Why I just deleted my Facebook account

Shakespeare, “Henry V”. If there’s a better or more final farewell in literature, I’ve not read it. Watch the scene here.

For the last few years however, my Facebook activity has largely been limited to posting links to stories as they're published. That's just something I do as a favor to the people who publish my writing -- a little kickstart to readership; a few extra clicks. But recently it seems that Facebook's not showing such "commercial" links as often, in favor of paid promotion; not a game I’m going to play.

So it's no longer really useful for the only thing I used it for. Those "reminders" now usually show me things that just make me sad. Add in the toxic nature of the posts that Facebook's algorithm amplifies and the company's anti-democratic stance and it just felt right to delete my account.

If you used to find me on Facebook, sorry. Try following @Backmarker on Twitter. I’ll keep that account active (for now) because Twitter’s a useful tool when it comes to connecting with other journalists.

Banned in Backmarker: How young is too young?

I just read that Hugo Millán, a 14-year-old competitor in the Hawkers European Talent Cup (for riders 12-17) died in a race at Aragon. Hugo was not even born when I wrote this column back in the early- to mid-’oughts.

What follows was one of the very few columns that Road Racer X ever flat rejected; hard truths are unpopular.

It was published only in “On Motorcycles: The Best of Backmarker” because I believed it was one of the truest things I’ve ever written. Today the stars and classes are different, but if anything, it’s even more true.

Throwing them in the deep end

When I was nine or ten years old, growing up in Switzerland, I had a phys-ed teacher named Mr. Knöpfl (spelling approximate, rhymes with “’kin’awful.”)

I was scrawny and unathletic. Depending on your point of view, I was also plain lazy or a prematurely jaded realist; I knew I was going to be picked last and lose first in any activity from dodgeball to high jump, so putting in an effort or getting emotionally involved was just stupid. You might imagine that Mr. Knöpfl’s class was one of the ones that I was glad to escape from every summer.

Except that there was no escaping Mr. Knöpfl.

Because all summer long, my primary destination was a huge outdoor swimming pool. The pool, in a nearby town called Divonne, had a 10-meter diving platform at one end. On the way to the top, there were intermediate stages at 3- and 5-meters, too. That fascinated me.

Damned if Knöpfl didn’t spend the whole summer at that diving platform, too. He was not a big guy. He smoked. But he was built like a brick shithouse and was a nearly Olympic-caliber diver. So he’d lounge at the poolside then languidly get up and stretch, to make sure the ladies were watching. Then he’d climb up and do a perfect half-twisting gigolo from a pike position and rip the entry. The ladies watched all right. They applauded.

I didn’t aspire to the fancy stuff, but I made it my mission to dive off the progressively higher platforms. The 5-meter one actually seemed pretty high to me, since at the age of 10 I was still only 2’11” tall and weighed just 28 pounds. It was a real commitment to even climb to the 10-meter level, especially because going back down the ladder was strictly forbidden by the lifeguards.

Up I went. At the top, it didn’t seem twice as high as the five. It seemed fifty times as high. I seriously thought the slight summer breeze might blow me onto to the pool deck, where I’d smash myself to jelly. At first, I couldn’t even bring myself to hang my toes over the edge.

It’s not like there was much traffic up there. But every now and then someone else climbed to the upper platform and I just waved him through. Hardly anyone dove from up there. The few showoffs that ventured up just jumped, usually with their arms held out sort of like they were being crucified, but making little circles with their hands. They shrieked all the way down.

I was up there for ages. Gradually I worked my way right to the edge. But I never had to work up the courage to actually jump, because after watching me agonize up there, Knöpfl snuck up, grabbed me around the ribcage, and flung me down into the pool.

“I thought you needed some encouragement,” he said, while I clung, sputtering to the edge of the deck afterward.

Me at 12, looking very pleased with myself - perhaps after taking credit for leaping from the highest diving board at the pool. Photo by Ron Lamb (thanks!)

The thing is. I did need it. And even now, when I happen to be in a pool with a full-height platform, I get a little frisson from climbing way up and diving off it. (Funny, but despite the popularity of Jackass and the X-Games, there’s still not much traffic up at the 10 meter level.) So I suppose I owe a debt of gratitude to that conceited prick.

And I suppose you’d think that after seminal experiences like that one, that I’d be in favor of the recent tendency to start kids roadracing at younger and younger ages, with the goal of feeding kids into world championship-level racing in their mid-teens. But I’m not.

One reason I don’t approve is that motorcycle road racing is inherently far too dangerous for anyone to participate until they can make an informed judgment of the risks involved. A thirteen or fourteen year-old who is already racing 125 GP bikes doesn’t fully understand those risks. Those kids are being launched on their “careers” at an age when it’s (at best) impossible to determine the degree to which they were influenced by their parents’ desires. At worst, they were completely driven by the need for parental acceptance.

Before you start composing your scathing email response, I’ll point out that I’m well aware that kids take part in lots of other organized activities where injury (even death) are possibilities. They play football and hockey; cheerlead and go on school camping trips, etc. If that’s your counter-argument, you win. Because in any argument between a genius and a moron, the moron always wins. And only a moron could possibly argue that those activities are “like” road racing in terms of risk.

Not that it matters whose idea it was to go racing. When I was a kid, I’d’ve given anything to have a dad that’d buy me an RS125. But kids that age can’t make a mature decision about racing, or anything else. That’s why when they show up at the track, they don’t sign their own waivers. Their parents sign the waivers. For that matter, when the dentist finds a cavity in one of those kid’s mouths he asks their parents if he should fill it right away, he doesn’t get the kid’s opinion.

Still disagree with me? Then how would you feel about your tween or early teen becoming a porn actor or working in the sex trade? Oh wait, that’s not just up to you as a parent. Every civilized country has laws defining a minimum age of sexual consent. Because influenced by adults, media, peer pressure, etc., and left to their own devices, teenagers will willingly choose to do things without fully understanding the risks and consequences.

Beware the youth cult

I don’t even like children, so I don’t know why I’m trying to protect them. But there’s something inherently seductive about the idea that you can only achieve greatness in any field of endeavor by starting very young. Partly, it gives the rest of us an excuse for our own failings. In any subculture, there’s a tendency to simplify complex moral distinctions by confusing some single skill (however complex) with inherent human value. Child prodigies lend themselves to this because they’re obviously “special.”

It’s true that Valentino, Dani, and even Nicky were essentially trained from birth to be motorcycle racers. But I don’t believe that there’s anything about the sport that inherently means they had to start that early to reach the top level. Road racing is not like women’s (read: “prepubescent girls”) gymnastics, where a set of tits would make many moves impossible. Those new MotoGP bikes are cramped, but you can still fit on them after your testes have dropped.

I am sure that for every child prodigy in motorcycle racing you could (if you looked) find a Troy Bayliss; a guy with as much or more talent who did a bit of schoolboy motocross, then did other things; surfed and raced bicycles, and came to road racing when he was old enough to have a driver’s license, having actually worked to buy his first “real” motorcycle. (Bayliss was still a club racer in Oz, well into his twenties.)

As motorcycles get more adjustable and complex, and as teams get larger, slightly more mature riders are more likely to have the communications, interpersonal and teamwork skills needed to function at the highest level. The thing is that if MotoGP’s gatekeepers–the team managers, sponsors, agents and promoters–convince themselves that they “need” a gifted (as opposed to “earned it”?) young rider, no one over 20 will get a look. And in a sport where you’re only as good as your equipment and support, the commandments of the youth cult (Thou shalt not yet need to shave) will quickly become self-fulfilling prophecies.

Indeed, as those gatekeepers look amongst the lower echelons for future talent, it’s easy to see a 14 year-old who’s running at the front of a 19 year-old pack and conclude that he’s the one with natural potential. But if that youngster has 500 races under his belt and a 19 year old next to him has been in 50 races, the older kid is the one who’ll first cut the next second off his lap time. When kids learn complex skills very young they learn them deeply and well. Their “natural level” is that much higher. But they often learn those skills completely unconsciously, so when they do reach a plateau, they’re unable to think their way to the next level.

It’s not as though starting the kids young gives them a longer career, either. Careless Chucker–oops, my mistake, I meant to say Carlos Checa–notwithstanding, you’ve only got so many crashes in you. The younger you start, the younger you’ll quit. I doubt anyone will ever race MotoGP until he reaches the FIM’s mandatory retirement age (which, in case you’re curious is 50.)

Pushing that average entry age down five years just lowers the average age, and the average retirement age, by the same number of years. And that leads me to something fundamentally unfair about youth cults. (And it’s not that I’m a no-talent, arthritic, middle-aged, ex advertising writer. Although that’s pretty crappy, too.)

Paid pro racers are the tiny tip of a pyramid. Below them are self-funded pros, amateurs and novices. Even at the very base of that pyramid most riders are already in their twenties. I hope that those guys at the base of the pyramid aren’t hoping to make it in MotoGP because they’re virtually all destined to flunk out before reaching that level. Luckily, there are other good reasons to race. But it’s not good for the sport if, as a 20 year-old amateur, you can’t even dream about breaking out.

Imagine that “the system”–pocket bikes at 5, Metrakits at 10, Red Bull Rookies Cup at 13, a 125 ride at 15 (in that class, the mandatory retirement age is 28!), 250s at 16, and a MotoGP ride at 18–serves to select ultra-talented, charismatic champions. Oh, will managers and sponsors leap to the conclusion that that’s the new path all champions must follow. Events like the WERA finals or the GSX-R Cup–that used to be great talent spotting opportunities–will be dead ends.

All future champions will be drawn from a pool of people who have only an accident of birth to thank. If their dads are obsessed (and frankly irresponsible) parents who’ll set them on the championship track where they can have 100 mph crashes before they’re 12, they’ll have the chance to get to the top. Other kids–with just as much desire, talent, drive, and potential–will have parents who say, “Not until you’re older,” or “I can’t afford to pay for it.” 

Kids who have to get jobs, save up money to buy race bikes… those kids will enter the sport on a career track that simply doesn’t lead to MotoGP. That would suck.

In my mind, as I composed this argument, I imagined a different way of doing things. I imagined a different kind of talent search in which some sponsor would look for riders over 20, 25, shit, even over 30, who have paid their own dues. Club racers. Grassroots guys (and gals) who currently toil in obscurity. Give the fastest over-20 guy a 125 wild card ride, the over-25 guy a 250 wild card, and have the over-30 guy get a MotoGP test-riding deal. I can hear IRTA saying, “Over our dead bodies,” already. But although I can’t prove it, I know that there are people out there, now utterly anonymous, who could do the business if they were given a chance. They just weren’t born with a silver throttle in their hand.

Zero + 13: What did I get right, or wrong?

As I was preparing to ride the new Zero FXE earlier this summer, I was put in the mind of my first exposure to Zero, in June of 2008—13 years earlier.

As I recall, a friend (and ex-AFM President) Chris Van Andel made an introduction to someone on Zero’s fledgling engineering staff. I’d been covering something at Laguna Seca, and made a side trip to Scotts Valley where I briefly rode an early Zero X.

At that point, Zero still just had a handful of employees; it’d sold about 100 motorcycles direct to consumers. I mentioned it a Backmarker column (then, it appeared on the late, lamented Road Racer X website) saying, “Even though I only rode it for a few minutes on the streets around their workshop, I’ve never gotten off a bike that I though was more important.”

Later in that post I added, “I have to say that the… silent running would be easy to get used to.” That’s something that still occurs to me every time I make the transition from an ICE to an EV 'cycle.

Neal Saiki, Zero’s founder, was later forced out of the company. But it’s more professional operation now than it was when it delivered that first test bike with rounded-off knobbies.

I immediately pitched a full test to Bike magazine in the UK, telling the editor that I’d get an exclusive on the most important motorcycle he’d never heard of

Since I lacked the dirt chops to really evaluate it, I brought in my friend and road race endurance partner Micky Dymond as a “wrist”. He’d been AMA 125 outdoor champ, raced MXGP in Europe, and was then the AMA unlimited supermoto champ.

I told Zero, “Bike is the one magazine every other moto magazine editor subscribes to, so you’ll get follow-on exposure everywhere—and if you’re smart you’ll pay attention to what Micky tells you, because I can promise you that you don’t have a test rider at his level.”

Thus convinced, Zero trucked a few bikes down to a practice track in SoCal, and the company’s first real magazine test was on...

Here’s the writeup I sent to Bike, which ran under the title, “This Zero is really something” 

Last summer, oil sold for over $125 a barrel and ecologists fretted over the prospect of the arctic ice cap melting for the first time in history. No surprise, then, that there was a sharp increase in interest in electric vehicles. Go ahead, roll your eyes–I don’t blame you. Because so far, electric vehicles have been… boring.

You’re imagining golf carts or those rolling chairs old, fat chain-smokers use to troll the aisles at Wal-Mart. You think that if–thanks to fossil fuel shortages or pollution control–we’re ever restricted to two-wheeled versions of those, please shoot me now.

That’s what I thought, too. Then through a friend of a friend, I was allowed into the skunkworks at Zero Electric Motorcycles, near Santa Cruz, California. Santa Cruz was one of the hotbeds of the mountain bike revolution in the’80s and it’s just over the coastal hills from Silicon Valley. Appropriately, Zero tapped into both cultures, combining ultra-lightweight design and components from the bicycle industry with sophisticated software and high-tech engineering that maximizes battery life. Zero definitely had that high-tech startup company, we’ll-all-soon-be-millionaires atmosphere. 

Another thing in the atmosphere was the smell of cold pizza. That odor, and a very large punching bag in the middle of the assembly area, told me all I needed to know about nerds putting in long hours and occasionally getting real frustrated.

But the work’s paying off, in the form of the Zero ‘X’ electric motorcycle. It might look a bit odd and spindly, but it’s the first electric vehicle–with two- or four-wheels–with a performance envelope the meaningfully threatens its gas-powered rivals.

Whose idea was this? Meet Neal Saiki, Zero’s Chief Technology Officer. After graduating from California Polytechnical University with a Masters degree in Aeronautical Engineering, Saiki went to work for National Aeronautical and Space Administration. Although his principal work was in high altitude research vehicles, he was exposed to NASA research & development projects with terrestrial applications too–specifically projects on zero-emissions vehicles. In the course of that work, he became familiar with a type of small, rare-earth-magnet electric motor developed to power secret stuff, like torpedoes.

“I always thought,” he told me, “that if they released that technology for civilian applications, it would make a great motorcycle motor.”

An avid motorcyclist and mountain biker, Saiki bailed from NASA and switched to a different–still zero-emissions–track. He started designing downhill mountain bikes. The frames he designed for Haro, Santa Cruz, and Mountain Cycle were used to win World Championship-level races. Those projects also familiarized him with the range of high-quality, ultra-light components being created for the bicycle market, and the specialist fabricators in the Silicon Valley region.

When those lightweight motors became available, he realized that, as he put it, “All I needed was a battery, and I could make an electric motorcycle.” It wasn’t really that simple, the lithium-ion batteries that power things like your laptop generate a lot of heat. Saiki knew his battery would have to dump about 300 amps of power at peak load. Remember those Mac laptop batteries that were recalled a couple of years ago? They were ‘experiencing thermal runaway’–that’s what high-tech engineers call catching fire–at loads two orders of magnitude lower.

Saiki developed and patented a way of packing the cells and controlling them that makes his ‘Zenergy’ battery the smallest/lightest/most powerful/coolest one ever. I picked one up in his workshop; it’s roughly the size and weight of a car battery. But it will power a 20 horsepower motor at full load for almost two hours. It’s environmentally friendly, too. It contains no toxic metals and is rated for normal landfill disposal.

20 horsepower may not sound like much, but it doesn’t tell nearly all the story. Electric motors make peak torque at all rpm. And they make a lot of it. The Zero X weighs 140 pounds–a hundred pounds less than a 250cc four stroke motocrosser. It’s geared for a top speed of about 55mph, and it will stick with one of those 250s in a drag race until it reaches its top speed.

It’s interesting, to say the least, to ride. It’s set up like a twist-and-go scooter, with footpegs but no foot controls. There’s a rear brake on the left ’bar, and front brake on the right one, as well as a “throttle” on the right twistgrip. There’s no gearbox.

The bike has a sort of key that operates a master power switch. The Zero dudes call that ‘arming’ the bike. When you turn that key, a row of LEDs lights up to indicate the amount of time you have left on the battery. The bike doesn’t make any sound at all when it’s armed, which is potentially dangerous. If you reflexively blip the throttle, it’ll take off on you. That’s been a problem when one person hands the bike off to another.

I rode it in the street and around Zero’s workshop. I thought it handled about like a similarly-proportioned dirt bike, although I have to say that the light weight and silent running would sure be easy to get used to. In the full power/full speed modes, the motor feels a lot more powerful than 20 hp. Throttle response is instant, and it will lift the front wheel with very little provocation. The closest thing I can relate it to might be a 250cc two-stroke trials bike. 

Although a few hundred of the bikes have been sold in 2008, no magazine’s had access to a bike for a full test until now. I twisted arms until the company agreed to have someone meet me at the Apex supercross training track east of Los Angeles. It was a tricky thing for me to test, since my background is road racing, and because there’s nothing to compare it to. To get an expert’s second opinion, I brought in the best dirt rider on my speed dial: Micky Dymond.

Micky was a little weirded out by the Zero at first. The brakes felt soft, and the ‘throttle’–actually a twistgrip connected to a rheostat–had some play in it. After a few cautious laps, he came in and said, “It’s awkward, and strange, without noise it’s hard to gauge my speed, and there’s no engine braking.”

Then, it started to grow on him. “At first, when I opened the throttle a little bit, it just exploded. But it’s completely linear. And I thought I needed more brakes, but it’s so light that I can brake much deeper into the corners.” 

The standard fork and shock are adjustable for preload only. “You can definitely bottom them out,” said Micky, “But you can bottom anything out; these aren’t too bad.”

He also praised the overall balance of the bike. Like every serious rider who’s tried it, an hour into his test ride, he wanted one of his own, so that he could practice in areas near his home that were open to mountain bikes but off-limits for motorcycles.

Then, emboldened to try some bigger jumps, Micky went out and promptly blew the rear shock apart. Oh well. In fairness, no one at Zero claims their bike’s a motocrosser. The bike(s) we tested were standard 2008 versions. The frame is welded alloy, with geometry similar to a downhill mountain bike’s. The chain, suspension, wheels and tires look like downhill bike components, but in fact all of them are custom-engineered to Zero’s specs. The bike can be ordered with your choice of two motors, one about 10% more powerful than the other.

As tested, the Zero X is intended for use as a trail bike. Based on my own experience and what I’ve seen, I believe that I could handle more challenging terrain on the Zero than I could on a good 250cc four-stroke trailie. It would make a great green-laner, or training bike for any motorcycle racer. In the state of California, electric motorcycles that are limited to speeds under 30 miles per hour–as this bike is, at the flick of a switch–are legally treated as bicycles, making it road-legal even though it lacks lights, a speedo, or horn.

A Supermoto-styled commuter bike, dubbed the Zero ‘S’, will be released soon (it may have been unveiled before this reaches the newsstands.) It will have lights and a speedometer and be fully road-legal in the U.S. As this story went to press, the details were still secret, but Neal told me that the street bike will have a 50% larger battery and be geared for a top speed of 70 miles an hour. That should yield a minimum range of 150 miles; potentially a lot further, depending on your average speed.  

The reason that range is dependant on speed is that 80% or more of the work done by a motorcycle engine is displacing air, and air resistance increases with the square of velocity. That’s why the fuel mileage of the motorcycle you’re riding these days plummets as your speed increases.

The remainder of the work done by the motor is almost all proportional to the mass being accelerated or lifted up hills. That’s why Neal Saiki was obsessed with keeping the first Zero as light as possible–and why it’s at least 100 pounds lighter than a competing gas-engined motorcycle. Keeping it light also takes pressure off the brakes and suspension.

Therein lies the fundamental dilemma: You’d like to have a larger battery for more range, a more powerful motor, a gearbox, adjustable fork and shock… but for every pound you add in the form of those improvements, you pay at least a 12-ounce tax in sapped performance.

Think of the evolution of sport bikes: in the early 1960s, a top rider on a Manx Norton could lap the TT course at 100 miles an hour. That was on a bike that made just under 50hp and weighed about 300 pounds. Over the next 40 years, despite course improvements and huge leaps in tire, suspension, and brake technology, the course record improved only 25%. That was all, even though the bikes being raced in the top TT classes tripled their horsepower and fuel consumption.

Right now, even Saiki’s absolutely state-of-the-art Li-ion battery has only 10% of the energy density of gasoline. That’s to say fully charged, it contains only 10% of the energy that you could extract from 40 pounds of gasoline.

Because of that, the right design for a new electric motorcycle can’t draw much from its gas-powered predecessors. (And it’s why the Tesla electric sports car is doomed to failure, despite intense media hype. Tesla is using a very conventional car’s rolling chassis. It’s far too heavy. And since the car company doesn’t have access to Saiki’s–literally!–cool battery technology, it has to water-cool the batteries, adding even more weight and water-pump drag.)

Luckily, Saiki understands keeping things light. In university, he led a team that built the world’s first human-powered helicopter. It had wings as long as a Boeing 737’s and weighed 97 pounds. Most the Zero’s frame is made of ultra-thin wall square-section alloy tubing. Take the battery out of it, and it weighs only 50% more than a downhill mountain bike.

Right now, there are still only 30 employees at Zero. Although virtually every component is custom-designed to Saiki’s specs, Zero is a motorcycle assembler, not a manufacturer. All the components are built elsewhere and shipped in to the small Santa Cruz workshop, where bikes are assembled one by one. That system’s worked fine so far, allowing the company to sell a few hundred bikes over the Internet. But the potential market for a commuter version’s easily 10,000+ units/year. That’s a lot of Zeros, with capital ‘Z’.

Looking back at groundbreaking inventions, there have been plenty of companies with great patents that failed. The plodding patience, attention to detail, discipline and long attention span required to ramp up mass production, organize a dealer network, and build a global brand are not found in brainstorming inventors.  

That was on my mind when Zero delivered three bikes for me to test, and they arrived dirty. None of them had fully charged batteries, or fresh tires. If you want to build an electric dirt bike, it would be a completely wrongheaded approach to just take a Honda CRF and replace the gas tank with a battery, and swap motors. If you want to build an electric motorcycle company, however, it’d be wise to learn that when Honda delivers a test bike, it’s pristine.

I put it to Saiki and Gene Banman, the company’s CEO, that the Silicon Valley business model is not to commercialize your invention, anyway. Rather, you lock up the patents and prove your concept, then wait for an established company to buy you out. Both men denied that was their strategy. But I can guarantee you that it will not be long before Honda and Harley-Davidson come a-courtin’ and when they do they won’t bring flowers and chocolates, they’ll bring very large cheques with a lot of small ‘z’ zeros.

In the long run, the writing’s on the wall for gasoline-powered motorcycles. We could, of course, keep using them for decades, until the financial and/or environmental cost of burning gas finally becomes unbearable. At that point, as imperfectly as free markets work, someone will sell us an alternative.

But what if the solution wasn’t adopted because gas was impossible to afford or because we’d triggered environmental chaos? What if it was just better? And happened to be clean... Looking at the Zero X today, I’m now betting that we’ll go electric by choice, not necessity.

 OK, so I got a few things wrong

I suppose Tesla wasn’t doomed to failure. I was wrong that Zero would become an acquisition target. And I was wrong that increasing fuel prices would be a significant factor in influencing the uptake of EVs.

But I was right about a lot.

Bastille Day Blues aka The Naked Frenchman

Brian O’Shea’s 1979 Honda RS1000 was one of three built by Honda’s Racing Services Corporation—the predecessor of HRC. The machine was raced in the original Bol d’Or before returning for the inaugural Bol d’Or Classic almost 25 years later. If you appreciate this story, click on any of the photos and buy one of my books on Amazon. Clicking on this photo will take you to the Amazon page for “On Motorcycles: The Best of Backmarker”—a collection that includes this story.

You can also listen to this story on Soundcloud

The French have a penchant for endurance. Witness the Tour de France bicycle race, or the Paris-Dakar. It’s no surprise the 24-hour Bol d’Or, held every fall, remains the country’s highest-profile motorcycle race . 

As big as the ‘Bol’ is now, its heyday was 30 [now more like 50—MG] years ago. Kevin Cameron called endurance racing in the ‘70s “the privateer’s last stand” meaning that it was the last time truly independent teams competed for an FIM world road racing title.

To recapture that glory, the Bol’s organizers created the Bol d’Or Classic in 2003. Since a full 24 hours would be too much to expect from motorcycles from that period (to say nothing of vintage riders) the format of the race was three one-hour sessions spread over 24 hours. Two-rider teams were mandatory; the winner was determined on cumulative mileage. As a bonus, the format offered spectators not one, but three Le Mans-style starts.

Patrick Bodden, was the child of a French mother and an American GI. Raised in France, he vividly remembered seeing his first Bol in 1975. So when he heard about the inaugural Bol d’Or Classic, he was determined to provide an American presence.

He already had a bike in mind. Through his Heritage Racing AHRMA team, he’d met Connecticut-based superbike collector Brian O’Shea. O’Shea’s collection is focused on historic AMA superbikes, but he’d acquired a 1979 Honda factory RS1000. Only three of these were ever built in endurance specs; Honda sent one each to France, Britain, and Australia. O’Shea’s bike was raced by Ron Haslam and Alex George at the Bol d’Or, amongst other races. It was later shipped to the US, where it was used at one Daytona test, then left to languish. So a return trip would be something of a homecoming for the bike, as well as Heritage Racing. Once O’Shea had agreed to the loan of his RS1000, only three things were missing: the two riders, and a budget. 

Reg Pridmore’s definitely a Californian now, though he was born in London. He was the first-ever AMA Superbike champion, riding a BMW R90S. He also rode an R100 for the French BMW importer in the 1975 Bol d’Or. Charlie Williams is known as one of the best-ever TT riders, but he rode Honda RCBs (the predecessor of O’Shea’s RS1000) for Honda in several Bols. After Bodden persuaded those two to give the Classic a go, the rider corps seemed qualified.

Sponsorship came from the American Honda Rider’s Club, and Champion Honda of Charleston, North Carolina; Shell UK provided fuel. Thanks to them, Heritage Racing’s team came together at the Circuit de Nevers-Magny Cours, in the Burgundy region of central France, on the Bastille Day weekend in mid-July, 2003. I helped only a little; since I was living in Paris at the time, I handled some logistics at the French end. Mainly, I rented a van from over in the 15th arrondissement and drove to Charles de Gaulle airport to pick them, and the bike, up.

The first practice sessions on Friday took place in blazing heat  (the summer broke all French temperature records.) Charlie Williams was first out for Heritage Racing, and brought the bike in noting that the brakes felt soft, and the motor seemed rich. While Williams slumped in the cool of the garage, with a towel soaked in icewater around his neck, it was Pridmore’s turn in the leather sauna.

Denis Malterre is not naked, but he’s not shy either. Clicking this photo will take you to another racing story—”Riding Man”, my memoir of racing in the Isle of Man TT.

In the next-but-one garage, a guy fettling a pair of Bimota HB-9s had stripped to his underpants. Not shorts, or a bathing suit, but actual Y-front briefs, on body as pallid as a frog’s belly, except where it had already been sunburned. (He’d been outside in the line up to register for the event, in the same utterly unselfconscious state, at high noon.) His ‘team’, which was on the entry list as Forza Bimota, seemed to be sponsored by a lap-dancing club, that had sent along a few girls, dressed for their part Bimota T-shirts the size of Barbie clothes. 

“Why don’t we have any hookers?” O’Shea asked, in a tone suggesting that by comparison, Bodden had already failed as a team manager. A pretty-but-world-weary blonde tanned in the doorway of their garage, near a hand-scrawled sign that read “T-Shirts – 15 Euro – Aidez-nous!” (Help us!)

All in all, they made quite an impression.

“Is that a French thing? Wearing nothing but your underpants in public?” Pridmore wondered out loud. Bodden (who, if truth be told had become downright defensive about post-Iraq Franco-American relations) was quick to say “No!!” 

(I’d already noticed, in the check-in line, Patrick positioning himself to block his team’s view of the near-naked Frenchman. When we got installed and discovered that the garage walls were see-through wire fencing and the underpants crew was in plain site from our space, Bodden scowled in their general direction.)

Brian O’Shea seemed genuinely disappointed that Patrick Bodden hadn’t brought a cadre of strippers for our team. If you think this photo is in bad taste, definitely do not click on it, or you’ll be taken to the Amazon page for my most popular book, The Bathroom Book of Motorcycle Trivia.

Although Patrick had been visibly proud when others came over to admire the RS1000, when underpants man and his rider, a kid in his 20s with dreadlocks down his back walked over to look at the it, poking and marveling, Bodden bristled. For a moment, it seemed he was about to snap, “Get away from there!” but instead he muttered something to himself, in an ‘Inspector Clouseau’ accent.

After another session, with the riders complaining of a dreadful flat spot in the middle of the rev range, Bodden and O’Shea set about removing the carburetors to see why – despite running the smallest jets O’Shea had on hand – the motor was still rich. 

While the float levels were being set, the riders compared Bol d’Or notes. The race had never been lucky for either of them. Pridmore remembered the RS100 as being a bit of an oil-burner. “They were putting some oil in each time we stopped to refuel, but not as much as it was burning,” he recalled the inevitable conclusion “it stopped once and for all somewhere around the sixth hour.”

Williams rode Honda RCBs in World Championship endurance events from 1973 to ‘78, winning at Barcelona and Nurburgring, but scoring only one finish in five attempts at the Bol d’Or. “I remember going around Virage du Musee, one of those years when the Bol was held at Le Mans. The rotor had broken off the end of the crankshaft, and broken through the cases, dumping all the oil onto the bike’s back tire, and that was the end of that,” he said simply.

On Saturday after timed qualifying, it seemed Pridmore’s and Williams’ run of Bol luck had changed. Pridmore’s best lap, at 2:14.8, would have been good enough for tenth on the grid. Williams, though, had put the team into the fourth spot thanks to a 2:06-flat. 

In front of the U.S. entry, there was a legendary Godier-Genoud Kawasaki, piloted by Alain Genoud and Gilles Hampe (one of France’s most charming and fastest motorcycle cops.) There was also a brutal but effective Yamaha TZ750; “It won’t go the distance,” Heritage Racing told themselves. Finally, there was a deceptively quick Moto Guzzi Le Mans, which again set Bodden to muttering.

On Sunday afternoon, Charlie Williams lined up on the far side of the track with 40-some other riders. The flag dropped, and there was an eerie moment of silence, but for the patter of feet in racing boots, as the riders ran across to their machines.

Brian O’Shea (left) watches as Charlie Williams’ long-time mechanic Emyr Roberts helps fit the RS1000’s controls to suit the TT star. Clicking this pic will take you straight to the Amazon page for Volume 2 of my Bathroom Book of Motorcycle Trivia.

O’Shea walked down to turn one, and returned a little shocked after seeing Williams riding his irreplaceable motorcycle in hot pursuit of ex-world champ Jean-Claude Chimaron. “Man!” he said, “those guys are having a duel.”

According to the rules of the race, rider changes had to take place between the 20th and 40th minute of each session. Pridmore brought the first hour to a close without any trouble, and the first official score sheet showed Heritage Racing in a respectable 6th place overall.

Sunday evening, the night session. Again, Williams got off to a good start, but after a few laps, the announcer mentioned that he was off the track at “180”, a hairpin turn about as far from the pit straight as he could get. With no additional information from the loudspeakers, Heritage Racing didn’t know if he’d crashed or broken down. Bodden trotted off to race control, where the entire track (built to Formula One car specs) was covered by a CCTV system. In the cool, dark control booth, facing a bank of video monitors, he watched Williams pushing the big Honda up a long hill. Meanwhile, O’Shea had taken off at a run, back along the track’s service road, hoping to find him – but unable to understand any of the track announcements, or the yells of French corner workers.

“Here he comes!” someone yelled. Williams – soaked in sweat but now back on the machine – was pushed the length of the pit lane by Bodden and O’Shea. Hope springs eternal in endurance racing. Could it just be fuel starvation? The fuel tank vent hose seemed kinked. O’Shea ripped it off, and punched the starter. It started all right – it started making loud metal-on-metal banging noises inside the motor. Pridmore pulled off his leathers. 

Williams – once he’d cooled off – evaporated into the night air, while Bodden and O’Shea considered an apparently hopeless situation. The team had brought virtually no spare parts, as most were simply unavailable, “As much as this looks like a street bike motor,” bemoaned O’Shea “inside it’s so different.” 

Morosely, they performed a rudimentary compression check by jamming wads of tissue into the spark plug holes. When the motor was turned over (the electric starter, which Honda included for dead-engine Le Mans starts, came in handy) three cylinders blew their wads, but #1 generated no compression at all. Peering down the spark plug hole with a microlight was inconclusive. They’d have to pull the head to know what was wrong.

Problem #2: Honda had packed the motor in so tightly that even removing the magnesium valve covers meant dropping the motor onto the lower frame rails. One by one, the garages were falling silent, and dark. Pridmore and Williams wandered back in, staying only long enough to say that they were headed back to their hotel. 

Bodden and O’Shea pored over Brian’s copy of the RS manual. The oft-photocopied sheaf included pages of setup notes, handwritten by engine builder Udo Gietl who worked for American Honda at the time of the machine’s one Daytona test.

They took turns: one would find the situation impossible, while the other proposed some solution that was merely improbable. “I’m sitting here, and I can’t think of anything that’s gonna work, and it sucks the wind out of me,” said Brian. 

“Has anyone walked through the swap meet? Maybe there’s a CB1100F valve set down there.” Patrick countered. “If the valves were the right size, the head might work converted to shim-over-bucket…” then his voice—and optimism—waned in mid-sentence. 

That went on ‘till midnight. Through the garage door, somewhere off on the horizon, Bastille Day fireworks went off. From the infield, behind the darkened and empty grandstand, came the sounds of a band covering old American rhythm and blues songs. 

If the two of them had ever given up hope at the same moment, the story would have ended right there. But a sentence stuck out at the top of the parts list, “The motor is based on the CB750/CB900F series.” 

Brian: “What if we could just take the head off a CB900, and drop it straight on?”

Next door but one garage, the guy in his underpants was still puttering around. Their team’s spare Bimota had just such motor. Patrick went over to ask if they could try it. Underpants man didn’t hesitate before answering, “Bien sur.” Of course. The decision was made to at least pull the RS head. If there was a serviceable piston left in cylinder #1, the next step would be to pull the CB900 head, and see if it would swap onto the RS1000 barrels. The Bimota was pushed around into Heritage Racing’s garage, where underpants man quietly went about prepping the machine as a donor.

2:00 a.m., and the last lights burning anywhere in the pit lane were in garage #39. A few moths fluttered and clunked around the neon tubes. Bikers were drawn in, too; walking from paddock parties back to wherever they planned to sleep. Mostly, they stayed a few minutes and kept a respectful distance, but if there was heavy lifting to be done, or oil to wipe up, they helped, then slipped away in the next lull with a quiet “Bon courage.” 

Brian O’Shea, at right, was assisted by two German bikers who—after a sleepless night in the garage—left in the wee hours so they could ride back to Germany and make it into work on Monday morning. Click here to go to the Amazon page for Riding Man. (Thanks!)

The underpants guy was in the background, not wanting to get in the way, but ready to help if he could. “Ca, c’est la passion,” he said, smiling to himself in a way that conveyed  there was nowhere else in the world that he’d rather be. Later he said (I’m translating for you here, because he spoke no English at all) “No matter what happens, there’s already enough to make a beautiful memory.”

Maybe, but the cylinder head was ugly. One of the original Ti exhaust valves broke and slammed into the roof of the combustion chamber. Luckily, it sliced into the aluminum head and stuck there; while the piston crown was scarred, it looked (barely) serviceable.

The kid with the dreadlocks turned out to be underpants man’s son. He came in shyly, too. “Le carter est magnesium?” he asked. Brian got the gist of his question, and gestured towards the pan from the RS dry sump, which was sitting on the work bench, “Pick it up.” The kid did. “Putain!” he said, raising his eyebrows and grinning at his father. He had to ride the next day, so he went off looking for sleep, but his dad stayed, watching.

At 2:54, the first wrench was thrown. The cam chain slipped down just far enough for a few links to kink and jam under the lower sprocket. They jerked  and cursed like Tourette’s patients for five minutes before it came free.

3:33 a.m.. Patrick, who speaks fluent French, turned to the guy in his underpants (whose name we’d learned was Denis Malterre) and asked him “So, where are you from?”

He was from Ault, a little town near Dieppe which is in the upper left hand corner of a map of France. It’s a tough port town, down on its luck now that there’s a tunnel under the English Channel. 

Denis Malterre was a ‘cantonnier’. We didn’t recognize the word, but he mimed his job,  and we recognized it; he swept the local streets. Lest you think that he drove a street sweeper, I’ll point out that he did it with a broom. These guys, who wear orange high-visibility coveralls, are fixtures in every French town. You can imagine that it’s not exactly a high-paying job. It’s about the lowest-paying job in France.

Denis Malterre attended every Bol d’Or from 1970 to 1986.“All my life,” he told us “I dreamed of being on this side of the straightaway” (meaning part of the event, not part of the crowd.) As a street sweeper, with no background in racing, he may as well have aspired to ride an Apollo moon rocket. In 1986, he was injured in a terrible accident; his wife was killed. Then he knew: the dream wasn’t going to come true. 

The street sweeper raised his son, alone. The dreadlocked kid became a biology prof in Switzerland. 

Denis Malterre’s pair of Bimotas were both bought as wrecks, out of junkyards, for less than a thousand francs each. (Call that about $150 a piece; i.e., they were total writeoffs.) It took 15 years of street sweeping to save enough money to restore and race prep them. This event (for which a full race license was not required) was the little family’s once in a lifetime shot. “For me,” Denis said “racing is impossible. But now I hand the baton to my son.”

When I translated this story for Brian, a tear literally rolled down his cheek. While he himself had – more than once – drained his bank account to save some aging superbike from the crusher, he was rich by the standards of the hamlet of Ault’s street sweeper. And Patrick was spending money he didn’t really have, running up his credit card, to field the Heritage Racing team, too. Again, no comparison; he had credit cards. Yet it was the French street sweeper – his Bimotas had stickers supporting the French communist party – who, without a second thought, volounteered to lend ‘Les Americains’ his cylinder head.

After all that, the CB900 head did – to mild surprise – drop right on the RS1000 barrels. At 5:00 a.m., Denis ran over to his pit, returning with a beautiful torque wrench, and we heard the “crea-ak, click” of the head being tightened down. It was too late, and everyone was too tired, to reinstall the motor. Heritage Racing needed a few hours sleep. Denis slipped away, and the sun came up as Patrick and Brian drove their rented van back to the hotel. They were giddy with fatigue. Everything they said or saw along the way was #ü¢&ing hilarious.

Monday morning. The trickle of curious bikers from the previous night picked up at garage 39. They whispered and pointed into an oily cardboard box shoved out of the way in a corner. The factory cylinder head had been ported by the legendary Jerry Branch, who had once tuned Kenny Roberts’ Yamaha flat trackers. Now, it looked as forlorn as some hunted deer, dangling off the tailgate of a cowboy’s pickup truck with its dead tongue lolling. 

When the time came to wrestle the motor into the frame, with maybe an hour to go before the final session, there was no shortage of hands to lift it into place. Then there was a lull; a weird feeling that was hard to place until you realized there was no noise, no bikes running, no one even seemed to be talking up or down the pit lane. Brian looked at Patrick and gathered his nerve and pushed the Honda’s starter button and it roared back into life as though nothing had ever been wrong. There was cheering and applause from all ‘round. 

“Wow,” said Brian under his breath “that’s never happened to me before.” He didn’t mean that motors he’d reassembled never started right off the button; he meant that a crowd of spectators had never burst into spontaneous applause when one of his engines had fired. The loudest cheer had come from over at Forza Bimota. Denis came over to shake hands.

In the Hollywood version of this story, Heritage Racing would win the race. But even a cursory examination of the compiled results from the night session made it obvious that was impossible now. Pridmore and Williams were in 31st place, 25 laps behind the Guzzi. (Ironically, TZ750 had lost its gearbox and would not come back out; had the Honda remained intact, a podium would’ve been on the cards.) 

The new plan was to baby the motor, and circulate. Just get to the checkered  flag. That, everyone repeated trying to believe it, would constitute a victory of sorts.

That was the plan. On the third and final drop of the green flag, Charlie stalled the bike. Somehow, it’d been gridded in second gear. The entire field streamed past him. You don’t win nine TTs without being a racer; the plan exploded in a red mist. 

Charlie passed 12 riders on the opening lap. Then eight more, in the next four corners. The track announcer went hyperbolic. Then, we heard a fateful “Williams has pulled off!” This time, he’d rolled to a stop at a spot where Patrick and Brian could see him, though it would be a two-mile run around the track perimeter to reach him. There was no point anyway; even at that range, Charlie’s body language made it clear the problem was terminal. Pridmore wriggled out of his leathers without turning a wheel. Again.

The race? The win went to the Guzzi, despite a late-session stop-and-go penalty for making their rider change outside the prescribed window. Forza Bimota, Denis Malterre’s private dream, with his son and his son’s childhood friend as riders, finished eighth in their only motorcycle race. Every team ahead of them had a real racing pedigree, as did most of the 30-plus teams that finished behind them.

“This has been,” the biology prof told me, “the weekend of my life.”

The Honda? Charlie finally arrived back in the garage with the bike, after baking in one of the circuit’s vans for well over an hour. He’d stripped his leathers down to his waist to avoid heatstroke. “It just tightened up,” he said. To emphasize it, he struck a little pose like a bodybuilder’s “crab” and made a sound, “Cr-r-ck”. Then he repeated, “It just tightened up.” Even his voice was tight, which is not at all like him.

As usual, people started loading up right away. Since taking off the borrowed CB900 head would involve removing the motor again, Patrick asked Denis (who was back in underpants, though not technically just underpants – he was also wearing a pair of white latex gloves) if it would be alright if they took it back to Connecticut on the bike, and returned it later. “Bien sur,” was the answer again, of course. After all, he’d only worked half his adult life to buy it. Of course he’d let a group of complete strangers fly away to America with it. 

Heritage Racing pretty much shut down the beer concession before even starting to pack. “Next year, I’m coming back with a cheater motor from hell,” Brian vowed. Finally, the RS was rolled into its shipping crate. Charlie headed back to his home in Cheshire, Pridmore and his girlfriend went off to do a little sightseeing, Patrick and Brian drove back to the freight terminal at Charles de Gaulle. 

In a final Freudian slip, Patrick and Brian left their little Bol d’Or Classic ‘participants’ trophy on the rental van’s dashboard when it was returned. After having traveled the longest distance, fielded the rarest of machines; after having their hopes raised and dashed, raised and dashed; after working through the night; after all that, no one deserved to see the checkered flag more. 

Except for Denis Malterre.

This story is dedicated to Malterre père et fils. It’s one of many great moto tales reproduced in On Motorcycles: The Best of Backmarker.

Annals of Journalism: Your phone's recording your driving habits. Also, turbans

Over the last several years I’ve written a few stories for the New York Times. As a result, PR firms have started pitching me stories. Most of their “stories that would be perfect for the Times” are pretty lame. As a freelancer, sending those queries would put me on the Times’ shit list. But every now and then a cold pitch seems interesting and I follow up.

I’ve worked in advertising and marketing and am generally OK with playing a game whose rules I know well. I don’t follow up if they’re pitching something they see as a positive story but I see as a negative one. IE, I don’t say, “Yeah sure, let’s talk,” then set out to use their information to write a scathing critique of their company or idea. I write lots of scathing critiques, but I originate them myself.

Twice in the last few months I’ve followed up what I thought were interesting leads and then been put in a tricky situation when stories that I initially thought would be positive or interesting took a darker turn and demanded a critical approach. 

I have doubts about the degree of protection provided by these turbans, but I think this subject is worthy of discussion.

Your phone is recording your driving (or riding) habits

 The first time, it was a story about distracted driving, until I was distracted by the source of the data. The pitch came from a PR firm working for a “Big Data” subsidiary of a major auto insurer.

This company’s PR firm contacted me to ask if I wanted to interview the CEO about data gathered on distracted driving across the U.S. Interestingly, the prevalence of distracted driving varies quite a lot from state to state. In fact, on vehicle-miles-traveled basis, drivers in the most-distracted states are about twice as likely to text and drive as drivers in the least-distracted states. And, there’s no obvious explanation in terms of population density or demographics, road congestion, or state traffic codes.

This seemed like a classic “Mark Gardiner” story, so I got the PR people to set up a call with the Big Data CEO. He told me that they hadn’t directly measured distraction. Rather they used any “sudden acceleration event” within one minute of texting as a proxy measure for distraction. That was fine as far as it went; basically, they were looking for vehicles that had slammed on the brakes soon after texting.

I’d assumed that since it was an insuretech business, the data had come from customers who’d signed up for usage-based insurance and, thus, chosen to have their behavior tracked. But a few minutes into our conversation, the CEO got my full attention when he blithely explained that the information had not come from insurance-specific apps or devices installed in the insureds’ cars—rather it had come from a variety of other apps that drivers happened to have installed on their phones. Two that he mentioned were Life 360 and WeatherBug.

Life 360 is an app that’s sold to parents as a way of monitoring their kids’ driving. Parents obviously know the app is tracking their kids but I doubt parents realize the app also lets other people track their kids—including people whose only connection with Life 360 is that they happened to buy a tranche of data. That’s even more true for an app like WeatherBug. That app obviously knows where you are; how else could it give you a location-specific forecast? But it’s not obvious why it should monitor, record, and sell your driving behavior.

I tried to play it cool; it was all I could do not to yell, “WAIT! STOP!! Did you just voluntarily admit that you’re gathering data on driving habits from customers who—faced with some 30,000-word User “Agreement” clicked “Accept”—but had no idea they’d agreed to share their driving habits?

Something in my voice probably betrayed my dismay, because the CEO was prompted to volunteer that, of course, the data was all anonymized. Anonymized, maybe. But not anonymous.

A few years ago, the New York Times bought a tranche of cell phone location data and reporters were easily able to identify many phone users. You don’t exactly have to be Alan Turing to de-anonymize it; the place your phone goes every night is likely your home; on workdays, your phone is probably with you at your place of employment.

The tranche of phone data the Times bought—curiouser and curiouser—included one anonymized number that tracked with the known location of Donald Trump. They easily identified that phone’s owner as a member of the Secret Service detail charged with protecting the President. Then, reporters identified the school where, from time to time, the agent picked up his (or her) child. Can you fucking imagine?

I hung up the phone realizing that the only story I wanted to write was one that might get the PR firm fired. For the next few weeks they followed up wondering when or where the story might run. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that I’d killed the story for their own good.

A turban for motorSikhlists

More recently, I got a pitch from a Toronto PR firm. I paid attention to that one because one protagonist in the story was an ad agency Creative Director (hey, I used to be one of those!) who’d teamed up with a product designer to create a safer turban for Sikh motorcyclists.

Sikhs are exempted from wearing crash helmets in several Canadian provinces. As far as I know, they are the only group with such an exemption. The rationale is that their religion insists on the wearing of a turban and a.) there’s no helmet made big enough to fit over an adult’s turban and b.) even if there was, a Sikh edict prohibits covering the turban.

Neither of the inventors was a motorcyclist, but they sought input from members of a Sikh motorcycle club and got input and assistance from a local Harley-Davidson dealer.

Again, I found myself conflicted. The inventors were nice; Sikhism is more palatable than most religions; the turban they invented, which is layered with “bullet-proof” fabric and 3DO-style soft armor, looks cool. The PR firm even released a bunch of videos in which articulate and sympathetic Sikhs described how thrilled they were after trying the prototypes.

The thing is, those few testers were only reporting how they felt about the new turban, compared to a traditional cloth one. The PR firm blithely promoted the story of a safety product invented by two guys who are neither motorcyclists nor helmet experts, who developed the product without any of the testing that precedes certification for new crash helmets.

I’d say, “No one has any idea whether it works or not,” but I do have an idea: It won’t work—at least not by any reasonable measure. Even if 6d used absolutely state-of-the-art technology to produce a helmet with the limited coverage and thickness of a turban, it would not meet modern standards.

I did end up writing about the turban for Sikh bikers in a story published in Common Tread, but Lance Oliver (CT’s editor) and I agonized over my treatment of the story.

In the end I justified the story to myself (and, hopefully, readers) by pointing out that the inventors weren’t claiming their turban was equivalent to a crash helmet, or that by inventing it they’d made motorcycling safe for observant Sikhs. They were just saying that it was safer than a regular turban. (Even that is conjecture at this point—as is the degree of protection afforded by an ordinary turban; that’s been the subject of several accident studies in India, but comparisons of head injuries in bare-headed vs. turbaned riders are inconclusive.)

Although it would have been easy to just climb up on my high ATGATT horse and rip the turban-for-motorcyclists idea to shreds, I accepted the challenge of covering a group of motorcyclists who for their own reasons want to ride but won’t wear helmets.

I’m ready to believe that the newfangled turban provides marginally better protection than a regular turban in at least some crashes—even though from my perspective if your religion prevents you from wearing a crash helmet, you’re bette off taking up a different hobby; maybe golf or tennis.

I concluded by arguing that in Canada, the baseline for what constitutes adequate protection has to be an approved crash helmet—that’s what the 98.5% of Canadians who aren’t Sikhs have to wear.

But I would endorse the use of the new turban in India. Motorcycles outnumber cars about 10:1 in Punjab, which is the only Indian state that is majority Sikh. Those riders aren’t riding for fun, like Canadians; In India, motorcycles are essential transportation. Sikhs there are under even more social pressure to eschew helmets, and as a consequence suffer head injuries at alarming rates. Even a slightly safer turban would save some lives there.

Otto's last ride

We took Lisa’s dog Otto to the vet for the last time this morning.

Almost exactly a year after I arrived to live with Lisa in Milwaukee. We’d only met online a couple of months earlier. Over and above the fact that I am old and we were both lonely, there were external arguments against taking things slow. I expected the worst of COVID and thought there was a good chance we’d be locked down over the winter; I didn’t think either of us should be home alone on election night if Trump won a second term; and I didn’t think she should be alone when Otto – at that point 15 years old, almost stone-deaf and already going blind – had to take his last ride.

His breed exists only to be lap dogs but soon after I got here Lisa told me, “He’s not much of a cuddler.” He never had been. I didn’t really want another dog at that point in my life but if I did and I was picking dogs, I would have picked Otto close to last. In spite of that, I bonded with him.

Marquette had in-person classes despite COVID, so there were a few days a week when Otto was my only company. We had a long, pleasant fall last year. In the middle of Lisa’s teaching days I took Otto for very, very slow walks around the block.

Sometime towards the onset of winter, Otto had a painful eye infection that put paid to whatever was left of his vision. He could see light and dark, but that was it. At night, he got anxious. After 15 years of sleeping on Lisa’s bed, he preferred the office, where I left a light on for him.

We didn’t think he’d last the winter; we made an appointment to euthanize the little guy. But after getting the eye pain under control he seemed to bounce back a bit. Strangely, he continued to understand eye contact. After going outside to poo, he always got a treat. Even blind, he would “look” up expectantly. I wouldn’t call it begging; it was more like insisting.

Next to her, he’s been my number one conversational partner in Milwaukee. Not that he responded or even heard me. Other dogs look up and think, “That’s directed at me, he didn’t say ‘walk’ or ‘treat’ but I’ll wag my tail just in case.” Not Otto. Interactions with him were very one-way even by pet owners’ lopsided standards. People always project emotions onto their dogs, but he was pretty much a black hole in terms of reflecting anything back.

And yet...

I dimly recall research that took place in Japan, which has the world’s oldest population. Someone built simple robots that periodically demanded attention. These were distributed to old people living alone. The experiment studied the bonds that robot-keepers developed with their robots, which proved remarkably similar to those that pet owners formed.

My relationship with Otto reminded me of that study. If he was downstairs and wanted to go up, he barked and I carried him up, until he barked again to go down. If he hadn’t eaten for a while, I picked him up and carried him to his food bowl. It took the instincts of a poker player to spot his tell for, “I need to poo,” so I frequently took him outside to no avail. He was just skin and bones so winter poops first called for me to dress him. At any point in my earlier life if you’d told me, “The day will come when you’ll not mind dressing your dog,” I’d’ve laughed at you.

I admit that I was surprised he survived the winter and again when we bought a house and he managed to navigate the new place by smell alone. But last week it was time. He wasn’t whimpering or panting; there were no signs that he was in serious pain, but his body language never got to neutral.

I’d be projecting if I said he was always sad, but he sure as hell was rarely happy. As summer approached he become anxious again come nightfall but for some reason was unwilling to lie down. Maybe lying down hurt him or maybe standing up was his way of urging on the next, last step. You wish they’d die on their own but it’s not that convenient. Waiting for an unmistakable signal is cruel, too. Instead we had to enter that grey area and acknowledge that not every life’s worth living.

He had a pretty good final afternoon. I took him out onto the front lawn and he rolled in the grass. He smelled Lisa when she returned from errands and wagged his tail. We took him for a bike ride; he always seemed to enjoy that. But it was another night of little sleep; I finally got him settled in my office at about 0300.

This time, we kept the appointment. I guess it is lucky that at the moment, I’ve got a few work assignments to distract me. He was such a small dog, but somehow the whole house feels empty. I’d say I am shattered, but I was already broken by the year I lived through before moving up here. Otto taught me that there was a therapeutic value, or at least an analgesic one, in caring for a being – perhaps any being – even more fragile.

I won’t pretend that this is as hard for me as it is for Lisa. Her sons were 11 and 13 when Otto arrived in 2005 and now they’re adults with jobs. I was right, I think, in wanting us to be together for that COVID winter; luckily I was wrong about us needing to support each other through a Trump re-election; and I hope I’m better than nothing when it comes to filling the Otto-sized hole in her heart.

Moto Guzzi celebrates its 100th by opening the archive

Moto Guzzi recently celebrated its 100th anniversary. Unlike some historic brands (cough Triumph, cough cough Indian) Guzzi’s ownership status may have changed a few times but it’s been in continuous operation.

The current owners, Piaggio Group, took an interesting approach to Centenary PR.  Normally I’d expect a company to craft a press release and curate a handful of photos, with the idea of controlling the story. But to their credit, Piaggio pulled countless photos from their archives and sent them to journalists via WeTransfer.

This approach gave me so much to work with that I had to limit myself to the first half of Guzzi’s history – the period in which design and engineering was led by Carlo Guzzi himself. That story ran in Common Tread but in order to do justice to Piaggio’s generous document dump, I’ve posted a much larger selection of photos here. (Although I’m grateful to have access to this material, it was provided with minimal captioning info. I’ve added what I know – or sometimes just what I suspect. All photos courtesy of Moto Guzzi. – MG)

The Founders

Giorgio Parodi was the son of a Genovese shipping magnate. His family funded the founding of the company.

Carlo Guzzi (standing). The rider is Siro Casale, who raced in the 1920s and worked in Moto Guzzi’s repair department in the ‘30s. He’s seen here during a private test at Monza. The motorcycle is a supercharged 500 four that was raced only once.

Giovanni Ravelli was to join the firm but he died during an airplane test flight. The intrepid pilot is commemorated in Moto Guzzi’s eagle logo.

Riders

Omobono Tenni, en route to Lightweight TT victory.

Bruno Ruffo, 1951.

Fergus Anderson. (Sorry, no ID on pillion.)

Milan-Taranto race, 1953

Bruno Ruffo

Keith Campbell on the V-8 in 1957. Moto Guzzi dropped out of Grands Prix at the end of that season and the Aussie privateer began the ‘58 season on a Manx Norton. He was killed in a non-championship race in France.

Bill Lomas, en route to the 350cc World Championship in 1956.

Fergus Anderson, 1954

Enrico Lorenzetti in 1953. Check out that duckbill fairing. Was it designed to channel clean air down to the cylinder head?

Lorenzetti in 1953, again.

Gianni Leoni, crawling under the paint of his ‘49 Gambalunghino 250cc production racer.

L-R: Carlo Guzzi, Stanley Woods, Giorgio Parodi. Junior TT? 1935?

Want more motorcycle history? Buy my Bathroom Book of Motorcycle Trivia by clicking here.

Piaggio’s birthday gift to us included several minutes of historic film clips…

Motorcycles: 1921-’67

The original Moto Guzzi: 1921 Normale e.o.i 500

‘21 Normale

Sweet illustration of, again, ‘21 Normale

Corsa 2V: The first of many production racers

2VT 500 (Not sure of the year)

1924 C4V dual-port single production racer

1928 Norge Grand Touring: The first production Moto Guzzi with rear suspension

1929 Sport 14

1931 Sport 15

1935 Bicylindrica: Factory 500cc racer that, decades later, inspired Fabio Taglione to build the first Ducati v-twin

Moto Guzzi added a cylinder, and I added another volume to my Bathroom Book of Motorcycle Trivia series. Click here to buy Volume II. (On the john, #2 is even more satisfying!(

Another view of the Bicylindrica

1940 Airone (“Heron”) 250

1945 G.T.V.

1945 Motoleggero (65cc)

Another 65cc Motoleggera, aka “Guzzino”

1946 Dondolino production racer

1946 Super Alce (“Super Elk”)

1949 Gambalunga (“Long Legs”) production racer

1950 Falcone Sport

Falcone Turismo

1950 Galetto 160cc

175cc Galetto from later in this model’s long life.

1951 Gambalunga

Gambalunghino 250cc racer (date?)

Inline four-cylinder, shaft-drive 500 GP racer from 1953

1956 Lodola GT

350cc factory racer. Moto Guzzi won the World Championship in this class five years in a row in the mid-’50s.

A shrine to the Guzzisti, or a monument to glorious failure? Giulio Carcano’s V-8 is replete with evidence of the engineer’s genius, but it never won – indeed rarely even finished – a World Championship race.

1956 Otto Cylindri in exquisite as-raced patina

Beautiful period illustration of the 1957 Otto Cylindri V-8

1957 Stornello 125

1960 Stornello Sport

1960 Zigolo 110cc

If you love motorcycle history, you’ll love my book On Motorcycles: The Best of Backmarker. Click here to buy it on Amazon.

The Wind Tunnel

In 1950, Moto Guzzi became the first motorcycle manufacturer with its own wind tunnel.

Airflow was generated by a 350 horsepower aircraft engine.

The factory over the years

Year One.

Surrounded by green fields!

1925

1933-’35. The houses of Moto Guzzi employees rise on the hillside at right rear.

1948-’52.

A view of the factory as it was when Moto Guzzi went into receivership in 1967.

In ancient times, Lake Como was known as Lario.

Act I, Scene 3: The Synopsis

Previously on The Slow “No”

“Don’t sell the film rights to anyone else before talking to me.”

“Honestly Mark, I can’t see it as a feature.”

Meeting the Producers

The Fairy Bridge figured prominently in my synopsis.

I flew back to Kansas City and crafted a synopsis for Grant and Kravitz to use when pitching Riding Man to a film studio. The storyline connected many of the key elements from Riding Man but layered in a lot of new material–scenes pulled from other parts of my life, scenes inspired the real experiences of other TT Newcomers, and some plausible fiction. There was a love interest drawn from my life after the TT.

The process took a few weeks. My wife was initially enthusiastic (partly because now there was a character based on her) but she gradually chafed at the amount of time I devoted to a project that she doubted would ever get made. I was sanguine about our chances, but given the potential payday, even a 1% chance was worth pursuing. And Peter Riddihough told me that another writer friend of his who’d optioned a few stories to Hollywood. Even though none of those were ever made, the guy still pulled in a lot more money than I could make writing about motorcycles.

Kravitz gave some notes, but mostly I worked with Grant who loved the underlying story. For his part, Grant began building a simple web site with information about the project. He was burning to attend the next TT, but it was still almost a year away.

After bouncing a few drafts back and forth, we settled on this synopsis...

Mark, age 8, sits in his room, surrounded by motorcycle toys. He flips the pages of an illustrated encyclopedia, and comes across the British Isles. He stares at a map where a racing motorcycle is superimposed on the tiny Isle of Man. He realizes that the Island is totally devoted to motorcycle racing. It's the beginning of a lifelong fascination.

At 14, he sits in the back of a classroom, reading a motorcycle magazine hidden in a textbook. In his imagination, Mark drops into one of the photos, racing with TT stars of the day. When the teacher asks him a question, he's completely stumped. She warns him that he's clever, but if he doesn't stop daydreaming he'll never amount to anything.

At 40, he's a successful ad agency creative director. The money's good, but the closer he gets to the top of the agency heap, the less 'creative' the job. It's all about schmoozing, pitching business, and managing his staff. Home life's no relief, either; his wife's a big marketing executive and their social life's a round of dinners and parties that always turn into working sessions. In meetings he glances down at his iPhone and checks motorcycle racing results.

His real creative energies – and a lot of his income – are poured into motorcycle racing. It's a hobby in name only... He's in the gym at dawn, ordering parts on his lunch break, and safety wiring his bike late into the night. On the weekend, he's in a swirl of colorful leathers, noise, and rider's bravado; along with the occasional ex-racer in a wheelchair providing a grim reminder of the sport's dangers. There's an 'over 40' class he's eligible for, but he races – and often beats – up and coming 20-somethings.

Over on the Isle of Man, the TT races are on, and that's a topic of conversation in the pits. He wins that weekend, after an exhausting battle that leaves him soaked in sweat – too tired to get off his bike until his mechanic, Paul Smith, arrives to help get it on the stand. As they pack up, Paul points out that he's picked up enough points to qualify for an 'Expert' license; that means he's now eligible to apply for a TT entry. Mark admits that he's crazy about motorcycle racing... but not that crazy. Late that afternoon he’s awarded a couple of trophies, and drives home alone. In the wee hours, only the neighbor's barking dog notes his return. In the morning, his wife doesn't even ask how he did.

On his office wall, there's a map of the Isle of Man. During another meeting, he takes aspirin with his coffee. As they adjourn, he groans a little as he gets out of his chair. Are these race weekends getting harder and harder, or is something else? When he finally goes to a doctor, then a specialist, he learns that he has lupus. The doctor warns him that the drugs he's prescribed increase the risk of internal bleeding from any injury – he can't believe anyone would race motorcycles while taking them. Mark finally has to face the loss of the one thing he loves.

He tries to talk to his wife about a last, great race – on the Isle of Man. She just rolls her eyes. She's enthusiastically climbing the corporate ladder as a marketing executive, and thinks motorcycle racing is a waste of money. She suggests that golf, instead, would advance his career.

But if anything, he's more committed to racing. He enters a couple of national championship races. When his friends ask if he's trying to turn pro, all he'll admit is that he wants the challenge.

But improving his racing resume also improves his chances of getting a TT entry – if he ever applies for one. Then, one night over another dinner Mark has prepared, his wife serves up an ultimatum. She's going to accept another job in a different state; he can give up his own job – and the local championship he's winning – and come with her or she'll divorce him. Rather than make it an argument about racing, he tells her that the agency can't function without him, and he won't let his department down.

Once she's gone, he stops fighting it: he's got a piece of unfinished business as a motorcycle racer, and it's on the Isle of Man. Despite his frustration at the agency, they treat him well and he feels guilty about leaving. He purposely hires a rival creative director who he knows wants to take over his job. Then he quits his job, sells off his half of their stuff, ending with a big garage sale of the last junk.

He cashes out his 401(k), and arrives on the Isle of Man carrying a backpack. The next couple of weeks are spent getting a local phone, finding a rental, and introducing himself to the chairman of the TT organizing committee. He's a long way from home, alone. Many of the locals are skeptical; he's far from the first such pilgrim. Other guys have come over, and not even been offered an entry; or got entries but failed to qualify. He might not even clear the medical.

Winter sets in dark, cold, and wet; his joints hurt like hell. He trained on a bicycle back. home, and plans to study the course and keep fit by doing that here. They don't call it 'The Mountain Course' for nothing. The first time he tries to pedal over the pass, a gust blows him to a complete stop and he falls over, gasping, right at a cairn commemorating a dead racer. He warms up in a pub where the locals seem as cold and brooding as the weather. The only upside is that his Island diary, which is being published in a motorcycle magazine back home, is generating more reader mail than anything they've ever published.

One otherwise bleak day, he strikes up a conversation on a bus with Mary, a pretty Manx woman. She puts her hand on his arm to interrupt him, as they're about to cross Fairy Bridge. All the locals say, 'Hello, fairies,' but Mark scoffs.

“All the proper racers,” she admonishes, “say hello to the fairies.” He checks his mail daily hoping to get confirmation from the TT, instead he gets a letter he doesn't want: the final tally of his divorce means that after he's paid his lawyer, he's almost out of money. He does the math and realizes that after the TT, he'll be flat broke.

The next time he's passing by the Fairy Bridge, he asks the bus driver to stop and let him off.

Hundreds of notes have been pressed into little cracks between the stones of the bridge, or hang off a tree that leans over the stream; the sun catches them, like leaves. He reads a few  –distracted every now and then by a splash or a strange rustle of leaves. When he looks up, he sees nothing. The notes ask the fairies to help someone overcome an illness, or find work, or love. He puts each note carefully back in its place.

When he flags down the next bus, Mary's on it again. He learns that she was born on the island but left before she was twenty. She was a competitive ballroom dancer, and then studied yoga in India. She returned to her family home a few years ago to take care of her aging dad.

He buys a motorcycle at Padgett's – a legendary dealership that's sponsored many TT winners.

He becomes fast friends with the manager, Steve, whose own racing career was cut short by injury. When the weather's foul they work on Mark's bike, gradually preparing it for the race. If the weather's good they walk the course – Mark fills his notebook with sketches and notes, corner by corner. He meets several eccentric and charming locals. Steve shows Mark the many memorials to riders who've been killed racing in the TT. One day, they climb over a stone wall into a glade where Steve carefully cleans a plaque. “I'll tell you what,” he says. “I don't want to be cleaning your memorial here.”

“If I have to have a memorial, ” Mark replies. “This is where I want it to be.”

For Mary, the course isn't lined with memorials but with magical places. She shows him the wishing rock at Glen Helen – a spot where, she explains, the fairies are particularly adept at reading minds. She scolds him as he sits on the rock, telling him that wishing he’d win the TT just makes a mockery of the fairies, since no one ever wins it their first time out. He wonders whether she can read his mind, too.

One clear evening, as they stroll on a deserted beach, she points to the lights of Blackpool, off on the horizon. It's the site of the world's top ballroom competition, and her greatest moments as a dancer. In the fading light, she teaches him to waltz with just the lapping waves keeping time.

She can tell that his joints are stiff – a consequence of his lupus. Over the next couple of months she puts him on a yoga-inspired stretching routine. He teaches her to ride a motorcycle.

As the TT nears, Paul Smith flies over. Mark's little team is pitted next to a bully – the mechanic for a pair of newcomers from South America. Mark, Paul, and Steve call him “Bullet-Head” butnot to his face! Mark returns wide eyed from the first official practice. At racing speed it's insanely narrow and bumpy. Worse, with the tires and suspension he can afford, the bike's frighteningly unstable.

Paul applies years of racetrack knowledge to find a stable setup, but Steve is sure that 'real roads' racing takes a completely different approach. And they know something Mark doesn't – there's already been a fatality, and the cause of the crash was the same kind of steering instability that plagues their bike.

In the next session, Guy Jeffries, the ‘official’ Padgett’s rider, passes Mark. In his racer's 'Zen' state of concentration, Mark sees a single drop of oil hit his windscreen then notices more drops hitting the star's rear tire. Jeffries has no idea anything's wrong. For a minute or two that seem eternal, Mark desperately tries to catch him and warn him, but Jeffries is too fast. As he disappears around a bend, he crashes hard. Now, Mark takes desperate evasive action to avoid the rider, but the smashed race bike caroms between walls and telephone poles, directly into Mark's path.

A helicopter lands to pick the star up. Mark was knocked out, but comes to as he is bundled into the chopper. They fly to Nobles Hospital while the race continues below. At the hospital, ER doctors frantically work to save the more injured rider. The only people paying attention to Mark are Paul and Steve, who've heard of the crash on the radio and rushed to the hospital.

Steve's furious; he thinks that Paul's set-up has caused Mark to crash. It's only when Mark, still a little delirious, mumbles something about trying to catch and warn Jeffries, that they realize it was no one's fault. But they face an anxious night; Paul tells Steve about the blood-thinning drugs Mark's been taking, and they debate whether or not to tell the doctors. They know that if they do, Mark will never be allowed back on the course.

Mark's still a little shaky when he's checked out of hospital. In the pits, Paul's despondent that they don't have the parts or time to repair the bike. Steve's offended that Mark never told him about the lupus. He's glad Mark didn't bleed out as a result of internal injuries, and now doesn’t want him to ride. Mark explains that he's been feeling better than he has in years and that he'd stopped taking the drugs, which is probably the only reason he cleared the medical. Steve goes back to Padgett's and argues that Mark should be given Guy Jeffries' spare bike to ride. When Jeffries awakens, in the Hospital, and learns that Mark crashed trying to warn him, he agrees.

By Wednesday afternoon, Mark's been cleared to ride by the race doctor, but he's only got a few more chances to qualify. Adding insult to injury, 'Bullet Head', the mechanic from the adjacent team, suggests that Mark's crash was his own fault. Mark vows to, at least, beat his riders. Mary again scolds him – that's a good way to get yourself killed. She tells him this isn't a fight between riders, the way he raced in the 'States, it's a dance with the course, in which it leads and he follows.

Now with limited practice time, he needs to draw on all he's learned this year. He returns to the wishing rock, where he visualizes the entire race, corner by corner. He qualifies for the race at the last opportunity. Finally, he races in his first TT and has a transcendent experience – not falling into the photo, but rising out of it. The crows flying over the course watch him and then it's as if he's up there with them, looking down on himself. Amazingly, he wins the award as the top 'Newcomer' despite having missed half the practice, the announcer notes that the fairies were really looking out for him.

After the TT, the Island's quiet again. Luckily – because Mark's flat broke – when he files his last report with the magazine, they offer him a job. On the way to the ferry, Mary and Mark pass by the shop. Steve's rebuilding Mark's race bike. He asks if he should crate it and send it home with him once it's finished. Mark tells him to sell it, and send him the money. They make one last stop at Fairy Bridge, where they see a child Mary recognizes – one of her neighbors – tuck a piece of paper between the stones. When the girl's gone, Mark reads her note, which asks only for a new dress.

Back home, he starts working at his dream job – albeit one that baffles his friends in the ad business, since he's taking a 75% pay cut. Despite being strapped by his TT debts, he buys a dress for the little girl, and mails it off to Mary, with instructions to deliver it unseen. His doctor is amazed by his remission, but when they keep monitoring his condition, they realize it's returning. The doctor is sure that something in the Manx environment had saved him; something missing in L.A.

In the shop, Steve's putting the finishing touches on Mark's bike when he shows up again, carrying the same backpack he had the first time he arrived on the Island. He rides to the Fairy Bridge. In the gloom under the arch, well out of sight, he searches for a loose stone, and hides his finisher's medal.

While he's under there, Mary drives by and notices his bike. She stops at the post office where, sitting in her car, she texts Mark a message: “Looks lk Steve sold ur bike”. Just saw it at Fairy Bridge. On her way home, she detours past the kid's house and drops off the dress. When she pulls up to her house, Mark's bike is in the driveway. He's there.

Before sending the final draft to the producers, I emailed it to my friend Peter Riddihough who replied, “I can’t believe I’m writing this, but maybe you do have a feature here.”

Next: We add a few producers, and catch a break.