap on a scooter waving at me. bikers; it’s a given – we all do Wave back. it, except those in city centres, I’m afraid that in all the He starts waving a bit more cos you’d get an RSI if you kept excitement of preparing for frantically. it up and then disappearing off on I flip my visor up and look (However, big Nod to the holiday, Tinks forgot all about more closely at him. Initial guy on the black GSXR, in black filing her column before she left! impression is that he wants a lift leathers, with a black visor and However, I dived into the archive on the back seat, however he’s a black and blue lid outside The and dug out one of my favourites indicating for me to pull over Big House most mornings at so nobody needs to feel too hard so I do. 8 am. He always nods to me done by – Ed

10 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 11 Paddy’s Perspective Self-flagellation ost discussions is to ignore the positives. Ban as someone of an older about motorcycling them. Ipso facto there will be generation might say. Mare dichotomous. no injuries or death related to Well they’d probably do Bikes make sense as efficient motorcycling and their journey it in Britain if motorcyclists personal transport; they don’t times will not be comparably themselves begged them to congest, are easy to park and quicker or cleaner than a and if a voting population of they don’t wear out the road. car because they won’t be non-riders seemed supportive. They’re generally more fuel- making any. It might not surprise you that efficient and it doesn’t take Of course a ban would the Germans have done it for nearly as much of the earth’s be irrational, draconian even years, banning motorcycles resources to make one as it and no-one would go for it. from various sections of their does a car. Why would legislators who road network. They started But, they aren’t safe are are attempting to improve it back in the 1990s because they? They’re noisy and a traffic flows and air quality, riders were killing themselves public nuisance, or so we ban the very solution to their in unacceptably high numbers are all too often told. For transportational woes? They on particularly interesting legislators, one way of tackling would be cutting off their pieces of road, which ultimately those negative aspects of biking noses to spite their faces, cost the State too much money

12 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 13 and the general population too to be banned from the streets experimenting no doubt, to much heartache. they use. see whether or not a ban on An ill-informed After years of public bikes leads to a ban on bikes… environmental lobby has, complaints and failed soft Experimental or permanent, the in many parts of the world, policing, Brent Council have cost of implementing multiple sought and succeeded in introduced a bike ban on the traffic orders is comparable banning bikes from certain Rainsford Road in London’s to fitting some speed humps, urban areas, preferring cars Park Royal area. It’s basically a something that residents and to sit and pollute in traffic couple of roundabouts joined Hospital staff have called for. jams rather than letting the by a long sweeping corner by There are Hospital staff who populace keep moving on two, a hospital, and it seems that commute by bike because it’s convenient wheels. riding it repeatedly, quickly and convenient and green, who will But why would noisily is a favourite past-time now have to take a detour. motorcyclists cry out for of some. The Council don’t want And it’s an Order that has legislation that penalises to fit speed bumps because it’s been implemented in part them directly? Well that’s the a thoroughfare designed in to ensure that a hypothetical million dollar question of part to alleviate the congestion fatality doesn’t occur, in the course. Regardless of attempts on the A406 Hanger Lane way that a fatality has been yet by legislators to get riders to gyratory and because part of to occur. In that endeavour I accept they are part of a wider the adjoining land is earmarked expect it will succeed, therefore community and therefore have for commercial development. proving again, that only by some personal responsibility, Dispersal Orders have been banning green, efficient, riders have insisted on fitting made to clear gatherings of congestion reducing bikes from excessively loud exhausts, until riders who sometimes remain an urban area, can hypothetical repeated legislation reduced until the early hours, but still casualties be reduced and the permitted noise level the activity persists. What the perception of anti-social of bikes to the dangerously would you do if you had to bikers be cemented. Ban them muted that we have now. make the decision? Dealing throughout the city and to hell Excessive enforcement could with anti-social behaviour is with congestion and air quality, have attempted to tackle the one thing, but maintaining motorcycle casualties will issue, but that costs too much, legal right of access is another. fall, rather as they have been because Western democracies The BMF have pointed out that doing through improved road actually do most of their inconveniencing, or indeed infrastructure and better rider policing through consent. And criminalising the many, is no training. so the persistently arrogant way to deal with the few. If a It’s a dichotomy alright. or ignorant brought us to the law-breaker is a law-breaker, When the motorcycle noise limits and the public will another law perturb them? community could be stealing perception that we have today. Consensual policing is still the a huge moral advantage within And it seems the desire to basis of enforcement, so surely transport policy, part of it fulfil society’s most negative only those who would use the persistently invites repression perception of motorcycling is still road within legal confines will and negative publicity, but to alive and well in our Capital. Some be the ones most affected. whose ultimate advantage? riders have all but signed a petition It’s an Experimental Traffic to enact the ultimate penalty; Order that has been introduced, Paddy Tyson

14 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 15 The Boy Biker Boy Biker inspires the next generation have had the pleasure this put together by one group, “We won “Best Use of Non month to get involved in Chicken Run. Motorcycle Parts”, thanks to I a totally different world. “Since November we have Morley our chicken, as well Rather than blinging cylinder been attending the Young as “Best Newcomers”. The heads and re-vamping Lewisham Project every Tuesday show was great fun and the vintage shock absorber evening. We learn about whole process taught us parts (www.icmhome.org. motorbike mechanics. Between loads: mechanics, carpentry, uk) I have been working part us (Jesse, Ollie, Billy & Jordan) we gardening and chicken time at the Young Lewisham came up with the idea to build keeping.” Project. Boys and girls of a moped and sidecar, showing Being involved in this kind all ages go to the project everything that the Young of work has really given me my for all sorts of enrichment Lewisham Project does. We biking bug back. It amazes me activities; cooking, gardening, made the sidecar from a bicycle how happy a young person carpentry, motorbike frame and built a wooden can be just being around maintenance, music making chicken shed to go on it. Once bikes. Working on them, and bicycle repair. the frame was together we pushing them, sitting on My involvement (so far) sanded and painted it. Then the them, asking questions about has been in the motorbike plants were added: cucumbers, them. It reminds me of myself workshop. The groups are strawberries, pansies and a few years back, so eager generally there for an 8 week tomatoes. We then mounted to be around them, endless program (involving a couple some gardening tools on the interrogation about what of hours a week), which isn’t front of the shed. cc means, 2 vs 4 stroke, the a very long time to impart “On June 28th we went up merits of different numbers years of fixing and bodging to Lincoln to the National Youth of cylinders and layouts, why experience. You can’t try to Bike Awards, a bike show for different bikes are better at cram information into people, young people. doing different things, why if it takes 8 weeks to learn the “There were various do some have cables and some CLICK TO WEBSITE pros and cons of open ended categories and lots of tubes, why does that one have vs ring spanner, then so be it. interesting projects. ‘flat’ tires? just search for your model As a self-titled man of Competition was fierce but Being able to remember of bike you will be surprised some literary talent, I try, we had a secret weapon in asking them myself, I never how many parts we have where I can to get them to the shape of our live chicken get fed up of answering write about their experiences, that even laid an egg on the these questions. I try to avoid here are a lovely few words way up! the old fall back answer of www.wemoto.com16 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 17 “because it is and that’s that.” made it possible for me to get him I had not only shown him but sometimes my mind on the road. Young people a few key road manners, but boggles for a few seconds as at the project haven’t often also noticed that his exhaust IT’S NOT ALL ABOUT BIKES... I try to recall the information got their own bike, so a CBT was very loose. Back to the imparted to me by various old wouldn’t help much. Most of workshop to fix it! boys over the years. the help we give them is in It is a great place to be With biking getting regards to being confidant involved in. If there are any harder and harder to get in enough to do things on young people who think to, I was lucky to win a Digest their own. they might be interested in competition back in 2009 that One boy in particular this type of scheme, find the provided me with a CBT and turned up recently on his 50cc Young Lewisham Project on some riding gear (last things moped, sporting such a proud Facebook and get in touch. I ever got from this sacred look I nearly welled up. After Enjoy every ride and journal mind…!), which really a lap around the block with keep smiling!

The Carin’ Sharin’ Chronicles By Dave Gurman (ISBN978-0-9560863-0-3) SeeWhat!? what Nobody these took the Amazon hint and bought reviewers you a copy for Party On Christmas? Have you considered splashing out six quid of your hadown hard to earned?say Perhaps these reviews from Amazon will help to make up your mind: ★★★★★ Gurman is very good, and in a slightly alternative way with a beautiful slant, an excellent writer." ★★★★★ "His very coherent arguments… will often have you grinning from ear- to-ear; or nodding your head in agreement – at what is plainly quite obvious only you'd never thought about things that way before." ★★★★ "I regard his book as a gem to be enjoyed by all and sundry, bikers and non bikers alike." ★★★★★ "This book gets you to consider aspects of life in a way that you may not have done before." ★★★★ "Speaking as a female rider of a certain age, it's great that his writing has a broad appeal." ★★★★★ "Dave's "Carin'" view on life is very enlightening in these miserable times." ★★★★★ The "It's honest, unpretentious, not ostentatious and a damn good read." perfect ★★★★★ "The illustrations are also very well done." Bikers Read ★★★★★ "Buy it, read it and, like me, you'll be desperate for volume 2 to come out." ONLY Available from the Digest web site or send a cheque (for £5.99 + £1.50 p&p) to: £5.99! Digest Publishing, PO Box 240, Huddersfield, HD9 9DQ

18 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 19 arse for them. This happens bike after bike. I have seen the same in the army and with A View from the different operators on industrial machines where there have been no other Group W Bench changes. The most spectacular tried to change the front of problems with them from was when as Quality manager brake fluid on my lil’Breva friends, EBC were £145.00 and I gave two operators having IChristmas day whilst recommended. When it came a rough day a break. Both servicing it but couldn’t get the through I realised that Brembo blow moulders ran without filler cap screws out. haven’t changed the design of a problem for the next forty Eventually a couple of their discs, it’s just that most minutes, I caught up on all weeks ago got the job done people in the Guzzi club are their paperwork and Nepal after spraying penetrating oil on going over to EBC. completely policed the area. them twice a day for a week and And that’s another first, An hour after they got back Overland Magazine has teamed up with using an impact driver. I bought in forty - five years of it was all going wrong again. FreeSpirit Adventure Tours to EXPLORE Nepal. the driver in 1987 and this was motorcycling I have never They weren’t lazy or alakefic, the first time I can remember it changed a disc before. I wouldn’t have given them Ride with us for 12 days in beautiful doing the job it was purchased So that was ordered and the break if they were. The old Nepal and really get under the skin of this for though friends have Tony Botto (TB Motorcycles) hippies called it ‘vibes man’; it successfully used it. tasked with supplying and fascinating country that bridges India’s didn’t mean they were wrong. Pulled out the old fluid fitting a new BT45 rear which But before that I was northern plains and the high Himalaya. with a syringe and some he did Thursday evening coming back from the screen washer pipe and then round my place and helped Mayflower rally through refilled it using the syringe to with the front disc as well. Londoninium. Where did all pull it through. Firm it up and Total to supply and fit at my those yellow robbers come overlandmag.com/explore then put some cloth around place plus other help, £140.00. from? It felt like there was one the banjo bolt and crack it Top bloke. every hundred metres or so open whilst pulling the brake So £300.00 later I have a and what with finding my Departing 10th May 2014 lever to bleed out the air that new front disc and rear tyre route in unfamiliar territory, can get trapped there and and the bike feels 100% better. avoiding the cars, pedestrians £2000 rider and £1200 pillion job done. Is this why the bike didn’t feel and Bradley Wiggins, if I didn’t Or so I thought. Out riding happy at autobahn speeds in get caught by one of them it it all was fine until the lever Germany? Was it was trying to will be a miracle. They ain’t no came half way back before tell me something? Mechanical safety feature. I don’t mind biting firm. It did this a couple sympathy works both ways. them on the open road, you of times so I checked it all over. They do say you won’t get the watch out for them and it is Ho hum, 2.9mm is a bit thin on best out of your Guzzi till you a fair sport but in a built up the front disc, turns out wear get it talking to you. It was overcrowded environment limit is 3.5mm. Then a mate certainly happy coming back like London it is stupid and at a rally points out the lack of on the A41 mostly overtaking dangerous. I hate motorways tread on my rear tyre, well on other vehicles and watching all but it is the M25 for me in checking it had done 10,600 those cars crawling along at 10 future. I cannot say I hated the miles. He also mentioned mph on the other side on the experience, just the constant cleaning the bike as a way of loose gravel I had traversed at traffic lights and cameras. I spotting these things but that 45-50 mph two days earlier. know it is grossly unfair to ain’t going to happen. Like many of you I have compare London to Bonn, Checked prices through known people who buy but I did and Bonn won on Gutsibits (highly bikes that were fine for their every count. recommended). Brembo discs previous owner and never give Ride Safe come in at £210.00 special their next owner any problems An ancient Guzzisti FreeSpirit order only and I have heard but are a constant pain in the Ian Dunmore ADVENTURE

20 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 21 FreeSpirit Adventure has been operating motorcyle tours in Nepal and India for 11 years THE NAMING OF THE BIKE

eird place names have always no knowledge of the bike they are about to fascinated me. There are thousands name, biking in general, or its target market. Wthroughout the world, such as That’s unfortunate, as a perfectly good bike Ecclefechan in Scotland, Puddledub not far cursed with a silly name will undoubtedly put from my previous home, and Pratt’s Bottom in off some potential buyers, and sales will be lost. England, but my all time favourite is Bear Butte in the Black Hills of Dakota. Bizarre and comical In the ‘good old days’ when Britain was seen by as these names appear, they will have evolved the world’s markets as a major bike producer, the throughout the ages and will have a sound makers were able to create the kind of monikers historical reasoning for their existence. A Butte that still stir the emotions of classic enthusiasts. is a known topographical feature, and it can be The mere mention of names like Black Shadow, safely assumed at some time in the past, bears Bonneville, Goldstar, or Commando will cause used to accumulate there. eyes to mist over, not just because of past memories, but also because these names Unfortunately, there appears to be no such logic sound like they belong to something to be in the naming of motorcycle models nowadays. proud of. Even BSA’s Bantam (my first bike) As with seemingly all decisions made by modern implied lightness, but I’m not sure what Scott companies, a new model name will be chosen were thinking about when they called their by a committee of people who apparently have new model the Flying Squirrel. Of course there

22 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 23 Tornado. The model name gives you advance warning of what to expect from the bike. You just know a Boss Hoss will be a big sod, and a Ducati Monster will be a wheely machine, like MV Agusta’s Brutale. So what was Suzuki’s naming committee thinking when they called their 650cc single factory custom Savage? It’s about as savage as a newborn lamb. Come to think of it, Suzuki have screwed up a few times – god knows what these guys call their kids. I’m thinking of the 125 Marauder I fixed up a few years ago, which was only good enough for marauding the gutters, or the VanVan, which was the NSU Quickly, which was anything but Our Teutonic neighbours, and some Japanese you are going out for a ride on your R1200GS for obvious reasons makes me visualise an old quick and on the other side of the Atlantic, the manufacturers, usually play it safe and logical just doesn’t sound the same as, say, a Fireblade. white Transit. What can you say about the 650 Yanks had their Indian Powerplus, Scout and and label their bikes with letters and numbers, I mentioned the Fireblade purposely, as a good FreeWind – something must have got lost in Chief, while Harley developed its own unique which provide information on the type and example of appropriate naming. It implies a the translation from Japanese? They managed means of naming their bikes (which I’ll cover in cubic capacity of the engine. Not much chance heart of fire, and razor sharp handling, which is to get it right with the Bandit, but Suzuki really detail a little later) but the words Duo-Glide and of making a gaff there, but it does take away a pretty fair description of the bike in question. should stop calling their bikes weird names Electraglide still sound good today. some of the excitement of ownership – saying The same goes for a Buell’s Lightning or Benelli’s that need to be translated to mean anything,

24 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 25 26 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 27 Katana and Hayabusa being prime examples. to Suzuki, the guys at Hinckley Triumph have And although it’s a good bike, would you really spotted the importance of the right name for be happy riding about on a Gladius (especially a model, and have managed to get them just the lipstick red version), which to my ear sounds right. Even Rocket 3 seems to suit the bike that like Gladys. wears their badges proudly on its panels.

Suzuki seems to be the worst offender, but And then, returning to Harley Davidson, whose the other manufacturers should not sit back, obvious humorous streak when thinking up new laughing up their sleeves. Take Honda for names for its bikes shows a skilful marketing example. By no stretch of the imagination could tactic and implies a sense of fun at the Factory, their Dream (see Image of the Month – Ed) live which I would guess is probably down to Mr up to its reputation and you would struggle to Willie G Davidson himself. Of their earlier bikes, be rebellious on a Rebel. While a Pan-European I can only criticise the Topper, a metal box with does correctly imply long comfortable journeys, two wheels and pull cord starting like a lawn a Blackbird is a little bird in my garden which mower, which was described as a scooter. The eats worms and in no way makes me think of word ‘topper’ makes me think of a kid’s comic a very fast bike with a good drag coefficient. from my childhood, or a grass-cutting device Maybe blackbirds are a bit bigger and faster in pulled by a tractor, so maybe there was some Japan than the European version. Or possibly logic in the name after all! Excluding the comic they were just stuck for a name, looked out the lawn mower, the early model names did make window, saw a blackbird, and said, “that will do, some sense and provide some information lets go to the pub”. I think Victory slipped up a about the bike – a Duo-Glide had suspension little calling a recent model Hard Ball (or was it at both ends to give you a smooth ride, and then Hard Balls, I can’t remember). In total contrast when they added an electric starter, it became

28 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 29 the Electraglide. A Springer Softail tells you of humour, and are much easier to pronounce that bike has old style Springer forks and a rear than the more official FLHTCUI. One thing you suspension system that looks like a hardtail, but need to be careful of, of course, is saying “I’m just isn’t. Simple, really. The Sportster was relatively going out to ride my Fat Boy”, in the wrong place sporty in its day, and there is something quirky or within the wrong company – that might just (in a good way) about using the same name get you into a bit of trouble. today for a bike that has no sporting pretensions at all. So in my ‘naming of the bikes’ competition, I would have to say Harley Davidson wins purely However, it’s in more recent times that the Harley for not taking itself too seriously; Victory gets a naming committee, or possibly Willie G, has had raspberry for trying to copy them, and failing; some fun. Bad Boy, Fat Boy, Fat Bob, Street Bob, and Honda could sometimes do better; but it’s Crossbones – not one of these wonderful names Suzuki who pick up the dunces cap, and get sent tell me anything useful about the bike they are to the back of the class for regularly making an attached to, which appeals to my warped sense arse of such an important job.

Wizzard

30 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 31 Hey, I’m With The Team

32 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 33 lub-level motorcycle racing has an odd relationship with the media. You’ll see Crace reports and lists of results, but not much else. Some of it has a regular slot on satellite channel Motors TV, but what you don’t ever see is the kind of feature that sets an example; that sends the message out about what a club meeting is actually like from that grass roots, participant level – not from the organisation‘s perspective, but from that of the racers themselves. The kind of feature that might make you want to go and do it yourself.

You won’t have seen that kind of feature before, until now.

If I was going to do this, I needed a subject, and this is where the interwebz came in useful. I contacted Dave Mackay – a regular commenter on my own blog who campaigns a KTM RC8R in the North Gloucestershire Road Racing Club’s Sound of Thunder championship – and asked if he was up for having an embedded reporter along for the weekend when NG visited my local circuit at Oulton Park in Cheshire, in late July.

The plan was simple: I would show up, do my thing while Dave did his, help out with some stuff, and write about it later. This is how it panned out:

Friday, 26th July 2013 “…bike racing is cool, because it’s an extreme world full of extreme people, within a world of mediocrity and normality.” – Mat Oxley

I showed up on the Friday afternoon’s test day. Dave and his ‘team’ – Open 600-class racer Luke Smith with his R6, and ‘crew chiefs’ Mark and Tom – had already set up.

The paddock was only half-full. This being Friday, most of tomorrow’s racers were probably still at work, paying bills and doing normal life, not

34 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 35 36 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 37 able to fully commit to heading up the M6 to Cheshire just yet. They would all be present in the morning. For now, I got an idea what tomorrow would be like. These national club championships are like a travelling golf club, where everybody knows each other but the venue changes. Next door to Dave’s setup is Andy “Payner” Payne and his £1500 Aprilia RSV1000R, along with Layne Wilson, who’s riding an ancient YZF-750 and turns out to be a pro, having worked with the Honda TT Legends team and the World Endurance Championship- winning Phase One team. The floor in their tent is ex-Honda TT Legends. This is serious shit. Layne is not the only pro here either: Luke has a side- gig as a tech with QBSD Motorsport in BSB and will be back at Oulton in two week’s time with the BSB circus. A lot of this cross-pollination with the professional sport goes on behind the scenes, because ultimately it’s all part of the same community with the same obsession.

Various other characters appear throughout the afternoon, and it’s always cordial, but you know that there’s this undercurrent of hyper- competitiveness that you can tune into if you turn your dial slightly to one side – you’ll see one eye always looks over there. What’s he using? What tyres has he got? Are they new? What size sprocket is that?

People call in and compare setups and injuries the track 36 hours later and finishing fifth; never Saturday, 27th July 2013 it’s serious. There’s even a celeb in the paddock, – See your sprained ankle? I’ll raise you my pierced mind Mick Doohan getting his smashed legs “…the sensation that you get on a motorcycle is if her from Performance Bikes magazine counts. forearm where my footpeg went through it. Lap sewn together to avoid amputation; this is just very special. It’s one where body language and all times are compared along with time spent as legit, and nobody’s getting any recognition for the rest of it have so much influence. It becomes The actual soundtrack is of generators powering unconscious in the medical centre. Dave is riding it, but just like in The Show, it has its roots in out- extremely personal.” – John Surtees tyre warmers and boiling kettles. There’s not with cracked ribs and a sprained ankle, Luke is psyching your opponents and showing them much conversation right now, and it’s hectic as riding with essentially a broken wrist. It’s the what a double-hard bastard you are. This is how 08:00: early doors. I’m at the circuit and the the riders have all had to sign on at the circuit same as when Kevin Schwantz rode for most of it is: if you can race, then you race. End-of. paddock is full. It’s like that scene at the start of office, warm their bikes up and get ready for 1994 with a broken scaphoid – rumour had it Steve McQueen’s Le Mans where everything is the short, sharp 10-minute-long practice that mechanics stuck a paper clip to his ear to This is a righteous church of speed-freaks, tech- waking up, and there’s a ‘60s cinematic groove sessions that are run to a precise schedule. This take his mind off the pain while riding. Never heads, tyre-gurus and suspension magicians playing in my head as I ride into the paddock is because the organisers have got to fit in these mind Jorge Lorenzo smashing his collarbone who all worship at the altar of speed. The service and park at Dave’s tent-garage, ‘cos hey, I’m with practice sessions and 20 races all before 6:30 pm, in Assen, getting it plated up and returning to is tomorrow. It’ll be an absolute minter… the team. The weather is warm, the sun is up and when Oulton Park’s noise curfew takes effect

38 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 39 40 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 41 and when, if it gets broken, the Tory voters in Little Budworth village up the road will all go ape shit and write letters.

08:30: Dave takes his second RC8 out in the practice just because he can (it’s nominally his ‘wet setup’, but it isn’t going to rain today so it would otherwise go unused) and because a lot of the time this first session is actually about dialling the rider into the circuit rather than the motorcycle – feeling the conditions out, brushing off cobwebs, shaking off the effects of last night’s session in the bar. He comes back with nothing to report, which is a good thing because the last thing anybody wants at this stage is to have to fix or rebuild anything. The kettle goes on next, then Payner from next-door, who’s been out in the same session, comes over for some banter, and he’s wearing different leathers from yesterday because it turns out he’s big on superstitions and these leathers are more successful. I wonder whether there’s more to it than that: a mate of mine had an RSV like Payner’s and it was so unreliable he used to sacrifice a live goat before it…

After this, there’s still no time to chill out yet as Dave has three races and a qualifying session to prepare for: the two Sound of Thunder races, the qualifying session for the Phoenix Open race for all comers – anything and everything is in that one, including Luke on his R6 – and the Phoenix Open race itself. All the organising clubs do these extra races as they allow more track time for everyone. The size of the entry validates the idea: with 45 entries, it’s the largest grid of the day. level, each pit garage has eight different teams in 09:20 Luke comes back from his 10-minute Open “Speed is something dangerous, but very exciting.” 09:00: the paddock is massively busy, and I take it and you can walk in and out as you wish; no- 600 practice with no problems other than being – Valentino Rossi a walk ‘round just to see what else is going on. one will tell you to leave and no-one will refuse a visibly in pain from his wrist. At no point does You have to keep one eye ahead and one eye question because everyone in this paddock has the anyone suggest taking it easy, even though 09:35: the paddock is still busy but it’s settling behind you as you’re liable to get run over by bikes same thing in common. Nobody cares what your he’s out again in a minute for the Phoenix Open down into a routine. Dave is warming up the big scuttling around between sessions. The talk is of job is in here, and nobody will ask. The only arbiter qualifying session. This lot just get on with it and KTM for the Phoenix Open qualifying session. settings, and arm gestures are everywhere. At club of anything is your lap time. don’t bother with no painkillers… This is the dry set-up – it’s a RC8R, one of only six

42 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 43 44 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 45 in the country as it’s a purpose-built race bike, not a converted road bike like his other one. The big V-twin is audible from a hundred feet away, even in this paddock, where it provides a bass line to the 2-stroke song being played everywhere else. Luke has already gone out as Dave suits up, and the tyre warmers come off at the last possible second. As he heads out, there’s a ritual of encouragement/backslapping as just for a second, the underlying seriousness of what Dave and Luke are both doing becomes apparent, because it’s an undeniable fact that they might not come back.

Tom, Mark and I head over to another part of the circuit to watch this session. There’s a new target in the form of National Superstock rider Josh Day, who’s entered this meeting as a form of preparation for the upcoming BSB round in two weeks time. At the end of the session it becomes all about “What’s Josh Day doing?” – he’s set a time for everybody else to compare themselves against. He’s quickest with a fastest lap of 1:40.4. Dave has done a 1:50.3 and is 28th.

Only the fastest 40 riders qualify for the afternoon’s race. In theory, the non-qualifiers are sidelined from the race, but NGRRC are fair, and considerate of the bigger picture: in the interests of track time for everyone, the non-qualifiers are entered into other classes as reserves.

Both Dave and Luke return from the session safe, completely drenched in sweat, and absolutely jacked up on adrenaline. This is the kernel of it all, right here, and it’s what keeps them all coming back:

Dave: “You get so into it you orientate your entire and go in the garage and think of something to see so many ex-pro racers that have been forced 11:00: by now the paddock has more of an air life around racing. You become completely do in there. Anything.” out through injury before they were ready to of efficiency about it as everyone knows where obsessed with it. Every decision you make is walk away, forever haunting the paddock with they stand, knows when they’re out next and referenced to it. You’ll be sat watching the telly This is why you see so many pro racers who stay the look of unfinished business about them. knows whether their bike works or not. The kettle at night and your mind will wander and you’ll in it for a couple of seasons too long and end up This demon bites you hard and never ever lets goes on again and the talk is 100% shop. Right start thinking about racing. Then you’ll get up ruining their own reputations; this is why you you go. about now the rest of the outside world ceases

46 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 47 48 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 49 to have any meaning as I’m fully immersed in 12:00: Dave goes out for his first Sound of this whole theatre. There’s that famous Steve Thunder race. It’s six laps, so it will only take McQueen quote about “racing” and “waiting” about ten minutes. The short format means that has been turned into a million t-shirts and there’s no need to bother about conserving recycled so often it’s become a cliché, but like tyres or anything else, so it’s flat out everywhere. all clichés, they’re right: now the paddock has He starts well and runs in the top five for most settled down, it’s become about waiting for of the race, and from our position on the pit the massive bursts of activity that follow the wall (‘cos hey, I’m with the team), the “Sound of tannoy’s announcement of a rider’s next race. Thunder” from a field full of V-twins and triples sounds like a fleet of WWII bombers. It’s serious What happens then is that the rituals start: Dave quality, this. doesn’t seem to have one except to wait until the last possible second, then he suits up and Dave finishes 8th, just behind Matt “Billo” starts up and goes. Luke puts his leathers and lid Billington on a Triumph Daytona, and there’s a on early and sits down and goes dead quiet and scramble for the timing results from the circuit appears to be contemplating something really office, because to qualify for this afternoon’s serious, which is exactly what he is doing. There’s race, a rider has to finish within 110% of the no fettling of bikes going on either: the R6 and winner’s time. Dave has qualified easily, and the big RC8 seem so reliable that no settings are done four 1:49s and a 1:48.53. More importantly, changed and the oil isn’t even checked. A set of he’s finished ahead of Payner next-door. tyres will last all day. Back at the tent-garage and it’s already wall-to- “I just couldn’t accept second.” – Wayne Rainey wall piss-taking fuelled by pure adrenaline:

50 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 51 52 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 53 Dave: “Up at the top chicane [Britten’s] I thought: there’s loads of people watching so I’m gonna get my elbow down, but it started to tip in! I was like that [wild gesticulation] and I pushed it back up on my knee! [Demonic laughter] It was emotional. Where were you stood watching that?”

Us: ”The pit wall.”

Dave: “Did you see the first corner? It was mental. That Payner comes barrelling through round the outside, on the grass, riding into people…”

Mark: “This fucking idiot?” [Payner walks over from next door]

Dave: “You are fucking mental!”

Payner: “Gearbox is fucked mate. Got no fucking gears. I went neeeeeeer then niiiiiiir and niiiiiiiiiiir then it goes dddddddddddd and I look down and I try and put in another one and it’s two too high! I think it’s the quickshifter.”

Mark: [to Dave]: “You’re trying to tell him how mad he is and he’s not even having it is he?”

Payner: “It was running fine until I went ddddddddddddd – no gears! Nothing!”

Mark: “Is that where you went on the grass?” Dave: “Gary Hamilton – this is his local track. overdrive, maximum overload. I’m feeling it own races means the pace slows down and it Payner: “Did I?” He’s from Scotland, but this is his local track myself, and all I did was watch. This is the sermon becomes more like a golf club again. The kettle if you know what I mean. I was catching him in the church of speed. Buzzing doesn’t even is on. The banana cake comes out. Dave: “You came straight through on the grass!” in places but – I was catching him at Shell Oils begin to describe it. It’s like they’ve been going [hairpin], and at the chicane, but then they were so fast, they’re all thirty seconds ahead of us “I don’t want to leave racing in the back of an Payner: “Straight in front of [Darren] Rumley too. outdragging me out of there, and outdragging in time. It’s Point Break on bikes. ambulance.” – Mick Doohan Even ‘e went [gesticulation] fucking get out – who me down the start and finish straight, but if do you think you are you fucking idiot from Devon! I could have latched onto the back of ‘em I Now it’s lunchtime, although the concept is 14:30: Luke has had to wait ages for his first Get that tractor out of here…!” probably could have run with ‘em…” nebulous in the paddock. The formal lunch qualifying race, but now the time is upon him. break isn’t for a while yet, but that’s mostly for He does his thing again, then the tyre warmers It’s forensic analysis next because in this game, How Dave has complete recall like this is beyond the benefit of the marshals out on track. In here, come off and he’s off to the grid. He’s starting no result is ever quite good enough: me. It’s the racing junkie fix again. Maximum the gaps of several hours between the riders’ from the third row. The 600s sound like scooters

54 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 55 56 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 57 compared to the Sounds of Thunder, and Luke’s R6 is the one with the bloodvessel-bursting 16.5k-redline, which is the reason why I’ve always liked them…

There’s no green light anymore in racing, so it’s red lights out and the huge field that The Show could only dream about, heads off as we watch from the pit wall again. After just a few laps, the race is ’red-flagged’ by big red LED squares at each corner that light up like a form of hypnotic device. It can only have been stopped by a fallen rider. There’s a sliding scale: if all the riders complete the lap and return to the pits, then it’s not so bad. If the riders are held out on track somewhere, then it’s usually considerably more serious. Nobody returns. All the medical cars rush out. All we can do is wait.

Eventually all the remaining bikes return and Luke is among them. The paddock is quiet because this is A Big One. The race result is declared and all track activity is suspended. We’re back at the tent-garage:

Luke: “It was Billo. He came off right in front of me just after Clay Hill. It was unbelievable. Then after we stopped all everyone was saying was how well they were doing beforehand. Couldn’t believe it!”

Me: “Is that why I’ve heard the 600s being called Axe-Murderer Class?””

Luke: “Yeah. Somebody said to me once you’re all idiots. Should call it You’re All Idiots Class. form of protection mechanism – discussing it as a heartbeat; they’ll show concern for a fallen the reason why I would probably be a really shit That’s how it is though, ‘cos it’s so incredibly a form of ensuring it won’t happen to us. Mark rider’s life, then show concern for the effect of racer if I tried it. I’d care too much in the wrong competitive.” summed it up best: “You don’t want to think the incident on their own race. To the outsider it way and I haven’t got a competitive bone in about that shit until the end of the day.” sounds like mind-blowing hypocrisy, but don’t my body… We all get into a deep discussion on the nature think I’m about to get my judge on about it, of a crash that only one of us had seen. It was Here was a fascinating insight into the racer’s ‘cos I’m not. The key to it seems to be the ability To me, it’s a more evolved form of the a dispassionate analysis but with the subtext mindset. These blokes will all give you their to straddle the line between compassion and motivation to ride in the first place – that of great concern; an emotional distancing as a last tenner, but will take you down on track in competition – to compartmentalise – and it’s balance of risk against intrinsic reward –

58 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 59 60 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 61 and of the rationalisation that we all find in While these last few races of the day are on, the living, and most of all, it’s about having a load ourselves to go out and ride in the face of all paddock is starting to empty as those riders who of life-affirming fun on a motorcycle. As for the those dickheads who call us “mad” and ask us have finished racing are packing up and heading danger, it can’t be any more dangerous than why we would want to “kill ourselves”. I think home, so the vibe is like being the last few doing nothing with your life. that at the end of the day, you either get it or people to leave a nightclub. I privately lament you don’t, and if you’re not a biker yourself, you that the club doesn’t get together in Chequers While the professional side of it keeps turning in probably won’t. bar en masse and have a massive piss-up after on itself and taking ever-greater steps to control, the meeting, but of course outside the gates is limit and even exclude the paying spectator, the Eventually, the Air Ambulance shows up and that other world, where everybody has the jobs club paddock is eternally welcoming. Purists takes Billo away to hospital. The meeting to go to on Monday morning that finance this bemoan the corporatisation of motor racing, will not be suspended, and there’s a revised second life. Some of the riders have travelled and lament the loss of informality that was the timetable coming out because nearly an hour from the far corners of the country and won’t defining characteristic of an earlier era. The club has been lost. be getting home until midnight. No doubt paddock is where they will find it again. I like to Billo’s crash will be weighing on their collective think that it is still like this right at the top of the Back to normal business… minds too. sport, in its deep core: the racers, the techs, the crew chiefs – the doers, not the talkers; but up “There’s moments on a bike where everything 17:20: back at the tent-garage, Luke is getting there in The Show, it’s become so contaminated just comes together…when it’s on, it’s on. It’s the ready for his final outing while Dave and I start by the middle-men with their corporate vested greatest feeling.” – John Hopkins packing the setup away around him. By now, interests of marketing, brands and money, that Luke is visibly weary and in pain from his wrist, the seam of hardcore racing purity is invisible, 15:25: the Phoenix Open race, the one with but the commitment is total and unwavering, and to find it at all you need a VIP pass, which Josh Day in it, the one with everyone in it, so the tyre warmers come off one more time you can’t get. is the best of the day. All the races have and after more backslapping he’s off to the grid, been shortened by one lap because of the from where he goes on to finish 28th after seven Meanwhile, down here in the club paddock, time delay. Dave has a humdinger of a battle exhausting laps. exists the beating heart of motorcycle racing. with ‘Steve Hislop’ on a R6 (Dave Manley in This is the way it should be, and this is the way a Hizzy-rep Arai) in the early laps. He comes That’s it. Game over. There is no press it always has been: back having only finished 26th, but you would conference, no podium (even if you win); there think he’d won given the machine gun debrief is no champagne, no interview, no television. “It’d be nice sometimes, just to completely be a and the banter that starts up when Payner No freebies, no autographs, no grid girls and no nobody, and to be able to race on weekends. This from next door – who’s finished 29th - comes $3m contract. If there is to be any mention at all is what I love, the racing. The more competition, over again in a repeat of this morning’s then it will be via NG’s own website, and maybe the better.” – Casey Stoner piss-take. a word-or-two on Bike Sport News. For everyone Footnote: after his serious crash, Matt “Billo” else, if you quantify reward in the above terms, Stuart Jewkes Billington is on the road to a full recovery, thanks 16:40: Dave goes out for his final race of the there is no reward at all for any of this. But that to the superb work of the volunteer Marshals day, the second Sound of Thunder. This is the is to miss the true motivation that drives A big thanks to Dave Mackay and Luke Smith and MSV’s medical teams. warmest day of the year so far, and the humidity all racers, from novice amateurs to the top for allowing me to be a part of their weekend. is tropical. This race is not very close, as the professionals: field is strung out quickly and the winner, Leon Morris, clears off and wins by eleven seconds It’s about being part of a community; it’s about NGRRC: www.ngroadracing.org on his Ducati 848. Dave finishes 9th, beats two testing your riding skill and being the best Dave’s Tumblr: http://bit.ly/19n2tbQ of his championship rivals, and after Oulton possible rider you can be; it’s about competing Park currently sits in 4th place in the Sound of against others and against yourself; its about The author’s blog, with more pics from the Thunder with five rounds to go. getting out of your head and doing some real event: http://bit.ly/17vkDpC

62 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 63 Another World

64 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 65 t’s the 4th of August and I’m off to the old airfield at South Cerney for the 39th Annual IGloucestershire Steam Extravaganza. I’ve been going to events like these for over 30 years and you may wonder, as with many of my opening paragraphs, what on earth this has to do with biking. Well, although I’m a big fan of external combustion engines, the vast majority of these types of event also include excellent vintage bike shows. Today is the last day and, unlike the preceding two, whoever controls these things has decided it should rain. Not proper rain, mind you, but intermittent, wind propelled, spray-in-the-face type rain. But that’s OK because we’re British and rain is part of everyday life here; it’s why our countryside is so green and our cows’ udders are so full.

A fresh hosing of horizontal precipitation breaks out just as I park up so I wait vainly for it to subside, before getting out the brolly and fold- away cagoule. I subscribe completely to Billy Connolly’s observation that there’s “no such thing as bad weather, just the wrong clothes”. Nevertheless, the family next to me all get back in their car and leave without entering the showground and I disdain their lack of national spirit and resolve. Why would they come all the way out here and then leave at the first drop of rain? As it transpires the shower is over by the time I’ve paid my ten quid entrance fee (just cheap enough to prevent me foaming about ‘the old days’ and beer at ‘thruppence’ a pint). I imagine the family that left will only be halfway back to Swindon before having to confront their own stupidity.

Once inside I head straight for the bike section, not just because it’s the bit I most want to see but also because I’m meeting father-in-law, who is exhibiting his 1920s OK and has been camping here for nearly a week with mother-in-law. Before I get there I’m drawn to a sprightly old chap in an immaculate red boiler-suit and the kind of cap

66 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 67 68 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 69 that sailors, boiler-men and revolutionaries used to wear. It’s legendary stuntman Dick Sheppard, who holds the official world record for walking away from (or as he said “being cut out of”) 2,003 car wrecks in his professional stunt career. Later on the ringmaster put it more colourfully by saying, “he’s written-off more cars than Gordon Brown’s scrappage scheme”. Like so many, Dick started back in the post war era on bikes and later formed a team called the Disaster Squad with the expressed intention of destroying cars for the entertainment of the public. At the height of his career he was destroying 18 cars a week at shows and during TV work in between as the resident stunt man at the BBC. He would go on to crash cars for the James Bond film franchise and drive one of the Minis in the Italian Job – Bravo, Mr Bridger!

And that’s the kind of encounter you can have at a Steam Extravaganza. 83-year-old Dick is charming and utterly engaging. He’s here to open the show but also to promote his latest book Close to the Edge, although the prequel My Wild Life in Gloucestershire looks fun, too, if one my be permitted to judge a book by its cover (small boy in school uniform holding a catapult with two bikes emerging from blazing straw bales in the background!). For many years he also held the official world record for riding a bike through the longest tunnel of fire but it has been ‘officially’ bettered by two blokes on a racing sidecar outfit last year… not the same thing in my opinion!

My spirits are high, I feel my crisp tenner is already well spent and I haven’t even reached the bikes yet. Once there I meet up with father- in-law and we start chatting and snapping pics. You can see for yourself the eclectic mix of machines and the levels of care and enthusiasm that have gone into their preservation and restoration. I chat to a large man who’s looking at the Honda CBX1000 beside me. It seems odd

70 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 71 72 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 73 to men of our age that this could be a ‘vintage’ machine, and perhaps it’s not strictly within the definition but it’s no less interesting for that. He says he has one at home but wants to sell it as he doesn’t ride it much these days. He’d rather it went to an enthusiast, “someone who’d do it up and bring it here next year”.

The bike section is dwarfed by everything else but it is still a significant concentration of interesting machinery. And as seems traditional, it is alongside another roped off area full of stationary engines, many driving generators with pretty arrangements of light bulbs or pumping water round small closed-loop systems of copper pipes and old troughs, the owner’s dog sleeping watchfully in the shade of a large tank of cooling water.

This is what I love about these shows; there’s so much here. It’s a window onto our true passions and interests: strange and exotic bikes; American cars; tractors; steam wagons; military vehicles; fire engines. Husbands and wives dressed in full military uniforms, real machine guns sticking out of real armoured cars and olive green trucks. Some of the machinery is colossal – where do people keep giant cranes and traction engines in a world increasingly congealed with scrofulous ‘rabbit hutch’ houses on ever-sprawling estates with aimlessly contrived street patterns, little parking and gardens so small you could trip over them?

It’s all so familiar and real, but strangely not real. The background thrum of generators and the crump-tish, piccolo cadence of fairground organ music blots out the real world beyond the perimeter fence. It’s a feeling I know so well but never really thought about because it seems so natural to me. It has a whiff of the travelling fairground – in fact these shows nearly always include an actual travelling fairground. I settle down on a straw bale to ruminate more fully on

74 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 75 76 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 77 these emerging thoughts with a pint of proper cloudy cider and a hot Cornish pasty. It starts to rain again and I shelter quite contentedly under my umbrella.

The first thing that strikes me is that everybody seems happy, despite the weather. It’s only water, after all, and doesn’t seem to dent the fun a jot. I suspect everyone is happy because there is a common bond between the people exhibiting things and the people who have come to see them. And people who are interested in the bikes also seem interested in everything else as well, and vice versa. These shows seem to be about much more than nostalgia for old machines, they are like special moments in time and space where we push away the depressing world of debt and work, of management-speak and petty regulations.

We create temporary communities that are larger than the market town I live in (population 6,000) and with more retail outlets. There are many dozens of stalls selling plants and tools and old bits of everything. There’s food and drink and ice cream, and blokes demonstrating the latest ‘must-have’ product for polishing, painting or sharpening whatever it is you think you need to do the thing you love to do when you’re not being forced by economic circumstance to do the thing you least like to. The prices of things are cheaper than eBay and you don’t have to pay delivery. And you can haggle with the vendor and share a joke or a story about a bloke who trapped his finger in one of the things you just bought, but it was alright in the end because his wife said it stopped him picking his nose in public!

These shows create a world that attempts to be free of the avarice of normal life, a world of kindness, interest and eccentricity. It’s interesting because I suspect it’s a world we would rather live in than the one we actually Continued on page 94 78 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 79 80 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 81 82 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 83 84 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 85 86 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 87 88 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 89 90 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 91 92 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 93 50-51booksdvds_Layout 1 22/05/2012 11:41 Page 1

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Ken Sprayson the frame man

Ken Sprayson – hero of cares to remember! He made the takes you back to when British the IoM TT with the TT first Norton featherbed industry led the world and British production frame, helped design bikes were setting the pace. Welding service! and produce the Dragonfly Ken’s book will be launched at Every year for 50 years, from frame, developed the Earles fork the International Classic Bike 1958 to 2008, Ken, welding torch into the legendary Reynolds Show at Stafford, April 28-29 in hand, repaired the damage Racing fork, made innovative where Ken will be a guest of wrought by these infamous roads and successful racing frames for honour surrounded by some of on racing frames. Geoff Duke, Jeff Smith, Mike the many racing specials for He ran a completely free Hailwood, and John Surtees and which he designed and built the welding service for novices and many others. frames. world champions alike, giving At Reynolds he became the his time and expertise for no master of making light but strong Publication: April 2012. reward and always a perfect job welded frames from Reynolds Recommended price £14.95 done with a smile! To racers with 531 tubing. He was so good he (includes UK p&p when ISBN 978-0-9564975-6-7 broken bikes Ken was little short even made the frame for Thrust 2 ordered from Panther Panther Publishing Ltd. of a saint. the British World Land Speed Publishing) [email protected] Ken has been a legend among record breaking car propelled by 229 pages, 234 x 176mm, panther-publishing.com motorcycle racers and enthusiasts a jet engine. softback, 170 photos and Foreword by Malc Wheeler of do. It’s an escape from politics and economics, have met, new friends and trading alliances for more years than he probably This is a fantastic book which illustrations. Classic Racer from game shows and ‘reality TV. Hardly anyone made, and then it would all pack up until the is using their smart-phone. These shows seem fun started again next year. peculiarly British but there are similar ones in By Ian Mutch All 5 for the US, Canada and Australia, so perhaps it’s I don’t think it’s too fanciful to see the bikes here www.mutchmotorcyclebooks.com £36 an Anglo-Saxon thing we have exported to our today and all the other things as being any less inc P&P! former colonies. than the natural continuation of this ancient It’s a steal  tradition. I think we get exactly the same from  I have a hunch, however, that it’s an even older these shows as our ancient forebears did. And phenomenon than that. If you know where to they are not all as big as this one and The Great look you can see Uffington from here, where Dorset Steam Fair at Tarrant Hinton. My favourite a three thousand year old image of a horse show is not far away in Lambourn, a small affair           is carved into the chalk of the hillside. I have held as the bluebells flower in spring. It’s less long suspected that these images were used to intense but has it all. These events are one of the Harley to Mali Low Rider Looking For Riding with the Picture book A4 £7.99 £7.99 America Beast Motorcycles signpost the places where ancient horse fairs best places to see bikes and talk to their owners. plus £1.50 P&P plus £1.50 P&P £7.99 £7.99 Forever plus £1.50 P&P plus £1.50 P&P £12.99 were held rather than the pseudo-mystical clap- And if you like real beer and cider and music and plus £1.50 P&P trap promulgated by the legions of wannabe good food, and friendship and old machines pagans and some of the more impressionable generally, and don’t mind poultry and livestock, If these books donʼt make you academics. These fairs lasted well into recorded and dogs and children running about enjoying history and are an important part of our themselves then that’s all a bonus. smile, seek medical help cultural DNA. There would have been eating Oldlongdog and drinking, and music and fun. There would South Cerney Show: Twitter For payment details emaikl me: [email protected] have been displays of skill, trading of horses www glossteamextravaganza.com @IanMutch cheques or paypal at present no cards, sorry and livestock and dogs. Distant friends would Dick Sheppard: www.dicksheppard.co.uk 50 The ROAD

94 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 95 Blood Runner 2

96 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 97 ith several months’ experience of riding a blood bike behind me now, Wmy perspective has changed a bit – for starters, it brings a whole new meaning to the phrase, “I’m just going out for a few pints”. It’s also changed how I ride.

It’s a long time since I first read the advanced biker’s bible, Motorcycle Roadcraft: The Police Rider’s Handbook to Better Motorcycling, but it’s a book I revisited recently if only to remind myself that I haven’t forgotten some of its fundamental lessons. Its prose may be drier than Ghandi’s flip-flops and written in factual, formal English, but it’s no less effective for that. Re-reading it, I’d forgotten how much I’d forgotten, if you know what I mean. One thing it has done is force me to slow down again, a concept that I’d lost in the ether while couriering. Despatch riding is a job where the mantra is ‘speed is everything’; combat filtering is the order of the day, and the skill of gap chasing becomes honed to perfection. Despatching, and then road-testing bikes for magazines led to me picking up some bad habits – habits that I wanted to leave behind.

One of the tenets of Roadcraft is ‘The System’ of machine control – Information, Position, Gear, Speed and Acceleration. I’m back to using it all the time now, both when I’m driving and riding, and it’s made me much smoother in terms of making progress, and bizarrely, despite the fact I rarely exceed the speed limit now, it’s also made me faster. Riding a fully-liveried blood bike means setting an example, but using The System doesn’t mean we’re not quick – reading the road further ahead and taking in all available information on potential hazards means your average speed tends to be higher because your riding is more consistent and you’re not in a pointless cycle of accelerating and braking. It’s about making safe progress; cutting corners increases the risk of an ‘off’

98 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 99 and, let’s face it, that’s really going to slow you down.

Riding on blues-and-twos doesn’t give me carte blanche to exceed speed limits and ride like a demon, either – the lights and siren simply broadcast our presence to other road users so their use means we make progress far quicker when riding at appropriate speeds because other traffic (generally) makes way for us, and red traffic signals are treated as a ‘give way’. That said, it’s astonishing how some drivers fail to see or hear you, even when they’re directly in front of you or pulling out of side roads. You have to be hyper-aware at all times when riding on blues and twos – more so, even, than when riding normally because there’s more information for you to take in and process. You never stop looking for other road users’ mistakes, and the same rules apply – being in the right is meaningless when you’re dead.

Setting an example extends to how we’re dressed too, so that means full protective clothing at all times, together with a plain white helmet and gloves – no stripping down to a tee and going without gloves, even when the mercury is nudging 30°C as it has been these few weeks (by mid-July, Northern Ireland bizarrely had the UK’s highest temperature for the year to date – a whopping 30.1°C which is something we don’t see here very often). Comfortable it isn’t. It makes a change to be putting on a motorcycle jacket wet from the last time you wore it only instead of being damp through persistent rain, it’s damp with fresh sweat. Nice.

The bikes we ride are exemplary too although it’s hard to believe that the iconic Pan European ST1100 that is the mainstay of the Blood Bike fleet is 15 years old, because it’s still so capable and bullet-proof; even the

100 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 101 styling and design has held its flair. Honda got it so right with that bike, which is why it was the chariot of choice for almost all of the UK’s police forces, paramedics, chauffeur bike companies and others during its production run. It’s the perfect bike for blood running – dominant on the road, big in stature; it has great torque and power from that venerable 1100cc V4 engine, with its smooth, linear delivery. In police spec, it can light up like a Xmas tree – one button on the control cluster sets the headlamp to flash between high and low beam, another switches on the twin rear reds, and a third activates the twin blue lights on the front, plus the one atop the pole at the rear. Oh, and if other road users can’t see you, the 110db Tri-sound siren cuts through traffic noise like a knife through butter.

Although Blood Bikes in the UK have a Home Office - approved and specified colour scheme of red and yellow for their Battenberg marking, from the front and rear, all emergency services vehicles share the same colours – red and yellow. Consequently, we can be mistaken for police by other road users here. The white helmets and hi-vis yellow jackets we wear all contribute but the major factor is that, until we came along, the PSNI was the only agency in Northern Ireland using bikes with blues-and-twos. Even now, there are no motorcycle paramedics (while I’m on the subject, there’s no air ambulance in NI either but that’s another story). The Fire Brigade here don’t use them and neither do any of the civilian agencies such as the AA and RAC – nobody bar us and the PSNI use bikes, so it’s a Pavlovian response; hi-vis jacket and white helmet plus the Battenberg markings on a Honda equals police. Which has its positives, but like so much else in Northern Ireland, everything has a subtext so we need to be careful, especially when we ride through certain areas of the city.

102 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 103 That said, being mistaken for police can, and vehicles in front of us suddenly slowing down does have, often amusing consequences, to a sedate 30mph, or drivers reaching across particularly when we’re out there minding our to belatedly fasten their seatbelts. own business and not running on blues-and- twos. There are a couple of incidents recently There is a plus side to riding ex-police bikes that stand out and they both occurred on though – they’re loaded with little extras that the same day. I was riding between our HQ normal bikes don’t have. One of the most (which houses the garage where we keep the novel is the ignition override that allows you bikes) and the hospital lab (which forms our to remove the keys with the engine on and base when we’re on shift). I’d left a section of blues going. It saves precious seconds when motorway and, noticing a queue on the exit we’ve run across town to another lab to collect slip road, filtered my way to the front and urgent blood for transfer to one of the hospitals pulled up alongside a Fiesta driven by a young we serve. It’s a feature on all police bikes woman. She had the window down and, as I and is fitted to allow the rider (or driver – all came alongside her, I noticed she was busy emergency service vehicles have this) to leave texting on her smart phone. That is, she was – the blue lights running on arrival at a scene right up until I came to a stop and looked at without draining the battery. Security is not an her. She must have seen a blur of colours in her issue though – without the keys in the ignition, peripheral vision and thought I was a traffic the engine cuts out the minute anyone tries to cop, because as I looked at her, she threw her depress the clutch lever and put it into gear. Motorcycle Tours throughout the UK phone into the passenger side footwell and and Europe riding excellent roads looked dead ahead. It was almost as if she was It‘s been an interesting period in Belfast these 11 Tours for 2013 which include: thinking ‘If I can’t see him, he won’t see me!’ past two weeks. Aside from the unbroken spell She refused to meet my gaze even as the lights of bright sunshine and temperatures more changed and I rode off. frequently seen in Los Angeles or southern Spain, there’s also been a massive increase in I was working the following afternoon too, activity by the PSNI to deal with ‘Loyalist’ rioters. so I was taking the bike home with me at the It’s meant huge numbers of police armoured end of my shift. As I approached a set of traffic Land Rovers lining one of the roads on which lights on a main intersection, I noticed a Range we’re based, scores of officers in riot clothing Rover ahead of me at the white line. As I pulled waiting around for deployment, and an almost up behind him, the driver suddenly floored the permanent soundtrack of sirens from speeding accelerator and shot the red light, making a police vehicles as they cross the city from one swift left turn and disappearing into a housing flashpoint to another. Oh, and then there’s the estate. That pricked my curiosity – given that three PSNI helicopters, which have been flying the driver must have assumed I was a cop, what a holding pattern at around 700ft above us had he done that warranted jumping a red light each day. and, so far as he was concerned, triggering a pursuit by a police officer on a bike, linked by It’s meant for a tense couple of weeks, involving For details of all our tours visit our website: www.dragonmototours.co.uk radio to the whole of the PSNI? I was left to us having to feed our way through Loyalist e-mail: [email protected] Call: 07816 396614 or 01270 661249 ponder that one as I rode home. Of course, parades to get to where we are needed, and the reaction of other road users towards us navigating alternative routes as we discovered DragonMoto Tours @DragonMotoTours also has an effect in skewing our perspective that certain main roads were blocked by local of them too, so we’ve become used to seeing residents. Not something that our colleagues

104 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 105 I signal the same to him. We both stop. The Pangolin has right of way, so I wave it forwards with my hand, and the driver moves off, waving to me in thanks. I follow straight after him as he joins the motorway entry ramp, which is Sick of the BEARBACKThen with when he realises that I can move much faster than him, so the minute he has space to do so, rat race? Escape he moves aside and I overtake him. I thank him THE WORLD OVERLAND and speed on ahead, musing on the fact that I’ve just overtaken a police vehicle on a shout and left it for dust. I don’t think I’ll ever get used to doing that. It’s something that never gets old! ‘An inspired travelogue, If my column has pricked your curiosity and dispelling the myth that you’re interested in volunteering as a blood biker, then you can find your local group via the remarkable journeys are National Association of Blood Bikes website at out of your grasp.’ www.bloodbikes.org.uk National Geographic on the mainland ever have to worry about. To qualify, you generally need to be able to We’ve also had to ride through streets with devote two nights a month or more between Sir Ranulph Fiennes ‘Searching, honest, uplifting’ protesters on either side and a heavy police the hours of 19:00 and 06:00. Restrictions vary presence in the middle. So I guess it was only but most groups specify that volunteer riders BUY YOUR SIGNED COPY NOW at www.theworldoverland.com a matter of time until I would encounter a PSNI need to be over 25, have held a full unrestricted Waterstones, Stanfords, amazon armoured Land Rover (known as a Pangolin) bike licence for a minimum of two years and Also available from and all good bookshops heading for the same piece of road as me, possess a current advanced riding qualification TWO DOCTORS, ONE MOTORCYCLE AND A A but from a different direction. I’m on a shout (ROSPA/IAM or Police Class 1). Go on… take a REMARKABLE FOUR YEAR JOURNEY and running on blues-and-twos, so is the look. It’s the most rewarding thing you’ll ever AROUND THE WORLD PSNI vehicle. The traffic signals ahead of me do on a motorbike. are red, so I slow to cautiously edge my way through them at the exact same time as the Antony Loveless RIDE‘Belts along at a cracking pace. Stylish and good PSNI Pangolin does from my right. We hesitate Follow me on Twitter: @antonyloveless quality’ – he signals to me to go first, at the same time [email protected]

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106 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 107 Devil’s Bridge • Kirkby • Lonsdale

108 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 109 unday the 4th August dawned sunny. bikes were already assembled in the only place It’s also famous for the bikes and bikers of all In fact the venue was as relaxed as you could I rolled the Silver Fox from the garage in the UK (or so I’m told) where a bylaw states ages, who congregate there every Sunday wish for, there are a couple of burger vendors Sand my son Anthony brought out his that only bikes are allowed to park on Sundays from across the north or England. and an ice-cream van so getting a quick bite to Burgman 400. Together we set off on the A65 and bank holidays. eat is not a problem. The topic of conversations leaving Leeds urban sprawl behind us. I spoke to one such biker who had been coming to revolved around the bikes, the route they took to For those of you who have never been, Kirkby the Bridge on and off for over thirty years. He told get there and where to go afterwards. All of the We rode northwest through Otley and Ilkley but Londale is famous for the Devil’s Bridge, built me of the times not so long past when wheelies people I chatted to where happy to talk about bypassed Skipton before heading into the open in the 13th Century across the River Lune. It’s and donuts were the order for the day and an their bikes and when I asked if a photo was OK I countryside of the Yorkshire Dales in glorious set between the Yorkshire Dales and the Lake occasion when one rider was busy showing off got a thumbs up from every one of them. sunshine. Settle, Newby and Ingleton drifted District and is only a few miles from Kendal. The his prowess at burn-outs when his bike suddenly by as we approached Cowan Bridge and on Devils Bridge towers above the river and diving found grip and shot off into a brand new Yamaha There were bikes of all shapes and sizes and into Kirkby Lonsdale where we left the A65 and from it into the treacherous waters below isboth flattening it and a whole row of shiny bikes. He riders to match. There was even a scooter, just turned right onto the A683. About a hundred dangerous and against the law, but that doesn’t was almost lynched! Thankfully there were no the one, Anthony’s Burgman actually and he yards or so from the junction, a large number of seem to stop the foolhardy from trying. such antics whilst we were there. watched it nervously fearing if he looked away Continued on page 120 110 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 111 112 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 113 T2T Flyer2:Layout 1 12/2/12 12:52 Page 1

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get your copies from: www.sam-manicom.com ‘where every day is an adventure’ or www.traveldriplus.com ‘quality kit for serious fun’ 118 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 119 it might end up in the river. He needn’t have worried, all bikes seemed welcome and besides it was a lovely day and the river was too far to drag his bike.

Whilst the majority of the rides parked were sports bikes there were also examples of classics such as a bright red BSA and the almost compulsory Harley Davidson.

The ride to the Devils Bridge was one of the best I’ve done for a while. The trip there and back was about 110 miles from Leeds, every one of which was worth it. So if you’re heading for the Lakes and fancy a stop on the way...

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The Shop in the Clouds (Ponderosa) Horseshoe Pass, Llangollen www.amazon.co.uk www.mapsman.com www.traveldriplus.com www.wemoto.com

Or by post from: Dave Gurman, 48 Argyle Avenue, Hounslow, TW3 2LF – cheque for £7.99 (£2 p&p) Incredible India 122 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 123 ur first impressions of India were good except for negotiating the single Olane bridge immediately after the border that all traffic going in both directions needed to cross. Being India, there were no stop ‘n’ go boards or traffic lights, it was just a free for all scrum of trucks, horse and carts, cars, motorbikes and pedestrians. Every man, woman, cow and dog for his/herself. The badly laid wooden boards on the bridge didn’t help us battle through the scrum as the bikes wobbled about all over the place. Once across, we rode through a small village with a few dodgy looking food stalls, the road then opened out into woodlands of eucalyptus and jacaranda trees. Was this some bizarre trick? Were we back in Australia again? The landscape looked so familiar with huge stands of Jacaranda and Eucalyptus trees. We took advantage of the cover and stopped for a pee. We’d read that as soon as you stop anywhere in India you’d be instantly mobbed by a crowd of onlookers who know no sense of personal space. Not here. We peed in private and rode on, feeling in some way a little disappointed.

We needed fuel, for us and the bikes. We pulled over at some shanty hut workshops where a bunch of men were squatting on the ground, pulling apart some mangled pieces of car. I pointed at my fuel tank and shrugged my shoulders in a questioning way. They all pointed down the road in the direction we were heading so we thanked then and rode on. We didn’t really know where we were going anyway so thought we may as well accept their directions. Naively we only had a map of the whole of India with us which was, right then, totally useless. After 20 minutes or so we came into a busy town and, spotting a half sensible looking (and air conditioned) café, parked up and headed in. We were hustled into the posh ‘family’ section and they put on both the chiller units for us. Two dahl bahts and a big bottle of water later, we were

124 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 125 Wired dependability & connectivity when you need it plus Bluetooth portability when you don’t

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THE BEST oF BoTH WorLDS sorted. Delicious and cheap, the only downside was also often smashed to smithereens and the From JUST being the thousand resident flies who seemed combination of dust and exhaust fumes was £109.00 as keen on the food as we were. We gave the chokingly thick. Horns were blaring constantly. waiter a 50% tip, he’d looked after us well. With a Buses, trucks, cars, tuk tuks, motorbikes, bicycles, Go wired when you don’t want Starcom1 systems are designed big “Tank you sir madam” he waved us off but not bullock carts, wandering cows, pedestrians the hassle of recharging and go to give the ultimate in audio before giving us some ridiculously complicated were ALL pushing and clamouring for the Bluetooth when you don’t want the performance, user comfort, safety directions to a nearby petrol station. About 500 same little slice of road. I learnt to ride a bike hassle of a wire! Using the same and value! With prices from just metres along the road we found it, clear as day at in busy London and am a pretty confident ‘go helmet, our new wired/Bluetooth £159 for wired systems and an the side of the road. We pulled in quite a crowd, for the gap’ type (some might say aggressive) package delivers in every scenario. incredible £109 for the new as about twenty men surrounded us while the rider, but those Indian guys are Olympic gold Bluetooth headsets, your decision attendant brimmed our tanks. Quite what was medal holders of ‘anything goes’. It was full on just got easier! so interesting we’ll never know? and pretty damn tough at times! We covered 150km in four long, hot, knackering hours. Kate Buy or find out more at www.starcom1.com Riding in Nepal had been a good training was bloody fantastic. We’d both been worried or call us on 01480 399499 ground but India was in a different league. It’s about her lack of experience but she just got pretty difficult to describe it. There are sections on with the task at hand. of road that are OK – Just think of a very hot & better bike communications; better value dusty rural road anywhere else in the world. If There was no information at all in the Lonely it had all been like that it would have been fine Planet guide about any of the area from the but these sections are far too often interrupted border all the way to Delhi. I guess it’s just not a by crappy towns that cause utter chaos. The road place that tourists visit. There was no way we’d

126 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 127 128 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 129 flight-inclusive adventures from blazing trails tours

south african Tours If you’re looking for a bike tourer’s paradise, then look no further. The riding in South Africa is blissfully diverse and always interesting. Choose your wheels from the BMW GS-range

Johannesburg to Cape Town A classic route, taking in the Drakensberg Mountains, the rolling hills of KwaZulu Natal, the Garden Route, Little Karoo desert and the Cape Penninsula. northern south africa The Highveld, Lowveld, Swaziland, the Indian Ocean, Rorke’s Drift and the Drakensberg Mountains, plus a safari in the world-famous Kruger National Park, all on super roads.

indian adventures Ride a Royal Enfield up the world’s highest roads, tour Little Tibet, enjoy the culture and splendour of the Himalayan Foothills, or chill on a Keralan beach

spiti valley Amazing riding meets amazing scenery and culture in Himalayan ‘Little Tibet’. Ladakh & Zanskar The highest Himalayan roads, remotest valleys and Buddhist monasteries. make it to Delhi in a day so we had to try to find in traffic negotiation, India style. We followed somewhere to stay for the night. We searched in (just). I’m sure you’re supposed to go ¾ of the Himalayan foothills Lower passes, but stunning all the same. one town to no avail and heading on, as evening way around a roundabout when turning right was approaching, we were getting desperate. By aren’t you? Not this guy. What about one-way kerala Beaches and mountains of South India. the time we reached Morradabad it was dark, streets, what does that term actually mean? We which was very bad news on those roads. We’d did only go one way just not the same way as promised ourselves we’d never ride in the dark the rest of the population of town! He had us ride in nepal in India, and on day one, we’d already broken driving like true locals in no time. From exotic jungle destinations, to views of the world’s highest peaks, Nepal offers the two-wheeled adventurer one of life’s great experiences the promise. Stress levels rose. Neither of us had a clue which way to go. As we approached Kathmandu to bardia a junction we’d call up on the intercom to decide Some of the best riding, views and food you’ll whether to go left or right. On other stress free find anywhere, all amid the fascinating culture of Nepal – motorcycle touring does not get much occasions we’d had fun doing the ‘who cares, better than this! left or right’ thing but at that moment we just We will guide you along sinuous mountain trails, across plains and through jungles to the shadow wanted to find a hotel. We rode around the of mighty Annapurna, on to Kathmandu, to the city in the choking traffic, looking for any clues. border with Tibet and back via Everest views. This trip is characterised by rides in places of We pulled up at a taxi stand and asked around, incredible natural beauty. finally managing to find someone who could speak English. Apparently he knew where a

tours start at £2295, including all flights, transfers and more hotel (for whities) was. Off he sped on his little all holidays fully insured and bonded in the UK for your financial protection! moped, no lights, dark shirt and well versed

130 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 131 Mail: [email protected] • Web: www.blazingtrailstours.com • call: 01902 894009 132 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 133 After a ten minute, hair raising ride, our new friend led us to a pretty decent looking hotel. He would not leave (despite the cash we gave him for his trouble) until we were fully checked in. In fact, I reckon he’d have tried to tuck us in to bed if we hadn’t been so insistent that we were now ok. The relief to be in a clean, air conditioned room was huge. We’d done over 300km’s that day which in those conditions had taken a massive eleven hours of hot, dusty, super-stressful riding. We were totally knackered. After showering (bliss) and changing into some clean(er) clothes, we wandered the streets and found a reasonable looking restaurant. While we were eating a local guy came over to us and asked what we were actually doing in Morradabad. He said he’d not seen any foreigners there for years. He explained that there was indeed little of interest to see there and it was basically an industrial, cross roads town. We were in bed super-early that night and fell into an exhausted slumber. In the morning, we packed up and skipped town before things got too oppressive. It was a little cooler at 6am, but it seemed that in India, you could never get up early enough to beat the crowds.

We’d never really even wanted to go to Delhi, but the logistics of the trip forced us to. We had to do some visa applications for getting through the Stans. As we approached the city on a real highway, the traffic built, but to be honest the run in wasn’t too bad. The traffic once in the city centre was so gridlocked it was actually quite safe and easy to manoeuvre around. It was bloody hot though, my handy pocket thermometer showed 40 degrees. Somehow, using a combination of Lonely Planet maps and a bit of luck, we stumbled pretty much on the area we wanted to be in town and checked into a reasonable guest house. The Cottage Ganga Inn was apparently the place to be. The Lonely Planet described it as “Popular with overlanders with a courtyard providing safe parking”. We had Continued on page 144 134 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 135 136 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 137 138 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 139 140 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 141 142 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 143 is some space and even quiet as all the traffic everywhere. On this day, as we walked along (vehicle and human) squeezes to the side of the street, we had the added joy of negotiating the road. But as quickly as the hole appears, all the hazards of the day before whilst also it is immediately filled as all the traffic ‘goes avoiding the splash from the tyres of passing for the gap’, and the mayhem continues on its vehicles as they crashed through the potholes merry way. We say merry because there is one full of filthy water. At one point, the water big difference to what you might have in your stretched across the entire road. The puddle mind. The whole scene although manically must have been at least 20 foot long. So long hectic, noisy and unbearable is at peace with that we actually hired a cycle rickshaw to get itself. No road rage (or Raj rage!), no frustration, from one side to the other, so avoiding wading no aggression. This is just life in Delhi. We were through the filthy, sewage-like mess. Yuk. India. the ones who struggled to handle it and began It is relentless. The madness is everywhere and to crack under the strain, not the Indians, this unavoidable. It is not limited to certain areas of was just their lives. We could only take about town, or certain towns. India is India! 10-15 minutes of the madness until we needed to duck into a western style café or shop (not Will Wilkins always easy to find) to get some respite. This is a chapter from Wollongong to The next morning there was a new added twist. Woolwich a 224 page account of our 15,000 Overnight rain had left puddles of filthy water mile 5 month adventure. Check out www. and a mush of rubbish and mud was caked wollongongtowoolwich.co.uk for further details.

visions of rows of Land Rovers and Africa Twins shopping experience and double it, no in fact parked up, animated conversations between times it by five. Then turn up the heat to 35+ western travellers, maps outs on bonnets whilst degrees. Add some filth, rubbish, dust, shit (dog, tales of epic journeys were shared. Instead, cow and human). Take away the pavements disappointed, we chained our bikes to a tree and traffic rules. Then add a load of bicycles, in an otherwise empty courtyard and lugged motorbikes, cycle rickshaws, tuk-tuks, cars and our gear in to the hotel across the hot, dusty trucks ALL creating a horrendous cacophony concrete driveway. The hotel itself was basic with beeping horns and shouting. You’re getting but cleanish and comfortable. We checked in close now. Oh, we forgot the wafts of stale piss, and then wandered up the road, finding the air beggars and the incessant buzzing flies. Then, conditioned Club India for a western-style lunch. just when you think the narrow street must Rejuvenated, we headed out into the streets to surely be at capacity, an ancient wooden cart explore our surroundings. approaches, pushed by six men, it is laden with building materials. It clearly can’t stop, it has What’s central Delhi like then? Well, take way too much momentum. It forces a ‘hole’ in your worst, busiest, most stressful Christmas the seething mass and for a split second there

144 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 145 REVIVAL TIME! or many motorsport fans September Goodwood circuit was built just after the means Goodwood Revival month, so Second World War on the perimeter road of RAF Fit seemed appropriate to rev things up Westhampnett, an airfield that had been hastily with a few photos from 2012’s cracking event constructed at the outbreak of hostilities. It was prior to this year’s Revival, which will be taking the place from which the legless hero Douglas place on September 13-15th. It all happens at Bader made his last wartime flight as a Spitfire the Goodwood racing circuit and is not to pilot in 1941 and it remains a fully operational be confused with the Goodwood Festival of grass airfield to this day. This adds yet another Speed, which takes place earlier in the summer dimension to the event – a display of period within the grounds of Goodwood House a aircraft and an appearance by the Battle of couple of miles away. Britain flight of a Lancaster and Spitfires, plus on occasions Mustangs and Messerschmitts In the first place, being a circuit, rather than amongst many others. a hill climb, there is proper multi-lap car and motorcycle racing. Secondly, the event Goodwood is a very fast track which rewards has become a major nostalgia-fest in which bold overtaking manoeuvres and this results in all the people and vehicles involved celebrate the best car racing it’s ever been my pleasure Goodwood’s 1940s, ‘50s and ‘60s hey-day to watch, especially when it rains. My favourite (before its closure in 1966) by dressing up is the St Mary’s saloon car race in which brave in a variety of epoch evoking costumes little ‘Davids’ in A35s and Minis, duke it out and uniforms. with massive yank tank ‘Goliaths’. Continued on page 160 146 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 147 148 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 149 150 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 151 152 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 153 154 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 155 156 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 157 158 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 159 The motorcycle race, named after the late, war to 1966, the bikes are all pre-1955, but period vehicles of all kinds, from bubble cars appropriate clobber. If you’ve never been, great Barry Sheene (who won his very last race they ain’t slow. And last year double World to steam engines, and even the pushbikes treat yourself – just don’t forget to dress for here, only a few months before his death in Superbike champion Troy Corser performed are authentically old-fashioned. There’s even the occasion! 2003) has been developed into a pair of ‘mini miracles on a 1936 BMW twin to get on the a nostalgic old-time Tescos alongside many endurance’ races. In other words, there are two podium with partner Sebastian Gutsch. more upmarket boutiques and emporia. riders per bike in the hour-long legs, which A very large proportion of the punters dress Paul Blezard take place on both the Saturday and Sunday. But there’s much more than mere racing. up in their period costume of choice and even Whereas the cars of all kinds range from pre- There’s music and dancing and fascinating the press and mechanics are required to wear Further details at: www.goodwood.co.uk

160 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 161 a lot of motoring issues centre around attitude, habits and awareness. People who get points ASK A and a fine normally get hacked off that they have been caught, but they don’t address why it happened in the first place and without tackling the issue at source the chances are it will happen POLICEMAN again – so bring on the education.

This is all about awareness, its easy to say don’t speed, but its more effective to say don’t speed Education Enforcement as… may happen. In the motoring world the greatest threat not to do wrong in the current age is certainly the fear Safer Roads Scotland have produced some of getting points on your licence, but its not the campaign adverts which can be viewed HERE Full day, classroom and practical for without due points themselves, it’s the financial penalty for I know these are car based, but check out the care offences involving a collision. the fine, (which has now just risen for all tickets), previous campaigns at the bottom of the page and as insurance companies add on more and as reading the road applies to motorcyclists Driving 4 Change £95 more for convictions the extra cost over what as well. 2¼ hours practical only for some due care can be years at each renewal. offences and some endorsable offences where What’s available and how is it applied? there is no collision but a skill deficit has So if you have your bike registered to you, been identified. or me, the whole basis of crime and have insurance, MOT and the correct licence all If you’re stopped for a Road Traffic Offence there punishment is to be afraid of the should be well and it’s just your behaviour on are a number of options and courses available, What’s Driving Us £95 Fpunishment and therefore not commit the Queens Highway that you need to worry The course is a diversion from prosecution and 3½ hours classroom based and mainly for those the crime, (not to mention our own personal about, but we all speed… without a doubt as such is not a conviction or a court appearance, who have an ‘attitude problem’ (not to the morals). anyone who claims they don’t would certainly so unless your insurance company ask or officer, but towards the offence). not be telling the truth, but it’s a matter of how stipulate you must tell them they don’t need This works in principle, but history has shown much speed, when, where and if you get caught. to know, there are NO penalty points and the We also had a Young Drivers Course for those us that it can still make little difference to those In my younger day I regularly took my VFR 750 fee covers the admin and wages of the national under 21; this is currently not available but will who have nothing to lose or have been pushed high into three figures on a section of the A2 company that delivers the course. be back in 2014. into the decision to do wrong, that may be why in the early hours, but my licence stayed clean, we as a nation used to hang for stealing and a I’m sure it wouldn’t now as technology and In my force we offer the following: You can only attend a course once within variety of other offences and a fair amount of intelligence led tasking leads the way. three years of the date of the original offence, juveniles and children as well as adults found RIDE £95 but if the offence is different you can attend a themselves doing the Tyburn jig. The safety camera partnerships work on the This is a full day classroom based exercise for different course! Association of Chief Police Officers, (ACPO), motorcyclists only available for some riding But what is the threat now? I know the maximum speed guidelines which can be found HERE but without due care offences, some endorsable So, speed in your car… Speed Awareness. sentence for burglary is 14 years, but when does Roads policing officers stood at the kerb can offences (solid lines etc), and some speeding that happen? apply discretion to a certain level, which usually offences referred by Operation Achilles. raises the lower figure in each band. Speed on your bike… RIDE. There is also the group that are institutionalised Speed Awareness £95 and need to commit crime to get back inside for So what’s the enforcement angle? As above it’s About 4 hours, classroom based. Mobile phone… Driving 4 Change. all the comforts it brings compared to outside the fear of getting caught again, but personally life so no threat there. I feel that this is not always successful because Driver Alertness £150 And so on.

162 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 163 CMS is a Banham Group Company dedicated to looking after properties by providing rapid response Key Guards who attend the premises following alarm activations or specific requests.

Key Guards are despatched by motorcycle to avoid traffic hold-ups and therefore ensure prompt arrival to the premises.

For more information visit: cmskeyholding.com More details can be found at the National Association of Driver Intervention Providers HERE regarding who provides which courses in what area.

Now the cost of Fixed Penalty Tickets has risen (£100 for not wearing a seat belt or having an illegal number plate etc), the courses are a fantastic opportunity to pay less and not get points - although I suppose this means cost of the course will be rising soon as well. So if you look in your mirror and see the There is, of course, voluntary education you can reincarnation of Albert Pierrepoint (the ‘Last arrange yourself. BikeSafe is a national police Hangman’) in high vis, not all is lost; our first led project and having enjoyed a BikeSafe priority is to try to put you on a course, as it may “Funny, informative and thought provoking. A great travel guide and a “humorous yet totally absorbing” great read” - Nich Brown, The Road - Motorcycle Monthly workshop or ride out, the next natural step that improve the way you drive or ride for the next we actively encourage is post test motorcycle 20 or 30 years, and with a fatal collision costing “A fantastic account “This refreshingly anecdotal “a seriously funny adventure of life on the road and training from either the I.A.M. (Institute of about 1.5 million and serious life changing book reads like a mate down an antidote to celebrity novel written in a way you the pub who’s travelled overland adventures – I Advanced Motorists) RoSPA (Royal Society for injuries costing more, we need to reduce all the and can tell a good story” can actually relate to”. laughed out loud many times and felt like I was -Adventure Bike Rider -International Motor Cycle Prevention of Accidents) or E.R.S. (The Enhanced collisions we can. riding pillion. Can’t wait for the next Rider Scheme). adventure.” - Motorcycle “We are seeking legal advice” Mojo Magazine The world enters economic meltdown. A global u - Puerto del Faglioli Tourist Board Graham Pierce pandemic looms. An historical US presidential election More info HERE is taking place and, somewhere in the Americas, a PC 1009 lone Irishman is coaxing his temperamental Italian This 342 page book has an additional 12 pages of colour photographs that compliment an already motorcycle through another electrical breakdown… vibrant story and is available through www.paddytyson.com, or by calling 01926 844064. You can also purchase it from Amazon and all good bookshops for £9.99. ISBN 978-0-9564305-1-9

164 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 165 166 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 167 168 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 169 BOOK REVIEW With an Eagle on the Back by Jonathan Boorstein

ometimes I think my life (IJMS), covered is ruled by synchronicity. in the last issue S (181) by The Synchronicity is a concept Rider’s Digest developed by Carl Gustav Jung editor and in the 1920s, although he didn’t Fearless Leader devote an entire paper to the Dave Gurman subject until 1952. Synchronicity (The Clever Girls is a sort of pointed serendipity. and Boys’ Club). less than successful, but the It is seeing or experiencing jacket’s place as desiderata for a relationship or meaningful One of the artists whose proper Punk dress was noted: coincidence between or among work created a buzz here at at least in passing. a number of events or objects. The Digest was Tom Helyar- Although the connections are Cardwell, whose Battle In addition, Mick Farren died. made by meaning, causality is Jacket project analyzes and He was more than just a not excluded. Meaning may be interprets the customization professional provocateur in his provided internally or externally. of the black leather jacket in career as a writer, activist and terms of popular, personal performer, his social history In this case, synchronicity took and political iconography, as of the black leather jacket has the form of the black leather well as its roots in heraldic and become as much a classic as jacket. The experience felt military traditions through his the jacket itself. less like serendipity and more art work. The project includes like stalking. the customized decoration That led me to go to get my of ‘rocker’ and ‘metal head’ copy of The Black Leather To begin with there was, jackets as well. Jacket (1985) off the shelf, Motorcycle Cultures: Fashioning only to discover Farren’s book Bikes, Building Identities, an The black leather jacket also was but one of more than a exhibition at The Triangle played a small part in the dozen volumes on the topic Space of the Chelsea College summer exhibition Punk: I had picked up over the of Art and Design that Chaos to Couture at The years. As for jackets and their accompanied the recent Costume Institute at the customization, Farren himself conference of the International Metropolitan Museum of Art, also observes: “Bike jacket Journal of Motorcycle Studies in New York. The show was decoration became the new

170 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 171 heraldry” (p.54). Noting the jacket provides them with “A biker himself, he had no parallel between the leather an ability to move between qualms about scuffing jackets jacket and medieval armor, he their various life roles” (From with sand paper and putting says, “The armour confers both Renegade to Regular Joe: The them in the washing machine” a purpose and an identity” Black Leather Jacket’s Values (p.336). (p.18). for Bikers, Volume 6, Issue 2: Fall 2010). That aspect of the black And last and definitely least, I leather jacket has been noted had to take my black leather While DeLong, Gage, Park, by others as well. Polhemus jacket to the tailor to replace a and Sklar point out that there quotes Johnny Stuart: “The torn pocket. He conceded that is more to wearing a black fancy fashionable versions of a 15-year-old jacket probably leather jacket than just the the Perfecto which you see did not need to be cleaned as protection it provides, they all over the place these days well. Or at least there was no shy away from addressing the water down the significance way I’d have it cleaned. “What makes the Perfecto near-sacred status it has with of the thing, taking away its The Real Thing is its Bad Boy/ some riders. original magic, castrating it” Of course, all that may Girl, wrong-side-of-the-tracks (p.12). just be apophenia (seeing image. That and the fact that After all, “Riders who do select connections where there it is a classic, anti-fashion gear for practical reasons are The lost magic is authenticity. aren’t any). garment, virtually unchanged more likely, however, to order Polhemus observes, “If today in its design for some five a Darien jacket made of 500 more and more people use There is nothing apophenic decades,” Ted Polhemus points denier Cordura Gore Tex with their dress style to assert ‘I am about the ubiquity of the out in Street Style (p.11). Street a fleece lining and Scotchlite authentic,’ it is simply evidence black leather jacket. It is as Style (1994), the catalogue reflective tape in hi-viz lime of our hunger for the genuine much a staple of a complete from an exhibition at the yellow, or a BMW Motorrad article in an age which sees wardrobe as the little black Victoria and Albert Museum, Club Jacket made of rugged belt of a martial artist. Tradition isn’t quite that layered with to so many to the one of dress or the navy blue blazer. documents forty different polyamide impregnated has it that the belt holds the significance, it comes close. It simulation and hype” (p.7). It can be as quintessential as a street styles since 1940. Close for water resistance with martial artist’s rank, power, protects and projects the rider, Schott Perfecto or as ‘this year’ to half of them include a basic removable safety armour in the and knowledge. The color, a mix of personal safety and Going from subversion to as what’s on a fashion week black leather jacket as a way to elbows and shoulders. Modern the bars (patches) sewn on, public billboard. It’s a résumé submission, from outsider to catwalk. “Together with jeans identify a lifestyle, if not mark fabrics – more lightweight, how worn it is, are the martial of who the rider is in style, insider, in less than seventy and T-shirts, the leather jacket territory or assert authenticity. durable and waterproof – have artist’s history, if not his or her scratches, and scruff marks. years is quite an arc for an item has managed to establish supplanted leather for rider résumé. The belt (unlike the of clothing that didn’t even itself as one of the cult In an article in the IJMS, protection,” (p.181) Steven uniform or gi) is never washed Quilleriet quotes couturier exist before World War I. Farren items in the contemporary Marilyn DeLong, Kelly Gage, E. Alford and Suzanne Ferris or cleaned, lest that power Jean Colonna as saying, “In a notes, “The black leather jacket wardrobe,” observes Anne- Juyeon Park, and Monica point out in Motorcycle (2007). and knowledge be washed black leather jacket it is easy to has always been the uniform Laure Quilleriet (p.9) in The Sklar conclude that “The black away. Tying the belt on is a pick out the fakers. The jacket of the bad. Hitler’s Gestapo, Leather Book (2004), which leather jacket remains the ‘go- A close analogy of the near sacred, almost ritualistic is there to protect you and the Hell’s Angels, the Black has a picture of the Perfecto to’ uniform of bikers”. They add, significance of the black assumption of that identity. to say who you are” (p.337). Panthers, Punk rockers, gay on the cover. “[Bikers] find their black leather leather jacket might be the While the black leather jacket She observes about Colonna, bar cruisers, rock ‘n’ roll animals

172 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 173 and the hardcore mutations of is in lederhosen, a form of male The postwar adventures of the eighties, all adopted it as dress I find less amusing than the black leather jacket are their own” (p.12). most having been traumatized somewhat better known. As as a child at Christmas dinners war surplus or souvenir, the It went from the military to in German restaurants by leather jacket became a favorite the militant, from street to oom-pah bands playing of a range of subcultures that chic. “It has been a comforting Silent Night. were not obvious fits into the companion to first motorists mainstream. Many came from and aviation heroes, a While the relationship need to keep warm and dry, the lower end of the socio- manly symbol for bikers and between leather jackets and leather was obviously a economic scale and became thoughts, and a powerful and leather trousers falls good medium”. rockers or, earlier, café racers. erotic armor for fetishists,” somewhere between obscure Here in the States, bikers Quilleriet adds (p.8). and non-existent, the theory Quilleriet credits an army tended to band together is at least half right. Alford and doctor, Major Malcolm C. Grox, in formal or informal clubs Some want to trace the origins Ferris state clearly, “The black with creating the B3 bomber and joined the American of the black leather jacket to motorcycle jacket…originated jacket in the 1930s. A member Motorcycle Association prehistoric cave dwellers with German aviators of of the Alaska Corp, he felt (AMA). Others formed outlaw dressing themselves in animal the First World War, such as restricted by the longer jacket gangs. The more brutish skins, which is a bit like Pooh- Manfred von Ricthofen, the and had it cut off at the waist. (or thuggish) favored Nazi Bah tracing his ancestry to the famous Red Baron” (p.181- Farren adds, “This combination regalia and insignias to annoy primeval ooze. 182). It was developed to of dash and democracy must and provoke. keep Germany’s fighter pilots have contributed, at least in More common is to trace warm in the open cockpits of part, to the way in which the Concurrently the black leather the leather jacket back to the warplanes of World War I same leather jacket became jacket became a fetish item the buckskin jackets of the around 1915. the unofficial uniform of the for the sexual underground American Wild West. This historic International Brigade in the in general and the gay S/M line goes as far as to see the This makes the black leather Spanish Civil War” (p.30). It was underground in particular. origins of mixing denim and jacket a year or so shy of its also the unofficial uniform of The gay biker clubs of post- leather as well. It seems about centennial. The original jacket such pioneering ‘aviatrices’ World War II California may as likely as saying the origins was longer, covering at least as Amy Johnson and Amelia have organized the gay were in the leather waistcoats the hips, and became standard Earhart. (On a less feminist sadomasochistic underground worn for warmth in Spain even apparel for dispatch riders as note, they may have also Emblems, pin-ups, records of on a rapid downward spiral, as well as inspired Santa earlier in the nineteenth century, well as aviators. As Derek Harris unintentionally pioneered the hits, all personalized the jacket enhanced by the rise of Monica born-and-bred a point curious enough that the of Lewis Leathers explains in girls-in-leather fetish.) to its owner. Fascism on the one hand and Kenneth Anger, and perhaps Duke of Wellington commented Or Glory (Horst A. Friedrichs, the film industry on the other. even Tom of Finland. on it to Philip Stanhope years 2013): “Essentially you’ve got Eventually, the back of the While the flight/bomber/ Alford and Ferris note, “Later later (1836). aviators with no cockpits, bomber jacket became a aviator jacket would continue associations with the Nazis In their discussion of the motorcyclists and drivers of blank canvas for the pilot to to embody being one of the further equated leather (and black leather jacket as fashion Another slightly odd choice open top cars: the main thing express whatever he held good guys, if not virtue, its the colour black) with power and fetish, Alford and Ferriss for the origins of the jacket they’ve got in common is the dear or deemed interesting. motorcycling sibling went and domination” (p.182). quote from Larry Townsend’s

174 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 175 Townsend explains the at the suggestion of Jean relationship between the Cocteau, who would go on organized riding clubs and to create his own memorable the eventual organization of image of eerie and elegant the s/m scene, often referred motorcyclists two years later in to as leather, and hence the Orphée. When Anger returned title of the book. The clubs permanently to the US in the Leatherman’s Handbook (1972) were recognized by the AMA early sixties, he drew upon that to demonstrate the erotic until institutional homophobia sub-culture for his cult classic, attraction of leather in general drove them away. Scorpio Rising (1963), which and riding kit in particular features black-leather-clad part of an exhibition about (p.185). The quote is from bad-boy gay bikers sporting Gaultier at the Barbizon next the opening paragraph of an Nazi insignia. The film’s ability year. The Avengers leather entire chapter dedicated to the to fetishize the leather and catsuit has been consigned to gay motorcycling scene (The the bikes was quickly picked the dustbin of history. Bike and its Owner, p.143-155). up by bikesploitation movies, Westwood and Malcolm itself. The Avengers, starting carrying the image and the McLaren printing one of the five years earlier, did the same The elements of fetishism, Townsend writes: “Intrinsic message of the black leather pictures on T-shirts in their with first Honor Blackman the mix of sex and street cred, to the leather scene is the jacket to the mainstream commodification of Punk. Tom (Cathy Gale) and then Diana rebellion and rock and roll, motorcycle and the guy who once again. of Finland began sketching Rigg (Emma Peel). Blackman, were not lost on rock and roll rides it. The clothing we all pictures of men in tight- a former World War II dispatch musicians, whatever the sub- find so appealing is primarily Unlike the jacket itself, the fitting uniforms – military and rider, had no problems with genre. The motorcycle jacket designed for the cyclist’s use, erotic illustrations of Tom of motorcycle – during the Nazi leathers, while Rigg ditched went from protection against and the organized in-groups Finland would have remained occupation of Finland. Peaked hers after one year in favor of the road and the weather to an are largely bike groups. There is It’s little wonder that the gay within the gay communities caps and leather jackets figure the knit ‘Emma Peeler’. image of action and attitude. no disputing the sexual appeal biker look, whether just for had it not been for Vivienne as prominently as exaggerated Gene Vincent, George Michael, of a leather-clad rider on his riding or other possibilities, is genitalia. Interestingly, the original great rumbling machine. As credited by some for helping costume was rejected as too a symbol of phallic might the establish the gay clone look It didn’t take that long for kinky. It made Steed’s second motorcyclist is the epitome, of the black leather jacket the fetish look to break into look like a female Diabolik in the living embodiment of our and blue Levis, later adapted the mainstream, epitomized heels. There were also conical fetish” (p.143). by straight boys who wanted by women in black leather inserts to accommodate to suggest that they might, catsuits. In film, the most breasts which anticipate Townsend was an early leader just might want A Walk on the famous might be Marianne Madonna’s cone bra, designed and spokesman for both gay Wild Side. Faithfull who was ‘naked under by Jean Paul Gaultier for her rights and sexual freedom leather’ in Girl on a Motorcycle 1990 Blonde Ambition tour, (i.e., sadomasochism) To It is not known how much (1968), sparking adolescent by a quarter of a century or judge from the motorcycling Anger knew about the fantasies among a generation so. Madonna has an updated parts of the chapter, he was gay biker scene before of schoolboys that were a lot version for her current MDNA a biker at one time himself. he left for France in 1947 more interesting than the film tour while the original will be

176 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 177 Named Desire than to Richard Punk were co-opted before Hell on the streets of New York Westwood and McLaren (p.81) – was often a billboard adopted it from New York’s for political or pornographic Warholian scene. words or images selected to confront and offend. Tom of But as Smith observes: “At Finland and the Nazis found a once trashy and sexy, Punk common canvas. provided excellent slumming opportunities… A Moschino “For Punks in the street, the full-skirted dress made of David Bowie, Elvis Presley, style was motivated as much shopping bags is a delightful and Freddy Mercury, among by poverty as by rebellion and party gag, one that, fittingly, others, to build or consolidate was distinguished by all kinds evokes Marie Antoinette in their fan base. of DIY customization: cutting, shepherdess drag”. lettering and safety-pinning, tactic of starting a story by sell “decidedly unmagical the lives of rockers, café racers, It took Punk to mix fascist often evoking the anger of In terms of street wear, this describing the hangover”. It’s a leathers”. Nevertheless he and other motorcyclists from and fetish chic, lacing it with Dada, the French Situationists became a casual, dressed- fair description of the narrative concludes, “Standard bikers the fifties to the seventies. anarchy and nihilism. The and even early Conceptual down, forever-young look. style here as well, which wear the standard bike drag black leather jacket, worn, if art, while foreshadowing Now no couturier or pret-à- quickly goes over the top and and the jackets get more worn, Stuart was something of an not torn, sometimes studded, postmodern deconstruction,” porter line would be complete cheerfully stays there for the wrinkled and interesting right eminence grise (or perhaps was paired with jeans, always Roberta Smith writes in the without a black leather jacket. rest of its 96 pages. Describing along with the faces of their noire) to Polhemus’s exhibition New York Times. Mad Max as “Cannibal Apaches owners…. On the gay strips the and catalogue Street Style, Somehow that stack of twelve on motorcycles” (p.88) is about black leather jacket continues even to the point of lending Needless to say, it was a Tom or so books grew to eighteen as good a movie haiku review to hold its own…. The black pieces from his own collection of Finland drawing of two near in the course of writing this as it gets. leather jacket continues. At to the show. The influence naked and aroused cowboys piece. At this rate, I’m going times it looks like it will go on shows. Polhemus presents about to embrace that got to need a new place for all For him the black leather forever” (p.96). some 40 different ‘street Westwood and McLaren these books. jacket – too often abbreviated styles’, from the forties to the charged with an affront to as BLJ, which is not an obvious Recommnended. If you want nineties, from zoot suits to public decency and not any of Farren’s Black Leather Jacket is acronym, but is one letter shy one book on the subject, this is grunge and beyond. His main the purveyors of Nazi regalia. the best overall book on the of obscenity – is about protest probably the best choice. thesis is that ‘working class subject. It’s highly readable, and personal empowerment, street style’ dresses up (teds Although leather clothing was well-illustrated, and, behind its decorations about identity Stuart’s Rockers! (1987) covers or mods), while ‘middle class shown by major designers by the breezy approach, better and idolatry. The term he uses the black leather jacket as part style’ dresses down (folkies or the 1920s, if not earlier – Jean researched than usual. He to sum all that up is “magic”, of its actual subject matter. The rockers). Some of the styles torn, often black, and heavy Patou is but one example – wrote of his work in NME which is what is was for him book was discussed in May as he includes seem marginal boots, usually Doc Martens. Yves St Laurent was the first that “What the paper needed from when he was small. part of the Ace Cafe round- (zazous or rockabilly), while The white ripped T-shirt – couturier to make it truly to complete the team was a up. It is also a good choice for others seem to be omitted which Farren suggests owes fashionable in the mid sixties. gonzo alcoholic who knew the He ends up complaining reading about the part the (yuppie or preppie [Sloane more to Brando in A Streetcar The black leather jackets of Bukowski-Thompson opening about fashion boutiques that black leather jacket played in ranger]). To a degree, the style

178 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 179 of a surprise that I’ve never actually reviewed or discussed it. That gap will be addressed another time. As for the book itself, it is recommended as the ‘go-to’ volume for any discussion about any aspect of motorcycling and popular culture. By necessity the sections on a particular aspect of motorbikes and popular culture will be brief – fashion, for example, counts for approximately 13 pages out of the book’s total of 240 – but are quite informative.

The next seven books take a different view of the leather jacket. Rin Tanaka’s Motorcycle Jackets: Ultimate Biker’s Fashions (2003) and Motorcycle Jackets: A Century of Leather Design (2006); Jon identification as possible and, specialized for most. Maguire, creators of the Perfecto, are A. Maguire’s Silver Wings usually, values (prices) as well. Conway, and Prodger’s four a different matter. A biker you see depends upon the not be unwelcome in close and Leather Jackets (2009); Narrative sections are brief books are fun and informative, born in Japan, the California- street that you walk. to half of the rest. The reader Maguire and John P. Conway’s histories telling collectors although the target market is based Tanaka is fascinated by might well wonder why Art of the Flight Jacket (1995) what they need to know to be for collectors of World War II post-war fashion in general Because he does note all styles anyone would be surprised it and American Flight Jackets, informed buyers. Each guide memorabilia in general and and motorcycle apparel and that favor the black leather became a fashion staple. second edition (2000); as well is prepared by some sort bomber jackets in particular. As accessories in particular. jacket in one form or another, as Mick J. Prodger’s Luftwaffe of expert in the field, either the ancestor of how black leather He has produced a regular the book provides an insight Ultimately, the book is more vs. RAF (1997) are all published a dealer or a collector, and motorcycle jackets are decorated, stream of books, some self- into how prevalent it’s been likely to be interesting to by Schiffer, an imprint some are better than others. it’s not without historic interest. published, some published and for how long. Eighteen the fashionista than the specializing in reference books They are, in a way, coffee table Recommended for completists by Schiffer, including two of the styles he identifies use motorcyclist. I’ll just note it as for collectors, in this case flight books with solid research. and/or those with money devoted to vintage and the black leather jacket as a important in the literature. and biker jackets. to burn. contemporary motorcycle sign/signifier of ‘membership’ Some of the painted decorations jackets. Those books include in what he calls a styletribe. If I Considering how often I The bulk of the books are on the flight jackets are On the other hand, Tanaka’s old boots, gloves, helmets, understand the requirements quote or refer to Alford and pictures, with captions fascinating, others beautiful two books, along with his kidney belts, and riding of each tribe, the jacket would Ferriss’s Motorcycle, it’s a bit providing as full an (and not a few baffling), but too history of Schott (2013), breeches as well. There is also

180 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 181 Touratech’s Compañero is one of the newest textile suits on the market. Compañero fans COME TO US include the British actor FOR BIG BRAND Charley Boorman (“Long Way NAMES LIKE: Round”, “Race to Dakar”), and seasoned motorbike adventurers Simon/Lisa Thomas and Nick Sanders.

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182 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 183 whom contributing to such Yellow was a popular color, make them of limited interest projects as this constitutes and not just with Yamaha. for British readers. Yes, Lewis an occupational hazard. Leathers is mentioned. Are Despite the iconic status of Tanaka’s favorite of this Mascot and Belstaff. And all the Schott Perfecto, Leather period may be ABC Leathers. favorably. But the products Design is dedicated to Joseph “The most excellent leather did not exactly penetrate the Buegeleisen, whose company, designer, who rendered the American market, to be kind Buco, manufactured the J-24, greatest achievement in about it. And in one of Tanaka’s which Tanaka describes as American racing history, is a rare errors, he identifies Ton- “[t]he coolest motorcycle woman named Clarice Amberg Up Boys as ex-Rockers. The jacket of the century”. of ABC Leathers in South Gate, chronological reversal aside, I California” (Biker’s Fashions, didn’t know there was such a Both books provide an p.186). His English frequently thing as an ex-Rocker. overview of the history of Edwardian age, which, while Langlitz, Indian, and Harley- goes south but charm, styles and materials from not inconsistent with the Davidson. Both motorcycle accuracy and enthusiasm limited general production Recommended for those who zippers replacing buttons to 1915 date, does suggest that companies produced make up for a lot. and such special commissions want a history of the black steerhide replacing horsehide. the centennial of the black extensive – and now highly as 45 flight jackets ordered by leather jacket that specifically Tanaka writes in Leather Design: leather jacket may have passed collectible – clothing and Amberg, who was also Neil Young to commemorate deals with the motorcycling “Motorcycle fashions have unnoticed. Tanaka describes accessories for their customers. known for her lip-shaped his 1986 Crazy Horse Tour with life. Caveat for those who always set trends for each era. the first jackets as having a logo, customized racing suits his staff and friends. want to collect jackets. Prices The D-Pocket jacket became simple two-pocket style in He also notes the individual for the likes of American are already out of date by the the predominant style in late front and plain back with no decoration of the jackets: “In racing legend Kenny Roberts. Other companies have an time a guide rolls off the press 1940s, but it was expelled from pleats. By the thirties the style motorcycle jackets ‘kustom’ However, her most notable even more limited production and the emphasis here is on its popular position by Marlon has changed, becoming more means painting what you want achievement may have been and customer base. As Tanaka American product lines. Brando’s One-Star jacket after like what we think of when we to express, sewing patches on for Easy Rider (1969). Peter notes in Leather Design: 1953” (p.37). think of a motorcycle jacket. your jacket that proclaims Fonda told Tanaka, “My jacket “[L]ots of Hollywood celebrities Tanaka’s Schott: 100 Years The front has a ‘W’ collar and your identity, and adding was custom-made by a lady at discovered these craftsmen of an American Original is a Citing such companies as a diagonal zipper, while the decorative studs with your ABC” (Biker’s Fashions, p.186). and ordered special jackets company history celebrating its Schott Brothers in New York back has a center pleat and a own hands” (Biker’s Fashions, for movies, stage costumes, centennial. Given Schott’s claim and Leathertogs in Everett, ‘bi-swing’ design. By the fifties, p.96). The books continue up to and their private motorcycle that it invented the motorcycle Massachusetts, Tanaka suggests the pleat has been abandoned contemporary manufacturers recreation” (p.265). Chrome jacket and Tanaka’s position that “the American motorcycle in favor of a kidney panel with The sixties brought the one and bespoke tailors. Hearts, for example, counts as ‘the’ expert in motorcycle jacket was born in the Northeast” belt loops. or two-piece racing suit, with Vanson Leathers, Fall River, Cher and Madonna, Iggy jackets, it’s a match made in (Leather Design, p.10). Given the local racers supporting local Massachusetts, gets a long Pop and Eric Clapton among public relations heaven. overall history of the United Tanaka presents the fifties as manufacturers, who provided write-up as does the older, its clients. States, that is probable without the Golden Age of motorcycle a more conventional custom or more venerable Langlitz The book celebrates all things being conclusive. jackets. Certainly the brands bespoke product. The leather Leathers, Portland, Oregon. The books are an excellent Schott. It’s not a book to have as much magic (in racing jacket comes into its A legend in the Pacific overview of the history of learn about Schott’s rivals or He begins his history of the Farren’s sense) as the jackets own, as do jackets in colors Northwest, Langlitz is more the motorcycle jacket in the reversals, but to look at vintage motorcycle jacket in the themselves: Schott, Buco, other than black or brown. toward the bespoke end, with United States, which may photographs, giggle at how

184 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 185 Schott of course doesn’t just Book covers not just the claim credit for the Perfecto, black leather jacket, but but inventing the motorcycle also anything ever made of jacket itself in 1928 at the leather: bags, shoes, luggage, request of a Harley-Davidson upholstery, saddles… It covers dealership on Long Island. how leather is made from Irving named it the Perfecto skin as well as the different after his favorite Cuban cigar. kinds of skin used to make Close to a quarter of a century leather. Ultimately it focuses later, someone working on the on industry statistics, with the costumes for The Wild Ones emphasis on luxury goods purchased a One-Star from – Hermes, J.P. Tod’s – though Schott’s shop in Los Angeles. Schott and Doc Martens are The rest is history, which is covered as well. covered in a double-page spread. And, yes, this would Unlike the luxury goods mean that while the black it admires and promotes, leather jacket is about 100 the book itself is shoddily years old, the black leather produced. Careless translation motorcycle jacket is close is compounded by careless behind it at 85. grandchildren Jason, Oren and the family for a century is printing. Page 186 in the David – who are still involved something to be proud of, edition I read was still in Of course, Dean and Brando with the firm. Every label ever at least in this day and age French, untranslated into weren’t the only celebrities used gets a nice photo spread in North America. Most have English. Page 148 credits to wear what to many is THE and even non-motorcycle closed or been bought out. I’m Edith Piaf with the lyrics to a black leather motorcycle product lines through the a little surprised that the local song Quilleriet claims is called jacket. Tanaka happily lists years are covered. Such special media here hasn’t made more The Man on the Bike. The song such bold names as Slash, collections as James Dean or of the anniversary. was written by Jerry Leiber Lou Reed, Lady Gaga, Johnny Kenny Rogers get sections of and Mike Stoller and is called Rotten, and Bruce Springsteen. their own. Nevertheless, the book itself Black Denim Trousers. The dated old advertising is, and few years later to New Jersey, Such bands as The Ramones appeals mostly to those for French translation, which Piaf smile at amusing anecdotes. where it remains to this day. and The Beastie Boys even Because the book presents whom Schott has special recorded, is called L’homme à Most born Manhattanites made the jacket part of their pictures and pictures of Schott significance, probably a la moto. The company – identified regard Staten Island as part of stage presence. products and advertising collector of motorcycle alternately as Schott Brothers New Jersey, but for an accident along with family and old jackets in general and Schott Worse, instead of going or Schott N.Y.C. – was founded of American politics, making The company history itself corporate shots, it’s essentially in particular. back to the original English in New York’s Lower East Side “Schott N.Y.C.” questionable includes the family tree, from a coffee table item with an lyrics, the translators, Simon in 1913. Within a couple of at best. Regardless, Schott is Irving (who founded Schott ‘official tale’ of the company’s The rest of the books are Pleasance and Fronza years its factory had been the only reason anyone would with his brother, Jack) to his success. To be fair, a successful problematic to a greater or Woods, translate the French moved to Staten Island, and a have to visit Perth Amboy. descendants – the great- business that has been in lesser extent. The Leather translation into English. “He

186 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 Back to Contents Page 187 Overland Magazine has teamed up with Kaapstad for an unforgettable journey. Ride with us on the ultimate South African exploration in the Western Cape, widely acclaimed to be the most beautiful region in SA. This is not a mile munching tour; we’ll really experience the landscape and culture of our surroundings. Some days we’ll taste wine and ride elephants, rather than bikes! For details of exactly what we’ll experience during a full 12 days on the ground, visit overlandmag.com/explore

wore black denim trousers irritating for all that. The Recommended for those who and motorcycle boots, And translation however violates like to have spanners tossed unforgettable a black leather jacket with an the Geneva convention. Not into their works. — adj : impossible to forget; highly memorable eagle on the back, He had a recommended. hopped-up ‘cycle’ that took Leather Jackets, part of a off like a gun, That fool was The Leatherman’s Handbook series called Hamlyn 20th the terror of Highway 101” does have interesting Century Style, would be called becomes “He wore biker information about the image a coffee-table book if its size pants and boots, and a black and the history of motorcycles weren’t more appropriate for leather jacket with an eagle and gay bikers in certain times a cigarette table. Essentially a on the back. His bike, which and places. Townsend, an nice but predictable selection took off like a cannonball, industrial psychologist, has of photos, and virtually no text sowed terror throughout taken care with his research. beyond the brief captions. I’m the region”. Crediting Piaf for It is however incidental to not sure good editing would 9th Feb 2014 Leiber and Stoller’s song is the main point of the have saved this book from common among European book, which is how to being marginal, but a caption full12 days researchers, and no less become a sado-masochist. asking whether Jim Morrison BMW ‘F’ series bikes (upgrades available) Kaapstad have been riding South Africa since1998 and our guides are 8 year safari school veterans

188 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182 September 2013 £2850 riderBack to andContents £1200 Page for pillions189 of The Doors can be taken before going on to how raw and real, and for the most seriously in his leather pants Punk was co-opted by haute part succeeds. Other shots are is accompanied by a photo couture, essentially going a little too studied, too posed ReceRecession?ssion? What What Recession! Recession! of Morrison from the waist up from the pissoir to the piss the camera, too ready for the (p.39) doesn’t help matters. elegant. Sadly, Savage’s essay close-up. The paperback is a The Riderʼs Digest is going from strength Not recommended. doesn’t save the catalogue better deal aesthetically and to strength so if you want to put your from being a waste of money. financially. The shorter cheaper product or service in front of over 10,000 Punk: Chaos to Couture is the Not recommended. format forced Friedrichs to of the most dedicated biking enthusiasts exhibition catalogue to the edit, making for a visually Costume Institute’s show at Or Glory: 21st Century Rockers is tighter series of photographs then contact us to place your advert the Metropolitan Museum. the edited, paperback version at about a third of the price. right where this one is... It has a bad introduction of Pride and Glory: The Art of Recommended for the Rockers by Andrew Bolton; a good the Rockers’ Jacket. Essentially and the Rocker wannabes. essay by Richard Hell; a a photo-essay of, well, the disingenuous one by John studded, patched, and painted Meanwhile, my leather jacket Lydon; and solid piece by jackets worn by Rockers new has come back from the Jon Savage that’s well-worth and old, male and female, tailor, pocket repaired, ready reading. The exhibition itself some with their bike, some for more years of abuse, until began with a recreation of without. Friedrichs attempts the jacket has more character the unisex restroom at CBGB’s to make his Rocker subjects than I do. [email protected]

Simon Gardner

Graphic Design IMAGINATION

enquiries: [email protected] Call Peter Martin on: 01666 505295

190 WWW.THERIDERSDIGEST.CO.UK ISSUE 182Email: September 2013 [email protected] to Contents Page 191 Join the adventure

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