Issue 126 : December 2002 - January 2003
Triumph factory visit
Int'l Motorcycle Show
European Bike Week
Anglesey Show
Bulldog
Bike Theft
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Triumph factory visit
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European Bike Week 2002
Up ahead the 'gauntlet' appeared, a point in the road narrowed by the crowd filling the raised seating on one side and the restaurant forecourt on the other. Massive cheering, whooping, whistling, beer bottle hands gesticulating; a man with a sheet of cardboard with the word BURNOUT scrawled on it. Somebody obliged and the horde disappeared behind a cloud of dense black smoke. A tenner's worth or rubber destroyed in seconds - this was no Greenpeace festival. I pulled over, ignoring the marshals urgently waving people to keep moving. Camera out, long lens on. Blimy is that Arnie Schwarzenneger? A massively muscled man on a Fat Boy rumbles toward my lens, a stunning Latin beauty decorating the back of the bike, her head resting adoringly on one gigantic shoulder. The man lifts his chin, looks straight at the camera 'ain't I something.' Modest town it is not.
The great thing about European Bike Week though, however posey, however pretentious, however OTT, is that there really is no attitude. From a shutter bug's perspective this is great - everyone wants to be photographed and even if they scowl there's no real aggression, it's an act and the humour shows through the mirror shades - everyone's living a fantasy, a fantasy come true, albeit with a little help from the good ol' boys at Harley-D. This is not mind you, a 100% 'Harley's best stuff the rest' event of insular snobbery. There are enough other makes around for their riders to be spared the curious glances and snorts that might make the 'foreigners' feel uncomfortable. Admittedly most are cruisers, some now so close in appearance to the Milwaukee metal that even long term aficionados like myself can be deceived at a distance, study these pictures closely and you'll see what I mean. I play a game of 'is it isn't it' as a set of wide forks approaches down the road. Yes it is, knew it was, can't fool me. No! it isn't - wrong again.Those Kwaks with the phony pushrod tubes have really got close. I'd heard it would be a monster do and set off with a 100 rolls of film - I was going to need it. The police estimate of numbers was 33,000 and I could believe them.
The scale of the Faakasee bash encourages comparisons with Daytona or Sturgis and the parallels are there. Take the inevitable extroverts like the guy with the bike smothered in animal skins, who shared his seat with a stuffed goat for example. Rudi, over at the press tent viewed the heap scathingly, 'he spend so much on this animal skins, maybe he should save a little for the bike.' He had a point. Harley-Davidson sponsor European Bike Week but don't rule the whole show which accommodates a few service providers who occupy the fringes of the corporate family image. Down at the gauntlet stands, a pick up truck sounds its horn to announce the arrival of a bikini clad table dancer who performs al fresco from the back, to wild hoots as cameras click and stern Austrian cops cover their uniform ID numbers. She's advertising the attractions of the lap dancing club under the big top a mile up the road, one of a handful of alternative venues that provide for the single man. I start day two with a swim in the lake which reaches its highest temperature in September. It's not bad and I spend a full 2 minutes thrashing about which is long enough to remind me that I'm still scared of drowning.
Back at lake level I go shopping in tent town and invest in a thick lumberjack shirt for £20. Bit suspect in W1 but here it's de rigour and I want to blend with the crowd, the Harley style is contagious but I can't quite summon the nerve to don my bandana. OK I tried it on in my bathroom but couldn't get out the door with it in place. Day four and the numbers are really building - the helmet law has clearly been suspended and I set off sans casque to relive my early biking dreams. In a moment I am waved to a halt by frantic cops. Why me? Thousands and thousands of riders flouting the law and they pick on me ! Do they know I'm British and my uncle was a baker in Montgomery's squad? I tap my head as my face makes a question mark - 'nein nein' his hands make turn around motions. The blighters have made the lakeside road one way and I'm swimming against the tide - ah Dankershun mein jolly good most helpful friend. Over at the fashion show stage the boys and girls are doing their stuff with the music and dry ice. Yep Harley-Davidson fly out a team of dancers to model their clothing range to gutsy music and like everything they do - it's really great. I saw the show five times and I still enjoyed it. The Mr and Mrs H-D contest is a little too Butlins for me but it's good for raising a grin as game amateurs make you realise how good the professional dancers really are. This year's champs are a seven year old boy and a middle aged American woman who turns cart wheels. Cool dudes and pouting wench also-rans smile good humouredly and the crowd drifts off to view another attraction. With so many extroverts in one place you hardly need organised showmen but you get 'em anyway. Besides the fringe events the Harley village offers three huge marquees for musical choice though it all leans toward the melodious rather than the radical and to my relief there's not a single thud of rap. The other thing that reminds me I'm far from my East London home is the cleanliness. There is no litter - none. In the five days I was there I saw one biker throw an empty beer can at a dustbin on site, and miss, that was an accident - and - he climbed to his feet from the outdoor table where he'd been sitting, walked five yards, picked it up and dropped it in the bin. That impressed me.
I performed my favourite party trick of leaving a camera at the roadside but on my return some quarter hour after leaving it I found a German couple standing guard over it like a couple of Dobermans. 'This is the second time in a month that I have done this' I tell them; 'perhaps you have heard of Alzheimers' grins the male of the pair. Ha they're jokers these Germans but so honest. I return home with a friend who had joined me for the end of the rally. It is Dave French from MAG Ireland who lives with a German girl in Stuttgart - a bit of a cosmopolitan chap is Dave. A spectacular ride back through the Alps follows, with Dave, leading on his athletic Vstrom, astonished that I am keeping up on the Harley - how they've changed. Five hundred miles later we park up outside his apartment in a leafy side street. 'Will the bike be safe?' I ask him. He looks at me oddly, 'you are in Germany' he says, 'we still have law here.' A week after I got home a package arrived from my hotel Harmonie Am See. It contained four rolls of film that I'd left in my wardrobe - I liked that. Tel: 0043 (0) 4254 2860 You take a little track off the lakeside road by the woodcarvers and turn left immediately, not expensive. Ian Mutch
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I heard it long before I saw it. A low growl like a thousand lions in the coliseum at lunch time, growing in volume as I dropped down out of the mountains to the level ground surrounding Lake - mind how you pronounce it - Faak. Riding up the waterfront under the welcome banners spanning the road, the traffic thickened, all bikes, all glowing in the early evening sunset.
Up at the Harley Village restaurant every vendor looked over subscribed for seating and there was lots. I went for a 'help yourself deal' on the chicken salad, heaped up a plate like a gastric Matterhorn and headed for the till, 'Danker' - plate grasped, dumped on set of scales, priced accordingly- bugger! The bill was very fair though, cheaper than UK rates, as was my hotel. A big double room, beautiful en suite bathroom with monsoon-power shower, balcony with lake view over the breakfast veranda, snow capped mountains for a backdrop - £40 a night. This may sound a little effete to canvas traditionalists but when you've a sack of camera gear and you've spent a day sweating around snapping everything that moves at the end of an 1100 mile run, a little luxury goes down a treat.
There are organised ride outs into the mountains and I join one, abandoning my own twin cam Dyna for a lift on an Electra Glide piloted by Heinz, a cop from Frankfurt. Six hours of winding through spectacular scenery follow, my ears popping as we negotiate a thousand hairpins on the way to The Eagles Nest. Here we park up and are promptly joined by two coachloads of apparently paralytic pensioners led, pied piper style by an accordion player accompanied by Mrs jolly on the ghazoo as everyone claps in time - surreal, where's the movie crew?
I stand at a counter for 25 minutes in quest of food as waitresses on amphetamines, hands a-blur serve everyone bar me. Tempted beyond endurance by a huge chocolate fruit cake under my nose, I clear up all the big crumbs and then re-shape the face of it for the sake of tidyness. Rich is the word and I leave totally satisfied and fiscus intactus as a pair of elderly Helgas point and roar with laughter at my presumption.
The Saturday ride out was something else. Thousands and thousands of bikes in convoy riding round the neighbourhood for two hours of unashamed exhibitionism. Crowds lined the streets, smiling faces, hans clapping, hands even, others stretched out to high five the passing riders, had we done them some tremendous favour? Actually - yes. Thirty three thousand fast spending fun lovers in a non industrial area heavily dependant on tourism - yes I reckon we had, but that aside, the enthusiasm for pure OTT spectacle a la motorcycle, cuts it just about anywhere.