The GSX550 had been out of use for a horrendous three months, due to my foolish desire to evade the rigours of winter and to cancel my insurance in expectation of wads of reimbursement. Infuriatingly, the insurer only coughed up £77 and not the £170 as they had pledged on the phone. I was later to discover they had no method of calculating the sum and merely guessed. After sending countless letters, a mysterious and unexplained cheque arrived for £20.
Preparation for the voyage to Barcelona involved a lot more than a new five minute paint job and baptism, though it got one anyway and was christened Samson owing to its undying strength. I only had 24 hours to get it packed and road worthy, requiring an oil filter change, tappet check, new rectifier (used Z550), fork oil and a new gearbox sprocket which could only be fitted by removing the clutch pushrod cover which had been welded, requiring application of an angle grinder to remove it.
The Spaniard who usually did this kind of skilled bodging, charging £4/hour, could not be traced so I had to resort to riding 30 miles to a derelict barn in the middle of nowhere where a greebo biker was installed. This character was playing groovy music and dramatically ignited the blow torch after telling me of his mate's untimely death. I only had three hours to reach Newhaven, which agonizingly elapsed as the clutch pushrod assembly collapsed, the cable was found to be too long and the gunge build up phenomenal. When all was reassembled I had no clutch and an hour to travel 150 miles.....so I got the next night's boat despite the booking.
I am glad that Britain is an island because the ferry is always a brilliant way of psyching yourself up and building the adrenalin that accompanies a trip into the unknown. Some people say that taking out recovery service is cheating, stripping the trip of its adventure that makes the travelling so damn exciting. If the bike blows a big-end or its ignition unit then simply file away the serial number and use the number plate to hitch home, whereupon the insurance company should be told it got stolen in Calcutta. Alternatively, you can steal an old farm truck like Happy Henry and drive to the city of choice for a comprehensive rebuild.
But make no mistake, Euro touring is the most filthy, unhygienic lifestyle ever invented. 12 hours in the saddle in six layers of clothing mudcaked from road dirt and rain water, covered in oil from the last chain adjustment and battery acid from the last top up and petrol from the last siphoning sortie and French bread and brie from the last munchie attack, only made worse when you detour into the nearest appropriate wood when darkness falls and crash out under the stars and drizzle without shelter of a tent because you're too knackered to put it up.
I found my hands got soaked in oil and therefore all the food I ate was covered in oil which got into my eye, transforming me into a cyclops and the paranoia about sleeping rough is soon dispelled by not giving a shit any more, and that few people would approach an evil looking biker unless drunk or in a crowd, which was not very likely in the back of beyond unless you stray on to military land. Ted Simon must have smelt like a bear's arse after four years on the road!
I was amazed at the lack of traffic in northern and central France, just the odd dishevelled 2CV winding along at a snail's pace. I took the back roads all the way down and was amazed at how strange local people sometimes looked and behaved when asked for directions, bizarre hooters were standard equipment as were Ken Dodd gesticulations. Travelling solo led to a non stop pace but I still managed to coincidentally meet some friends who were hitching down in a drunken stupor after their VW Beetle expired. The south of France was wind swept, arid, more populated and ugly in contrast to the Dordogne which was steaming and idyllic but full of English ex-pats who had given up the rat race.
The Pyrennes were fast and furious, the hairpins being difficult because of the grooves worn in by scratching undercarriages. There was still snow on the road on the Spanish side, which added to the inferior road surface led to a front wheel slide that drew premature baldness a stage closer. There was a car upside down in the middle of road that had recently exploded, which caused a bit of a hold up.
Barcelona itself - 1992 Olympics city - is a fairly mad, hot, colourful, potentially dodgy place that is sufficiently bike mad to have the pavements swamped, the roads filled and ear traumatised by two wheel mayhem. GSX600/750s, CBR600 and GS500s were all popular but the hoards are composed of multi coloured hairdryers sat on by scantily clad, seductive teenage girls. Naturally, life without a clutch was unbearable in this congested urban environment, compounded by totally unpredictable rush hour times caused by the siesta making the streets flooded at 8pm. I got a parking ticket on the first day for being in the Ramblas, this naturally went in the nearest bin - if the bureaucracy can catch up with me in Britain they deserve their £4.50.
A Sunday afternoon blast to Figerias, 100 miles north up the coast to visit the Dali museum (which is completely insane) started off well. The passenger had no helmet so had to wear a hood - not much use in a head-on but it confused all the sun fried plod who were far too busy posing on their bikes by the roadside or waving the traffic into confusion to bother us.
At the first motorway toll booth we rode straight through, shouting Figerias and made the coast road without bullets in our backs. Suddenly, the mirror and the road in front were filled with big Jap bikes and the odd wayward Sanglas. It was great fun blasting past the cars in this almost endless out of control convoy of hoodlums. Around one mountain bend there came five bikes abreast, the widest one being a GSXR1100 that was shaking its head uncontrollably as it burnt the others off. Towards Figerias the rain started, the heavens opened, a waterfall enveloped the atmosphere and half a ton of air pollution and water perforated our clothing in seconds.
The return journey was a monster epic, 80 miles of plummeting rain with a solid traffic jam for the last 30 miles. Without a clutch I was dumbfounded when we managed to return to Barcelona in one piece despite the ditch sorties and contravening every rule in the Spanish Highway Code - if they have one. I actually found the Spanish and French drivers were vastly less homicidal than their counterparts in the south east of England.
I had to leave Barcelona due to lack of funds, owing to over consumption of alcohol and noxious weed. Samson survived the Pyrennes up to 6000 feet with ease but nearly suffered a shave with the dust near Clermont on a slimy, twisty, hilly road where two side splitting hitchers stuck out a thumb as a joke. Whilst losing concentration with an inane smile the tyre got lodged in a slippery groove when attempting the racing line, provoking a lurid front wheel slide towards an embankment - the pain of adrenalin trauma oblivious to the two idiots I had just passed.
It is easy to vaguely establish mileage goals when Euro touring, fatigue therefore takes it toll. After eight hours in the saddle one's brain is almost totally fried - commonsense, rational thinking and concentration is less common than Iraqis in the US air force. After half an hour at Dornes near Moulins I was bored and looking for some entertainment. I cruised up to four local lads with a TDR250 and asked whether the Paris Dakar was about to start - no, not for another eight months but have a beer and a chat anyway.
I said I was heading for Paris and they offered to show me the way as far as Nevers - they two up, myself with about ten stone of luggage, rucksack, tent, sleeping bag, saddlebags, etc. At first I was amazed at the racing pace, used to a relaxed, efficient and smooth touring style that avoids gearchanges with a 6000rpm threshold. The whippersnappers tore off, leaving the GSX stranded in fourth waiting for the power band to get a grip, rapidly losing ground.
I was surprised at the angle that the Yamaha leant over in the bends - it required a hang off approach to match its angles. Eventually, I managed to cajole Samson into showing how superior it was to a £3000 brand spanking sprog of a bike by reaching the heady heights of 120mph. We passed the TDR in a glorious wave of euphoria, no longer downwind of those carcinogenic fumes.
However, glory was short lived, a woman screamed out of her car at a traffic light that something had fallen from the rucksack when banked over at an inordinant speed, passing in front of her some villages back. I couldn't be bothered to return in search, so waved au revoir and stopped for a bike check - chain, battery and oil all needed attention which I happily performed. 70 miles later I pulled in for a coffee - bon dieu, my right leg is completely saturated in oil. Likewise, the whole bike. I thanked the gods for no engine seizure as I saw the oil fill plug was detached from its home - I'd left the bloody thing off!
Riding style in and around Paris is a little different than Shit City. Parisian bikers blast up the hard shoulder of tail backs at 70mph - perhaps a reflection on the superior reliability of French drivers. Spontaneous undertaking at triple figure speeds is as common as Vee-Maxs and Gold Wings in Paris. It rained from Paris to Dieppe, the boat provided welcome shelter from the elements.
There was no mistaking once in Newhaven that the custom's officials were bored shitless. The appearance of a mudcaked, long haired figure on an equally mangy bike must have seemed like a vision of divine intervention. They proceeded to glance through my passport - "Oh dear, been to Thailand and Jamaica, have we, sir? Do you use hashish at all? No, been to Barcelona? - Ever offered any drugs there, sir?" "Not really." "Not really, sir, well just empty your pockets and we'll have a look through your luggage." The officers visibly grimaced at the oil soaked garments that were dragged out of it. Luckily, they found the rest of my sterling which paid the petrol home.
The depths of cold that England had sunk into will forever be remembered by my numbed fingers. A new found respect grew for Samson out of this mission. A week later the clutch was mended - to a certain extent. It required a yank that would pull a high security prison door off its hinges to operate the clutch due to the instant gasket that obscures the pushrod.
Bruce Jones