On Borrowed Time; Part Three; English Channel Crossing

Its off to England on borrowed motorcycles, Calvin and I just left Bitburg AB and are heading to Lakenheath AB in England to return Mike’s Norton 850 after he left it with Calvin to make repairs on his ailing motor that had broken down on his trip to Germany and the Nürburgring.

I was riding Steven’s ’73 Kawasaki 750 triple, one of the first superbikes of the ‘70s. Kawasaki made four versions of the triple in 1973 ranging from a little more than a moped with their 250, a handsome 350, their wild and crazy 500 also known as the Mach III (this one was best known for its ability to pull wheelies at any time), and of course the H2 model, AKA Mach IV, detuned from its original 72 horsepower for ’73 at only 71 horsepower generated from its 3 cylinder, oil injected, two stroke, air cooled, awesome screamer of a motor. There are several YouTube videos available to see how this bike rides but the one titled “Kawasaki H2 Ride” gives the best feel for the bike and when I watch it I yearn for my old bike back. Yes, when I returned to the states I bought one for myself.

Google map shows the trip via the roads available today as 435 miles, in 7 hours and 21 minutes. Just like the trip from LA to San Francisco with two exceptions. First is the Chunnel via the train under the English Channel, from Calais to Folkestone. The other exception is the toll road in England. In 1973, just after the first oil embargo, there were no toll roads and the only way across the channel was to take the ferry, unless you fly or swim. Those two alternates were out so we went to Oostende, in Belgium, and boarded the ferry.

Riding a motorcycle onto a ferry is a piece of cake. I take the ferry in Newport Beach often just to get to Balboa Island; I just like the boat trip even though it is less than a mile across the bay. On that little ferry I park to the side and they park cars next to me, motorcycles are small enough to not affect the deck space on the ferry. Getting aboard one of the huge ferries used to cross the English Channel in service during the ‘70s was another thing. We parked Steven’s Kawasaki and Mike’s Norton side by side on the drive through car deck and climbed the steps to the lounge deck to watch the sunset as we pulled out from the port.

Our arrival in England was where the true adventure starts. The first hurdle was getting through immigration and customs. Being stationed in Europe military personnel are issued a DD form 80. The form 80 is your written permission to cross borders anywhere in the free state of Western Europe. Back then you couldn’t get into East Germany with it, that was verboten.

Calvin and I showed our form 80’s to the immigration and customs agent as we left the ferryboat and it appeared to us that this guy was from the Twilight Zone or something. I think he was the only immigration or customs agent who had never heard of a form 80. Looking back now, I think he was just acting, I hope so anyway. After we identified ourselves properly, he acted like we didn’t have the correct paperwork or something. I ended up reading the clauses that gave us permission to travel on the form as long as we identified ourselves with military ID cards to him. It was so weird.

During our negotiations to enter England, I offered the Twilight Zone Border Crossing agent my passport. It has been my experience with all of the border crossing agents so far that passports were unacceptable for travel because we were military personnel. Showing his distaste for my forthright attitude, and since Calvin was on a Norton motorcycle, made in dear old England, I was dismissed with a sneer as the agent turned his attention to Calvin.

WARNING: If you are a Norton, Triumph, or BSA owner, or if you just have the appreciation for these motorcycles, or if you are British or English, please understand that the next part of this story is not the opinion of the author. The opinions expressed herein are the opinions of others; this is merely a factual tale of people I have known. I am using this event in order to build my story from fact and the opinion is included here as it occurred.

PLEASE DO NOT SEND ME HATE MAIL; I LIKE NORTON MOTORCYLCES. REALLY I DO.

“Now here is a real motorcycle,” as the agent addressed Calvin, “How do you like this fine English motorcycle young man?”

“It is a piece of shit,” Calvin responded, “I would much rather be riding that Kawasaki,” As he pointed my way.

I figured we were sunk. How can you be so rude to a customs agent, I thought. I really figured he was going to detain us. And the trip has gone so well so far.

The custom agent sneered again, as he tossed our papers to us. He moved up to the next car in line. To my disbelief, we were through and in England.

“Why did you say that?” I asked Calvin.

“That guy is a jerk,” he responded, “I didn’t like the way he treated you. And I think he was giving us a hard time over the papers.”

As we started our bikes and moved out I was thinking that we were lucky to get through that without being busted for being rude in the face of an Englishman.

Calvin explained it further to me later. He was upset because the English are so proud of their products and their motorcycles are no exception. He felt that English bikes are nowhere near the quality as Japanese two-wheel products are.

“I merely told him how I felt at the time,” Calvin explained to me.

So now we are in England, on the left side of the street. It seems so strange. I found myself really concentrating on which lane to ride in because the reference of the steering wheel was not available on the bike.

Another strange thing is that the road was empty. I felt we were in an episode of The Avengers, remember the ‘60s era English TV show about the two secret agents, there was never any traffic on the streets, nor was there any other people on the sidewalks, or in any of the train stations or the likes. Weird.

Another strange thing is I don’t see my headlight; the street is dark in front of me.

Oh shit.