Peyote Dreams #175 2014-08
By
Art Bone
"Poor Mexico, so far from God, so close to the United States."
Porifiro Diaz
Art and Charlie's Big Adventure
or
The Redneck Road Worrier’s
“Adventure Before Dementia” Tour
In which our heroes set off to darkest Western Europe, armed only
with two fourteen year old motorcycles and wallets full of credit cards.
This trip began, believe it or not, sixty years ago, in Macon GA. I was attending Lanier Jr. High (Go Poets!) and I rode the city bus to school. I had to change buses in front of the Dempsey Hotel and I would go into the hotel tobacco shop and browse the car magazines most mornings. At fourteen, I was just getting into cars (and girls.) The two seemed to go hand in hand, or maybe hand bag and door handle. Even at two years away from that treasured document, the Georgia Driver's License, romance and road transportation seemed inexorably linked.
One morning my eyes fell on a new mag among the usual Hot Rod, Hop Up, and Rod & Custom. It was called Road & Track. The cover car was a model I'd never seen before; not surprising in Macon at that time. I had seen my first MG and Volkswagen in the last year. There was a Jaguar that some doctor drove around town but I had never really seen it up close. So I plunked my thirty-five cents down and hopped on the bus to school. In the fifteen or twenty minutes it took to get there I was hooked. The idea of a car just made to have fun was a concept I had never considered. In my little world, a four-door car was sort of posh. Pickups were much more "practical." A car that only held two people and was fun to drive bordered on blasphemy. No, not bordered; it was blasphemy.
It wasn't that much of a leap when I discovered motorcycles a few years later.
It wasn't only the machines; it was the whole enchilada (another concept I was ignorant of at that time.) These cars had more than one carburetor, multiple camshafts, multiple exhaust pipes; some had fully independent suspension and disk brakes, whatever that meant. And they didn't have cubic inches; they had CCs or liters. And they didn't race at big speedways like Indianapolis or Darlington; they blocked off the roads and had races.
To a fourteen year old kid, how cool was that?
Later that year, when I figured out that the Sebring 12 Hour Endurance Race wasn’t held in Europe, but in the orange groves of central Florida, and got to see a real international race, my love affair with European motorsports was born. At a time when my friends were excited about Daytona and Darlington, Le Mans and Monaco were my main interests.
After high school, several friends bought 57 Chevy Belairs. I bought a 57 Corvette.
So it was against this background that my old friend, Charlie Brookman, and I set off from San Francisco headed to Europe to take in four major motorsports events in four weeks. Our plans included the MotoGP of France at Le Mans, the Gran Prix of Monaco F1 race, the Isle of Man TT, and the 24 Hours of Le Mans. We had booked nothing; no ferries, hotels, or race tickets. A couple of FaceBook friends in England and the Isle of Man promised us places to stay if we actually made it that far. Charlie works for an airline so we didn’t have to book plane tickets, just show up and get on if there was a seat.
I love serendipity.
I tried to get CJ to come on the trip with me but she thought four races in four weeks and staying in whatever places we could find might be more fun than she could stand. She decided to have a knee replacement instead.
CJ hates serendipity.
Thursday 2014/05/15- It was a beautiful day in Paris when we arrived and took the train up to Brittany where our bikes are located. We decided to stay an extra day and get over jet lag plus we wanted to visit Alton electronics, makers of electric starters for Commandos.
The ride over to Brest was pleasant and Paul and Beverly at Alton couldn’t have been more gracious, showing us whole operation. Alton is a very small company with only five employees, including Paul and Beverly. They make small batches of their starters for Nortons, Velocettes, and Vincents. I was very impressed with their workmanship and, based on my personal experience with Mexico Mike’s starter, their customer service. The new Commando starter’s rotor, which seemed to be a weak point, is now completely enclosed in metal. From Mike’s experience, that seems to have fixed the problem. I want one for my 74 Interstate.
MotoGP of France on the Circuit Bugatti – The Gendarmes were waiting for bikers to direct them around the toll gates without paying. I love this country. The majority of the crowd was on late-model Japanese naked sportbikes with a lot of BMWs, Triumphs, and Ducatis mixed in; I saw very few vintage bikes. Most of the time Charlie and I were on the oldest bikes in the parking lot. I saw very few Harley Davidsons.
In the race Marques was in a different class, of course. Everyone else was racing for second. At one point he fell back to about fifth place, then put on a riding lesson for the other riders before disappearing into the distance. After the race we had a great ride back to our hotel in a parade of bikes with cars blowing their horns and families on the curb waving flags. I thought we had won the race or the war or whatever. La Fleche is a beautiful little town with great atmosphere. We had dinner at tables set up in the square as the sun set.
The ride down to Millau to view the world’s largest suspension bridge was very pleasant and then we took the river gorge down to Lodeve where we spent the night. The next morning we rode to Classic Bike Elan in St. Remy and spoke to Sarah and Neil Thomas. Their shop sells Urals and Royal Enfields and conducts tours on vintage bikes. They have an Arial Square Four, a Velocette, and many other interesting bikes. CJ and I took a tour several years ago and I thought I would drop by and see how they were doing. They were doing fine but busy so we only lingered an hour.
On the way to Moustiers-Sainte-Marie something seemed to be going on with my GPS. Usually it sends me down motorways but suddenly it took us off the motorway and onto a single track road through fields of lavender, quaint little villages, and a twisty road through a forest. I’ve gotta find out what setting that is.
The Thomases suggested a place to stay in Moustiers-Sainte-Marie. We had what looked like a little FEMA trailer, very cool, and walked into town for a fabulous meal; escargot, foie gras, fillet mignon, duck breast, and creme brûlée for dessert.
The Gorges of Verdon are known as the Grand Canyon of France and really are spectacular. The gorge is about 25 kilometers long and up to 700 meters deep. There are several routes around the gorge, all magnificent, so you can't go wrong. Some of the bumpy roads would be better suited to a dual-sport bike than two sport-tourers but we soldiered on and finished up the day in Nice at a Comfort Inn.
The next morning I got on PriceLine and found a cheap B&B. It was a nice old house with winding marble staircase. We had a big room with two beds, a beautiful view down to the beach, stove and refrigerator, and it cost 210 Euros for three days, about the price of one day at a Comfort Inn nearby. It was about a mile walk to the train station to ride to Monaco. We rested Friday and went to Monaco Saturday and found great tickets for race.
We were standing in front of the lower entrance of the train station when we were approached by a really (really, really) cute, blond, French girl, with a really cute French accent. In that cute French accent she said, "Would you like to watch the race from the top of an eighteen story building with champagne and food all day?"
"Absolutely," we replied.
"It will cost six hundred Euros each. Will that be a problem?" Remember that cute accent.
"Absolutely not."
We went up to the roof and it was exactly as she had described or even better; there was a big Diamond Vision screen near the track and two flat screen TVs behind the bar.
"Do you like it?" said Emily the cute, French, with cute accent, girl.
"Absolutely," we replied (our vocabulary is limited when we're talking to cute French girls with accents) "but today's over half over. What about a hundred for today and four hundred for tomorrow?"
"Absolutely," Emily said and money changed hands.
You know that feeling you get where you think you’re involved in some sort of elaborate scam that everyone but you knows about? Some elaborate con engineered by Paul Newman and Robert Redford?
Well, that's the feeling I had at that moment. I kept thinking we would get back the next day and there would be nothing there. No tent, no bar, no flat screen TVs, no interesting international crowd of beautiful people.
Of course, it didn't happen. If anything there was an even more interesting group and we had a wonderful time. There were several young attractive women there who might have been on the job or so ol’ suspicious me imagined. The whole party was first-class and well worth the money just for the stories we’ll have to tell.
The view was spectacular with big yachts in the harbor and even bigger ones off-shore, looking down on the backs of sea gulls as the cars flashed by below. Rosberg and Hamilton were in a different race at first but Hamilton was falling back towards the end.
We left soon after the race was over, thinking we would get the train back to Nice but we weren't fast enough. The station was packed so we wondered around and found a really good band playing, listened for an hour or so, then headed back for the station. On the way we met two groups who had stayed on the roof to finish off the champagne and we were happy with our decision to leave early. They were not in great condition.
Several people (not race fans) commented that 500 Euros is a lot for two days of racing but my thought is that if you divide it by sixty years it’s very cheap at only 8.33 Euros a year.
We had a pleasant two day ride back across France to Calais. I saw a thought-provoking sight on the way. In the distance was a huge nuclear power plant with a wind farm in front of it. I wish I had stopped to take a picture; the energy of the latter part of the twentieth century and the energy of the future. Our B&B in Dover was a welcome sight as darkness fell and rain started falling.
It’s only 300 miles from Dover to Liverpool but it took us all day with the rain and the traffic and Charlie’s clutch had started pouring out fluid. We watched the ferry we wanted to take pull away from the dock as we arrived. When I inquired about stand-by on the next boat I was sold round-trip tickets, no stand-by required. So much for having to book ahead.
If you call yourself a motorcyclist you have to go to the Isle of Man. No argument, end of discussion. The Island is the spiritual home of all motorcyclists and no amount of Daytona, Sturgis, Assen or any other venue will change that. It’s the only place I’ve ever been where Everyone speaks Motorcycle.
The IOM is the place and nothing else will take its place.
Up the ramp and off the boat, we were greeted by an early morning rain as we made our way around the course to Sulby bridge were we made a right and were soon at FaceBook friend Terry’s home. Terry lives in a renovated Manx cottage with the usual low ceilings and even lower door frames. He opened the garage and pulled his TVR sports car out so we could do some repairs on our bikes. He has several interesting bikes as well as the car. Within an hour it was as if we had known each other for years.
Charlie and I met Chris and Clyde as we were watching the racing on Monday at the Sulby Hotel. Chris was wearing one of the new Norton jackets and I asked him if he had a Norton or just a jacket and he said he had just taken delivery on a new Cafe Racer. After a little conversation he really surprised me by asking if I would like to ride it. This was an offer I couldn't refuse.
Chris fired it up and it fell into a raucous idle at about 1000 RPM. I swung a leg over and, leaning forward, gripped the clip-on bars. The first thing I noticed about the new Norton Cafe Racer was how old I have become. I could hardly get on the thing! My knees no longer like bending that much, not to mention how low and forward the bars are. What they facetiously call a "seating position" is really a laying position. You're lying over the beautifully sculpted and painted tank. The minimalist seat is barely noticed. All your weight is on the pegs (through your cruelly bent knees) and your wrists. The clutch is flawless, with a very light pull and a wide friction zone. There are no worries of killing the engine as it moved away and I tried to get my feet up on the pegs. When I got my feet settled and flipped down my face-shield I went blind. I had a piece of tape across the top of the shield and, in my laying down position, I had to bend my head back to a totally unsustainable angle to see. As soon as I got out of sight of the group watching me, I pulled over and ripped to tape off.
Chris' bike had the optional "competition" exhaust system and, really, the whole bike had a competition feel to it. The motor is, to my taste, absolutely great. The 270 degree crank gives it a feel like a really big single instead of a twin, without the vibration of a single. There is some vibration through the footpegs but, oddly, not so much through the clip-ons and I didn't notice any at all through the tank where I was gripping it with my knees. The bike is a delight to ride, seating position notwithstanding. The brakes are flawless; the suspension soaked up the many bumps from the narrow Isle of Man lane. Simply, it feels like a race bike.
Chris told me to not exceed 4500 RPMs and I told him no worries. I'm an old man and I ride like an old man. I'm slow as dial-up internet. Also, I was riding a $35000 bike that I'd never been on before, on the left side of narrow lanes. You bet I was going to be careful.
If I had one of these bikes I could probably only ride it for a half hour at a time but I would be grinning the whole thirty minutes.
To sum up, the bike is beautiful and fun to ride. Whether we’ll ever see them in large numbers is another question but I really liked the bike and can easily imagine owning one if they have one with a more comfortable seating position.
Chris’ friend Clyde offered to let me ride his hot-rod Honda Blackbird and, again, it was an offer I couldn’t refuse.
The Honda is a complete contrast to the Norton. It’s big, heavy, and very, very fast. It has nice suspension, great brakes, but the attraction is the motor. Clyde says it will do over 180 on his GPS and I have no reason to doubt him. It’s a monster but a very smooth, comfortable, easy to ride monster.
The night before we were to leave, Charlie and I rode down to Castletown on an errand, then back up to Douglas to catch the Red Arrows air show over the Douglas Harbor. Our luck was holding and we found two parking spots near our favorite restaurant where they let us watch the air show and a stunt show by Steve Cally, three times World Trials Champion, from their balcony. As soon as the show was over, our table was ready and we had a great meal and headed home. We rode back home over the coast road through Laxey and that's when the magic of the Isle of Man really came home. It was after ten o'clock as we rode along in the gathering dusk, with the Irish Sea always on our right and the green fields gradually losing their color to the night. There was little traffic and most of that bikes. It's so peaceful and quiet at times like this, it's no wonder bikers have been coming here for over a hundred years.
To make an eight o'clock ferry we got up about six and had a great ride through Sulby Glen and Tholt-e-Will, over the mountain and down into the Douglas ferry port. The only bikes on the road at that time were all headed to the same place. The sun was beaming down as we swept around the curve at Sarah’s and down the hill towards Creg-na-ba with no traffic ahead of us. Even though we were not going to get to see the Senior, it was a beautiful day and we were happy for the other fans who would get to enjoy it.
On the way to the National Motorcycle Museum we saw a sign for the RAF Museum at Crosford and an air show so we decided to see that the next day. Charlie being an aircraft mechanic the museum was very interesting to him and the air show was spectacular. Seeing the only Cold-War era Vulcan bomber still flying was a highlight.
Sammy Miller's Museum and the National Motor Museum are only about twelve miles apart so we decided to do them both in the same day. There's always something you haven't seen or even imagined at Sammy's. This time I noticed a Redrop Radial engine bike that I’ve never seen anything like. The three cylinder engine lies flat and drives a shaft down to the transmission. I’ve never even thought about anything like that. While I was staring in wonder at this marvel I noticed a couple walking by, the man in front and his wife trailing behind.
I caught her eye and said, “Are you as fascinated by all this as my wife is?”
She rolled her eyes and we all started laughing.
Of course, they asked where I was from and what I was doing in England and when I explained about the four motorsports events in four weeks we had a lot to talk about.
At a pub where we stopped for lunch we got into a conversation with a couple from the Isle of Wight. When they found that Charlie worked in San Francisco they started telling us about a trip there they were planning for next year. They were astonished when Charlie told them not to visit in the summer because it was so cold. I got to use Mark Twain’s quote that the coldest winter he ever spent was a summer in San Francisco.
The National Motor Museum in Beaulieau is quite good with a lot of old race cars and bikes. They have several of the Bluebird land speed record cars that are very interesting to folks of our taste.
The 8:30 ferry for Cherbourge was the start of the last leg of our trip, the Twenty Four Hours du Le Mans.
Again, we were told you had to book ahead. Everyone said, “It’s the 24 Hours of Le Mans. You’ll never find a place to stay.”
Don’t believe everything you’re told.
The first place we stopped was the Aberge Normande, a wonderful old country inn just off the motorway and thirty miles from the track. It has wonderful food, hospitable staff, and adequate rooms. It’s a quarter mile from the motorway and the thirty five Euro price was attractive also.
Once at the circuit we met Eric and his friend from Amsterdam at the Corvette display. Eric is building a 55 Chev Nomad out of a regular 55 station wagon. He also has a 50 Buick and a Nash Metropolitan.
Can you imagine the problems of getting hot-rod parts in Holland? He had pictures on his phone and his stuff looks very professional. I gave him a card and I hope he gets in touch. He would love to see some of the La Carrera Panamericana stuff from Mexico.
You can see why the Brits hate the French. They're jealous of the French food and the French roads. After a week and a half in the British Isles I’m ready to start a Society for the Prevention of Battered Cod. And driving in southern England is awful. There's so much traffic and so many speed cameras it’s a nightmare. We were speaking to an English couple in Le Mans and they said, "We were driving along yesterday (in France) and we were the only car in sight on the road." They said it with such a sense of wonder you could tell it had never happened to them in England.
Almost everyone we met was interested in our trip. We had no problem starting conversations. As soon as we opened our mouths people said, "Where are you from?" When we told them where we were from and what we were doing we were in for at least a ten minute conversation.
The races were the excuse for the trip but not the real reason. If we really wanted to watch the races we would stay home and watch them on television. The real reason was to ride around Europe, eat great food, drink good wine, make new friends, and share a unique adventure with a friend I've been riding with for forty years. It was the fulfillment of a dream that started back in Macon GA so long ago.