“The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.” (Hunter S Thompson)
Yesterday I had one of “those” rides, on a clear crisp Autumnal day, all on my own for a change, no group to consider, no need to check the mirrors to make sure I still have company.
Heading up the Swansea Valley, the landscape closes the hills in on you like a push-up bra. Russet browns smudge the slopes with seasonal colour in the gin-clear air. I open her up and we sprint through some wide curves, into the welcoming arms of the Brecon Beacons. Steady at a ton, roaring past Cray reservoir, sun bejewelled and glinting in the valley below and to the left, then a flick-flack combination of corners and crests, knee kissing the tank on alternate sides as we thread the needle.
Hard over to the left, shoulder dipped and arse part off the seat, winding on the gas with a staccato rumble from the open pipes as the cool air becomes momentarily pine tinged. Slowing and sitting up through a small hamlet then back on the volume control along a series of interlinked straights, front wheel going light over the crests. Blitz a couple of fast overtakes and grin through another village.
The Main A40 now winds lazily towards Brecon, weekend tourists and farmers about their business are dispatched with dispassion, in my quest to be alone in the twisty bits. Down two gears, ease it left with gentle pressure on the ‘bars, then hard right, shifting my body to the inside of the corner as the apex disappears under the wheels and the throttle winds in the horizon.
Turning back into the Beacons proper, more traffic is left flailing in my wake as we head once more into the mountains. Smooth is fast and fast is smooth, picking lines, timing the pass, finding the gaps, bullying the drips and cheerily waving a thank you to the more alert who let me through.
Up towards the pass at the Storey Arms, curling off a sweet right handed hairpin past the bike-lined tea stand and tipping hard left on a trailing throttle, we stalk the mountains on legs of thunder. Sit up and slow past the hordes of walkers enjoying the quieter aspects of the scenery, bright cagoules and badly parked cars marking them out.
Down past another reservoir, eyes peeled for speed cameras and turn right below the dam wall then up, up once more onto wide open moorland. The road wriggles like an untended fire hose, dotted with suicidal sheep, so fingers cover the brakes as I snick up and down through the gears. Crest follows corner follows crest as this prefect road ribbons across the rusty moors at their heathery best. Swooping, smiling, singing out loud happy, we barrel roll through a dog-fight, with the tarmac as the opposition.
PONIES! Over a crest, and hard on the anchors as a wild, welsh, equine nihilist stares balefully from the middle of the road. I roll up to a standstill right at his nose and we stare at each other for a bit, before he realises he can’t eat me or hump me – so I’m of no consequence in his life and ambles off to attempt assisted suicide somewhere else.
Off again, clear blue skies exude a light that’s almost artificially bright, plunging from apex to apex, knees pointing the way through, skimming and shimmying our way back to civilisation.
A fellow rider, picks at nervous overtakes, his Day-Glo jacket hints at newness and inexperience, so I hang back then lunge past without startling him. The roundabout is wide and smooth, weight the pegs, tilt the head, drop the shoulder and we whistle through on a whiff of throttle. Then finally, clamped over the tank, buried behind the screen, the long downhill catapults me past dawdling traffic and spits me out at the foot of the valley like a spitfire emerging from the clouds.
The legendary Hunter S Thompson said it best…
“…with the throttle screwed on, there is only the barest margin, and no room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right… and that’s when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are the wind and a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it… howling through a turn to the right, then to the left, and down the long hill to Pacifica… letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge…
The Edge… There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are the ones who have gone over. The others- the living- are those who pushed their luck as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later.
But the edge is still Out there. Or maybe it’s In. The association of motorcycles with LSD is no accident of publicity. They are both a means to an end, to the place of definitions.”
