The Black Bullet 7.10 - Homeward Bound

Capitulating, in a sense, and recognising how I’d been tempting fate coming on this journey without a clue as to the real provenance of this bike, left me feeling a bit hollow. I was in bike saving mode from this point on and although the days at the Chateau de Chanteloupe were pleasant enough and I did get to the circuit and sit near the Dunlop Bridge, where a mate took my photo when I was 25, my mind wasn’t much on the race and I felt like a bit of an interloper.

Bearing in mind that I had another photo taken during a track invasion fifteen years later in front of the same bridge and that when I was the editor of autosport.com I experienced the 24 Hours from the pit lane, it was a bit of a waste that my mind wasn’t really on the job. I did find the cheesy bar beneath the roundabout at Tertre Rouge for the first time, snaffled a Pastis and wandered into the circuit by there to see the cars take off down the Mulsanne. And it was ‘fever’, as the guys at Autosport would say, but it was more like a memory of fever than a first-hand infection.

There were flyers in the bar advertising Strippers at Midnight which reminded me of some colour our friend, Steve, gave me about the race in the old days, before it became a big ticket event.

“They used to have a stripper truck at the circuit,” explained Steve, in his Medway accent. “The sides came out like a camper, you know. At one end there was a steep gallery of seats, and I mean steep, and at the other there was a stage. They would pack in a hundred and fifty drunk and sweaty English blokes, like sardines they were, and some old sort would come out and shake it all about for ten minutes before they pushed ‘em all out one side as the next lot came in. And this went on all night. The back of the truck was a like a screen and you could see the shadow of the girl inside on it. It was well seedy, not like it is now.”

He looked wistful and you can see how it must have been, the sports car set’s dirty weekend away. And why not, we all need a bit of time off from ourselves.

By teatime on Sunday it was all over. A great race by all accounts. No one killed, fortunately, although it looked damn close when McNish parked up on the tyre wall.

I took it easy on Sunday evening, got to bed reasonably early, earplugs in, getting ready for the blast back up to St Malo. The Village People took over the piano bar and rolled back into camp at dawn after too many rounds of Hey Jude. Even with earplugs I heard them come up with typical pissed determination for another drink before bed. I also heard Steve unzip his tent and shout “Go to bed!” Which set off a round of mutual ‘shushing’. Steve, being wise to the condition, shouted back, “NO, not ‘shush’, JUST GO TO FUCKING BED!” Sure in the knowledge that there is no reliable volume control on a drunk.

The trip back went smoothly enough, it was a good ride but for the marauding summer showers that swept across the flat, open countryside. I rode hard to get ahead of one, hid under a bridge during another and drove the entire bike into a bus shelter to avoid a third. I stopped at Mont St Michel (see photos on the website) and bought garlic and shallots by the roadside. Like an idiot, in the car park at Mont St Michel, I pushed the bike off the stand forgetting that I’d locked it and bent a spoke. Doh!

We stayed at the municipal camping and took the ferry back the next day, so all I had to do was the final stint back up to Oxford in the evening. I stopped at Lockinge Kiln to hurriedly photograph the bike at sunset, a bit alarmed that my six volt headlight didn’t even dent the onset of darkness. I’ve never ridden at night, I realised, unless you count that time I rode back from the pub with no lights at all. Christ I’ve done some stupid things in my time.

Miles Covered - 936.5

This is the end of The Black Bullet - Part One. Part Two, entitiled No Journey Wasted, will comprise an account of my attempt to become more knowledgeable, from a technical standpoint - a voyage in rather than on the bike. A book of these combined adventures is due to be published on the bike's 60th Anniversary, in 2013. Email me to recieve advance notice of the publishing date. I am currently looking for an agent and publisher.

WP July 2011

The Black Bullet 7.9 - Bind on the Bonnetable Road

Out on the Bonnetable road the wind came up and dark clouds loomed, I pressed on hoping to make it to the campsite before the rain. Suddenly, without warning, the bike lost power and sounded really rough. My nerves were frayed as it is and I pulled in the wooden clutch, looking for a lay by or somewhere off the road with a bit of shelter but there was nothing but Armco. I let out the clutch again and worked the throttle in frustration. The Black Bullet popped and spluttered, picked up and died again. Then it picked up and the power, such as it is, filtered back in. I couldn’t tell if it was back to normal but, under the circumstances, I’d take whatever locomotion I could get.

Soon the turning for the Chateau came into view. I drove in, pulled up, and swore my next move on the bike would be in a homeward direction. I was rattled. I didn’t want to blow up in France, not again [TBB 3.5]. Some old acquaintances had arrived and set up next to us, so I stepped off and grabbed a beer and recounted the story of my day with nervous energy. I still haven’t got to the bottom of why this loss of power occurred, but it has happened since. It could be sludge from the tank getting into the carb via the unfiltered reserve line, you can certainly see it in the clear pipe, or it could be some kind of seizure due to crap in the oilways for all I know.

I did calm down and go out to the circuit on it the next day, and even had that same clutch problem in the traffic by Tertre Rouge. This time I pulled off the road and stopped by an old Frenchman leaning on his gate, watching the world go by. He didn’t blink an eye as I set about retrieving the situation. I stupidly felt like flipping him the bird when I pulled away again. It’s not so bad when you know what the score is and I think that this is an important theme in this story. It’s unpreparedness that freaks you out. I knew I hadn’t much of a clue but felt the bike had proven enough basic reliability to take it on this run, especially as my insurance included for repatriation.


In the event, though, a breakdown isn’t a pleasant experience and it can really mess up your day. Repatriation insurance doesn’t prevent you from having that sinking feeling, from hanging about, maybe in the rain, waiting to be rescued. Not being able to fix things makes me feel vulnerable and defeated, even though I'm not a mechanic, so why should I know this stuff anyway? The thing is I like fixing things, it feels good, it's good for the self esteem. On the flip side, people are not at their best when vulnerable and defeated and it bothers me when other people can’t see that, or won’t make allowances for it in others. Perhaps if you never move out of your comfort zone, you just don’t get it. Then I suppose you can ignore people who are in trouble, or laugh at them, or just send them the wrong way when they're evidently lost.

Once when we were kids, our Austin Morris broke down on an isolated dirt road somewhere in Mozambique. I remember the feeling of utter devastation when I realised we were well and truly stranded. As I recall, my sister and I were in tears as our dad poked around ineffectually under the bonnet – he was an accountant, less technical even than I was to become. We were rescued by a sullen family in a Citroen, which rattled along in the dust for hours until we reached a town. Our father stayed with the car while we stayed in a mosquito den of a hotel for the night, and spent the next day waiting for news. The experience was traumatic. I must have been seven or eight at the time. It’s maybe why I want to learn to do these things for myself, even though I’m not particularly technically minded, or a lover of grease, dead skin, chipped black nails and inflamed cuts.

So, this more or less wraps up my recent series of self-inflicted misadventures on the Black Bullet. But before I shut up shop for the summer [TBB 7.8], I have the latest news on the bike and a short passage to relay about the return journey. Don't forget there are some pictures from the trip up on www.theblackbullet.net

The Black Bullet 7.8 - Old Le Mans

The Black Bullet project, at least Part One of it, is nearing its end. I’ve enjoyed tapping out these notes immensely but it was never intended as an open-ended commitment. There is a a bit more of this story to come - I’m still lodged in the Chateau bar of course - but I just wanted to say that I'm going to take some time out. I'm planning a second part for the Autumn, a more detailed technical journey. Further details will appear as a postscript to Part One.

Our stay at the Chateau was soaked in beer and wine and washed each night by a little summer rain. The Black Bullet lived under Norm’s spare groundsheet when she wasn’t ferrying me about. I didn’t take a spare lid, I decided in the end to minimise stress on the old girl by refusing to take passengers. All-in-all this seemed like the right decision after the clutch started giving me gip.

It’s traditional to take lunch in old Le Mans on the Saturday afternoon, shortly before the start of the race. On this occasion, being free to suit myself, I scoffed a plate of steak frites and headed off to the circuit to buy a ticket. So simple in the re-telling but my plan was scuppered by the Le Mans one-way system. Convoluted and impenetrable and shot through with intersections diaboliques, pretty soon I was as clueless as my compass.

Then, at a particularly mean set of lights, glaring balefully out over five lanes of rev-happy traffic, the bike started crawling forward all of its own accord. I pulled the clutch lever tight to the bar but she just kept pulling so I dropped anchor and stalled, in gear, just as the lights turned green. The traffic boiled around me and as it beeped and scraped by I heard a hollow heckler's laugh. Why do people do that?

The bike was stuck and the clutch lever had gone limp but somehow it slipped out of gear as I strained to push it to the pavement. In retrospect, I might have decompressed the cylinder and pusher her off the street but I didn't think of that at the time.

Once out of immediate danger I pulled off my clobber, both panicked and annoyed, suspecting a split cable. At least I had the replacement in my backpack, so all was not yet lost. It wasn’t until I crouched down by the gearbox that I realised I didn’t have a spanner to loosen the adjuster. The worst of it was I’d planned to travel at all times with my small adjustable but I’d just never got round to digging it out of my box of bits, which was back at the campsite.

It had finally happened. I’d broken down by the side of the road far from home, and the natives were laughing at me. Everybody had probably been waiting for this moment and soon they would know they were right. What a stupid idea it was taking a knackered old machine abroad anyway, would I ever learn? I tugged on the end of the offending cable disconsolately, expecting it to slip out of its sleeve. It felt strangely tight. I stood up and waggled the lever which caused the gearbox end to slide in and out, like the connection was still good.

“Something’s not right here,” I murmured, looking more closely at the lever. It was then that I saw the cable sleeve had jumped out of its slot, so there was nothing for the lever to pull against. Slotting it back in returned full operation to the linkage, even though it still felt a bit wooden. Only an immense amount of play in the cable would allow this to happen, like if I let the lever out but the clutch remained disengaged. Could it be soggy clutch springs, or a severely sticking cable perhaps? Something was amiss but at least it looked as though I had what I needed to get going again.

"Forget the circuit," I thought, suddenly relieved. "I'll push the bike out of this insane one way system and back onto the main drag, then I'll head back to the Chateau to address the situation with a full set of tools." The race would be starting in a couple of hours. I could watch it on the terrace at the Chateau, with an ice cold beer in my hand, nice and civilised. It was a bun fight at the circuit at the start anyway. I shrugged my jacket back on and thanked my lucky stars. We lived to fight again.

The Black Bullet 7.7 - Chanteloupe at Last

By Beaumont I was running on fumes but the Black Bullet has only one cylinder and is frugal when you rider her easy. I stopped at the Tourist Office for directions and coasted down the hill and across the bridge to the petrol station. ‘Not far now’ I thought, with quiet relief, first tipping a measure of REDEX into the tank. I still had to find the Chateau on the Bonnetable Road, relying on a three-year-old memory of the place, but I was so close now, I’d very nearly done it. Everything from then on would be part of the journey home, a small but important distinction.

Again, it may not seem a great achievement as adventures go but this is surely relative to the person undertaking them. Not everyone has the constitution or the opportunity to dog sled across the Arctic. Indigenous persons aside, this kind of thing is not really relevant to the experience of Everyman. If anything, hardcore adventuring is kind of selfish. Do we really care if the Amazon is canoed top to bottom, or if the berk trying it just drowns on camera? I mean is bigger always better?

The way I see it, the time I had at my disposal, and the means, were in one way or another gifts, things to be unwrapped and appreciated, otherwise what would be the point? I was sorry to give up Iceland [TBB 5.8] but it was a bit selfish (cost and time-wise) and somewhat unrealistic. By scaling back and slowing down I’d begun to travel in more detail and the more I cut things up and sifted through them the more unexpected gems I encountered. It is like coming across a beautiful ruin in the middle of nowhere and having it all to yourself for the day, simply because it isn’t on the map.

It's a bit whacky but I have to say I believe each one of us can manifest this sense of adventure in the normal course of our lives. Wherever you go you take your own particular view of things, analyses to contribute, even solutions. We evolve on the back of solutions and this is surely as much of an adventure as anything. There was enough adventure in it for me anyway. In a few days I would be expected back home, in one piece, ready to resume family responsibilities. It was important that Jane and Poz could rely on this, you could say it was part of the bargain.

After Ballon I got lost again, but a brilliant fat man and his large lady wife gave me excellent directions to the Bonnetable Road out of Le Mans. I hit it about half way up and mentally flipped a coin for left or right. Left turned out to be right and soon the drive into the Chateau appeared up ahead. I very nearly lost the front wheel on a patch of gravel as I turned in, what cruel ignominy that would have been. Then we pulled up by the Chateau itself, I kicked her into neutral and decompressed the cylinder to stop the engine. Home at last, for the next few days, and time for a well earned beer.

Just as I hoicked her up on the stand, the Chateau owner swung by, clocked the bike and asked how far I’d come. He whistled as I told him and said, “What, on this? You are crazy...and welcome.” he beamed. The bike ticked appreciatively as it cooled, I went to the bar to do likewise.

(Note: this is my 100th post. To celebrate I have uploaded a gallery of pictures from the trip to the website www.theblackbullet.net Just click the rusty bolt - cheers!)

The Black Bullet 7.6 - Lost in France

I took off like a rabbit at the dog track when I left Sille Le Guillaume, in entirely the wrong direction. My compass spun joyously with the frivolity of it all and gave me no clues, drunk on magnetic flux. It was a small angle of difference between right and wrong at the critical fork in the road, which just grew and grew as I rode east, north east and then just plain north (the campsite being east-south-east).

It was mid afternoon and the road became narrower and windier, pushing up and away from the Valee du Sarthe. The riding was good, a ribbon of asphalt bucking and weaving through small picturesque farms and villages. Goats skipped away as I drew near, leaning the bike this way and that but gradually I became aware that I recognised none of the signposted names. The next sizeable town was Beaumont-sur-Sarthe, I knew that much, but it was after lunch and there was no one around to ask. After a while I saw a farmer working near the roadside and pulled over.

I fired in three different pronunciations of Beaumont with a questioning brow, thinking one will surely hit home, but I guess the bike was too loud. He hesitated but walked over after a mock cupping of a hand behind an ear. I tried again, unwinding the throttle back to the stop. He gave an exaggerated wave in the direction I was already travelling and stomped back up the field. 'Really?' I thought. It seemed foolish to doubt him and somewhat rude and pointless to ask and then turn around, so I set off in the direction indicated.

A beautiful and even triumphant afternoon had once again taken on an unnerving aspect, although places in the mortal grip of a siesta can also do this. Everything shut up, like an invasion was expected, only mad dogs and French farmers out in the midday sun. I rounded a corner pulled on the throttle and all of a sudden the power dropped off, with an elongated pop, actually a poooooffff.

I’ve run out of petrol many times before but not without some warning – usually a short phase of intermittent cutting out – even so, I pulled in the clutch and scrabbled around under the tank for the reserve plunger. The bike slowed, I pulled out the plunger and let out the clutch lever, there was a gnashing of chains and pinions, a thrumming of cams and valve gear, huffing and puffing from the piston as the remaining fuel drew through the system and then, just as suddenly, the power came back online.

I looked for a signposted junction and stopped again, pulling out my map, perplexed. I thought I’d more fuel than that. The trial I’d undertaken before setting out had indicated enough range to get me from St Malo to the Chateau Chanteloupe, with a bit to spare. The leak had clearly been significant [TBB 7.5]. On top of this, I’d opted to travel off the beaten track and hadn’t seen a petrol station for miles. I had no idea how much fuel comprised the reserve, so potentially I was in a bit of a pickle.

The immediate question was forward or back? I was by now off the photocopied maps of my intended route and as I’d already lost my faith in both compass and 'in-breds who'd never been further than the next village', I decided to turn back. I had Liz’s iPhone but frankly couldn’t face spending half an hour trying to figure out if she had a map app, let alone try to use it. I’d already taken a lot of stick from the Village People for expressing a somewhat negative opinion about these devices, primarily over the inference that they were not particularly intuitive to use. I do not doubt their incredible versatility but remain concerned about what could be termed 'user lock-in'. I've encountered a curiously touchy sensitivity among some iPhone owners on this subject.

Luckily, I had the whole-of-France map on me (complete with the penned-on route of our failed expedition to North Africa [TBB 6.7]) and the road I was on was just visible, running north to south. It was clear from the sun and my own internal compass that I was going north, so I figured I’d retrace my steps and gas up in Beaumont - assuming there was a petrol station there and that I could find it in time.

The Black Bullet 7.5 - Sille Le Guillaume

It’s my birthday today and I thought I’d have this story wrapped up by now but I’m only halfway to Le Mans - got to get on. This is what happens when you begin to sift through events and see the connections. There’s a lot more going on than at first meets the eye and you need to slow down to see it.

I’m also excited because my old friend Rob has decided to regain his motorcycle licence and ride the marque his grandfather rode, a Norton. Incredibly, he remembers the registration number of his grandfather's bike and even has the old man's diary, detailing his rides. It's a potent cocktail of history and belonging for Rob, whose path has not always been smooth. He speaks with longing of the time when he and his twin brother were young and indestructible, and kings of the Australian highway (Kawasaki GPZ 750 vs. Honda Bol D’Or 900, as I recall). He once showed me a photo of one of his favourite bends – now that is dedicated riding.

Just before Sille Le Guillaume I noticed a dreadnought of a car coming up behind me, chrome flashing in my mirror. It was like a scene from Monte Carlo or Bust when these two guys in their 1930-something Bentley Speed Six passed me by, waving excitedly. The Speed Six is a huge car, from an era before the book of standard sizes was written, it made them look like children. They'd pulled over for lunch when I caught them up and it looked more like mooring than parking. It was break time for me too and I went on a bit further looking for a slope to stop on.

As I climbed off I shut the gas tap but the bike smelled strongly of petrol. Then I noticed a steady drip coming from the carb end of the lawnmower pipe Rob and I had installed when we changed the fuel filter. It felt jellified, lengthy exposure to heat from the cylinder directly in front of it had softened it and wiggling it only made the leak worse. Fuel was now dripping at quite a rate and vapourising on the hot engine casing. The thought of fire made me step involuntarily away from the machine, “shit, shit, shit” I hissed, impotently. With both taps off the carburettor float chamber would soon run dry but this wasn’t good, I’d have to turn the petrol on again sooner or later.

Foolishly I wondered if the draw of fuel through the pipe while I was underway would reduce the actual leakage, and if I shouldn't just ride off. I also thought of only using the reserve tap but the carb union connected the two pipes, so fuel would still leak out of the left hand side. I should have bought the forty-quid two-in-one tap, blanked off one side of the tank and and ditched the two-way union, it made sense but I was too tight [TBB 5.14]. The hiss of vapourising fuel said I had to stop vacillating and do something.

I’d read on the boat that chewing gum could be used in an emergency to fill a hole in a fuel tank – I could get some, pull off the plastic pipe, block up the union and run on the reserve tap but this didn't fill me with much confidence. Then I remembered the garden wire I’d shoved in the onboard tool box on the recommendation of one of the old guys at Hitchcocks. I retrieved this and some pliers but trying to twist plastic coated wire, in a tight corner, covered in petrol, was tricky to say the least. Eventually I fashioned a crude tourniquet around the middle of the pipe and pushed it up on the barb until it offered some resistance. The drips slowed and stopped.

Phew, the bike needed to cool down and I needed a drink. I thought of the Lilliputians in the Bentley and wondered if they had any mini cable ties, to make a better job of it. I’d packed plenty, but in the back of Norm's camper. A bit of bad planning there but the wire seemed to have worked, so I walked back down the road for a Pastis.

Team Bentley were from Huddersfield and we swapped stories while I worked round to taxing them for a tie. They were very decent about it and when I returned to the bike and switched the fuel back on it all seemed fine. Wiring up the pipe when it was hot seemed to have produced a good fix so I twisted another piece on, pocketed the cable tie and promised myself not to ride without a break for too long. I considered fashioning a heat shield out of the foil my sandwich came in but the emergency had passed, I had a reserve fix in my pocket and I could even change the pipe for the thicker stuff that HItchcocks had supplied at camp, later that day.

All in all I was in a pretty good mood when I bumped her down the road again and we took off for a big green patch on the map, one with plenty of winding roads. I'd been looking forward to this from the moment I'd seen it, so much so that it didn't occur to me to check and see how much fuel I had lost.

The Black Bullet 7.4 - On to Mayenne

I had thought to stop for lunch in Fougeres but, like Winchester, it came too soon. So I had a coffee in the town square and continued on to Mayenne. It was my first interaction in French for years; “Un cafe?” the waiter corrected, after my opening gender foul up. ‘It’s not hard, really,’ his tone said, so I tried again, repeatedly, under my breath as I moved a chair into the sun. “Uhn cafe, uhn cafe..." The French might seem to ignore the 'h' sound but they don't really, they just use it more creatively. Think of a breathless girl saying 'yes' - "oui-hhh" - pure cheese but it works for me.

The middle third of my journey pointed straight at Rome again but there was little traffic so I relaxed, slowed down and got settled to enjoy the country unfolding before me. The Black Bullet was turning out to be an affable companion, slow but inexorable, not the unreliable short range tool I’d maybe thought. The hard rear was giving me no problems although I had a chunky lock in my backpack that I could do without and a chain for a barrier, or lamp post, should I need to set off on foot to find help. I wound this round the base of the seat to spare my shoulders, at Mayenne, checking carefully for wires and whatnot, should it vibrate through them.

There were also four books in my rucksack: a small book about investment strategies (Bull Moves in a Bear Market, P.D. Schiff, 2008), a slim volume on generic motorcycle maintenance (Motorcycle Care and Maintenance, David Frost, 1961), a pocket phrase book and a somewhat larger history of the Enfield marque (Royal Enfield - The Complete Story, Mike Walker, 2003) which should have been in my spares box but arrived the morning of departure. Interleaved with all of this were spare cables, a bottle of petrol additive, water, dried fruit, puncture repair aerosol and maps, which I’d printed off the net.

I’d eschewed the traditional tank bag and panniers because I love the unobstructed lines of the bike, I also have the luxury of a bunch of friends in two campers on the same trip and, yes, all through the planning stage I was imagining what it would be like to trudge down the road with everything I owned to find help - for some reason I was always going to be doing this in the rain. In retrospect, a magnetic tank bag with a map window and straps, to convert it into a rucksack, would have been a better idea but I didn’t know, yet, that such a thing existed.

Instead, it pains me to say, I stuck a flat plastic map compass on the tank with epoxy resin which, in the presence of all that thumping heavy metal, spins drunkenly as I ride along. I can hardly bear to describe this foolishness, which amounts to a simple act of vandalism, and I urge you not, under any circumstances, to do the same thing. It's nothing short of drawing on your grandfather's face with a laundry marker while he's asleep, and not nearly as much fun.