This story dates to about the latter part of the year 1969.
I have carried solo bikes on sidecars and sidecars on sidecars, but the day the police didn’t really want to see me was the day I carried a queen sized bed and mattress on a sidecar.
This is the Triumph motorbike featured in this story, but the sidecar body is a single-seater 1946 Dusting rather than the six-passenger monster featured in today’s story. Sidecar passenger is my sister Karen. (Picture from Two Wheels magazine April 1973.)
The bike was a 1969 650cc Triumph Trophy TR6 and the chair was a 1946 Dusting Chassis fitted with a six-passenger home-built body (that’s two passengers sitting side-by-side facing forwards up front, two passengers seated side-by-side facing rearwards behind them and two more passengers seated side-by-side facing forwards at the rear of the limo-chair, in case you were wondering). I removed the windscreens from the chair so it was a wide flat long top with openings for all the passengers. The flat top of the sidecar was almost exactly level with the dual seat and the rear luggage rack on the Triumph.
My parents had obtained a new bed and their old one was really had it and there was nowhere else in our house to store it. We only had a sedan car or a station wagon to choose from and neither had a roof rack. How to get Mum and Dad’s old bed to the rubbish tip?
I looked at my sidecar and had a sudden visualisation of how it would look if I used a screwdriver to remove the windscreens off the body of the chair. It only took a minute to do just that! Then I placed the queen size mattress face down on top of the chair and bike, then I placed the bed on top of the mattress and used plenty of ockies to tie everything on.
To actually ride the bike with the bed on board, I had to straddle the front of the fuel tank, since the mattress covered the back half of it, and I rode standing up on the footpegs with my legs resting on the back of the handlebars, moving each leg forwards and back as I turned the handlebars.
This photo, taken at the Southern Cross Rally in Mount Barker in the Adelaide Hills in January 1970 has been stitched together from two pages of the Two Wheels magazine. It features the same Triumph motorbike as was mentioned in today’s story, but with a different sidecar body fitted. (Picture from Two Wheels magazine April 1973.)
With my brother Mick riding escort on his BMW in case anything went wrong, we set out.
We only had to carry it about three kilometres (say two miles) from Mary Street Morwell to the Latrobe Road Rubbish Tip operated by the then Morwell Shire Council, but half-way there, the police highway patrol happened to come along. The officer pulled me up: “Is that rig safe to drive when loaded like that, Smithy?”
I replied, “Do you reckon I’d be riding it if it wasn’t safe?”
He threw up his hands in mock horror and said, “I’m going to pretend I never saw this; no one would ever believe it if I reported it anyway: for God’s sake don’t hit anything on the way!”
“Okay, thanks mate!”
And away I went.
Back then, photography was restricted to the rich, which we weren’t, but I dearly wish we had gotten someone to take a picture of that loaded chair!
I am unable to find any photos of our stunt team during performances, but here is one of me practising on my Yamaha in 1967.
During my time with the Ballarat Rovers Motor Cycle Club Stunt Team, there came a weekend where we were performing during the morning somewhere in Central Victoria; it might have been Bendigo; it might have been Castlemaine; I cannot remember every detail at my age! Most of our performances took place in the afternoons or in the evenings under lights, but this particular one was in the morning. One of our acts was named “The School Bus” and began with sixteen or twenty members of the team spread out at well-spaced intervals all around the perimeter of the showgrounds or racetrack. As a 1942 WLA Harley, brightly painted in fire-engine red, rumbled slowly past, each member would scramble aboard and take up his pre-assigned position until we did a final lap with about twenty bods on board that Harley.
This particular morning, my assigned position was as the last person to board the bike and I was supposed to stand with the toes of my gym boots standing on the rounded tops of the two tail lights – the rearmost part of the bike. During practice the previous afternoon, the act had gone faultlessly: we had all rapidly attained our designed positions in a professional manner, and the act had looked really outstanding. But this morning, the position from which I had to mount had been in shadow since dawn, and the grass was very wet with the overnight dew. My spotlessly polished white gym boots were also well polished on the soles from excess wear in previous practices and performances. Now, wet rubber does not possess much traction. . .
As I leapt up onto the tail light, I felt my foot slip straight off and found myself falling. I immediately, instinctively took up the Commando Roll position that I had been trained to do when I had started with the Stunt Team. By adopting this position during a fall, a motorcyclist can be virtually guaranteed of no injuries resulting from the fall. As I hit the deck and commenced the roll I could hear the tremendous roar from the crowd in the grandstand. I forced my body to do one additional roll more than was needed: I had fallen off; therefore I might as well make it look more spectacular!
I leapt to my feet, looked rapidly around pretending to be momentarily lost, and then sprinted after the Harley. The crowd was cheering wildly in the stands. As I approached the bike I passed a speaker post and heard the commentator, John Palmer saying, “Can Clanger make it on board this time?”
The crowd roared even more.
I sprang up onto the tail light and deliberately “lost my balance” and fell again. This time I sprang up after only a single roll on the deck, raced after the Harley again and sprang aboard. Holding on with only one hand, I then took some exaggerated bows while facing the grandstand. The crowd were all standing up and cheering and clapping.
They loved it, and so did I!
After the show had ended, we held our usual post performance de-briefing. There was division in the camp over what had happened: half insisted that we were supposed to put on a professional performance and a professional should not fall off the bike during a stunt, the other half said it was great that I had fallen off, since the reaction from the crowd was greater than we usually experienced.
Most of the members had not seen what had happened, since they had been aboard the Harley and were mostly facing forwards, they had only felt the extra slight lurches of the bike as I had boarded three times instead of once; they had also heard the tremendous noise from the crowd. Those who had been standing on the mudguard supports on each side at the rear of the bike had seen the whole thing and had cacked themselves laughing at my antics.
The club remained divided over this issue for quite some time after that day. I volunteered to deliberately fall off the Harley at future shows. Some thought it would be great; others thought it would detract from the performances. It was decided that the rostered commentator would call the shots and I should alter my performance depending on what he said. He would comment as the Harley was approaching my boarding point something like, “Last week during our performance at XXXX, Clanger didn’t make it and fell off the Harley.” If he continued, “but this week he has put in a lot of extra practice and promised to give us a much more professional show,” I was not to fall off. However, if he continued, “he has been practising hard all week and has improved a lot, but we still reckon you all ought to start praying that he can make it,” I was to go ahead and do some spectacular falls.
For a little while I think I fell more often than not during performances, but it wasn’t long before my work took me away to the opposite end of the state and I left the Team. After that, I think only the Team Clown regularly fell off, but all the uniformed stunt riders acted very professionally and stayed aboard the bikes.
Again, not directly related to today’s post, but this photo shows my brother Mick Smith practising “the Backwards Ride” around our yard in 1967.
On the way home in the car today from a visit to a horse riding centre, my daughter Rosie was asking me why the horse poop is gathered up.
I said that if the centre sells the dung, then some money can be raised to help the centre to buy more resources. “But who would ever want to buy horse poop?” she asked, “What could it possibly be used for? … Surely it’s no good to eat?”
Could it be that my city-girl daughter was trying to imagine this being served up on a plate for dinner?
I explained that it makes the garden grow wonderfully because the plants all reckon it’s good food.
I went on to relate how, when I was a boy, a majority of the vehicles on the road were drawn by horses since there were not many motor cars, and that every time we heard the “clop, clop, clop” of a horse going up our street, my Mum would send us kids out with a bucket and spade to see whether there were any horse droppings out in the street. If there were any dung, we were to gather it up before the neighbours could get it so that Mum could put it on the garden so that our vegetables would grow bigger and better.
This explanation to my daughter caused me to think further about things of long ago.
The principal reason for the large number of horse-drawn vehicles on the road during the first part of my childhood was that during the Second World War, large numbers of more recently-built motor vehicles had been “commandeered” by the military to be used in support of the war effort.
All of the regular visitors to our street: the baker, the milkman, the ice man, the tinker, the grocer, and the greengrocer all drove horse-drawn vans or wagons.
Some deliveries were done using motor vehicles that were then almost fifty years old and if still about today would be worth a small fortune each as “veteran” vehicles. I clearly remember a flat tray truck belonging to a carrier which was fitted with solid rubber tyres. It had been built in 1904.
I also remember seeing lightweight delivery vehicles which looked like a motorbike with two steerable front wheels which had a cargo box between them. Researching these on the Internet I find that production ceased in about 1915 when the use of sidecars became more widespread.
This 1915 Harley-Davidson Forecar is similar to the two I recall being used for deliveries in Geelong, although I have no idea whether those were Harleys or some other make.
Another vivid memory is watching the street lamps slowly coming on one after the other as the lamp lighter used a long pole of some sort to light each gas lamp in the street before walking along the street to the next. The electric lights replaced these in our street in the late forties or possibly even the early fifties. The replacement of gas street lamps by electric street lights was completed in Geelong during 1954, but I cannot find anyone still alive who can tell me when our street was done.
Preparing to wash the dishes: I have already stacked the bowls and plates and sorted the cutlery; the plastics at the back are as yet not sorted but are still as I found them. (I found it difficult to take the photo before stacking the plastics “correctly”!)
A while back, a visitor to our home laughed when he came into the kitchen and saw me preparing to do the dishes. He then asked me why I sorted the dishes so meticulously before washing them. “How come you don’t just chuck ’em all in the sink like I do?”
Well, let me explain. I think it is probably related to my Autism.
I started washing dishes standing on the little green kindy chair at the kitchen sink in Terang when I was about five years old. My mother, whom I suspect also may be Asperger’s Syndrome, used to stack the dishes very neatly for washing, everything lined up and in order.
The small bowls nestled within the larger bowls, so these were the ones you washed first. (the glasses and cups were actually washed before the larger dishes, but these are stacked at the back – so they cannot accidentally be knocked off the bench). When you placed bowls and plates on the cups (or, later on in life, in the dishrack) to dry, the small ones again nestled within the larger ones even though they were now all upside down and tilted.
Similarly, the plates were invariably placed beside the sink with the largest ones at the bottom of the stack, the medium ones in between and the smaller “bread and butter” plates near the top, followed finally by the saucers. Then the saucers are washed first, the bread and butter plates next and so on up to the dinner plates and, if present, the large serving platter. This is how it should be. To me, this is just the correct way.
But since then I have lived with a multitude of people during the intervening 63 years, and almost all of them seem to have no concept of the “only correct” way to stack the dishes. Bowls in jumbled order, plates interleaved amongst the bowls, large items on top of small items. You name it, they break the rules!
I have also usually sorted out the cutlery before beginning the dishwashing. For the “normal” cutlery, I start at the left with the soup spoons all stacked neatly in a single stack followed by the desert spoons stacked similarly. Next are the larger dinner forks followed by the smaller desert forks. To the right of the two stacks of forks, the teaspoons are stacked neatly and to their right the stainless-steel knives are placed neatly. Sometimes, the order of the stacks may vary, but the order of the washing of them does not. The knives, of course, are absolutely unstackable due to the predominantly ovoid cross section of their handles.
Then there are all the other odds and ends. About 20 to 40 cm to the left of the soup spoons, I start with any plastic serving spoons or ladles and the wooden spoons with the chopsticks neatly placed to their right. Next are any potato peelers, skewers, pizza cutting wheels, serving tongs, along with any other nondescript items that might have been used during the preparation or consumption of the meal. Between these and the soup spoons are any sharp carving knives, bread knives, steak knives, or fruit knives along with any other miscellaneous sharps.
The exact order of each of these stacks is actually quite important to me, as it relates precisely to where they will be later in the washing, drying and putting away process. Of course, not all of these items are present after each meal! More recently, I have begun to vary the order of the stacks, simply because I do not always have to work from right to left, and also because my daughter will often be washing them anyway and the order does not seem to matter as much to her, even though she also is an Aspie!
We have a stainless steel cutlery draining device in the shape of a truncated cone which stands on the bench behind the sink to the right of the taps. This is like a colander, in that it has holes all over its surface. The cutlery will fit in best if it goes in teaspoons first, then small forks, then larger forks, then dessert spoons, then soup spoons. All of these are placed working side downermost with handles uppermost in neat stacks according to types. Now the stainless steel knives go in pointed ends down and handles up in two stacks, bread and butter knives to the right and dinner knives to the left behind all the other cutlery.
Next the sharps are all done one at a time and placed in the drainer with the sharp ends down. The sharps are always handled individually since these are never to be placed in a heap out of sight under the suds in the sink. I was taught that method for safety reasons 63 years ago, and I never vary from it. Finally all the odd chopsticks and serving spoons, ladles etc. are placed smallest end first into the cutlery drainer or the side of the dishrack.
When the cutlery is being dried and put away, I open the odds and ends drawer first and work in order through all the ladles, chopsticks and whatever else belongs in that drawer. It is all at the top of the cutlery drainer. Next all the sharps are dried and put in their place at the left side of the top drawer. Then all the dinner knives followed by the bread and butter knives; then the soup spoons and the dessert spoons, followed by the dinner forks and dessert forks. Last of all, the teaspoons end up in their smaller slot in the cutlery drawer.
So you see that the correct stacking of the cutlery on the sink before washing is determined by where they will end up after they have been dried and put away. It all seems very logical to me. Why everyone else has to criticise the way I do the dishes is incomprehensible to me. I always tell anyone who does that if they don’t like the way I do it, then they are welcome to do it their way, even though I know it is the wrong way.
This is perhaps a clearer view of yesterday’s dishes before washing. It is difficult to take good photos with a big window in the background!
The same ordering of things into each item’s “correct” place has always been evident in just about anything I do in life. The tools I use for working on the motorbike are all in their correct place and if anyone else borrows one and puts it back on the wrong shelf in the shed, it can take me ages to find it.
I always park the motor mower behind the motorbike in the shed, because the bike will be used more frequently than the mower. Thus, while I am mowing the lawns, the motorbike is always out in the yard instead of in the shed!
I just think there is a logical order for everything.
I originally wrote this article shortly after purchasing my first sidecar in 1968. Boy did I have a learning curve!
You see, when you are driving a sidecar outfit, the process of steering it is a totally different matter to the process of steering a regular solo motorbike.
This was the bike I rode to Geelong and to which I fitted my very first sidecar. The bike was a Yamaha YDS3 250cc two-stroke twin. My cat wanted to ride pillion!
On the solo machine, you just lean it into the corner and around you go. But scientifically speaking, how exactly do you lean it into the corner? Well, believe it or not, if you are going to take a corner to the right, you actually begin that corner by steering to the left. As you turn the front wheel to the left, the bike begins to fall over to the right … after all, there is nothing to hold it up. As it begins to fall, the forward motion is causing it to want to stand up again. These two forces balance each other out and the bike kind of “falls around in a curve”.
Now look what happens if you add a sidecar to the same bike. All of the controls are the same. The motor gearbox and clutch are all the same. But the steering … Sheesh!!!
Let me describe briefly my first attempt to ride in the Eastern Gardens at Geelong:
I guy named Mac from Pratt and Osborn Motors in Geelong had ridden my outfit to the Eastern Gardens while I was on the sidecar. Safely off the trafficked roads, he got off and indicated that I should mount the saddle of the bike and have my first ride.
Here’s the outfit with a white-painted fish box mounted to the Dusting sidecar chassis. While I was learning to ride an outfit I did so with no body mounted on the chassis at all – just bare bars reaching across to where the wheel and mudguard were mounted.
I let the clutch out and the bike started moving. The path turned gently to the right. Now with some 60,000 miles or thereabouts of riding experience I reckoned I knew pretty well how to turn a motorbike around a very gentle right hand curve. But suddenly I discovered that this outfit seemed to have a mind of its own! I crossed the lawn on the left and then through the flower beds and then had the sense to pull the clutch in and hit the brakes just in time to avoid mowing down a row of standard roses.
By this time Mac was killing himself laughing at the expression on my face. I felt more like Mulga Bill!
We pushed the outfit back onto the path. Then Mac explained to me the difference between riding a solo and a sidecar: The sidecar outfit is so obedient that it goes exactly where you point it. When I had wanted to turn right, I had naturally begun the turn by turning the handlebar slightly to the left. The outfit, obeyed me by going exactly where I had pointed it straight across the lawn and the flower beds!
Mac patiently explained to me that I had to overcome my natural inclination to turn the other way and to very deliberately turn the handlebars towards where I wanted the outfit to go. Somehow it made sense to me and I took all the turns correctly from then on. After a bit more practice we went back to Pratt & Osborne and dropped off Mac while I prepared to head back to my home in Buninyong.
Another view of the Yamaha YDS3 with a fishbox mounted to the Dusting sidecar chassis.
Norm and Allan Osborne both came out to see me off. Norm advised me that if I learned to ride on the road with just the chassis for a while before I fitted a body to it, then I should have no real problems after I fitted the body.
He also recommended that I get out into a paddock and practise lifting the sidecar up into the air by turning sharply left and then to control the machine as a strangely unbalanced solo so that I would know what it felt like when the sidecar was approaching lifting point.
I followed Norm’s recommendations and soon became proficient at riding sidecars.
I wrote this article decades ago when the “done thing” was to write about yourself in the third person.
Parked opposite Ballarat Fire Station, this was the outfit I rode from Bendigo to Ballarat in the freezing weather. (Picture from Two Wheels magazine April 1973.)
During his two Years at Ballarat Teachers’ College, from time to time the various colleges would have a day of inter-college sports. In August 1968 there was an inter-college visit planned with the Bendigo Teachers’ College. While most students would travel by bus, because of the odd numbers, a few would need to travel by car. Phil decided this would be a great time to travel by motorbike, instead. He liked riding alone: riding gave him a oneness with his natural surroundings that travelling by car or bus could never do. Knowing the ride home might be a very cold affair, he planned ahead by packing plenty of warm clothes in a bag in the sidecar. The sidecar was a 1946 Dusting which had been fitted to the 1966 Yamaha YDS3 250cc two-stroke twin motorbike at Pratt and Osborne Motors in Geelong a month or two earlier. The ride to Bendigo was glorious: horizon to horizon clear blue sky with the golden winter sun streaming down.
The day’s sporting events came and went and Phil was invited back to visit the college dormitory by some girls from Bendigo College who wanted to try out the sidecar.
The girls cooked a truly excellent meal and then followed an evening of chinwagging. At about midnight a member of staff reminded the resident students that it was an hour after lights out and time for their Ballarat visitor to return home.
Step one of departure preparation was to remove the uniform track suit and don the right sort of kit for a sub-zero motorcycle trip.
From the skin outwards and in this order, the clothing consisted of:
100% cotton Bonds athletic singlet,
100% cotton Bell’s Briefs,
100% cotton Bonds thermal top,
100% cotton Bonds long johns,
100% cotton Bonds skivvy,
100% cotton (denim) Motorbike Scrambler jeans,
100% cotton Exacto fleecy-lined WindCheater (approved gear for motorcycle racing), The Herald (then a Melbourne evening newspaper about the size of the Age) wrapped around the front half of the upper body over the WindCheater and wrapped around the front of the legs over the jeans,
a thick hand-knitted 100% woollen jumper,
Belstaff oiled cotton waterproof motorcycling pants,
Belstaff oiled cotton waterproof motorcycling jacket.
Yellow high-visibility cotton over-vest.
Note that all these layers were fitted in the order listed with overlaps at the waist.
On the feet were 100% cotton knitted inner socks,
100% wool outer socks,
Holeproof Explorer socks,
Blundstone steel-capped brown suede work boots.
On the hands were a pair of Stadium fleecy-lined leather motorcycling mittens and a pair of Belstaff oiled cotton waterproof motorcycling over-mittens.
On the head was a 100% cotton balaclava (tucked into the neck of the skivvy),
a Bell “Jet” (open-face) helmet, and
a “fishbowl” style clear perspex visor attached to the helmet, with
a Stadium motorcycling peak attached over the visor. With his head tilted slightly forward, the peak kept the snow from the top part of his visor and the bottom of his visor fitted over the neck of the Belstaff jacket.
Phil probably looked like “the Michelin Man” as he waddled out to the outfit and kick-started it, but he was warm as toast having just left a furnace-heated college dormitory. It was about 12:20am when the engine buzzed into life and the outdoor temperature in Bendigo was – 0.5ºC. Out there at Flora Hill, it might have been a little colder than that. The interior and exterior surfaces of the visor had been well prepared using Esso Anti-Misting Tissues, but Phil’s breath was freezing to frost in his beard each time he breathed out.
An image of “The Michelin Man” retrieved from the Internet decades after writing the original article.
The moon was shining down and lighting the landscape as the little outfit wound its way slowly up into the mountains. Someone on the moon (but this was still almost a year before the first man walked on the moon in 1969) with a telescope might have thought this was a tiny solitary beetle which climbed ever so slowly across the grass-covered hills which looked so ghostly in the pale moonlight.
Climbing higher into the Great Dividing Range, the moonlight was replaced by heavy clouds and then steadily falling snow. Soon there was snow all over the road, a fearful aspect if riding a solo motorbike, but not a cause for any concern with the sidecar alongside to keep things stable. Thick white frost formed on the handlebars, mirrors and sidecar mounts.
Lockwood, Maldon and Newstead came and went without seeing another vehicle on the road. Short of Campbelltown the moon appeared again and it was time to re-fill the bike’s tank from the jerry can in the sidecar – no petrol stations anywhere would be open at that hour. Campbelltown, Smeaton, Creswick and Mount Rowan were passed by also without seeing another sign of human life. While passing through Ballarat, one lonely police car was seen to be patrolling and Phil exchanged cheery waves with the crew as he rode by. Out through Canadian, Mount Clear, Mount Helen, past “St Micks in the Styx” (Saint Martins in the Pines school campus) and down the hill to Buninyong. Quietly along Warrenheip Street, right into Learmonth Street, left into Cathcart Street, left into Scott Street and then cut the motor and roll silently downhill and into the yard to avoid waking anyone. It was about 03:10 am and officially about -1.5ºC in Ballarat but probably a couple of degrees colder in Buninyong. Despite the cold, Phil was still warm inside his Michelin Man mountain of clothes. Motorcycling can be so enjoyable regardless of the weather if the rider wears appropriate clothing.
Here is a closer view of the Yamaha YDS3 250cc motorbike and Dusting sidecar on which I rode from Ballarat to Bendigo and back again.
2015 Thoughts: Just reading through the article again, I can see many clues to the Autism with which I was diagnosed many years after having written it. Observe the obsession with detail in the clothing I wore for the freezing part of the journey. I clearly remember being extremely pedantic about the exact “correct” way to dress for motorcycling. Also there is my attention to detail regarding the little towns I passed through on the way.
My current bike, a 1962 Chang Jiang, near the tennis courts at Wahminda Park
As long as I can remember, I have been extremely interested in motorbikes. I have had other “Special Interests” too, especially trains, computers, typhoons, weather, but the interest in motorbikes has always been there. I never imagined that having an interest in motorbikes could have any sort of medical description or diagnosis, but I learned otherwise in the closing months of the twentieth century. This is how it happened:
“Of course you’re autistic, Phil Smith! I had you figured out years ago when I first met you. Why do you think you’re so good at fixing computers? Why are you so obsessed with typhoons and motorbikes? You’re a classic case of Asperger’s Syndrome!”
I was lying on my back poking cables into a computer under the desk in the lounge room of the home of Doctor Tim Trodd, an expatriate general practitioner in Hong Kong who was known as an expert in childhood Autistic Spectrum Disorders. Doctor Trodd had called upon Doctor Disk many times over the years to repair his computers in both office and home and sometimes to supply new computers. Tim’s verbal diagnosis confirmed for me what I had been suspecting for about a week: that I certainly had Autism Spectrum Disorder and was more than likely Asperger’s Syndrome.
A fortnight earlier, my younger son Benjamin had been officially diagnosed as Autistic and as probably being also Asperger’s Syndrome at the Matilda Childhood Development Centre located on The Peak on Hong Kong Island. I had immediately begun researching both Autism and Asperger’s on the Internet. As I began this research, I was immediately struck by how similar the symptoms being described on the web pages were to my own school days.
Memories of school reports came flashing back to me: “Phillip is always in a world of his own”, “Phillip is like an absent-minded professor”, “Phillip never seems to pay attention in school, but always tops the class in his exam results”, “Phillip is so obsessed with trains, that we get sick of hearing about them”, “Phillip seems to be able to focus on only one subject at a time.”
I began to think, “If Ben is autistic, then so am I!”
About a week into my research, I serendipitously stumbled upon a web site which carried an online test which could be used by web surfers to determine whether or not they had any autistic traits. I had taken the test, answering each question as honestly and carefully as I possibly could, and when the results appeared, they confirmed that, according to the test, 100% of my answers had pointed towards my having autistic traits.
This had all been related to Tim while I was fixing the computer. Tim’s response had hardly been a surprise. My quotation of Tim’s words at the head of this article might not be literally precise, but this is essentially what he told me while I was repairing the PC.
The computer was fixed, the invoice and cheque were exchanged, and I headed the Suzuki back towards my home in Sha Tin – deep in thought.
I knew it was true that I could easily become exclusively obsessed in any topic that really grabbed my interest.
Today, as the turn of the millennium approached and computer users worldwide needlessly stressed themselves over the End of the World which would certainly occur when computer systems collapsed in an apocalyptic, planet-wide catastrophe of death and devastation, my interest in computers was at a peak. I had been interested in computers on and off since about eight years of age when I had read about the first primitive electronic computers in a kind of kids encyclopaedia called The World of the Children. So computers became a subject that I studied enthusiastically and about which I had become very knowledgeable.
Throughout my school years one of my areas of special interest had been trains. Trains of all shapes and sizes. I could still recall that a Victorian Railways R-class steam locomotive had a weight of 187 long tons and 8 hundredweight (including the tender) while the B-class diesel-electric locomotive tipped the scales at 111 long tons and 17 hundredweight. Now we live in a metric world so those figures should be quoted as approximately 190.4 tonnes and 114 tonnes respectively. My mind could still recall every inch of all the tram tracks that had existed in Geelong before the trams were scrapped in 1955. What use are all these facts and figures today? My school teachers had nearly been driven out of their minds by my constant spouting of intricate facts and figures about trains and trams.
My Grandfather always used to say that I was so madly keen on motorbikes because my mother rode pillion on the Harley behind my Dad right up until a month before I was born. He used to explain that he reckoned the sound of the uneven beat of the Harley’s engine was somehow infused into my little brain while I was still in my Mum’s womb.
A second opinion on why I love motorbikes was put forward after I was diagnosed with Autism and Asperger Syndrome: I had a “Special Interest” (or something more like a total obsession ) in the topic of motorbikes that was a significant indication of Asperger Syndrome. The term “Asperger Syndrome” has more recently been replaced in medical literature by the term “Autism Spectrum Disorder” often shortened to “ASD”.
In the story, “Jack” refers to my late father, John Daniel Smith, who was usually known as “Jack”, “Wenche” (a Norwegian name pronounced like “Van’-ka”) refers to my mother, Wenche Smith, now in her 93rd year and resident in Geelong, and “Ottar” refers to my late uncle, Ottar Abrahmsen, my mother’s younger brother.
The article which follows is entirely fictional. It is my imagination picturing how my last motorbike ride before I was born might have happened:
“Potato, potato, potato!”
Can a story begin with those three words? Has copyright already been breached? The Harley-Davidson Motorcycle company attempted to trademark the “potato-potato” sound of its V-twin engine in February 1994, but after six years of litigation, withdrew their application. A multitude of motorcycle magazines has used these words to describe the sound throughout the twentieth century and on into the twenty-first. So it seems it might now be safe to start a story with these words. But just to be safe, the word will be repeated three times, rather than twice. Three times sounds better, anyway!
“Potato, potato, potato!”
The elderly Harley wheezed into life after Jack’s first kick.
Preparation had taken a while: grease the rockers with the flat cheese-head style grease gun; grease the fork linkages, grease the saddle pedestal, grease the steering head; check and top up the oil; check the chain tension and wipe off excess oil; give the whole machine a wipe over with a rag; open the fuel tap, tilt the choke valve in the carby, gently turn the motor to suck in some fuel mixture, turn on the ignition switch and then it was one steady kick on the bicycle pedal kick starter.
The blue 1925 Harley-Davidson in the foreground is similar to the Harley my father, Jack Smith, would have been riding when he and my mother were first married.
“Potato, potato, potato!”
Jack looked down at the idling engine with a feeling of satisfaction as each pushrod did its job and lifted one end of its rocker so the other end could depress the inlet valve. “Come on, Wenche, we’re ready to go!” he called to his bride of eighteen months, now heavy with the weight of their first child, expected within the next month or so.
“Potato, potato, potato!”
Tiny puffs of dust erupted from the red scoria* of the Bloomsbury Street back yard a metre or so rearwards from the fishtail exhaust and drifted away while settling back into the scoria. Wenche’s younger brother Ottar stepped off the low, wooden back verandah and opened the unpainted paling gate, set at an angle of 45 degrees, which gave access to the short common driveway between this house and number 7, next door.
In moments, Wenche was out in the yard and carefully arranging her skirt as she mounted the pillion pad fitted to the parcel rack of the Harley. As she did so, the baby within her womb seemed to leap for joy at the sound of the bike. The baby had been moving inside her womb for months now, but always seemed especially excited whenever she mounted a motorbike. There were two bikes she rode: the Calthorpe belonged to Ottar and the Harley belonged to Jack. While the Harley clearly said, “Potato, potato, potato!” the best the slow-revving single cylinder engine of the Calthorpe could manage was an almost colloquial, “Spud, spud, spud!” Tonight was a night for potatoes rather than spuds! Clamping her arms around her husband she exclaimed, “Let’s go, Johnny!”
My mother Wenche Smith rides pillion behind her brother Ottar Abrahmsen on his 1938 Calthorpe
Balancing the bike and its precious cargo on his right foot, with his left heel Jack depressed the clutch pedal and smiled at the satisfying “clunk” from the gearbox as he pushed the gear lever forward in its gate to the first gear position. A slight twist of the right handgrip as his left toe gently pressed forward the clutch lever saw the machine begin to move towards the gate.
“Potato, potato, potato!”
Ottar closed the gate behind them as the Harley gathered speed down the drive and leaned right to turn into the street in the Chilwell dusk. This was to be his big sister’s last time going out together with her husband on the Harley to see the movies; the bike was to be sold this weekend to provide cash for baby necessities.
“Potato, potato, potato!”
The lamplighter from the gas company paused and watched longingly as the bike turned left into Fyans Street and then right into Pakington Street. Wenche smiled with delight as the little baby within seemed to be dancing in delight to the tune of the exhaust.
“Potato, potato, potato!”
Jack waits patiently as the Newtown tram screeches its way around the sharp curve across his path. It suddenly halts in darkness as the trolley-pole comes off the overhead wire and bounces about on its springs unleashing spectacular showers of sparks. The conductor alights and expertly reunites the trolley-pole with the wire, boards the tram and with two clangs on the bell lets the driver know he’s back aboard. The baby in Wenche’s womb gets all excited as he hears the tram: another sound which means adventure! As the tram grinds its way up Aphrasia Street, Jack releases the clutch and the Harley continues towards its right turn into Aberdeen Street where Jack must take special care while crossing the junction of the three tramlines.
Wenche has no way of knowing the baby she carried would turn out to be autistic. In fact no ordinary people even knew the word. And on that evening in August 1946, nobody in Australia had ever heard of Hans Asperger and the syndrome which would later bear his name. Jack would never know during his short lifetime. The baby himself would not know for more than fifty years when a diagnosis in far away Hong Kong would help him understand a peculiarly interesting half-century of life.
“Potato, potato, potato!”
The bike slows on the approach to the neon-bar traffic signals at Geringhap Street. Only one green bar remaining and it must turn to red before the bike can reach the intersection. The unborn one is still excited. Wenche has no way of knowing that this exposure to the “potato, potato, potato” sound will result in a lifetime love of motorbikes for this little one yet to be born. The set of green bars on the traffic signal flash on and the Harley continues along Ryrie Street. Right turn at the next traffic signal into Moorabool Street and pull up just near the cinema.
“Potato, potato, pot . . .!”
The ignition is switched off, the bike is parked safely, and the happy young couple enter the picture theatre. The baby within settles down for a nap after his exciting ride.
*scoria is a word, in common use when I was a kid, to describe a gravel made from very light-weight volcanic rock. The rock had been formed on the surface of lava flowing from a volcano, where the lava became filled with thousands of tiny bubbles which remained in place when the lava solidified. Scoria was commonly used for driveways, and many streets and country roads in Western Victoria were covered with scoria before the days of sealing roads with bitumen.
One incident that comes to mind again and again over the years occurred in Hong Kong over twenty-five years ago in 1989.
One Sunday we had been to church and were walking along Jordan Road in Kowloon to board the Jordan Road ferry to go out to an island in the South China Sea.
We entered a tunnel to pass underneath a very wide road to get to the ferry. The tunnel was very long and was lined with ceramic tiles which made it like an echo chamber. A group of young Filipina ladies was walking a few paces ahead of us in a straight line across the tunnel. I felt a sneeze coming on. I tried to suppress it but lost the battle. Suddenly a stentorian explosion of magnificent volume echoed throughout that tunnel.
All of the Filipina ladies instantly rose into the air in unison like a line of well trained ballerinas and we were able to see a lot of daylight shining through beneath their feet. Together they all landed again with a single click as their feet all touched the floor of the tunnel simultaneously. I have been to a great many ballets over the decades, but I don’t think I have ever seen a troupe of ballerinas leap in such perfect unison.
There was a moment of still silence followed by enormous guffaws from both the Filipina ladies and ourselves as we all doubled up with laughter.
Later in the afternoon, as we sailed smoothly across the South China Sea, we realized that the Filipinas and ourselves had all caught the same ferry and every time we saw each other after that we would all keep bursting into laughter again. It really was one of those moments that remains unforgettable throughout a lifetime.
Now, a quarter of a century later, when I sneeze, I often picture in my minds eye that line of ladies doing that perfectly-timed leap in that tunnel, and people around me wonder why the heck this crazy guy starts laughing at his own sneeze!
My longest ever continuous ride was a courier ride that went [VIC] Bairnsdale – Sale – Bairnsdale – Cann River – [NSW] Eden – Sydney – [ACT] Canberra – [NSW] – Cooma – [VIC] Cann River – Orbost – Bairnsdale – Melbourne – Sale – Bairnsdale all non-stop with four half-hour sleep breaks while papers were being signed. This was done on an old magneto-ignition single-cylinder Yamaha 250 fitted with a Tilbrook sidecar. All that riding was done to set up a company that needed papers signed by people in about eight locations in two days.
This is the tiny Yamaha sidecar outfit upon which I completed the Longest Courier Ride about 45 years ago. (Picture from Two Wheels magazine April 1973.)
This was first written out in note form a month or two after the ride working from the details recorded in my Shell Driver’s Log Book. Years later, I found the notes and wrote it up narrative style on a computer. In 2008 I re-wrote on a computer so I could present it as a talk to a motorbike club.
It has been presented again two or three times since then. Now, on with the story:
“Go to bed right now; you are about to have two days with no sleep!” ordered my father. On questioning why he wanted me to hit the sack at 10:00 am on a sunny day, I learned that a company was being set up. Papers were being drawn up at Sale and would have to be signed by many people before the job was over. I should expect to leave home about three in the afternoon and not see a bed for the next two days. I would be expected with the paperwork all signed, stamped and completed by nine in the morning two days hence. I knew that the Yamaha was full of petrol and I had just finished servicing it that morning.
I hit the hay and snatched a few hours sleep.
Mum woke me up with eggs on toast already cooked just how I liked them. I put some emergency camping gear, extra warm clothes, wet weather gear, and emergency rations in the sidecar. This was a Tilbrook Tom Thumb industrial sidecar fully restored and painted in brilliant Boeing Red, the same colour used on the tails and noses of air force training jets to make them very visible, a kind of orange red that had quite a glow about it. The bike was an air-cooled 250cc single-cylinder DT1 Yamaha two-stroke with almost indestructible flywheel magneto ignition and old-fashioned piston-port intake into the crankcase. It had “Autolube” lubrication system in which a pump was used to pump oil into the carburettor mounting tube where the petrol air mixture was being sucked into the crankcase. This bike was the first real “trail bike” or “enduro bike” that Yamaha had successfully marketed and mine had about 30,000 miles [48,000 km] on the clock.
Dad handed me a file of addresses and expected times of arrival at each address. He had phoned everyone to set up meeting times so that I could collect signatures and keep riding. I would even have to meet some company director at home in his pyjamas at 04:00 am! This was going to be a ride with a difference!
The bike started first kick and I pulled in the clutch, eased the hand gear shift lever at the right of the tank forwards, felt the satisfying “clunk” as first gear engaged, and soon I was motoring along Riverine Street Bairnsdale, headed for Main Street. I turned right onto Main Street and headed for Sale. Not far past the railway crossing West of Bairnsdale, half a dozen cows looking over the fence seemed to be saying, “What do you think you’re up to, you silly galah?” At Providence Ponds a green VW Kombi made into a camper van pulled onto the road from the rest area and came across to my side right in front of me. Nothing else on the road, so I went around him. It is a rare event indeed to pass other vehicles on this outfit.
As I pulled into York Street, Sale, I noticed I was ten minutes early for my appointment with the solicitors, so I filled up with petrol before going to the office. The solicitor spent about ten minutes going through the paperwork and showing me where each person had to sign it, and then placed it in the waterproof satchel which would take it half way round the East coast of Australia.
Back down the Princes to Bairnsdale, confirming the opinion of those same six cows as they saw me rocketing by in the opposite direction just over an hour later. I filled the tank again before stopping by my home to eat a meal which was already served up and steaming on the table before I pulled into the driveway. 87 miles [140 km] on the clock so far. Fifteen minutes later, I was crossing the Mitchell and headed East. More cows near Sarsfield also seemed to think I was crazy. Up the Omeo Highway to Bruthen, then East to Nowa Nowa and then down the Princes Highway to Orbost where the tank was filled again. Just past the Tostaree Roadhouse on the right, a kangaroo attempted suicide leaping across the road from the left. I missed the roo, but I’m pretty sure the semi going the other way probably made kanga carpet out of him. Orbost saw 142 miles [229 km]. It was 7:15 pm and getting dark. The most comfortable cruising speed of this outfit was about 38 miles per hour or 61 km/h. Near the turn off to Bemm River between Cabbage Tree and Bellbird, a semi was pulled up on the roadside with two flat tyres on the same corner of his rear bogie. I stopped and asked if I could take a message, but he already had help on the way. 8:30 pm saw me at Cann River, where there was a pie and coke for the rider and another tankful of petrol for the bike. 188 miles [303 km]. Eastward, ever Eastward on that lonely road. I exchanged a cheery wave with the officers at the border inspection station near Genoa. The road would have more Northerly stretches than Easterly ones from now on. It was cloudy, so it was very dark indeed. The lighting coils in the flywheel were doing their job well and the pool of light in front was adequate considering the modest speed of this machine. Eyes of some unidentified wildlife on the centreline of the road shone in my lights somewhere between Timbillica and Narrabarba, but whatever it was, it thought better of mixing it with a screaming Yamaha outfit, and bolted off the road to the right well before I got there.
Filled up the tank again at Eden where I also had to visit a private home one street back from the main road and get some papers signed.
As I left Eden it was 10:30 pm and 256 miles [412 km] in 7 hours 30 minutes including all stops. An average of around 34 mph [55 km/h]; not bad for such a small motorbike. It’s amazing how often my mind turns to calculating various mathematical figures as I do a long ride. This is always even more true at night time, when I can’t see much of the surrounding scenery. Mile after mile of bitumen road just races into my headlamp glow and vanishes away under the wheels. 11:30 pm and 292 miles [470 km] saw another tankful at Bega after passing through Pambula and the deserted main streets of Merimbula.
Brogo River, Murrah River, Wallaga Lake, the familiar landmarks followed each other from in front to behind. Tilba Tilba and Central Tilba. Beautiful cheese! When going through this stretch during normal daylight hours there is always a mandatory stop to enjoy some delicious Tilba cheese. Is it my imagination, or can I really smell it as I ride by after midnight?
At Narooma, I filled the bike and had a hot cup of tea at a truck stop. It was 1:00 am and 341 miles [549 km] as I headed North again. Dalmeny, Potato Point, Tuross Head, Meringo, one after another those skinny turn-offs on the right kept appearing. It always seemed a long time passed before reaching each landmark, yet it seemed to have passed in no time at all when it was behind me. Does my mind play strange tricks with time as I am riding through the night? Or might Einstein have been able to explain it? One thing I know for sure is that this bike is travelling at an infinitessimally small proportion of the speed of light, so its movement really should not have any effect on the passage of time. What strange things come to mind while riding! Who knows? Perhaps those cows had been right!
More petrol at 385 miles [620 km] and 2:10 am at Bateman’s Bay. No time for a snack. Across the Clyde River estuary. The Kings Highway on the left: up through Braidwood to Canberra; but not tonight. Northwards, ever Northwards. I had a frighteningly close near-miss with a wayward owl near Burrill Lake and was still shaking as I filled up with petrol at 419 miles [675 km] and 3:10 am at Ulladullah. The bike could have gone further on that tankfull, but I needed the break. Ever northwards through those yawning wee small hours to yet another petrol stop and legstretch at Nowra, where it was 4:25 am and 461 miles [742 km]. I could not remember Milton, Yatteyattah, Conjola, Wandandian or Tomorong, but here I was in Nowra already, so I must have gone through them. Whatever had I been thinking about? Had I been thinking at all? Is it possible to ride a motorbike and sidecar over such a challenging road in one’s sleep? Oh well, back on the road!
On through Berry, Kiama and the peculiarly-named “Albion Park Rail” to a truck stop in Woolongong where it was a cup of tea for me and another fill up for the bike at 5:45 am and 509 miles [820 km].
A lot of the road now became freeway. Traffic towards Sydney was already building up. More vehicles than ever were now passing me. Filled up again at 6:45 and 544 miles [875 km] at Heathcote and then it was a myriad of suburban streets to my Sister’s home on Auburn Road, Auburn, where she signed papers and cooked breakfast while I slept soundly in full bike gear lying on her living-room carpet for 30 minutes. It had been 7:15 am when I had arrived and I was on the road again before 8:15. 568 miles [915 km]. Thank goodness I was now travelling opposite to the peak hour traffic and had a very good run. I smiled inside my helmet as I observed Mr and Mrs Suburbia creeping unbelievably slowly towards Sydney. It felt so good to be heading the other way with such great freedom.
Filled the tank yet again at Narellan at 590 miles [950 km] and 8:55. So close to Oran Park, but not a chance of visiting today! Riding straight through Camden, Picton, Mittagong and Bowral, I make mental notes to come back and visit these historic towns one of these days. They look to be so full of rural NSW history waiting to be savoured during some future holiday.
631 miles [1,016 km] and 10:00 am saw another tank filling at Moss Vale. Onwards, onwards, motor humming a sleepy tune, ever onwards towards the nation’s capital. Sometimes I took the bypass freeway sections, other times I took the old road. A man needs some variety on a long ride!
680 miles [1,094 km] and 11:15 and another fuel stop at Goulburn. I bought an ice-cream cone and walked up and down the main street there stretching my legs for about ten minutes. Then it was back on board and pressing onwards. A few miles out along the Hume and then it was turn left onto the Federal Highway, a major intersection in the middle of nowhere. Skirting Lake George, I noticed that it was full of water, a very rare sight. It felt strange to have water lapping the very road side and yet to see the tops of lines of fence posts stretching for miles across the lake. Then it was the grin-making twisties of Geary’s Gap and on into North Canberra where I again refuelled at 736 miles [1,185 km] and 12:45 pm.
I soon found the office building on Northbourne Avenue and was shown to an empty conference room where a blow-up air mattress had been placed on the floor for me. For the second time that day I enjoyed a 30 minute sleep while papers were being signed and stamped. At 1:30 I was awoken by a loud knock on the door and a beautifully cooked lunch of roast beef, potatoes and vegetables was placed before me. I have no idea where they got it from, but I thoroughly enjoyed consuming it and it was fully 2:00 pm before I hit the road again. Roundabouts. Long curving roads. Sufficient police vehicles to deter any enthusiastic enjoyment of them.
From an old colour slide, this photo of the Yamaha/Tilbrook outfit was taken in about 1972 or earlier.
Stopped at Michelago for fuel at 774 miles [1,245 km] and 3:00 pm and was given a free cup of tea, as I had known the proprietors there for many years. They told me I was five minutes ahead of schedule as my dad had told them on the phone that I would arrive at about 3:05. Twenty-four hours had passed since the beginning of the journey and I had taken only one hour of sleep. A brief chinwag and back on the road at 3:15.
4:15 pm and 808 miles [1,301 km] saw the tank topped up just on the outskirts of Cooma. Although I had friends there in Cooma, I didn’t call in, because that would have wasted too much time. Instead it was necessary to push on Southwards down the Monaro Highway through Nimmitabel to Bombala where another tankful of fuel was taken on at 5:40 pm and 861 miles [1,386 km]. The bloke at the servo seemed to want a yarn, but I had no time to stop, as I was anxious to do the 56 mile “horror stretch” of single lane corrugated winding gravel road on the Monaro and Cann Valley Highways before dark.
I used up so much fuel power-sliding the outfit around those gravel corners speedway style, that I hit reserve a long way short of Cann River and was rather glad I had a can of fuel in the sidecar although I didn’t actually need to use it. It was 7:00 pm and 914 miles [1,471 km] when I filled up at Cann River and immediately headed West on the Princes Highway. People were obviously eating at Bellbird and Cabbage Tree. I was feeling rather hungry, but I already knew what was ahead. Up and over Mount Raymond and down across the Brodribb River.
Dinner was already cooked and waiting for me at Orbost when I arrived there at 8:15 pm. As I ate dinner, my tank was refuelled and my bike checked over and the chain adjusted for me. It was 8:35 and 960 miles [1,545 km] when I pulled out of Orbost. Someone had all their earthly belongings laid out on the side of the road while they changed a tyre on their station wagon near Newmerella. Turn off the Princes at Nowa Nowa. Lonely, lonely roads. Singing songs inside my helmet. Anyone who could hear me would reckon I was a nut! Not long now and I would be passing those judgmental cows for a third time! Bruthen, Wiseleigh, Sarsfield.
It was 1,015 miles [1,633 km] when I filled up at Lucknow at 10:00 pm. I went around the corner to my home in Riverine Street, Bairnsdale and slept another 30 minutes on my own bed while paperwork was being signed and stamped. Fried eggs and bacon for supper along with another cup of tea and I was back out on the road by 11:00 pm.
While I would normally have saved both time and distance by leaving the Highway at Stratford and using the back roads through Maffra, Tinamba, Heyfield, Cowwarr, Toongabbie, Glengarry, Tyers, Yallourn North and Newborough, I knew that there would be no petrol open and I didn’t really want to be found filling my tank from tin cans in pitch darkness miles from anywhere, so I felt it was wiser to stick with the Princes Highway. It was 1,059 miles [1,705 km] and 12:10 am when I filled the tank at Sale.
At Rosedale it was absolutely freezing as I crossed the flats and billabongs of the Latrobe River, but it got warmer as I climbed up out of the actual river flats. For some reason, it always seems to be freezing on that stretch of road at night. The police were stopping and checking every vehicle which was travelling through Traralgon, but they recognised me and said, “You’re all right, Smithy” and waved me on my way, so I have no idea what it was all about. At Moe, I filled the tank again at 1,109 miles [1,785 km] and 1:30 am.
At Nilma, there was another police road block, but again I was waved through when they recognised my sidecar. Just after the railway bridge in Warragul I came within a whisker of skittling somebody’s cat which chose a most inopportune moment to scuttle across the road. I lifted the chair while missing it, so amused myself by flying the chair all the way through town, not that there was anybody about to see me doing it. I arrived in Pakenham at 2:50 am and 1,159 miles [1,865 km]. There I had a Chiko roll, a cup of tea and filled the tank. I walked about a bit and noticed that it was 03:00 am. Thirty-six hours on the road.
“Flying the Chair” on the flat flood plain near the Mitchell River in Bairnsdale close to my home at the time of this epic journey. (Picture from Two Wheels magazine April 1973.)
I left Pakenham and followed the Princes Highway through Dandenong and Springvale and then filtered through a multitude of suburban roads to an address near Doncaster where a company director had set his alarm for 4:00 am and I arrived at 4:05. I had another 30 minutes sleep on the living room floor while the director in his pyjamas and dressing gown did whatever he had to do to the paperwork. I had a cup of tea and some buttered toast before leaving at about 05:00 am. I worked my way down through the suburbs, glad that I was ahead of peak hour, and again filled the tank at Pakenham after running quite a bit of the way on reserve. 1,232 miles [1,982 km] at 05:55 am.
It was a relatively uneventful ride to Moe, although the rising sun became a real nuisance getting in my eyes on the last stretches of road from Trafalgar.
At Gunn’s Gully I filled the tank at 1,283 miles [2,064 km] at 06:20 am. A quick swig from the canvas waterbag on the sidecar and I was back out on the road. As I rode through Haunted Hills I found myself wondering where on earth this district acquired its unusual name. I travelled through all those familiar haunts of Morwell, Traralgon, Rosedale and Kilmany, arriving at Sale to refuel the bike at 07:45 and 1,332 miles [2,143 km]. The sun was a real nuisance for short periods spread out over most of the way.
It was about a minute or two to 09:00 am when I pulled up at home and handed the waterproof satchel of paperwork to Dad. He did whatever he did with the paperwork that day while I had a well-earned sleep. When I got up later that day, I figured out that I had covered 1,376 miles [2,215 km] in forty-two hours! An average of 32.7 miles [52.74 km] per hour including all stops! What a courier ride!
2008 reflection. The average speed may seem slow by today’s modern standards. The famous Iron Butt rides of today cover similar distances, but they do it in much shorter times. The above courier run was completed decades before the Iron Butt rallies were thought of. But for percentage of time spent in the saddle, I think my epic ride beat all those Iron Butt riders hands down. And for a motorbike with a flat-out top speed of a little over 40 mph [64 km/h], it was a truly remarkable achievement.
This photo was taken while crossing the Alps from North to South while the road was officially closed due to heavy snow during a winter in the early seventies. (Picture from Two Wheels magazine April 1973.)
