Right to the Edge: Sydney to Tokyo By Any Means (35 page)

The coordinates were for a place called Lungtan in Taoyuan County, known locally as the Temple on the Lake. By the time we found it, a group of pretty serious-looking sports-bike riders had gathered. It was not even 5.30 a.m., and yet further along the road some people were taking part in an early morning aerobics lesson.

Not long after we arrived, M13 showed up wearing a full-face helmet with a home-made ski-mask underneath. I’d been worried he would suggest some kind of illegal racing but fortunately he told us he’d planned an hour’s ride on a mountain road and then some time on a track. He had arranged a Kawasaki street-fighter for me - a nice bike, easy to ride and very responsive. They also had a full-face helmet, so I looked the part and was good to go. The other riders were young guys in race leathers, most of whom had well-worn knee-sliders.

‘So what’s the road like?’ I asked M13. Though he wouldn’t say where he was from, he spoke with a strong Canadian accent and we were able to communicate fluently in English.

‘Gorgeous. Tight and twisty, although it’s not that fast. We’ll go up into the mountains, stop at a café, then come back here again for the track.’

It sounded great, although I was still feeling pretty nervous. These boys looked as though they liked nothing better than getting their knee down, and the last time I had been on this kind of ride was the day my friend was killed. I told myself to chill out, that you can’t not do things just because something might happen. That’s ridiculous. If you lived life like that you would never step outside your front door. Life is there to be grabbed by the scruff of the neck.

The problem with riding in groups is that things can get out of hand. Whether we like to admit it or not, competition among sports-bike riders is fierce and roads can turn into impromptu race tracks. It’s a macho thing where it’s all about how much wear you have on the very edge of the tyre, how scraped up your knee-sliders are and whether you can keep up. Sometimes people ride beyond their capabilities and that’s when accidents happen. These days, when I want a speed fix, I go to the track where you can ride as fast as you like and there is no traffic coming the other way.

I just could not shake this feeling of trepidation and as if to confirm my fears I heard a siren blare suddenly further up the road. A few moments later, two black-and-white police cars pulled up and this really stroppy-looking cop climbed out of the first one. He was wearing a flak jacket, combat boots and a baseball cap, looking more like a paramilitary than a copper. He was not happy.

Obviously he hated bikers. His face was the colour of beetroot and when he saw both Claudio and Robin with cameras he really went off on one. It was fortunate we had Sunny there to interpret.

‘Stop recording,’ he told us. ‘You’re not allowed to film here.’

That was bullshit. We were doing nothing wrong. We had the correct filming permits and this was a free country. In fact, we were under no restrictions whatsoever. Robin moved to a discreet distance, but he kept on filming.

This copper was typical of some men when they step into a uniform - they think it gives them the right to bully people.

He did not let up. Twice I assured him we were doing nothing wrong, but he still kept on. He demanded that Claudio give him his passport, but there was no way Claudio was going to do that. Again we told him we had permission to film. But he kept on about the passport, waving his arms around and telling us to switch off the cameras. Keeping the camera rolling and his passport safely in his pocket, Claudio retreated to the other side of the road.

We made it clear we hadn’t filmed the copper’s face but we were not going to stop filming altogether. If he wanted to make an exhibition of himself, that was up to him.

When he realised that we would stand our ground whatever he threatened, he changed his tune. He was no longer asking for passports; now he wanted a piece of paper stating categorically that we would not show his face.

The argument went on and on and by now the bikers were standing around looking pretty bored. In the end we signed a piece of paper for the cop and he seemed satisfied. With a final sneer in Claudio’s direction, he got in the police car and left.

‘Jesus,’ I said to M13, ‘is it always like that?’

‘Not always, but most cops don’t like bikers. They hate the big bikes particularly, and it’s only been a couple of years that big bikes have even been legal in Taiwan.’

‘I heard that. So what did you do before?’

‘Before they were legal? People imported them illegally. There were about twenty thousand big bikes on the street and none of them had licence plates. If you rode in a large group the cops would leave you alone because it was just too much hassle for them to pull you over. If you were on your own, though, you flew straight through red lights because, if you stopped, a cop might jump out and whip your ignition keys away. The worst thing that could happen was they took your bike.’

Thankfully big bikes were legal now, and we were finally on our way. I tried to find out a little more about M13 but he was reluctant to talk about himself, other than referring to his ‘motoblogging’, as he called it. He said he was the first person to put a camera on his crash helmet and film his rides for the internet. He also reckoned he was the most popular guy on YouTube when people were looking for bike videos. He was married to a Taiwanese girl and was fluent in Chinese, but that was all he was going to say.

Initially at least, I made sure we were riding sensibly. Claudio was two-up on one of the bikes so he could film, and that moment with the Gestapo had done nothing to ease the knot of tension in my stomach.

M13 told me that he rode with lots of different groups. Many times he would be riding along on his own and a bunch of bikes would come past and he would hook up with them. They would stop for a coffee or something and exchange phone numbers. That was the brotherhood - the oneness of spirit that’s the same in Taiwan as anywhere else in the world.

Gradually I began to unwind. I loved this bike and before long I started doing my usual thing of messing about, one foot on the seat, riding side-saddle and popping a couple of second-gear wheelies.

Half an hour into the trip, however, I came down a hill and round a corner to see one of the riders lying spread-eagled in the middle of the road. My heart was in my mouth. A couple of other bikes had stopped already and two guys were running around looking pretty panicked. We pulled over right away.

That bad feeling had been right again, and seeing that guy prostrate was just a little macabre. Somehow he had overcooked the corner and I hoped to God he was all right. At first it looked pretty bad - he was lying so still on the road. But as we got closer he started to move his limbs, and instinctively I knew there was nothing seriously wrong. You can just tell - I’ve been down the road a few times myself and you know when you’re badly hurt. This guy was shocked from the fall and he was hurting all right - a bit bruised and battered - but he was basically okay.

Someone phoned for an ambulance and while we were waiting for it to arrive we learned what had happened. The rider hadn’t misjudged the corner; he had been side-swiped by another bike that took the bend more quickly and clipped him as he went by. It was enough for him to lose control and he’d been flipped off.

Two medics arrived and stabilised his neck and left leg before loading him onto a stretcher. He would be all right, but his bike was damaged and that was all he really cared about. It’s the same with any biker. When you have a spill, all you can see is your beloved bike cart-wheeling down the road and the only thought in your head is how much it’s going to cost. His bike wasn’t too bad - the fairing was scuffed, the rear-set foot-pegs were bent out of shape and one of the mirrors was hanging off, which might be a bit expensive. He had been taping his ride on video and he said that we could use the crash footage if we wanted . . . but it would cost. That was a good sign - lying there with the medics taping him up, his business head was working and he was already thinking of ways to raise the funds to get his bike fixed. He was out of luck, though, because we weren’t about to pay for any footage.

The accident had put a dampener on the whole ride, and a couple of the guys had already gone back to Taipei. We discussed it with M13 and decided to abort the mountain road and head straight for the track.

The Lungtan speedway track wasn’t far from where we had first met up. It was a bit of a shit-hole, if I’m brutally honest, very small and tight and the run-off areas were poor. The safety barriers were just banks of painted tyres and I was conscious that I had no leather trousers. We soon discovered that this was the only standard race track in the whole of Taiwan. They hold novice races here as a way of trying to combat the illegal street races we had heard about.

Like I say, I had no proper leathers, and I hate going on a track without them. I was wearing jeans but they wouldn’t give me much protection if I came off. They found me some strap-on knee-sliders, but it wasn’t enough to give me total confidence. I did a couple of sighting laps, found the racing line and settled into a rhythm. But I couldn’t lean the bike over as far as I would like and kept scraping the foot-pegs. As the laps unravelled I did manage to get a bit of a lick on, I suppose; Claudio filmed it and told me afterwards that M13 said he had trouble keeping up.

I spent half an hour messing about with the other guys before taking a breather. It was an incredibly hot day - the sun was a fireball and the cement absolutely baking. Once I’d had a drink and a bit of a sit-down in the shade, I raced a girl called Jessica on a scooter. She beat the pants off me. She did have a full-on racing-spec machine, mind you, with sticky tyres, a massive carburettor and a racing exhaust. I had a stock scooter and even with a head start she completely annihilated me.

Robin shook his head sadly. ‘I filmed you on the Dakar and you never looked better. Just three years later and you’re beaten by a girl on a scooter.’

Yeah. Thanks for that, Robin . . . Ignoring him I turned my attention to an Alfa Romeo. I took part in a short car race with two other guys and then Sam Kue, the track champion, took me out in his Mitsubishi drifter. I’d seen drifting - guys sliding cars around a race track - on TV, but actually being in the car was something else.

Sam was in his element: ‘Number one, baby!’ he kept telling me. ‘Number one!’

Spinning the steering wheel, he smoked the tyres all the way from the pit lane to the first corner then all around the track. I loved it, it was an amazing experience. Thrown from side to side at every turn, I was screaming like a girl.

What a way to say goodbye to this great country. I loved the place, particularly on this last day, and after a couple of laps in the Mitsubishi - very hot but very happy - I jumped in the van for the drive back to Taipei.

JAPAN IS OFTEN CALLED the Land of the Rising Sun. The phrase comes from the name the Japanese gave their country - Nippon-Koku, which means ‘sun-origin’. Sun or rain, I was really looking forward to this last leg of the trip. I had been to Japan once before, but that was just a brief visit to Tokyo twenty years ago. This is the motorcycling mecca of the world, and I couldn’t wait to get to grips with all the amazing bikes they have out here. Amazingly enough, the only motorbikes being ridden in Japan prior to the Second World War were imported - none of the Japanese manufacturers pre-date 1945. Given that they now dominate the world market, it’s an incredible achievement.

As planned, we made the crossing from Taiwan on a cruise ship, which, despite my reservations, turned out to be a great opportunity to unwind after the rigours of overland travelling. We spent the evening in the company of a bunch of ladyboys, who dressed me up in pink and insisted I join them for the Ms Universe Bingo Pageant. It was like being in panto, only these guys took it extremely seriously. I wasn’t quite ready to play Widow Twanky just yet, but I’ve always had a thing for lingerie, so I joined in with the fun. Robin and Claudio caught every detail, of course, and I’m convinced they plan to use it against me. I reckon they’ll wait till I’m invited to the Bulldog Bash by the Hells Angels or something, then bring it out as a slide show. Anyway, in the spirit of adventure I braved the pageant and afterwards I spent far too many hours in the casino. Claudio’s alcohol consumption was as sensible as ever, but the same cannot be said for Sam and Robin. Suffice to say that by the time the sun was rising, three of the party were nursing hangovers.

 

 

The cruise ship docked on the island of Okinawa, in the middle of the East China Sea. Japan is made up of more than six thousand islands, although the four largest - Honshu, Hokkaido, Kyushu and Shikoku - account for 97 per cent of population, which currently stands at 128 million. The metropolitan area of Tokyo alone is home to 30 million.