From Riding Round in Circles, originally published: 14/02/2019]
I don’t claim all of these as being my original thoughts. A lifetime of reading about motorcycling, and six years of adventure biking have filled my head with thoughts the source of which I don’t always remember. People who know me well will probably be able to spot the ones that are my originals.
You know that you are an adventure biker when…
- Cleaning the bike takes precedence over washing your clothes;
- Sometimes you justify not cleaning the bike by claiming that the dirt will protect the paintwork;
- Everything in your luggage smells of old sweat and oil, even your soap and deodorant;
- You no longer bother to use deodorant (it doesn’t work when your clothes stink);
- Most nights you don’t know where you’re going to sleep, but it doesn’t seem to worry you;
- When someone mentions the words “Desert Fox”, you think of fuel cells, not Field-Marshall Erwin Rommel;
- In a bikers’ bar, you’re the only one who has ever ridden more than 800 kilometres in one day (or one week, for that matter, or one month);
- In a bikers’ bar, you’re the only one who doesn’t know the specs and performance of every motorbike on the planet;
- In a bikers’ bar, you’re the only one who doesn’t know the specs and performance figures of your own bike, but can dismantle and reassemble it in the dark without having any bits left over;
- In a bikers’ bar, you’re the only one who has ridden over an international border on a bike;
- In a bikers’ bar, you’re the only one who knows how to navigate using a compass and a map (remember those old things?);
- In a bikers’ bar, you’re the only one who thinks 250 c.c. is a good size for a bike to ride round the world on;
- In a bikers’ bar, you’re the only one who thinks that riding round the world is a good idea;
- You and your bike have been dowsed by a water-bomber that was going to fight a nearby forest fire;
- You and your bike have been covered with ash from a forest fire that you happened to pass;
- You don’t consider it strange to park your bike inside a house, restaurant, hotel, or public toilet;
- You have a billy that makes everything taste like a mixture of tea, coffee, stew, and laundry;
- You have a spoon that has been used to stir beverages, dispense medication, eat meals, tighten screws, and dig small holes;
- You used to have a fork, but (dare I say it?) it forked off;
- You have a butter knife that is paired with a Phillips screwdriver in your tool-kit;
- You can rain down imprecations upon bystanders in at least seventeen terrestrial languages but you cannot greet anyone in more than six;
- You had a spare part for the bike that you carried around for years and found, when you actually needed it, that it was the wrong part;
- You have done a water crossing where you had no idea how deep it was;
- You know exactly where to hit your bike in order to correct an electrical fault;
- You know exactly where to hit a border official in order to correct an intellectual fault, but you know that it wouldn’t be a good idea, so you don’t;
- You have a pocket knife that has been used to strip insulation off electrical wires, clean your fingernails, cut meat, and do minor surgery;
- You have a pocket knife that you believe could be used to cause a pneumothorax or haemothorax in someone who attacks you;
- You have a pocket knife that you believe you could use to do a tracheotomy on someone who didn’t attack you;
- You have some kind of omni-tool that has at least one part whose purpose defies your wildest dreams;
- You have used your laptop or tablet to access a pirated workshop manual for your bike and then found that it was in Sanskrit;
- You know empirically that the old joke about wearing the same pair of underpants for eight days isn’t a joke after all;
- You have a pocketful of change and most of the coins wouldn’t even get you out of jail in Monopoly (or in the host country);
- You think that taking three hours to cover thirty kilometres is a good pace, especially if it isn’t raining, snowing, or pelting down volcanic ash;
- You’re never caught without toilet paper, even at a mayoral function (yeah, mayoral ‘function’ – I know what you’re thinking!);
- You’ve been threatened with grievous bodily harm by an angry mob;
- You’ve arrived at a backpackers’ lodge that you found on the Internet and discovered that it closed down two years ago;
- You’ve arrived at the exact GPS co-ordinates given by the website of a backpackers’ lodge and it wasn’t there, and no one nearby has ever heard of it;
- You know seventeen different cures for diarrhoea, but none of them works for you;
- You’ve decided to give up motorcycling forever on numerous occasions;
- You’ve eaten a meal while sitting on the pavement in the main street of a town with your feet in the gutter, and you’ve lit your gas stove right there in order to make tea;
- You’ve murmured “fuck off” to street kids who have tried to bum off you and then have felt guilty for the next 170 000 kilometres (or until the day that you die; whichever comes first);
- You’ve shared your lunch (unwillingly) with almost the entire fly kingdom;
- You’ve donated blood (unwittingly) to most of the mosquito kingdom;
- You know what Plasmodium Falciparum is, and you think you can beat it with garlic and long pants;
- You’ve ridden for eight hours in a non-stop torrential downpour because there seemed to be no other option;
- You actually enjoyed the eight-hour ride in the torrential downpour;
- You’ve ridden off-road on a scooter;
- You’ve stopped and photographed a sign that warns motorists not to get out of their cars because of the dangerous wild animals in the vicinity;
- You’ve stopped to photograph a tree because it’s been so long since you last saw one;
- You’ve stopped to photograph a human because it’s been so long since you last saw one;
- You’ve used your toothbrush to comb your hair, groom your moustache, and clean the bike’s air filter, but not to clean the chain; that would be gross (for that, you use someone else’s toothbrush);
- Your fully-laden bike is too heavy for you to lift without help from an entire village, all of whom wish to be paid for their charitable effort;
- Your passport has been soaking wet at least once;
- You’ve been detained (briefly, at least) at an international border;
- You can remain asleep in a twelve-bed dormitory, even when 50% of the occupants get up at three in the morning to catch a taxi and the first thing they do is put on their great big noisy boots;
- You’ve opened your wallet and water dripped out, and you thought it was funny to make a remark about money laundering;
- Your favourite Christmas present is chain lubricant;
- There are banknotes in at least five different currencies in your wallet;
- You mount your bike more in the style of a hurdler than that of a horse-rider;
- You are amused by the statement: ‘Adventure biking is the most expensive way to live like a homeless person’, but believe that it is substantially true.