Dreaming...

Originally uploaded by Giorgio Violino

Originally uploaded by Giorgio Violino

.. Of high roads in high places..finding fun and adventure in far away places and just riding my bikes... must be that time of the year again to start fettling and planning for the summer.

Originally uploaded by Giorgio Violino

Book Review

These are the days that must happen to you - Dan Walsh.

Dan Walsh was a writer for Bike magazine and decided to ride the length of Africa.... okay so far so good...then got another bike and tried it for the length of the Americas. He got a wage while doing it as he sent back regular columns , that were mildly entertaining ... he manages to write in a New Journalist/Gonzo style, as he states himself ,that he never quite gets right; he himself agrees his style is part Hunter S Thompson, part early Mark Williams, and part Nick Cohn , and a big dollop of Tom Wolfe.

Essentially like many long distance riders there is a sub plot and with Walsh it is constant battle with not becoming a statistic like many of his friends back in Manchester , or the Manc scally drug mules he visits in a Central American prison. Realising he needs to grow up as mainly alcohol,occasionaly recreational drugs and constantly travelling starts out to first destroy his relationships then his health... then the bike dies... he tries to obtain a balance in his life.

As the book is actually, as stated earlier, a collection of columns that he wrote for Bike it feels as such. Each chapter becoming a fully formed item, and there are some sections that you know he wrote purely to meet a deadline and others have a great deal more craft lovingly applied to them.

It made me mutter "Twat" a lot while reading, but not always in the negative and some sections made me laugh out loud. At time things shine through, the sheer joy of riding , the essence of the pose factor , the sheer rebellion of riding in todays sanitised car based societies.There is some incitful writing that makes you nod in agreement , but a book needs to be taken as a whole entity and as such it is not a classic, but as a bit of entertainment I would recommend it.

Be a good one for being stuck waiting on a flight , or like I was. on a train to London and back.

No Chips for Bikers

The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) abandons proposals to chip motorcycle number plates.

The DVLA have announced that they will not be seeking government approval to fit micro chip Electronic Vehicle Identification, (EVI) to motorcycle number plates. The DVLA had embarked on a feasibility study, including field trials, to determine the effectiveness of EVI as a means of combating motorcycle vehicle excise evasion.

The Motorcycle Action Group (MAG UK) was consulted on the project and voiced concerns that the cost to introduce such a system would far outweigh the monies recouped in excise duty. MAG also expressed concern that the proposal to single out motorcycles was discriminatory.

In a report released by the DVLA today the conclusion to the study is that the cost of introducing EVI for all motorcycles would cost in the region of ñ00 million and would only provide a return of approximately ò7 million for HM treasury. The report concludes that advances in ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) technology render the use of EVI unnecessary.

The report comes days after the DVLA issued an apology for wrongly estimating the level of motorcycle VED evasion at 40%, a gross overestimation of the actual rate which is 6%.

MAG Campaigns Manager said, ԉ am pleased that common sense has prevailed and that the DVLA has listened to and acted on motorcyclists concerns. EVI was a sledgehammer to crack a nut and the proposals to only include motorcyclists is discriminatory. MAG does not in any way condone motorcyclists who choose to ride their bikes without tax and will continue to work with motorcyclists, government, the police and the DVLA to eradicate VED evasion.

For further information or comment contact:
David Short
Email campaigns-manager@mag-uk.org

The UK's Leading Riders' Rights Organisation
www.mag-uk.org

Teaching Motorcycle Travel Literature by Steven Alford

Teaching Motorcycle Travel Literature

Steven Alford

http://ijms.nova.edu/July2006/IJMS_Artcl.Alford.html

The literature of motorcycle travel can be taught at the university level in a variety of ways. Here are some suggestions.

Unlike other subgenres within travel literature (e.g., travel by women, religious travel, etc.), motorcycle travel literature is circumscribed by the existence of the internal combustion engine. For convenience sake, we can point to 1894 as the potential beginning of motorcycle travel, the year in which the firm of Hildebrand & Wolfmüller in Munich, Germany established the first national patent for a motorcycle and began production and commercial sale of the machines. This gives us an active period of approximately 110 years. By 1903 people were already using motorcycles as tools for extended travel, such as one Dr. Herzog, a German doctor who used the vehicle for his professional travel, logging 8620 kilometers in eight months, colliding with only two horses in the process. Two early adventure travelers were G. Schwarz and W. Glöckler, who traveled 1600 km through the Black Forest and Switzerland, crossing passes of over 2000 meters. Take that, Ewan McGregor!

As well, people began writing about traveling by motorcycle almost as soon as they were able to do so, as evidenced by W. H. L. Watson’s 1915 book, Adventures of a Dispatch Rider, and Lady Warren’s Through Algeria and Tunisia (1922). Every year the shelf of motorcycle travel books grows in both quantity and quality. How is one to go about organizing the literature for pedagogical purposes?

Two general directions suggest themselves. First, one could use historical, geographical, or technological information about the motorcycle itself. Second, one could use theoretical concepts already in play in scholarly discussions of travel literature and apply them to motorcycles. Let’s look at the first option:

A simple approach would be to look at motorcycle travel literature historically. A sample list would include the following currently available texts:

Fulton, Robert Edison, Jr. One Man Caravan. 1937. North Conway, NH: Whitehorse Press, 1996.

Simon, Ted. Jupiter's Travels. Covelo, CA: Jupitalia, 1979.

Culberson, Ed. Obsessions Die Hard: Motorcycling the Pan American Highway's Jungle Gap. North Conway, New Hampshire: Whitehorse Press, 1991.

Noren, Allen. Storm: A Motorcycle Journey of Love, Endurance, and Transformation. San Francisco: Travelers' Tales, 2000.

Haffar, Rif K. Away From My Desk. Seattle: Ameera, 2002.

McGregor, Ewan and Charlie. Boorman, et al. Long Way Round: Chasing Shadows Across the World. London: Time Warner Books, 2004.

Note the large gap between Fulton and Simon. Many books during this period are either out of print or otherwise unobtainable. There are, however, books in French, Spanish, Italian and German, for those who could use them.

Another approach would be geographical. For example, one could write about African travel. Among such books would be these:

Bausenhart, Werner. Africa: Against the Clock on a Motorcycle. Toronto: Legas, 2002.

Bealby, Johnny. Running With the Moon. London: Arrow Books, 1995.

Scott, Chris. Desert Travels: Motorbike Journeys in the Sahara & West Africa. London: The Traveler's Bookshop, 1996.

Smith, Jerry. Into the Heart of Africa. Kearney, NE: Morris Publishing, 2002.

Wallach, Theresa. The Rugged Road. London: Panther Publishing, 2001.

These are all fine and entertaining books.

Given the prevalence of certain motorcycle marques used in traveling (e.g., the Yamaha XT; various BMWs, most recently the 1200 GS), one could also organize one’s reading around a specific marque.

A second approach, as noted above, would be to take theoretical concepts from scholarly work on travel and then apply them to motorcycle books. For example, Paul Fussell’s notion of exploration, travel, and tourism (found in Abroad: British Literary Traveling Between the Wars [New York: Oxford University Press, 1980]) provides a way or organizing one’s thoughts around the historically evolving ideas of what modern travel signifies. Or, one could use a concept that is not strictly travel-identified, but quite useful, such as “speed.” Such a general concept would allow one to bring to bear the ideas of writers from Marinetti, the originator of Futurism, to Virilio, a prolific contemporary French author on the significance of speed.

The sociology of travel and tourism might also be a useful approach, although it obviously focuses on the political and social, rather than the literary realms of motorcycle travel, as suggested by the following sources:

Alt, Alan. "Popular Culture and Mass Consumption: The Motorcycle as Cultural Commodity." Journal of Popular Culture 15.4 (Spring 1982): 129-141.

Barrell, John. "Death on the Nile: Fantasy and the Literature of Tourism." Essays in Criticism 41.2 (1991): 97-128.

MacCannell, Dean. The Tourist: A New Theory of the Leisure Class. New York: Schocken Books, 1976.

Olszewska, Anna and K. Roberts. Leisure and Life-Style: A Comparative Analysis of Free Time. London: Sage, 1989.

Pearce, Philip L. The Social Psychology of Tourist Behavior. New York: Pergamon Press, 1982.

Pred, Alan. "Structuration and Place: On the Becoming of Sense of Place and Structure of Feeling." Journal for the Theory of Social Behavior 13 (1983): 45-68.

Rojek, Chris. Capitalism and Leisure Theory. London: Tavistock Publications, 1985.

Urry, John. "The 'Consumption' of Tourism." Sociology 24 (1990): 23-36.

---. The Tourist Gaze: Leisure and Travel in Contemporary Societies. London: Sage Publications, 1990.

Finally, one could also take historical understandings of the meaning of travel and, using them as a contrast, tease out what it means to travel by bike. Here are some texts that describe, in different ways, the relation between history, epistemology, and travel:

Casson, Lionel. Travel in the Ancient World. Toronto: Hakkert, 1974.

Campbell, Mary B. The Witness and the Other World: Exotic European Travel Writing, 400-1600. Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1988.

Newton, Arthur P. Travel and Travellers of the Middle Ages, 1968.

Brundage, James A. The Crusades: Motives and Achievments, 1964.

Penrose, Boise. Travel and Discovery in the Renaissance: 1420-1620, 1962.
Adams, Percy. Travelers and Travel Liars: 1600-1800. Berkeley: U California Press, 1962.

Greenblatt, Stephen. Marvelous Possessions: The Wonder of the New World. Chicago: U Chicago Press, 1991.

Todorov, Tzevtan. The Conquest of America: The Question of the Other. New York: Harper Torchbooks, 1984.

Batten, Charles. Pleasurable Instruction: Form and Convention in 18th Century Travel Literature. Berkeley: U California Press, 1978.

Van Den Abbeele, George. Travel as Metaphor: From Montaigne to Rousseau. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota Press, 1992.

Franklin, Wayne. Discoverers, Explorers, Settlers: The Diligent Writers of Early America. Chicago: U Chicago Press, 1990.

Parks, George. "The Turn to the Romantic in Travel Literature of the Eighteenth Century." Modern Language Quarterly 25 (1964): 22-33.

Buzard, James. The Beaten Track. New York: Oxford UP, 1993.

Withey, Lynne. Grand Tours and Cook's Tours: A History of Leisure Travel, 1750-1915. New York: William H. Morrow, Inc., 1997.

Feifer, Maxine. Tourism in History. New York: Stein and Day, 1985.

I hope this brief excursus is sufficiently provocative. I will append a by-no-means exhaustive list of books on motorcycles and travel. Some authors, such as Werner Bausenhart, have multiple works not listed here. You will see many of the titles above duplicated below.

Baker, Christopher. P. Mi Moto Fidel. Washington, D.C.: The National Geographic Society, 2001.

Barr, Dave. Riding the Edge: An 83,000 Mile Motorcycle Adventure Around the World! Bodfish, CA: Dave Barr Publishers, 1999.

Bausenhart, Werner. Around the Americas on a Motorcycle. New York: Legas, 2000.

---. Africa: Against the Clock on a Motorcycle. Toronto: Legas, 2002.

Bealby, Jonny. Running With the Moon. London: Arrow Books, 1995.

Carlstein, Andrés. Odyssey to Ushuaia. Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2002.

Carroll, William. Two Wheels to Panama. San Marcos, CA: Auto Book Press, 1995.

Culberson, Ed. Obsessions Die Hard: Motorcycling the Pan American Highway's Jungle Gap. North Conway, NH: Whitehorse Press, 1991, 1996.

Dautheville, Anne-France. Une Demoiselle sur une Moto. Paris: Flammarion, 1973.

de Mandiargues, Andre Pieyre. The Motorcycle. Westport, CN: Greenwood Press, 1965

Drutt, Matthew, ed. The Art of the Motorcycle. New York: Guggenheim Museum Publications, 1998.

Evans, Paula. Kiwis Might Fly: Around New Zealand on Two Big Wheels. London, Bantam Books, 2004.

Frazier, Gregory. Riding the World: The Biker's Road Map for a Seven-Continent Adventure. Irvine, CA: Bowtie Press, 2005.

Fulton, Robert Edison, Jr. One Man Caravan. 1937. North Conway, NH: Whitehorse Press, 1996.

Haffar, Rif K. Away From My Desk. Seattle: Ameera, 2002.

Heggstad, Glen. Two Wheels Through Terror. Center Conway, NH: Whitehorse Press, 2004.

Holfelder, Moritz. Motorradfahren. Muenchen: Deutscher Tashenbuch Verlag, 2000.

Hollern, Susie. Women and Motorcycling. New York: Hollern, 1992.

Hunt, Christopher. Sparring with Charlie: Motorbiking Down the Ho Chi Minh Trail. New York: Anchor Books, 1996.

John, Erika. Motorrad-Amazone: Strassen bis zum Horizont. Berlin: Erijott-Verlag, 1985.

La Plante, Richard. Detours: Life, Death, and Divorce on the Road to Sturgis. New York: Forge, 2002.

Larsen, Karen. Breaking the Limit: One Woman's Motorcycle Journey Through America. New York, Hyperion, 2004.

Liska, Danny. Two Wheels to Adventure. Niobrara, Nebraska: Bigfoot Publishing, 1989.

McGregor, Ewan and Charlie Boorman, et al. Long Way Round: Chasing Shadows Across the World. London: Time Warner Books, 2004.

Miyake, Notch. Purple Mountains: America From a Motorcycle. North Conway, NH: Whitehorse Press, 2001.

Moore, Peter. Vroom With a View. London: Bantam Books, 2003.

Noren, Allen. Storm: A Motorcycle Journey of Love, Endurance, and Transformation. San Francisco: Travelers' Tales, 2000.

Paulsen, Gary. Pilgrimage on a Steel Ride. New York, Harcourt Brace & Company, 1997.

Pedersen, Helge. 10 Years on Two Wheels. Elfin Cove Press, 1998.

Perreault, Celine. Partir . . . J'avais peur. Je L'aimais. Je l'ai suivi. Quebec: Libre Expression, 1980.

Philipp, Christine. Motorradreisen durch Americka, Finnland, Sri Lanka and Rumaenien. Muenchen: Sonnentau Verlag, Christine Philipp, 1984.

Pierson, Melissa Holbrook. The Perfect Vehicle: What It Is About Motorcycles. New York, W. W. Norton & Company, 1997.

Pirsig, Robert. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry into Values. New York, William Morrow, 1974, 1999.

Reynolds, Tom. Wild Ride: How Outlaw Motorcycle Myth Conquered America. New York, TVBooks, 2001.

Rogers, Jim. Investment Biker: Around the World with Jim Rogers. Holbrook, MA: Adams Media Corporation, 1994.

Scheib, Asta. Schwere Reiter. Muechen: Nymphenburger Verlagshandlung, 1982.

Scott, Chris. Desert Travels: Motorbike Journeys in the Sahara & West Africa. London: The Traveler's Bookshop, 1996.

Shannon, Alyn. Women of the Road. Minneapolis: Shannon, 1995.

Sheridan, Clare. Across Europe with Satanella. New York: Mead & Company, 1925.

Simon, Ted. Jupiter's Travels. 1979. Covelo, CA: Jupitalia, 1996.

---. Riding High. 1984. Covelo, CA: Jupitalia, 1997.

Sobolev, I. S. K. Nansen Passport: Round the World on a Motor-cycle. N.P.: Bell, 1936.

Steiner, Elfriede. Ein Maedchen sieht Europa. Wein: Weltfahrten-Verlag, 1956.

Symmes, Patrick. Chasing Che: A Motorcycle Journey in Search of the Guevara Legend. New York: Vintage, 2000.

Thomas, Peggy Iris. A Ride in the Sun. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 1954.

Thye, Keith. MotoRaid. Seattle, WA: Elfin Cove Press, 1999.

Tin, Hjalte and Nina Rasmussen. Traumfahrt Sued-Amerika: Auf dem Motorrad mit Kindern von L.A. nach Rio. Muenchen: Frederking und Thaler, 1983.

Wallach, Theresa. The Rugged Road. London: Panther Publishing, 2001.

Warren, Lady. Through Algeria and Tunisia. N.P.: Cape, 1922.

Watson, W. H. L. Adventures of a Dispatch Rider. N.P.: Blackwood, 1915.

Countdown to Cropredy

Off again on our tours, this time a quick trip to the 2007 Fairport Cropredy Convention.

Here's too keeping an eye on the weather for the weekend using our fave Weather site!

Rok Straps Work!

Need I say more, these wunnerful straps from Oz just work.

No hooks, just loops, no stretching around and around objects, just locate connect adjust! For securing motorcycle luggage there are no better straps. We lurve our Rok Straps so much we even bought extra sets. We keep converting others that we know and meet when they see how easy they are to use and how secure they are. In the UK contact the luverly peeps at TravelDri-Plus.

Just one of the beauties of motorcycle travel, we find out so much by talking with other travellers that we meet. There is a mutual bond between riders , and amongst long distance ones even more so. The further you are from your own soil, the easier people find to talk to you.

Always be a traveller and never a tourist.

Belper East Mill - from inside the Belper Nailers football ground

Belper East Mill - from inside the Belper Nailers football ground
Originally uploaded by Mark Berthelemy

Crawled out of a tent in the grounds of Belper Football Club this morning. We spent the night at a wedding reception in the football club.

Was more like a mini rally with the bikes dotted around and the "undead" staggering to the toilet block.

Pity it was so close to home, only managed to get us lost once on the way :)

The Crying Lamp

The Crying Lamp
Originally uploaded by Scouse_and_Jules

Took up geocaching last week , this was my first find... now if I can just get Jules interested , after all it is just another form of trainspotting :)

Or was it which Right ?

Welcome to our travel blog! As a quick explanation, I , Scouse, have an issue with my left and rights, despite owning two GPS's and having an obsession with mapping software and maps and navigation tools of all kinds.

Jules is often heard to heard to call out in desperation " Which left do you mean?" when I am navigating.

So there you go... a concise explanation, which is also a bit of a first for me.