I’m doing a teaching stint in a school on the southern highlands at the moment. The school is about 65kms from home so it means an early start and a late arrival home. But it also entails a trip up and back via Macquarie Pass, Tourist Road and the Range Road into the backblocks of Mittagong. The road is rarely straight, rarely trafficked and great fun. But yesterday morning something sorta spoiled my fun a little. You see, while the roads have all of those advantages they are all uniformly VERY narrow and have very few overtaking opportunities if you happen to be held up by slower traffic. And so it was yesterday morning.
Just after I turned onto the Tourist Road at the top of the Pass, I came upon a group of 8 motorcyclists, riding along in line astern. They were obviously out on a group ride and I knew that, given their better acceleration on the straights, any advantage that I might have had in the corners would be negated. And so it proved to be. Without the room or the acceleration for overtaking in the few opportunities that presented themselves, I ended up tailing the group for the rest of the journey. Now I usually get a great run in the morning so I was prepared to take my lumps and put up, but, as I was following the group, I noticed something strange. Every single one of the 8 riders were on BMW adventure bikes like the ones in the picture above, made famous by Ewan and Charlie in the “Long Way Round” documentary.
What was even more interesting, however, was that every one of the bikes was sparkling clean and pristine with not a mark on them, as beautiful as if they had just rolled out of the showroom. Not one of them showed any sign of ever having been ridden in the dirt or even on rough roads. The riders proved that by being very tentative indeed over a 1km or so section of gravel roadworks.
The morning and the sight proved to me what I have thought was so for a very long time. Most of these types of bikes are only ever ridden on the road and never in the dirt. And the same riders who will loudly criticise 4WD drivers for only ever driving on tar seem to be doing exactly the same thing on their bikes!
Now, I hasten to add that I have some wonderful personal friends who do have dual-purpose bikes and who DO ride them in the dirt and often. But the sight of a BMW GS that looks like it has been taken off-road is so rare as to be almost unique. I do live in an area where there are a lot of bikes and where there are more than enough opportunities to get down and dirty but, sadly, it seems that the majority of these rich dilettantes want to LOOK the part without actually BEING the part. In short, they are imposters, Charley Boorman wannabees whose budget allows them to indulge their fantasies without having to put in the hard yards to earn the credit.
But then I got to think about it a bit more while I was driving and I realised that it isn’t just the BMW clique who are victims of this self-delusion. I have seen more than my share of sportsbike riders whose budget for bike and gear could equal the national debt of a small, third world country who plainly had no intention of ever using the bike for the purpose for which it was intended as well. A quick look at their tyres is proof enough. And I guess that this could equally be said of many other categories of bikes as well.
It is particularly poignant that I write this article today as it is the 3rd anniversary of the death of Maxie Pinch, a Wollongong motorcycling icon who paid the ultimate price for his obsession on his 50th Anniversary Yamaha R1 while riding in Kangaroo Valley. Of all the riders that I have known, Max was the realest of the real deals. You see, as well as owing a BMW dual purpose single cylinder bike (on which he rode around Australia), Maxie also owned a Honda CBR250RR. And, on that little bike he would embarrass many a young tear-away on a hyper bike proving that, it’s not the size of the bike that matters, but how it is ridden.
Maxie was no imposter and he had no time for those who inflated their own sense of achievement. His like will not pass this way again. RIP Maxie. We won’t forget.