One heck of a USA road trip on a Harley-Davidson

Okay, my regular readers will have seen some of these pictures before and people who have read my book 'France In America' certainly will, but I thought I'd make a video that tried to show the spirit of my tour of the USA.

This is what I came up with.....

One heck of a USA road trip on a Harley-Davidson

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Motorcycle Speed Trials week at Bonneville - Review and Pictures

Well, my time at the Bonneville Salt Flats is over.  For a first visit to the Motorcycle Speed Trials, it was a great week, so I thought I would set down how I felt about the time I spent there.

The salt flats are huge and the Bonneville Speedway is at the west side of the now mainly dried up sea, near the town of Wendover on the Utah / Nevada border.  Wendover is really the only place to stay overnight as it is the closest place to Bonneville.  Comprising hotels and their casinos, as couple of gas stations, a handful of shops, Wendover is a strange place, but as the only other option is Salt Lake City which at 110 miles away, it is really too far.

Access to the Bonneville Speedway is via junction 4 of Interstate 80 where a tarmac road heads out about 4 miles across the salt flats.  Pay your $20 for the day and then you drive onto the salt itself, and wow, what a feeling that gave me.  This place is iconic, historic and famous.  The Triumph Bonneville its name and the salt is flat, white and disappears so far into the distance, you can see the curvature of the earth here.  A line of cones marks where you need to drive / ride a further 5 miles across the salt to get out to the main pits area.

Getting there for the first time is odd.  There are no fences, no walls, no signs and nothing to tell you where to go.  The salt is a completely natural environment, so nothing permanent is built or left here.  The pits area is where all the bikes are worked on, there is a registration van, a scrutineering area, somewhere to buy food and drink, plus a few temporary toilets.  You are free to walk anywhere and everyone takes full advantage of this.  There were not many spectators and each bike was supported by a team ranging in size from its sole rider / mechanic to about ten, looking after the bigger, more complex bikes on a big budget.

Being able to walk anywhere makes the place very informal.  Most people don't mind you walking up and chatting to them, providing they are not too busy.

As a Bonneville virgin, I found it quite hard to work out what was going on.  There are so many different types of motorcycle of all shapes and sizes racing in so many categories that there isn't a sense of 'racing' at all, but one of everybody trying to simply get their bikes ready to go a fast as they can.  These are not by any means all true speed demons running at 100, 200 or 300 mph, but a collection of diverse machines (and people) simply trying their best.  For some, that means a speed of 60 mph on their motorcycles with small engines and for others, especially the streamliners, that means trying to crack the elusive 400 mph record.  Some people enter their street bikes in the 'Run Whatcha Brung' category.  The range is amazing.

What does seem to be common amongst most racers at Bonneville is they all seem to know a lot about the mechanics of their machines.  Most people seem to spend most of their time working on, tinkering with, or completely rebuilding their motorcycles, under temporary gazebos (or eazy-ups as my American cousins call them).

The Speed Trials week takes place at the end of August and it was hot when I was there.  Wide-brimmed hats, sunscreen and drinking lots of water are all essential, as are closed shoes to protect your feet from the salt.  It is a dry heat, so not overly uncomfortable, although finding shade is important.

After walking around and watching what was happening for a couple of hours, the seemingly chaotic nature of the event began to make sense.  Riders get their motorcycles ready and take them to scrutineering for the essential safety checks.  Get through that (and many don't first time around) then you head down to the pre-stage area to await your turn to run on one of the two tracks.  Waiting is something you have to be good at if you are a competitor or team member, as there is lots of waiting at Bonneville.  Lots of entries, an emphasis on safety and very long tracks that have to be cleared by the previous rider all take their toll on time.  Eventually though, you are told to ride out to the start area for one of the two tracks and after another wait, it is your turn.

As a spectator, you cannot really watch the riders blasting down the tracks, as they are so long (5 miles and 11 miles) that you cannot see the entire length.  I think spectators are meant to stay in the pits area, but I didn't do that, preferring instead to drive out to the pre-stage and start areas.  Taking photographs for me is a passion, so getting out to these areas was essential.

What I really enjoyed was speaking to the competitors at the start areas.  Now free of getting their motorcycles ready, riders seemed to enjoy talking about their machines, where they are from, speeds they have reached and what they hope for on the imminent run.  Then they are off.  Whether on a large or small bike, a standard model or a specialist build, a seasoned or novice competitor, all riders just want to go as fast as they can.  The riders I spoke to ranged in age from 13 years to 75 years old.  They all gave off the same feeling of excitement and this certainly encouraged me to think about competing myself one year.  I really would like to give this a try.

There is one thing to watch out for each visitor or racer at Bonneville.  The salt is really bad for your vehicle.  Competing motorcycles get covered in the white stuff and I am told some components need to be stripped down to eliminate all traces of the salt.  Cars driven on the salt don't suffer as badly, but the rental car I used needed a lot of cleaning to avoid a big bill from the rental company.  There are a couple of car washes in Wendover and they certainly were very busy soon after the weeks racing finished.

Would I recommend going to Bonneville to watch the racing as a spectator?  Yes, I would, although don't expect many comforts - this is raw racing at its most basic.  Would I want to race? - if I can find the right bike and somebody to take as a mechanic, you bet I would!

Here are a selection of my favourite pictures from the week.....

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Look who I met today on his way to Alaska

I put two and two together and made four. Things don’t often work out as easy as this.

I knew that Dom Chang was riding his Ural rig from Denver to Alaska and I just happened to be in Seattle. I had been reading on his blog, Redleg’s Rides, about his trip planning and his first days on the road. Wondering if our paths might cross, I contacted Dom and yes, we would be in the same place at the same time.

We met for lunch today and Dom told me about his trip, his plans, his motorcycle and it was great to spend just a couple of hours together chatting about, well, motorcycling mainly, with a touch of male life-change thrown in.

I met Dom a couple of years ago when on my own long ride in the USA and he and his lovely wife Martha put me up in their home near Denver. Apparently, my own ride sparked something in Dom, and when the time came for a change in his job, Dom decided to do a long motorcycle trip, fully supported (and maybe even suggested) by Martha.

Now ten days into his trip, Dom has relaxed and started to “look at the scenery”. From my own experience, I know that during the first few days of such a trip, your mind is buzzing with routes, plans, calculations, concerns and all sorts of other stuff that clogs the mind. Dom confirmed this was the same with him but now the fog was beginning to disperse and he was able to really start to enjoy the ride. I guess a few mechanical problems with his Russian-built Ural hadn’t helped. Those issues are now all sorted and Dom has the remainder of circa 16,000 miles to look forward to.

I like Dom. I wish I was going with him.

Have a great trip my friend. I will read your blog and follow your journey.

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My book about touring the USA on my motorcycle is launched!

Today sees the launch of my book about riding my Harley-Davidson motorcycle around the USA.

Called ‘France In America’ the book describes the journey I took, covering 21,475 miles, in 27 states, in four and a half months.

I was so impressed by America and the people I met, I wanted to record the journey in some way and a book seemed the obvious answer. Having now written that book, I can only hope I did justice to a wonderful country.

To coincide with today’s launch of my book, a short video has been made to explain some of the background to the trip. Please feel free to embed this video in whatever website or blog you wish....

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The Printing of my Book

I had the opportunity this week to see my book being printed, so of course, I grabbed that chance with both hands and with my son, Jeremy, we went to the plant of one of the UK’s few large format book printers, Butler Tanner & Dennis.

Located in Frome in Somerset, Butler, Tanner& Dennis have a 166 year printing history and their reception contains a very old printing press used by the firm.

The plant is very large indeed and contains all manner of machines needed for book printing and manufacturing. BT&D proudly claim they are one of just a few companies that do everything under one roof in the production of books. For someone like me that has no experience of or any prior knowledge of printing and making books, the plant is a marvel of machines and looking at most sets up a guessing game of trying to work out what they do. Some of the machines are brand new and a marvel of modern technology, but at the same time, these are used alongside many that are decades old and still work perfectly well today.

The plant is laid out broadly in the order that a book is produced, with incoming materials such as paper at one end and the completed book exit at the other. The paper store is large but paper having come from specialist plants in many countries. Unlike newspaper production, all of the incoming paper is cut into flat sheets, not rolled.

My book was printed on the newest and biggest printing machine in the plant, a Heidelberg, which is capable of printing 15,000 sheets an hour at peak. Yes, you did read that right, 15,000 large format sheets an hour!

At about 12 inches by 12 inches (30cm) mine is a large book, and each of the sheets going through the printer contains 20 pages of my book on each side. The printing of the book pages is therefore done at a phenomenal speed.

This is the machine that makes the plates. They are very thin and made from aluminium. Each sheet going through the printer needs 4 plates (cyan, magenta, yellow and black)....

This is one of the plates ready for printing.....

A close up of part of one of the plates – and a picture of Chris Luhman of Everyday Riding....

The huge Heidelberg printer. With its six printing positions. Just four were being used for my book. The paper gets fed into the far right hand end, passes through the six printing positions and the left hand end is where the printed sheet is dried. The completed sheets are delivered in a neat stack at the left hand end.

The top of the yellow printer. It is hard to see from these pictures just how fast everything happens. This drum is spinning at an incredible speed....

The guys opened the side panel of the drying area, so we could see the sheets going through that part....

A not very good picture of the completed sheets being stacked. It is really just a blur....

The printed sheets measure 63 x 47 inches / 1.6m x 1.2m and each contain 20 pages of my book. Due to the way the sheets are folded into sections of the book, half of the pages are printed upside-down.

Each machine in the plant has a “minder”. This is Julian Keel (AKA Biff) who was looking after the Heidelberg printer. He can adjust many aspects of the print as the machine is working. We watched him run off a couple of stacks of different sheets while we were there and I would say he has a very challenging job....

As each stack of printed sheets is finished, they are moved by a fork lift truck to a waiting area. These are not my stacks, but a book just ahead of mine in the production process....

When the whole book is printed, the large sheets are folded into 2o page book sections by some amazing folding machines. Prior to actually folding the sheet, each is perforated to make the folding flatter. Depending on the size of the individual book pages, these machines need to be set up for each book....

Once each 20 page section of the book has been folded and prepared, these are loaded into a long machine that first stitches the sections and then collates those sections. Each section has a printed mark so the machine can automatically check that the collating has been done properly and all sections are in the correct order....

The collated sections then begin to take the form of a book. These are known as book “blanks” and are stacked ready to be moved to the next part of the production process. Note how the pages are just rough cut at this stage....

On a separate production line, the hardback covers are manufactured. This is still done in the same plant, by a different team. Known in the trade as “cases” these are not for my book, but another just ahead of mine....

Next is a very clever, multi-function machine that brings together the cases with the book blanks, trims the pages to the correct size and glues the book into the base to make the completed book. All that is left after this is to add the dust cover, or “jacket” as the printers call it....

A similar process happens with the softback books, but a totally different machine is used to bring the various parts of the book together....

Quality control is important at every stage of the process, with people having to sign off every part of that process. If they didn’t check each stage until the book was completed, a minor problem in one process would mean rejection of the whole print run. This is where the completed books are checked....

Overall, the visit to the plant was fascinating. Having never before understood how a book is produced it was terrific to see each part of the process. The guy managing the production of my book, Clinton Walker, went out of his way to show us around and explain the process to us. Along with the Key Account director, Jeremy Snell, we were made to feel very welcome and it was clear the team at Butler Tanner & Dennis are excellent at what they do. I am really looking forward to seeing the end result.

When the book is finalised, they need to be shipped to the various supply locations and then we will be ready to go, in time for the book launch on 4th march.

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