Chapter 14 - It was the first time the TL Road Train had been out thundered

Hunger gnawed at our bellies, time to forage for food. Fruitlessly we searched the locale for some grub, in the end I gave up and returned to the hotel. I couldn't be arsed to be perfectly honest, I just wanted to relax. Phil and Fast were a bit more tenacious and they re-appeared about an hour later with some decidedly dodgy looking chinese food.

The following day brought the next stage of the journey. We were heading for a little suburb of Barcelona called El Masnou to hook up with one of my old school friends who was working in Spain.

This meant traversing the entire breadth of Southern France, nipping across the border at Perpignon and into Spain. One long straight motorway blast, a bit boring but easily done in a day. We set off about 9.00am on yet another awesome day of sunshine and blue skies.

Perhaps half way across the basement of France around Montpelier in steady motorway cruise mode I noticed a phalanx of riders occupying two lanes glinting up ahead. As we closed up to them I noticed they were all wearing colours and riding American steel at about 80mph in perfect formation. These guys were flying the colours of a French Hells Angels chapter. I slowed the pace and gave these guys room and respect, not interfering with their road pace. They rode as one entity, all chrome, open pipes, aped and raked to impress. It was the first time the TL road train had been out thundered.

The thing that puzzled me was their immaculate turn out. The bikes I could understand. A man must have pride in his machine, the cleaner the faster etc. Apart from Phil, Eddie and I would be riding immaculate machines, not mud caked fly spattered missiles. Most motorcyclists unconciously crave that head turning cred. It's a statement of pride. individuality, freedom and passion for life and thrills. (Well for me anyway). We were however on a mileage mission and had no room or time for cleaning products, just spare oil and chain lube.

The Angels themselves were clean and I mean clean, their apparal looked new, boots were polished, cut offs could have been bought that day, their colours shone. As a teenager I had read everything I could find on the 1%ers, the outlaw bikers with names like Terry The Tramp, Mouldy Marvin and Larry the Lamb.

The myth was grubbiness and filthy beards, cruddy originals and hell raising, raping, pillaging, gun running and drug taking like modern day Vikings. This may have been true in the early days (and if you read about the North American policing, Yves Lavigne for instance it's still true today if you choose to believe them), when the Angels gained notoriety via the Rolling Stones gig at Altamont (I think) and through the pages of Gonzo Journalist Hunter S. Thompsons 'Hells Angels' (which I must have read at least half a dozen times by now). However it is said that it takes ten years to gain a reputation and five minutes to lose one. I think in the case of the Angels and to a similar extent similar clubs it took five minutes to gain their rep (fair or not - you decide) and perhaps twenty years to lose it. Sonny Barger dipped into mainstream acceptance for the fast burgeoning global 'brand' when he carried the Olympian eternal flame part of the Journey to the Atlanta Olympics. I remember seeing that on the box and thinking Yes, how cool is that.

We slipped past and gently increased our velocity. It was shortly after that I managed to max the TLR. It was a three laner, perfect visibility, no slip roads and bugger all traffic to speak of. It had to be done at least once. From 100 or so I wound the thing up in top until the dials showed just over 170mph, there was no twist left in the throttle. With no luggage and and revving it through the gears perhaps I might have squeezed a little more out of it but it was exhilerating enough, the bike felt like it was about to take off, the thump of the V-twin heart pounded beneath me. Fixed things started to blur in my personal tunnel of speed.

For me this is what it's all about, it would have been great to sustain this for more than a couple of miles but the wind blast was threatening to snap my neck and it was drinking gas like a stranded man in a desert with a terrible thirst. so it was back down to 130 ish and a weather eye for the next fuel stop.