A LONG RIDE SOUTH
by DAVID MINTON
The red 500 Morini lay awaiting collection in the Flying Tiger's air freight depot in Anchorage, Alaska, on August 21, where it had been sent by the American West Coast distributors. I had requested a fully run-in tourer, and this one almost frightened me out of my socks because it was brand new. For all my apprehension, it fired up first go and ran me around Anchorage in perfect humour during the last day's shopping and packing.
On August 22 I turned east out of Anchorage and pushed into the wilderness along the glistening tarmac of the wet Glenn Highway. Rain drifted across the road like skeins of dirty silk. In high country thick mist wrapped everything in saturating intimacy. Ahead of the front wheel each rain drop exploded back upwards a couple of inches where it blended into a white-water swirl with its million neighbours. The swish of the wet drowned the sound of the exhaust.
I sat like a lost dog in the rain.
Occasionally the deluge eased a little as the weather took a deep breath, ready for another long, heavy squeeze. I saw distant mountains, huge rivers, white glaciers.
The Morini sped on.
Smack on the Canadian border the tarmac stopped, and the road south through Yukon took on most of the character of a British trials section - mud, mud, and more mud. The smoothly treaded touring tyres could barely cope and turned the ride into a wearying, seemingly endless struggle. The same mud encapsulated the engine and caused it to overheat, so every 50 miles I had to break it off with a tyre leaver.
It got into every opening, every joint. Controls stiffened and jammed, my neck was sandpapered, my eyes watered red and sore, my mouth filled with a sooty, greasy grittyness. Mud coated the inside of my gloves, lubricated handlebar grips, jammed the camera, covered clean spare clothes, and eventually it penetrated into the starter motor clutch.
Given that the little (how standards change over the years!) V twin was put to work in elements it was, arguably, never designed for, how did it cope? Briefly, exceedingly well. It logged 7000 miles between Anchorage and the south of Baja, Mexico. Apart from the starter clutch repairs in Vancouver, Canada (which could have been avoided had I known of the factory's advice to tape over the outer engine cover air vent for off-road riding) the only time a spanner gripped the bike in anger was during regular maintenance.
Unending rain through Alaska. Mud, shale and rocks in Yukon and British Columbia. Maximum cruising speed through California, and long days of desert heat and rough riding in Baja. Despite this, the list of replacement parts is small, and amounted to a new rear tyre, chain and starter clutch shoes in Vancouver.
Down America's beautiful Pacific Coast Highway the Morini responded to the element it was built for. That much I could feel as the compact 500 shook off the strange rigours of the previous 10 days and dived eagerly into the curlicues of that magnificent coast road as though back among the Dolomites of its home country. Despite eighty pounds of luggage the Morini heeled as fluidly and naturally around those bends as only an Italian machine can do these days. Straight lines it accepted with patience and dignity - bend it lived for!
For the first time in 3,300 miles we travelled together as a single entity, Morini and I. Conscious effort disappeared. We untied the loose knots in that long and twisting road. We turned motion into poetry and sang the miles away. We felt the elastic grip of gravity and turned it into a partner.
No blaring of angry revs, no jerking brakes, no worried handlebars or pedal-stamping feet. The road was to us what cliffs were to the seagulls. As they rode the salt breezes, so we rod the highway.
Coastal mists and giant redwoods. The sound of the Pacific's great lungs. The eager bass babble of a living V twin. The fine rhythm of a travelling man.
While I understand the nuts and bolts of machinery, and am aware of the necessity to take a detached point of view about everything concerned with selecting, buying, riding, maintaining and owning a motorcycle, I don't really give a tinker's cuss any more - not for myself, anyway.
I want life, vitality, personality from a machine. I want an engine that sounds like an engine and not like a super modern motor. You know - bompa bompa bompa, not thrrrruuummmmmm… That ruddy starter clutch business drove me wild, but I'd accept it over and over again if it meant I could escape the cleverly camouflaged, thin-ice horrors of perfectly presented two-wheelers.
Once over the border and into Baja, the temperature rose in direct inverse proportion to petrol quality. Pemex (an apt description if you care to juggle a while with the phonetic implications of the name) was generally available only in its 80 octane Nova rating. 95 octane Extra was rare.
The Morini's Heron-type combustion chambers deserve their reputation for an ability to deal efficiently with poor fuel. Although a little over 11 atmospheres are squeezed into each combustion chamber "pinking" occurred on one occasion only. An interminably long incline and stiff head-wind proved too much for top gear to handle without the most abominable noises of protest from the octane-starved cylinders.
The temperature was almost 130oF and the tyres were too hot to touch, but using fourth gear as the cruiser cured all problems and the Morini held a steady 65 mph without stress.
Most evenings I searched out a small motel on the coast and feasted on fresh sea food for dinner and breakfast. At one of them I learned of a mission still being run by monks, and who would probably provide me with food and a bed. It was in the middle of the desert.
After two hours of exhausting enduro-style riding through heat of killing intensity I found the mission, but it was deserted, apart from four filthy types who came running out, throwing large stones and beer cans. They shouted "Gringo, hey Gringo frien'". One waved a machete.
They jumped into a battered old jeep and came after me. "Gringo, hey Gringo". Maybe they were starved of good conversation. Maybe they were holding a party.
I flung the Morini out of the mission garden and up a seemingly impossibly steep and boulder strewn gradient that was the only way ahead. Praying that the high bottom gear would be able to cope I bashed and crashed up a path surfaced with rugby ball shaped boulders and three or four rock steps.
Miraculously, the heavy tourer with its eight pounds of luggage bounced up, while the Jeep balked at the second rock step, transmission whining and tyres growling.
Heat, nervous tension, and the sheer physical effort of "bossing" the Morini was within moments of knocking me out. My arms had almost locked up and my hands refused to grasp the handlebars firmly.
Fifteen minutes on I collapsed in the deep, permanent shade of some low cliffs, head and heart pounding with a blinding jolting pain.
On recovery I realised that I was lost, and learned from map and compass that I was facing due south and empty desert, rather than due west and the planned 20 miles only to the main road.
After a nightmare journey of another three hours through temperatures that were so high my leathers' outer surface was too hot to touch, the main road showed up. There was more water in my emergency bottle than there was petrol in the Morini's tank. During those three hours my mind had refused to concentrate on anything but fantasies of cool water. It had been a bad time.
The most astonishing aspect of the entire ride was the condition of the Morini which, was no different from that of a normal. The right tele-leg seal had given way during one of the numerous wallops it had been subjected to, but that was all.
If nothing else, the experience proved that a desperately ridden good two-wheeler will outstrip a drunkenly driven worn-out four-wheeler across rugged country - given a large slice of luck, of course.
In fairness to the people of Baja, it should be explained that this single incident contrasted strangely with the kind hospitality evident elsewhere.
During the entire trip the Morini covered a little under 7000 miles, including 1000 miles of unpaved road.
On more leisurely days it was usual to turn in around 74 mpg. Main highway cruising at a steady 80 mph returned 60 mpg, but while the machine was manifestly mechanically capable of withstanding a flat-out cruising speed indefinitely, as petrol consumption rose to 48 mph it was rarely maintained.
Top speed at the end of the ride was a true 90 mph with all luggage equipment aboard and me sitting bolt upright. If the machine was stripped and I lay prone it rose to a creditable 102 mph.
During the final inspection the valve clearances were found to have widened, the rear sprocket teeth hooked, the rear light filament broken, and paint had been abraded from some luggage and rider-rubbed high spots.
There were no oil leaks, and none had been burned. The entire electrical system functioned correctly. Nothing had shaken loose, dropped off or fractured.
The proof of real satisfaction with anything lies in the answer you might give to the simple question: "Would you do it all over again, the same way, with nothing changed?" I would, although with the single proviso of a decent seat - the standard Morini thing is an instrument of the most excruciating torture.
One amusing incident brought home just how futile it is trying to explain to people who are stuffed up with their own preconceptions, the quality of less well-known machines.
As I pulled into a California roadhouse for lunch, members of a Gold Wing touring club crowded around, none of whom knew the first thing about Morinis, but every one of whom advised me of its total unsuitability for such a long and rough trip. Too small, too fragile, insufficiently powerful, and potentially unreliable was the consensus of group opinion.
They left before me. An hour down the road I overtook them. By sheer coincidence, hours later, they stopped overnight at the motel I had booked into. This time they lectured me on the immorality of high speed cruising……
DAVID MINTON
DECEMBER 1980