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I hear a loud “Bang” and “screeeech״ as my Arai helmet and the left side bag butt against the red-plastered wall. The motorcycle jolts violently to the right, and me with it. I’m thrown, shoulder first, against the stone pebbles, my right hand still gripping the throttle. Big mistake. The back wheel, now free of ground friction, spins fast against my left foot.
I hear my friend yelling over the Packtalk Mesh intercom, “Oh, S***!”
There’s a comically oversized guy on a small, beat-up old Lambretta. He says he’s in for the ride. He has a complete set of floodlights attached to the old Italian scooter that would scare Bambie a mile away. It’s not even noon. I can only wonder how he made it so far up the pier. Another one shows up on a Bonneville. He’s dressed up in a full three-piece vintage suit, complete with a matching pocket handkerchief and a well-groomed dandy mustache. It’s Santa Monica, and the Southern California sun is beating down our heads. Nobody seems to mind the inadequacy. A third shows up in a side-cart Bimmer. He, his wife, and the little kid are all in Tigger suits. Somehow, that passes almost as normal. Welcome to the Distinguished Gentlemen Ride, a magnet for the Hipsters, the nostalgics, and the downright eccentric.
With over 500 motorcycles, it’s a weird spectacle of American proportions.
“Why the hell would you hide two Michelin awards?” I asked Tsubasa Tamaki, Pizza Tamaki Studio’s owner and Chef. I know that the Japanese take things differently than other humans, but still, having devoured a few exquisite pies, I couldn’t make any sense of it. “We Japanese don’t like to boast,” he says with a shrug, “Please note that I also placed two chubby Michelin dolls on the window overlooking the dark back alley.”
All I could think of was, “I’m in Tokyo. What answer did I expect?”
Continue reading “The Michelin Award is behind the espresso machine”
Peter Gava stops the Land Cruiser in the middle of a grand Savanna clearing. We lumber our way off the open 4×4 as Peter races around the vehicle to open a small rear baggage compartment and pulls out a carefully folded table and a neatly packed outdoor cocktail set. It’s six o’clock in the afternoon, 18 degrees south of the equator, and the sun is just about to set. The timing couldn’t have been better. As we absorb the beauty of the moment, he hands each one of us an ice-cold glass of perfectly made Gin and Tonic. “Very few things can get better than this,” says my inner voice as the last rays of Sun baths this particular clearing somewhere on the eastern edges of the Kalahari Desert.
Then Peter tells us something about the 2018 Zimbabwean presidential elections that makes our jaws drop.
It’s the sixth shot in a row at the second Whiskey establishment we visited that day. My memory starts to betray me. Was the first 15-year-old Scotch better than the third 12-year-old Chery-barrel shot we had at the first distillery… or was it the other way around? And how do you spell “Kask”? (or was it “Cask”?) And where is the nirest batrum? end Y’s me f&#$Ing heD sO sp iNi n G?
“It took the doctors two hours just to wipe the smile off his face” is a quote from Top Secret – one very hilarious movie I used to watch on repeat as a teen. The VHS cassette was worn out, but the image is as fresh as it was almost 40 years ago. It’s 2023, and I’m driving a manic single seater wholly by myself, taking a back turn at 150kph, and thinking, “Yes, it would take the doctors some time to wipe out the enormous grin.” I’m back at Palmer Sport. Couldn’t possibly be any happier!
We’re in fourth gear, full throttle, and the left bender is approaching ominously. Walls of ice zoom past my peripheral vision as I focus on the right turn-in point – some 100 meters before the actual bend. Get that one wrong, and 1,300 kilograms of metal and ape flesh hurtling forward at 120km/h will meet a very abrupt and painful end. I apply a quick left jerk to the steering and a good liftoff to give the front of the car some extra grip. As the machine rolls and changes direction, I do an “all-in” slam on the gas pedal and apply a full opposite lock. We’re now in full dynamic drift, doing some 200 meters worth of “Scandinavian ice-skating” all the way to the back straight of the frozen track, somewhere north of the Arctic Circle.
I wear a smile of an adolescent who just lost his virginity. Fred, the Swedish coach from Stig Blomqvist Driving School, on the other hand, sits next to me emotionless. You know, Swedish.
“Want to meet your childhood hero?” he asks as a matter of fact.
I should have suspected something was up when I couldn’t book a room, any room in Tokyo. Some capsule hotels and youth hostel bunks were still bookable, but honestly, I would rather brave it out in a sleeping bag at Shimbashi train station. Now I’m in Ueno Park, just north of Akihabara, watching endless groves of Cheery trees in their peek blossom. To give this a bit of perspective, Japanese Cherry blossom is a fickle thing that lasts no more than a week or two. Many around the world put seeing Cherry Blossom in Japan high on their bucket list. I’m here by complete chance and can’t help but feel a bit “unworthy”. Now, if only I could find an umbrella.
Harry is the world’s biggest dick. No, not figuratively as in “ass hole,” but literally as in “two-meter-high standing Pekker”. Cocks aside, Harry is really a nice dude with a friendly disposition to all who pass by. He’s just another massive guy that happens to clad himself in an inflatable penis outfit, complete with a set of two giant balls to keep him company. Not anything out of the ordinary in this crazy, unreal place. Standing on a busy street corner, he hands out small purple penis necklaces to whoever cares to drop by. I stop by for a quick chat with Harry, take a lovely photo of him and his wife, get the odd-looking freebee, and move on. In this shrine to in-your-face individuality, and like-or-not freedom of expression, Harry’s unorthodox costume hardly makes a ripple.
Muslims go to Mecca. Hindus have the Ganges River. Hasidic Jews pilgrim to Mt. Meron for a nightly feast. The Vatican is where Catholic Christians look for inspiration. And bikers? Harley worshipers? V-Twin aficionados? Where do they go to pray?
“Damn bladder!” The thought runs through my brain as I tear myself out of the artic sleeping bag and into the frigid -5o Celsius hotel room. Tying the laces of my artic boots, I know the worse is yet to come. The toilets are outside where the thermometer shows something below -20. Even the beautiful aurora above doesn’t make things less miserable, nor the knowledge I paid $500 for this pleasure.
