Culture is important. Motorcycling culture comes in many forms, of which film is one. We can’t always be on the Road, on an epic long motorcycle ride. Sometimes we can enjoy the mythology, or indeed be awed by it, instead of living or creating it. In my writings I often reference literary motorcycle fiction and non fiction. Now let’s talk about film.
Continue reading “A Motorcycle Film Ride: Essential Motorcycle Movies From Across The World (and from Shakespeare to Che Guevara)”
Visiting the Royal Hospital Chelsea a few months ago, I witnessed the best of humanity. The kindness and generosity of the veterans who reside there, the genuine empathy and interest of those I rode there with. It was a highlight of my year. But that was not all.
Continue reading “It Always Seems Impossible Until It’s Done”
The Royal Hospital Chelsea is an incredible institution, one which I am very lucky to have had the opportunity to visit. Its residents, the Chelsea Pensioners, are genuine national treasures, and I am honoured to ride with one of them. This is the story of how a few months ago I came to visit that stunning landmark, and how I met and learned from the amazing people who inhabit it.
Continue reading ““Broken by Age or War””
I am not Hunter S Thompson, and I never will be. One of the many ways in which I am not him is that I am not a sports writer. So I am as surprised as anyone that I find myself writing up a sporting event, especially a world level elite one. As so often, I plead for tolerance from my readers as I recount a mind blowing weekend at the UK leg of the TrialGP World Championship, which left me asking somewhat breathlessly “What the hell was that?!”
Continue reading “Trials and Elevations”
If you, like me, appreciate the work of Stephen R Covey, you at least occasionally “seek first to understand”. Some of you have been reading this blog since 2018, so you know that that is how I try to approach motorcycle touring: to move not only through space, but also through ideas, history, and occasionally philosophy, within my own limited capacity for understanding such complex concepts. I measure distances not only in miles, but also in meaning.
Continue reading “Seek First to Understand”
I’m conscious that the account of my previous journey – 5000 sort of unplanned miles across France and Spain – ended abruptly two years ago. Those who care, know: I made my way to Bilbao through harsh winds, got on the ferry to Poole and ground my way back to SE England through rain and roadworks.
Continue reading “A couple of years and a few thousand miles later…”
It’s still dark when I wake up. I’d prepared and laid everything out the evening before so all I need to do is shower, get dressed, eat and drink something, put my kit into the panniers and head out. The evening before the receptionist asked me to post the key to my gite through the letterbox of the main gate, as no one would be up at the ungodly hour I must depart in order to beat the heat. I post the key through the slot in one of the gate pillars on my way out and head West out of Biarritz.
Continue reading “Spain Again (Tarragona and Valencia)”
The evening before I look at several routes to Biarritz. The most obvious one, via Zaragoza and the Spanish side of the Pyrenees is the longest, but it seems the easiest. However, around the point where I’d have to actually cross the mountains there’s a severe weather warning for thunderstorms and flooding in place. Recalling my near death experience not far from there a few weeks before, I decide to extend the route, taking me across the mountains a bit further west, somewhat closer to San Sebastian. In all it’s just over 600km, a hard day’s riding. I ensure I have enough fruit, baby food, cereal bars and water with me, and before setting off, along with coffee and breakfast I take an aspirin to alleviate numbness and ensure good blood circulation.
Continue reading “Wheels, Waves, and Wanderlust (Biarritz)”
A journey without music is no journey at all, as far as I’m concerned. There are many famous aphorisms about music, some so famous and true that they’ve become cliches. “If music be the food of love, play on”, wrote Shakespeare. Nietzsche went further: “Without music, life would be a mistake”. For me it was Dick Clark, US television’s equivalent of John Peel, who summed it up: “Music is the soundtrack of your life”. My journey would have far less meaning without it.
Continue reading “I’ve Been Everywhere, Man (a musical interlude)”
My decision to break the journey up in Zaragoza was made not only because I heard it was a cool city and wanted to check it out, but because it’s only a relatively sedate 200 miles (320km or so) to Barcelona from there. I’m not too hungry at breakfast, so I load up on fruit and coffee, check out and I’m out of the hotel and out of the city by 9am.
Continue reading “From Zaragoza to Barcelona (via Hades?)”
At the end of my previous post, I think I possibly went off at the deep end with fascism, climate change, and Phaedrus, and my readers are owed an explanation, so I’ll attempt one and hope that it proves satisfactory.
Continue reading “Of Dust and Valour”
Despite the late finish the previous evening, I roll out of bed at 7am as usual, pull on jeans, a t shirt and flip flops and make my way down to breakfast. This is the most upmarket hotel I’ve stayed in during the trip, delusionally boasting 4 stars, and easily the worst. Breakfast is a wilted, dry and tasteless affair. The coffee is probably the most awful I’ve had in two decades, although not as bad as one I’d tasted in a Northern Irish prison early in my career as a justice reformer.
Continue reading “The Long Ride South (part 4: Zaragoza)”
I roll out of Vitoria-Gasteiz and towards León. The distance to be covered is not too great: I am travelling to Leon to meet with a business contact, Jorge, and have planned my stops to try and arrive in the mid afternoon so as to be able to get my bearings and catch my breath before we meet. He has suggested I take the National Routes instead of the motorway, and having learned what I have on previous trips, obviously I take his suggestion and join one upon leaving the city.
Continue reading “The Long Ride South (part 3: León)”
“The future’s uncertain and the end is always near”, sang Jim Morrison. Bikers generally like The Doors, perhaps because the essence of Jim’s poetry speaks to us at a visceral level. Perhaps. The future is indeed uncertain as I set off from Bordeaux towards my next intended stop in Vitoria-Gasteiz.
Continue reading “The Long Ride South (part 2: a Brush with Death)”
I need to get to Leon in North Western Spain to meet with a colleague. The route I broadly have in my head involves stopping in Nantes and Bordeaux in France and then in Vitoria-Gasteiz on the other side of the border and the Pyrenees, before a merciful 300km to Leon to get there with enough time to freshen up before meeting with my colleague. I’m not entirely confident that I’ll manage it all, but as the old saying goes, “eyes fear, hands do”.
Continue reading “The Long Ride South (part 1: France)”
“D Day”, (or “J Jour” as it’s known in France) when the Allies opened the Second Front in 1944 and the largest military operation in history, has been documented in countless books, treatises and films, including such epics as ‘The Longest Day’ and ‘Saving Private Ryan’. It’d be pointless me trying to recount the sequence of events which occurred in early June 1944, as so much scholarship and popular culture is far more informative than anything I as an amateur could commit to this page.
Continue reading “D Week”
The crossing is surprisingly quick. I sit next to Jez and we chat a bit before he goes on deck to be in the fresh air. The Trtl neck support device works impressively well and I manage a few hours’ relatively uninterrupted sleep, with earplugs in and wearing shades to make it feel darker, although my seat is facing away from the window anyway. On waking I drink another coffee and then the announcement comes on the ship’s PA that we are ready to dock.
Continue reading “Normandy Landing”
Everything was in place. Veronica was as ready as she’d ever be. I went to the local Turkish barber and had a very short haircut and cut throat razor shave.
Continue reading “The Countdown”
There was no going back. And a week in Normandy, even a challenging one, seemed OK: that’s why I’d signed up for the tour in the first place. Rock up, do the riding, head out.
That is until everything else happened.
Continue reading “Best Laid Plans”
My first long distance motorcycle ride in 2018 was epic by my own standards, but not at all so by the standards of someone like Ted Simon. It was certainly much less epic by the standards of Nick Sanders who had circumnavigated the world on a motorcycle nine times, on one occasion doing so on a Yamaha R1 (a 1000cc sportsbike) in nineteen days. Still, for me the post journey funk lasted a number of months, just as Ted had warned. The ennui was interrupted now and then by some event or other, including the Alexandra Palace Motorcycle Show where I met Nick in person for the first time.
Continue reading “Forever Delayed”
Blac Ridere 