Is that thing diesel?

by Paul Carter

  This mad hunt for bikes went on for months. Several times I came close to nailing it, but in the end, as everything does, it boiled down to two basic problems: time and money. I had planned to set off on the first of September to get the best weather and wind direction, heading east. But it was May and I was running out of options. As far as I could make out, getting the Batmobile for a blat around Australia would be a whole lot easier than getting hold of a bio-diesel bike. I could see why no one had done it before. I wanted to be the first rider to circumnavigate the country on a motorcycle running on used cooking oil, but good old-fashioned bureaucracy was pulling the rug out from under me.

  Another potentially big hurdle was that I would also need to convince my employers to let me go and do ‘the thing with the bike’, as it would become known.

  My immediate boss, Craig Voight, is based in Queensland; like all the other area managers, I report to him, and Voighty in turn reports to Peter West—Westy—who reports to the owner of the company. I had to ask Voighty first; if he said yes then I could ask Westy (I know it’s getting silly, but the area manager in Adelaide is called Rossy). Craig was as calm and laid-back as ever; I, however, was nervous. I was a new employee, I’d been there just on a year. But all he said was: ‘OK mate, run it past Westy.’

  I’d known within minutes of meeting Peter West that he was a character. He stands out in a room, not just because he’s a big man but because he has presence. If Westy was at the obligatory Thursday night oilfield drinks, then I knew the conversation would be good. Westy looks like he should be either a cop or a crim: he has that face; he’s seen life, and people listen when he speaks. His hair is cropped short and neat, and he’s always in a suit. But he can, when he’s in the right mindset, carry himself in a way that makes you think he’s just come from his millionth parole hearing. He has the demeanour of a man who’s at peace with himself, but he also gives off the vibe that he’s capable of anything. In reality, though, he is a gentle man who needs intolerable provocation to become violent, and you always know exactly where you stand with him.

  Bearing in mind all that makes Westy Westy, I walked into his office one morning and asked him if he’d have a problem if I took off for three months to ride a bike—a bike I hadn’t actually found yet—around Australia.

  There was silence. Westy sat back in his chair and pondered. My heart pounded.

  ‘OK mate, we’ll work something out.’ That was it.

  So, Clare, Craig and Westy—the most important people, who could make or break the plan—were OK with it. Now I really had to do it.

  The search for the bike went on. Whenever I wasn’t working or sleeping I was thinking about it. What the right bike might be, how to get it, how to pay for it. Another month rolled by with no result. I turned over and over the problem late at night, a constant chain of repetitive, relentless thoughts without conclusion. With all the bureaucratic negotiations and wrangling, I’d over-complicated things and backed myself into a corner; I just couldn’t see a way out of the maze.

  And then, in the way that women often do, my wife one day just casually solved the problem that’d had me stumped for months. Yeah, she googled it.

  Within five minutes she’d found an article somewhere in cyberspace from a South Australian newspaper dating back to 2007 about the University of Adelaide winning the Greenfleet Technology class of the World Solar Car Challenge—an annual race from Darwin to Adelaide with vehicles using alternative energy. The University of Adelaide’s mechanical engineering team, led by a Dr Colin Kestell, won the Greenfleet class (for fuel-efficient and low-carbon vehicles) on a motorcycle called the Bio Bike. As my eyes scanned ahead on the article, my heart jumped. The winning bike ran on . . . used cooking oil.

  That’s it, I thought. If the University of Adelaide was involved then you could bet the bike was properly registered and insured. I brought up the phone number for the university and called them straightaway.

  ‘May I speak with Dr Kestell, please.’ It was only as my call was being put through that I realised I’d never even met an academic before, and I had no idea what I would say to this guy.

  The call was picked up and a distinctly English voice said, ‘Colin Kestell.’ I immediately launched into my introductions, but I could tell he thought I was another of the dozen crackpots that probably rang him up every month with ideas for bio-diesel washing machines and golf carts.

  With impeccable manners he politely went about the process of getting me off the phone so he could get on with his day. I left my number with him and hung up, convinced that he thought I was full of shit. Much to my surprise, an hour later he called me back. He said he’d mentioned my call to some of his students who, luckily for me, had read my books. He’d then called my publisher to confirm I was legit. Now he asked me how he could help.

  Our conversation was perfect. Colin Kestell was an academic, but he certainly understood guys like me. Within ten minutes we had worked out a plan for getting the university to lend me their Bio Bike in such a way that I could legally ride it right around Australia and do it while properly insured, with no dire consequences to the university if I decided to ride it into a semitrailer or a school bus.

  Excited, I then rang Greg Quail to tell him I’d just obtained the use of the only properly road-registered and insured bio-diesel motorcycle in the country. Greg was typically animated; he said he’d film it even without a TV contract.

  ‘What?’ I was stunned.

  ‘Fuck it, Pauli, it’s too good an idea not to film.’

  ‘What about the cost?’

  ‘Mate, if you can find the sponsorship to do the ride and provide a support truck, then I’ll put a cameraman in the truck and cover the cost of all the filming and my guy’s expenses.’

  That was it. Greg was as good as his word: not only did he enlist the services of a cameraman, he also set up a website to promote my trip (www.thegoodoil.tv). The next day I called Colin back to arrange a date for me to fly to Adelaide to trial the Bio Bike—which was apparently named ‘Betty’.

  ‘How about next month?’ said Colin. I could hear him turning pages in his diary.

  ‘Sounds like a plan, Colin.’

  Next, I called my lawyer, Mr Digby or ‘Diggers’.

  I’d always liked the idea of having a lawyer—to help with this kind of thing, mind you, not to get me off because I just stabbed someone with a pitchfork. Diggers came recommended by a couple of friends who swore by his rabid legal mind. If Diggers could deal with them—and they were the kinds of dudes who might stab someone with a pitchfork—then a guy like me should present no real problems. As usual, he wrapped his head around my situation in one phone call. The contract and all the relevant paperwork was in the mail to the university’s lawyer that day.

  The next day, I leaned back in my chair, the office air-conditioning whirring quietly in the background. Westy was at lunch and mine was sitting on the desk in front of me looking sad and a little soggy. My computer blinked with an incoming message and I focused on the screen. Colin had just received Diggers’ paperwork and had emailed to say there should be no problems at all. Wow. In 24 hours I had landed a bike; now all I needed to do was get over to Adelaide and ride it.

  Colin’s email included a few photos of Betty the Bio Bike. I sat there holding my sandwich and staring at the bike, imagining the ride. It looked uncomfortable. But something about it felt so right. This trip was about me, a former rig worker, sponsored by oil service companies, riding a bio-diesel-fuelled bike around Australia. At the end of the trip, after I’d recouped my costs, I planned to sell the support truck and give any leftover funds to charity. Everyone wins. Perfect.

  I heard the tyres and gearbox of a powerful car clatter over the asphalt and pull up outside. The car’s door slammed shut, closely followed by the large voice and banter of one Shaun Southwell. Shaun is the Western Australian manage
r of a large oilfield supply and fabrication firm we do business with. He’s a tall, good-looking, completely confident, swaggering kind of Aussie bloke. I like Shaun; he’s only in his mid thirties and has worked his way up from scratch; he knows his job, and you can rely on him. Above all, he’s always got a smile on his face and rarely knocks back the opportunity for a laugh. It’s as if he’s aware that so many men at his stage of their career take themselves too seriously; having some fun in his day is the yeast that fluffs Shaun’s mind.

  He flopped himself into one of Westy’s high-backed tub chairs and demanded a coffee.

  ‘What can I do for you today, Mr Southwell?’ I asked. ‘Apart from explaining the circle work in the car park to Peter when he gets back.’

  Shaun grinned. ‘Where is he?’ Tipping his head towards Westy’s empty chair.

  ‘At lunch with the boys.’

  ‘Ah,’ nodded Shaun. ‘So he won’t be back any time soon then.’

  ‘Dunno, mate.’

  His coffee arrived and I watched him study our receptionist’s backside over the top of his mug as she walked past my desk.

  ‘Anyway, it’s not about what you can do for me, numbnuts.’ Looking excited, Shaun dived his hand into his jacket pocket and produced an envelope. ‘It’s what I can do for you today, mate.’ The envelope landed on my deck. From the look on his face I knew this had nothing whatsoever to do with work. He was grinning and making car noises while I opened it up.

  I looked up from the ticket inside. ‘What’s the Clipsal 500?’

  Shaun nearly fell off his seat. ‘For fuck’s sake, Pauli, that’s like saying, “What’s footy?”, you pommy girl.’

  Obviously the Clipsal is an important event in the Aussie Man Calendar. I continued to look blank.

  ‘The V8s, mate. In Adelaide. Four days of intense piss-drinking, V8 supercars ’n tits, fuckin man nirvana, you muppet. Westy can’t make it this year so you get to go compliments of us, everything paid for.’

  ‘In Adelaide, next week.’ I couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Yup. If you miss this and want to retain any street cred with the boys you’ll have to be in prison, overseas, clinically insane, or already there waiting.’ Shaun leaned back and drank his coffee.

  ‘Well, I’d love to, mate.’

  Before Shaun had finished dropping another burnout in our car park, I was on the phone to Colin. He was as surprised as I was.

  The universe was lining up for me. A bike, airfare, hotel, booze, food and V8s ’n tits in 24 hours. Wow, I must have done something right in my last life.

  That week went by excruciatingly slowly. The uni sent me the factory manual on Betty’s power plant. Basically she was an eight-horsepower irrigation-pump single-stroke diesel engine made by Yanmar in Italy, mounted in the only bike the uni’s 2006 mechanical engineering class could get, a now twelve-year-old Cagiva W16, coincidentally also made in Italy. The bike now looked a little odd to say the least, but she was a proven performer.

  She had certainly proved her mettle during the World Solar Challenge in 2007. Her vitals were impressive: 2.9 litres per 100 kilometres while emitting only 71 grams per kilometre of carbon dioxide—that’s over 75 per cent less emissions than a standard diesel engine. Her average speed was 70 kilometres an hour.

  Betty looked good on paper, and in a diesel kind of a way she looked OK in pictures as well, although she had been painted a revolting lime green. I looked forward to meeting her, riding her, and painting her another colour. I was starting to sound like Captain Kirk. But as stupid as it might sound to someone who’s not a bike rider, it’s important to have a bond between rider and bike.

  To a rider the bike is everything. It’s an extension of the body, an expression of the last shred of rebelliousness still possible within the confined pigeonhole of suburban reality. But it’s not an easy thing, a long motorcycle journey. The long-distance motorcycle rider has to challenge unknown roads in new places where anything can happen. Lots of people told me not to ride alone; I would have liked to do this trip with my mate Erwin, but there was only one bio bike. The two of us used to sit in crappy motel rooms between offshore jobs watching old motorcycle movies—Easy Rider, Stone, Mad Max, On Any Sunday and the unmissable Wild One. Brando’s character Johnny is cheesy 1950s bad boy perfection (‘What’re you rebelling against, Johnny?’ asks a girl. ‘Whaddya got?’ says Johnny). Ever since Mr Brando pulled on that leather jacket and mumbled his way through Lee Marvin’s earwax, I have wanted to do that endless motorcycle journey, and there was no one I’d rather do it with than Erwin. But, as much as he wanted to, I knew Erwin couldn’t do the trip with me. Which just left me mumbling Marlon Brando lines all by myself.

  Brando was by and large the first mainstream Hollywood star to look really good in his leather jacket, and when he wasn’t doing that he was busy looking good walking around in his underwear, and thereby started a trend of looking good in leather jackets and underwear. Brando gave birth to the wife beater as a top to be worn by a sweaty man beyond the parameters of the home, while drinking a Stella, while hurling abuse at Stella in his wife beater. You know what I mean. Post-war America could not get enough of the romance of the motorbike.

  I remember older guys in the UK talking about the veritable wars that kicked off between the Mods and the Rockers in Britain through the sixties and seventies. Huge two-wheeled hordes of bikers perpetuated the dark outlaw ethos. How bizarre that a form of transport could be linked so tightly with music, sex and crime—all the bad and all the good. The motorcycle will forever seduce a young rebel’s mind. When I think about what made me fall in love with bikes, I think about my joy at watching Easy Rider for the first time, Mad Max’s evil bikers, Steve McQueen’s (or rather Bud Ekins’s) jump over that fence. The first time I went to the speedway, I stood so close to the track that oil and mud splattered my trackside face on the first turn. My first bike was a second-hand Honda C90. I was fifteen and spotty. Twenty-six years and several bikes later, I still can’t get enough.

  I’ve had years of only really being at peace when I’m sitting on a motorcycle with nothing but time to kill. For my ride around Australia I could have had any bike on the Aussie market. But Betty was going to be my ride; she would be the one. An experimental bike, built on a shoestring budget, by students. I knew this was going to pan out, there was just too much synchronicity about it: there was no way I could be a BMW tourist now. No, this ride was going to be about me and Betty.

  The flight to Adelaide was about to board. I got there just in time, the last in as the crew shut the door.

  My window seat near the back was the only empty seat on the entire aircraft. It looked impossibly hard to fit into from the aisle. The guy in the aisle seat got up to let me do the sideways shimmy thing, breathing in. It’s an interesting challenge to try to get into an economy class window seat without touching the headrest of your seat or the seat in front of you. Either I’ve grown or economy has shrunk in the last ten years.

  I parked my arse, did up the buckle, looked out the window and contemplated how long I had to sit there. Only a few years ago I had been a real air traveller from one job to the next, racking up huge distances all over the world. It took many years to get my platinum frequent-flyer card. By that time I was only flying business class. Then I stopped working on the rigs, and before I knew it, bam, I was demoted. Just a few months earlier I’d finally got a crappy entry-level green card, back to where I’d started over twenty years earlier, and back in economy.

  The realisation that I could no longer afford to be an airline snob came crashing down as I leaned forward to scan the contents of the seat pocket and discovered that the seat in front of me could recline into my face. The guy sitting beside me gave a sympathetic nod. ‘Just as well it’s not a long-haul flight.’ He smiled, and stuck out his hand. ‘Stephen,’ he introduced himself.

  ‘Paul.’ I sho
ok his hand, or rather jutted my palm out from my armpit and waved it up and down. We looked like two grown men attempting an impromptu impression of two tyrannosaurus rex thumb wrestling.

  It turned out he knew of my books. ‘What brings you to Adelaide?’ he asked.

  ‘Well, it’s research.’ I explained my plans, and his smile broadened.

  ‘Well, I’m the deputy mayor of Adelaide. I know the university well. How can I help?’

  At the end of the flight, I stepped off the plane with Stephen telling me the lord mayor would probably be happy to wave me off at the start of my trip. This promised coverage on the local news, which would be great for my sponsors. Again the universe was surprising me.

  I checked into the hotel, left my bags with the concierge and crossed the road. There in front of me was the University of Adelaide. I walked slowly through the campus grounds. The place was a joy to take in. Wonderful old buildings mixed well with their younger, more modern counterparts, generously spaced out with manicured tree-lined pathways. Bespectacled students hurried past me clutching folders and looking worried but intelligent. I called Colin on my mobile, and he directed me to his office.

  A small group of students was standing in the doorway when I got there. As I approached they dispersed, filtering past me and out the door. Colin was standing in the middle of his office—which was exactly as I’d imagined it would look. Opposite the door was a large desk facing a window with masses of paper stacked on every surface; a coffee machine and a keyboard could barely be seen under all the books and paper. Across from the bookshelves on the left was an old well-used couch. A large whiteboard hung on the wall covered in technical drawings that looked to me like a map of the London Underground.

  ‘Paul, welcome, I’m Colin Kestell.’ Unlike his office, Colin did not look anything like I’d imagined. He was of medium height and build, looked younger than his years and was wonderfully frank in his conversation, spoken in that London accent. He was a lad at heart, one of the boys; I was instantly at ease.