JAM TO JUPITERS 3
The ensuing eight hours (it took me just over 12 to reach Jupiter’s and I was the 12th to arrive) went rather quickly, as they do when you ride with a purpose. They were also fraught with amazing stories…
Some of these tales concern appalled truckies, one of whom said to me in Coffs Harbour: “Mate, I’ve been driving this road for 24 years and I’ve never seen so many bloody cops in all me life! Just what the fuck are you blokes up to?”
“Just going for a ride,” I said and smiled.
Some needed to lie down to eat their steak sangas at 6am
Other Jammers later recounted awesome riding duels through the hills of Ballina in the cool half light of dawn.
The Learned One keeping track of arrivals
I personally chased one bloke on a Ducati who needed to have The Hezbollah Express’s Teutonic supremacy asserted over his Italian garbage. I rode like a fucking god after that bastard and I pursued him relentlessly and with great skill. I would have caught him too, had I noticed that he’d turned off somewhere.
They just kept rolling in with tattered licences…
…sore bottoms…
…and the memory of an adventure they will never forget
There were tales of yellow motorcycles being chased through sleepy hamlets at speeds in excess of 220km/h. But the priest with the yellow Daytona felt that these were obvious lies, since police cars didn’t go that fast.
Of course people smile in nudie bars. That is why there are nudie bars.
Still others recounted the astounding exploits of the filth. Things like sneaking up behind riders with all their lights off, then pressing all the buttons at once and filling the universe with 12 billion megawatts of searing electricity and sirens — then no doubt soiling themselves with happy pee at the antics of the freshly blinded rider in front trying not to crash into a gum tree.
Another frequent occurrence was to pull over riders and invent an offence they could not possibly have witnessed, but were somehow obliged to write infringements for anyway.
And sometimes their intellect was so overpoweringly sharp, my guts roiled with fear and despair. Like when one squat young buck near Macksville questioned me at length over a speeding offence he was convinced I had committed. Mind you, he hadn’t seen it and was not prepared to show me the radar readout he was quoting — he just “knew” I had been speeding. Then he spent several minutes waving his Maglite around his head.
“What colour is that?” he demanded, shining his torch at T.H.E. — whose paintjob was the end-result of beer, drugs and 16 cans of matte black spray paint.
“Well what colour would you like it to be, officer?” I said wearily, wide-eyed that someone that bright had been issued a firearm.
My jaw hurt a lot by this time. The last 200km had been done with me holding my licence in my mouth and spitting it at the endless supply of cops that kept stopping me.
Then his partner nudged him and he refused to discuss the matter any further, concentrating instead on filling out the speeding fine correctly. He still managed to put the wrong date on it.
The winner, may he ride forever
We gave the priest a prize because he was a man of God and he came third
This was the Ducati rider I chased, who turned off in fear at being caught
The priest, me and a fellow Jammer decide not to breach the sanctity of the confessional
About the Author
Boris is a writer who has contributed to many magazines and websites over the years, edited a couple of those things as well, and written a few books. But his most important contribution is pissing people off. He feels this is his calling in life and something he takes seriously. He also enjoys whiskey, whisky and the way girls dance on tables. And riding motorcycles. He's pretty keen on that, too.
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