| Author | Message | ||
     Duphuckincati |
Lawrence of Arabia on his Brough Superior- Journal of the Royal Air Force College, Cranwell, Spring 1931 -------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------ So long as roads are tarred blue and straight: not hedged; and empty and dry:- so long I am rich. Nightly I'd run up from the hangar upon the last stroke of work, spurring my tired feet to be nimble. The very movement refreshed them after the day-long restraint of service. In five minutes I was changed and pulling on my gauntlets as I walked over to my bike, which lived in a garage-hut opposite. Its tyres never wanted air, its engine had a habit of starting at second kick - a good habit, for only by frantic plunges upon the starting pedal could my puny weight force the engine over the seven atmospheres of its compression. Boa's first glad roar at being alive again nightly jarred the huts of Cadet Town to life. 'There he goes, the noisy beggar', someone would say enviously in every flight. It is part of an airman's profession to be knowing with engines; and a thoroughbred engine is our undying satisfaction. The camp wore the virtue of my Brough like a flower in its cap. Tonight Tug and Dusty came to the step of our hut to see me off. 'Running down to Smoke, perhaps?' jeered Dusty - hitting at my regular game of London and back for tea on fine Wednesday afternoons. Boa is a top-gear creature, as sweet in that as most single-cylinders in middle. I chug lordily past the guard room and forge through the speed limit at no more than sixteen. Round the bend, past the farm, and the way straightens. Now for it. The engine's final development is fifty-two horse power. A miracle that all this docile strength waits behind one tiny lever for the pleasure of my hand. Another bend: and I have the honour of one of England's straightest and fastest roads. The burble of my exhaust unwound like a long cord behind me. Soon my speed snapped it and I heard only the cry of the wind which my battering head split and fended aside. The cry rose with my speed to a shriek, while the air's coldness streamed like two jets of iced water into my dissolving eyes. I screwed them to slits and focused my sight two hundred yards ahead of me on the empty mosaic of the tar's gravelled undulations. Like arrows the tiny flies pricked my cheeks; and sometimes a heavier body, some house-fly or beetle, would crash into my face or lips like a spent bullet. A glance at the speedometer: seventy-eight. Boa is warming up. I pull the throttle right open on the top of the slope and we swoop flying across the dip and up-down, up-down the switchback beyond, the weighty machine launching itself like a projectile with a whirr of wheels into the air at the take-off of each rise, to land lurchingly with such a snatch of the driving chain as jerks my spine like a rictus. Once we fled across the evening light, with the yellow sun low on my left, when a huge shadow roared just overhead. A Bristol Fighter, from Whitewash Villas, our neighbouring aerodrome, was banking sharply round. I checked speed an instant to wave: and the slip-stream of my impetus snapped my arm and elbow astern, like a raised flail. The pilot pointed down the road towards Lincoln. I sat hard into the saddle, folded back my ears and went away after him like a dog after a hare. Quickly we drew abreast, as the impulse of his dive to my level exhausted itself. The next mile of road was rough. I braced my feet into the rests, thrust with my arms and clenched my knees on the tank till its rubber grips goggled under my thighs. Over the first pot-hole Boa screamed in surprise, its mudguard bottoming with a yawp upon the tyre. The plunges of the next ten seconds would have distinguished a kangaroo dodging gun-fire. I clung on, wedging my gloved hand in the throttle lever so that no bumps should close it and spoil our speed. Then the bicycle wrenched sideways into three long ruts: it swayed dizzily, wagging its tail for thirty awful yards. Out came the clutch, the engine raced freely: Boa checked and straightened his head with a shake, as a Brough should. The bad ground was passed and on the new surface our flight became birdlike. My head was blown out with air so that my ears had failed and we seemed to swirl soundlessly between the sun-gilt stubble fields. I dared, on a rise, to slow imperceptibly and glance sideways into the sky. There the Bif was, two hundred yards and more back. Play with the fellow? Why not? I slowed to ninety: signalled with my hand for him to over-take. Slowed ten more: sat up. Over he rattled. His passenger, a helmeted and goggled grin, hung out of the cockpit to pass me greeting. They were thinking me a flash in the pan, giving them best. Open went my throttle again. Boa crept level, fifty feet below: held them: sailed ahead into the clean and lonely country. An approaching car pulled nearly into the ditch at the sight of our race. The Bif was zooming among the trees and telegraph poles, with my scurrying spot only eighty yards ahead. I gained, though, gained steadily: was perhaps five miles an hour the faster. Down went my left hand to give the engine two extra dollops of oil, for fear that something was running hot; but an overhead Jap twin, super-tuned like this one, would carry on to the moon and back unfalteringly. We drew near the settlement. A long mile before the first houses I closed down and coasted to the cross-roads by the hospital. Bif caught up, banked, climbed and turned for home, waving to me as long as he was in sight. Fourteen miles from camp we are, here; and fifteen minutes since I left Tug and Dusty at the hut door. I let in the clutch again and eased Boa down the hill, along the tramlines and through the dirty streets up hill to the aloof cathedral, where it stood in frigid perfection above the cowering close. No message of mercy in Lincoln. Our God is a jealous god, and a man's best offering will fall disdainfully short of worthiness in the sight of Saint Hugh and his angels. Remigius, earthy old Remigius, looks with more charity on me and Boa. I stabled the steel magnificence of strength and speed at his west door and went in, to find the organist practising something slow and rhythmical, like a multiplication table in notes, on the organ. The fretted, unsatisfying and unsatisfied lace-work of choir screen and spandrils drank in the main sound. Its surplus spilled thoughtfully into my ears. By then my belly had forgotten lunch... but all that is years ago | ||
| Marcodesade |
Awesome. Pity there's no mention of diving up the inside of a long left-hander . . . | ||
| Trafford |
The essence of why we ride | ||
| Dannybuell |
my first thought was turks & arabs, it ended up motorcycles. nice, very nice. mr. lawrence, a british officer fought a guerilla war/rebellion against the turks on behalf of the arabs during WWI. | ||
| Zac4mac |
Kinda the "Cliff's Notes" of "Zen and the Art of Motorcycling". I love that selection, have read it several times; still hard to believe it's from 80 years ago. It IS the same reason I will ride until I die. Thank you Mr. Erik Buell for providing the perfect platforms. | ||
| Jdugger |
Yowsa, I must be some kind of illiterate redneck because for me, that's a really difficult read. | ||
| Drhodes1970 |
You's not the only one Jdugger. | ||
| Duphuckincati |
Jdugger, y'all try this one about the Norton Atlas/Commando, one o' dem sissy Limey mo'sickles, but this is writtin in American. Cycle magazine 1974- "The Norton vertical twin should have died and gone to legend a generation ago. In a world of perfect logic, engine designs should never maunder on for decades and finally be crushed by onrushing technology. Good ideas deserve better. Good engines should go to harvest in the fullness of their autumn; most mechanical things which struggle on simply die cold and wretched in December. Seasons do not cover England in perfect symmetry. Spring is cold and damp, and so is fall and winter. Onrushing technology there slows; the present walks in cadence with the past. And mechanical things like the Norton twin soldier on and on...through the Fifties...into the Sixties...and reach the mid-Seventies. In other places, someone would have raised the last hurrah at an earlier stage-when the original 500 twin turned to a 600, or 650, or 750, or 850. But somehow, no matter how deep Norton reaches into December, the final cheer never comes. There's only the next hurrah." Now don't that make ya feel right nice? | ||
| Jdugger |
It makes me feel stupid when I have to read something 7 times to get the gist, then angry I put such effort into such drivel! Honestly, such convoluted grammar is just literary grandstanding. Just because one can... (go ahead, call me the scrooge. I know it.) | ||
| Duphuckincati |
I'm working from an eighth grade education level, being able to truthfully say I did not learn a single thing while within the four walls of my high school and have been a junior college drop out four times in three different states. But I have read thousands of motorcycle magazines since 1968. These two pieces are the closest to enjoying something poetic I've ever been. They are about love, true moto-love. The Buell motorcycles create the same emotional response as the Brough Superior and Norton twins did. I suspect Erik would appreciate that thought. And some day someone will write of the Buell story in some flowery prose about the single man and his dream, not to mention the unique experience of riding one of his creations. Sorry you did not have a pleasant time reading the pieces as others did. But no need to get angry with yourself or feel stupid. Maybe write a poem about riding your Buell. You can be Scrooge, I guess I'll be Tiny Tim. All moto-love my brother. | ||
| Thefleshrocket |
I've never read anything from Lawrence of Arabia--thanks for this! | ||
| Jdugger |
my race built buell, with strong motor; pass the leader and win thunder twins. | ||
| Duphuckincati |
Atta boy! I feel the pride of your ride and win! But I have to say I'd switch the last two words-"and win twins thunder" | ||
| Jdugger |
I took a poo on your bike seat It smells nasty you deserve it  | ||
| Duphuckincati |
See? Now you're having fun! And certainly not guilty of literary grandstanding! | ||
| Fast1075 |
It's sad in a way, how far we have come from classic english with all it's nuance and expression. I guess in the modern world it is more important to express an idea in as short a way as possible. | ||
| Dannybuell |
Fast1075 - "in the modern world it is more important to express an idea in as short a way as possible." Strunk & Whites classic The Elements of Style expresses your sentiment in detail. Perhaps the full flavor of passion takes a bit more detail. | ||
| Jdugger |
What's wrong with getting to the point in a clear fashion? If you want something full of nuance and expression, get a lawyer.  | ||
| Gas |
The flower is pretty. The motorcycle is fast. The rain is wet. The great unwashed will remain unwashed. | ||
| Black |
Well, Lawrence owned eight Brough Superiors and apparently rode the absolute beejesus out of them.....long distances and high speeds. I think that if he lived today he would own eight Buells. | ||
| Kenm123t |
The English and the Americans two peoples separated by a common language | ||
| Marinus |
Pah; the writer shows incredible terseness of language. I'll give you an example: They were thinking me a flash in the pan, giving them best. Unpack that sentence a little, drawing from its context. The rider is effectively racing an aeroplane, the plane holds two airmen, the airmen are crewmates who'll talk about this later, they know they're racing with the bike. They were thinking me a flash in the pan, (the rider imagines what the crewmen were thinking -- and he imagines they believe they've got the faster machine, and that the motorcycle accelerated faster, sure -- but couldn't hold a higher speed for long) giving them best. (the rider imagines the crewmen think his wave is to say, "You win, you're the best") Yeah... what he said in a dozen words took me forty, and I didn't even capture the "song" of his version. | ||
| Dannybuell |
Marinus - Hey neighbor! | ||
| Duphuckincati |
Marinus, if you go with Jdugger's line of thought, the whole discourse could be reduced to "I went for a ride. It was fun. I came home." Then we wouldn't have to take the time to read it 7 times, would not get angry and stressed, (stress leads to constipation) and we could all take a poo. Hopefully not on anyone's motorcycle seat though. | ||
| Xodot |
It's all a matter of style. Some styles we embrace, some we reject. It's OK to be a reject. You will be loved by others. | ||
| Dannybuell |
duck-----get rid of that HDTV, get a small black and white tv from the 60's. beware the extra detail of a large screen TV may be constipating. | ||
| Jdugger |
Fart jokes always appeal to a wider audience than finessed prose. | ||
| Duphuckincati |
Danny, since I stopped riding BMW's years ago I have not had a problem with constipation. Thanks for your concern though. | ||
| Jdugger |
Go eat a box of Russel Stover Sugar Free anything and you will understand the nature of a lack of exhaust back pressure. | ||
| Trafford |
Bikers To be forever on two wheels The spirit of a biker Is all I want from this sweet life To start the bike and ride her To cloak my back with leather To squeeze my arms through sleeves To wriggle fingers into gloves A biker lives and breathes The highway always beckons The lanes they whisper ‘Come’ The spell that’s cast on bikers Can never be undone The heartbeat of a bike Throbs forcefully through the frame And tells you loud and clear Life’ll never be the same Me 1990 (Message edited by trafford on December 09, 2010) |
