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 | TT Riders...by Rebeca X. Reynolds
Monday
July 14, 2008
The Amsterdam airport was bright with bare walls, void of the usual advertisements crowding American walls. Dave and I were rushing with rolling suitcases toward our unknown gate, unable to read the Dutch signage. About ten feet ahead, Dave kept turning his head and smiling at me every time he passed a fashionably dressed Dutch man.
A little later, over a cup of strong Euro coffee, he said, “I can’t help it, it just looks too feminine.” We were sitting in a shoddy little cafeteria waiting for our delayed plane.
“It’s the fashion, honey,” I replied. “You’re just used to the casual, boring American Midwestern Man dress code. T shirts and tennis shoes and jeans. It would be nice if you guys dressed sexy like these men.”
“Sexy? You call those flouncy pants sexy? Sorry, but I wouldn’t be caught dead in those.”
“Gouchos. We used to call them gouchos.”
We were on our way to Birmingham, England to attend the International Triumph Motorcycle Dealer Conference. This was an event we were looking forward to, although not quite as much as our planned tour of the neighboring region. I couldn’t wait to see Ireland, home of my favorite grandfather. He couldn’t wait to tour as much of The United Kingdom as possible on a motorcycle. And Triumph was agreeing to provide one from the factory, if they didn’t change their minds again.
This would be a dream ride for Dave, especially on the Isle of Man, where he hoped to ride the famous TT course. I would hate to ruin it for him. Hopefully my back would hold up for ten days on the back of the bike.
A few hours later, we landed in England and once again noticed the lack of security since arriving in Europe. We passed through unattended check points and empty rooms with old looking metal detectors shoved off to the side.
Our first order of business was to unpack our suitcases and fill garbage bags with our designated motorcycle gear, then rent a storage locker in which to leave the suitcases. |
A woman directed us to a cheesy little storage room which, according to the sign, closed in 30 minutes, and there was no attendant in sight. What a problem we’d have, if we couldn’t drop off that luggage ! We had to make it to the Triumph factory in Hinckley that day to pick up the bike, and couldn’t exactly drive it away with all this stuff. I waited with our luggage as Dave scoured the airport mall for the attendant. In 15 minutes, just as I started to break a sweat, he reappeared with a woman and an anxious smile on his face.
“It will be five pounds per bag per day,” she said.
That meant five bags at $10.00 a day each, plus the horrible exchange rate, which equaled too expensive. So, Dave and I worked hard unpacking and repacking everything right there on the dirty floor of the mall so as to consolidate five bags down into two, which we did by putting the smaller cases inside the larger ones.
“This is the third time I’ve packed for this trip,” I complained. “I had to do this twice at home.”
The heavy motorcycle gear – helmets, boots, full riding suits, gloves, rain gear, a loaded tank bag, necessary hardware - became a monumental feat to carry in trash bags, the only disposable transport items we could think of. (There were no carts beyond the airport gate.) In fact, I couldn’t handle my load, and had to stop every few yards to drop it, while Dave had to continually pick up my pieces, which started weighing him down to a crawl.
We heaved it all onto a lift (the last elevator we would see for a while), and politely listened to a red faced man jabber on in a startling and unintelligible accent. From the lift we dragged it all to the shuttle bus, rode the shuttle bus to the train station, where we navigated our gear to the bottom of the first long staircase, then suffered the climb of several flights along with a nice man who helped me battle my stuff up the stairs one step at a time. (We would never find an escalator from here on either, and accordingly, not many fat people). Luckily, the train platform to Hinckley wasn’t very far away.
Loading our stuff onto the train took several trips in and out the door, adding the nice touch of stress concerning a possible split up had the door slammed shut, as they do. People were staring and snickering at us, of course, while we spread ourselves out over half a car and collapsed. Now we had less than an hour to rest, so I laid down on my garbage bag for some desperately needed sleep. Throughout the trip, a janitor kept passing by and eyeing our trash bags suspiciously. This had happened in the train station also. I got the feeling we shouldn’t leave them unattended for a second. And, yes, there was actually a janitor working on the day train. |
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Grey clouds had gathered over the industrial town of Hinckley, and as we got off the train, it started to rain. Hauling our stuff over to the station building found it locked, then hauling it to the nearest pay phones found them all broken, How could we call a cab? We stood a little while considering our dilemma in the depressing rain, exhausted, beat down.
When a cab slowly pulled onto our street, we ran for it. It felt great to get out of the rain.
“Do you know where the Triumph factory is?” Dave asked the cab driver.
“Oh yes, of course,” she replied. “Everyone in Hinckley knows where the Triumph factory is.” She continued chatting about what a lovely job they did rebuilding it after the awful fire six years ago, and how she remembered that gloomy day, the sky billowing black with smoke.
Upon arrival to the factory gate, she said she had to drop us and couldn’t continue past the guard without prior permission, so we unloaded our stuff and prayed there would be no further mishaps with our precarious arrangements.
After the guard let us in, we stood in the small lobby and smiled at the attractive , blonde receptionist.
“How can I serve you?” she asked.
“Yes, we’re here to pick up a demo bike…”
Poor Suzanne. Turned out it was her first day on the job as the receptionist, and here we were all the way from America moving into her lobby with a mountain of trash bags, making unconventional requests that were causing problems inside the unprepared facility, and no ride out of there. She politely brought us tea and only got a little flustered once with all the phone calls, after we’d been in her hair for hours.
First of all, the factory guy with whom Dave made all the arrangements wasn’t there. It was his day off, which was probably why there wasn’t a bike ready for us. Suzanne kept calling for someone to come help us, and finally a guy named Devron came into the lobby with “bad news”.
“So sorry, but it appears an Australian journalist crashed your bike. I’m afraid the Sprint is beyond repair at the moment, but we might be able to prep a Tiger for you, if you are willing.”
“Yes, I’m willing,” replied Dave. “I wouldn’t mind a Tiger. We have to leave on something. Please tell me it has a tail rack.”
“Tail rack? Why, I don’t know,” said Devron. “I’ll definitely check on that.”
“You see, we pre-packed all our gear to fit exactly into the hard bags and trunk that would be on the fully equipped Sprint we were supposed to get.”
“I see,” Devron replied with a slight hesitation.
I recognized that hesitation. So did Dave. Seventeen years of owning a shop put us right in his shoes. He already knew there would be no tail rack now. Not since we counted on it.
Hours went by, as we patiently waited for the Tiger to be prepped. Suzanne called Andreah, the marketing director, into the lobby to help smooth out our problems and entertain travel ideas. Together, the two women got out maps and directories, called hotels for us, and pointed out favorite routes out of Hinckley. |
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It was near closing time for the lobby when Devron finally came back with news of the Tiger, ready with side panniers but, of course, no tail rack. This little detail eradicated more than half the wardrobe I so painstakingly selected and packed for my romantic Irish trip. When Dave brought in the little side panniers we were supposed to pack everything into, I couldn’t believe it. And only one was mine, how funny.
As we sat on the carpet with our stuff spread out all over the lobby, we ruthlessly eliminated things from the divided piles. If Dave hadn’t brought the tank bag, we wouldn’t have been able to pack the camera.
Employees started leaving for the day, and one by one, as they passed us on the floor busily packing for the fourth time, they reacted with puzzled looks and amusement. A cute girl named Lauren came down from the offices and, delighted with our plans, joined Suzanne and Andrea with more enthusiastic suggestions on where to go and what to do. Andrea was kind enough to offer to not only store our extra clothing in her office, but to bring it with her to the dealer conference a week later. The fact that it was in a trash bag worried me again, so she assured me she would put a sign on it reading: Not Rubbish. Now, I had to close my eyes and let my best shoes and evening clothes go with God. |
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The women eventually had to leave, but the maid kept us company, cheerfully vacuuming around us on the floor. In the end, we had to wear as many things as possible, but we made it all fit, thanks to Dave, the most efficient packer I’ve ever met. When we finally lumbered out of there, we saw that the Tiger was a little beat up and had also been crashed, or maybe just dropped, which would explain the difficulty Dave had trying to latch the panniers shut.
At that point, we were so ravenously hungry, we were very ready to blow out of there, except for one last little detail. I couldn’t get my over-stuffed, fat body onto the back of that tall bike. Three times I tried to swing my leg over with a very embarrassing failure to launch, and then to my further dismay, heard some male laughter coming from the lower factory windows behind me. Dave was hiding a smile as well, so with the pressure on, I really lurched my weight, swung my leg out, and managed to kick the temporary registration plate off the back of the bike as I landed in the seat. Great. Now someone had to get back off the bike, pick it up, and get back on. More faint laughter from behind. Dave turned to see my face, flushed with anger, and quickly tilted the bike onto its side stand, hopped off with no problem, put the registration back on, hopped back on, and made a bee line out of there. |
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Once riding, the wind helped blow our cares away. Dave rounded a curve, merged onto the left side of the main road, then gave my leg a couple pats of satisfaction, as if to say, we’re finally on the road. I gave him a mutual squeeze back. The new sights of England went by.
In town, Dave navigated the busy streets until he saw a little fish and chip shop, then pulled over for dinner. Besides fish, the menu bragged deep fried roe, black pudding, steak and kidney pie, and the best mushy peas anywhere. Was that possible? We ate our dinner in full motorcycle gear, sitting on a small grassy spot in a park across the street. Wow, that was a lot of grease.
As twilight fell, we sped on through the evening , stopping at almost every quaint, little hotel or Bed and Breakfast we saw, each of them beautifully arranged with flowers and crawling vines, each of them full of happy people drinking beer in the back garden, each of them completely booked. I started falling asleep on the bike, and came awake with a jolt every time I almost slipped off. Getting desperate, I told Dave he had to find any place soon, so he did, in the shape of a plain motel named The Roman Way.
Apparently, the Roman way is to have no lift. So, completely exhausted, starting way back to that sleepless night on the plane over the ocean, Dave and I barely made it up the four flights of stairs painfully dragging the tank bag and those miserable pannier bags, which Dave was ready to beat to death with a sledgehammer by now, since one of them was jammed shut with all of his belongings inside. We literally dropped everything crashing to the floor, sat on each side of the bed, peeled the first layer of gear off, fell backwards onto the bed, and passed out with our clothes on.
I woke in the middle of the night to strange cooing sounds, and woke up Dave. We finished undressing and got into bed.
to be continued…. |
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