Stuart’s GoldWing Blog

On a recent holiday to Florida I had the opportunity to renew friendships made at last year’s Blackpool Light Parade, when the Team Captain and three other Team Riders came over to show us their skills. They ‘re a great bunch to spend time with.

This further contact also gave me the opportunity to learn more of how they go about things, including how they train up new Team Riders. Training to be a Drill Team Rider is quite a complex and prolonged business and building up the level of skill and consistency, especially consistency, takes quite a while.

The Team, still the reigning World Champions, is thriving and busier than ever, with a programme of twenty or so Displays planned for this year.  And in between Display weekends, a regular weekly Practice Session gets a pretty full turn out ever time, so one way and another getting involved with the Central Florida Motorcycle Drill Team takes up most of a rider’s leisure time.  They’re off to Americade this week, which is a huge biker gathering which takes place at Lake George in New York State, which is of course quite a long ride from Central Florida, even by their standards. And, incidentally, the Drill Team are one of the highlights of the show this year. They will be there for a week, which because some Team Members couldn’t get time off work (leave allowances in America are less generous than UK) has meant more changes and substitutions than usual.  The Team has a pool of a dozen or so Full Team Riders from whom eight are usually required to mount a Display.

Although some of the Team will be using Amtrack’s equivalent of UK’s long defunct Motorail service to get up to New York State, letting the train take the strain, some will be riding all or most of the way.  These guys think nothing of riding very long distances to get to their displays – riding anything up to 900 miles in a day. One Team Member has a 2005 GL1800 which has has clocked up 71,000 miles already, and he owns a Harley too; I didn’t ask how many miles he’s done on that bike.

Mileages on this scale are almost unthinkable to a European rider, except perhaps as a special endurance feat, like the 1,000 miles in under 24 hours which a Lancashire rider did on a Wing some years ago, repeating the endurance feat on a GL1000 in the States shortly after the GoldWing was first released.  The most I have ever ridden in a day was 450 miles to get back home from somewhere in France to save an extra overnight stop.  And by the time that was achieved, getting home by 8.30pm after 350 miles of crowded UK motorways from the Eurotunnel, I had had quite enough thank you.  So how do these guys manage such long mileages?

During my Florida holiday I had a chance to find out when, without checking how far it was going to be from our holiday base in Orlando, I arranged to join them in Pensacola, at the West end of Florida’s Panhandle, to watch a display they were scheduled to give on our first Saturday. When I found out it was over 450 miles from Orlando to Pensacola I began to dread what I let myself in for in the way of extra travelling – despite that fact that unlike them I was going to be doing the trip in an air-conditioned hire car.

In the event my car journey to Pensacola on the day before the Display was painless and we covered the 450 miles easily in under 7 hours, including a stop for lunch and another short break.

Light traffic, interstate highway and 70 mph on cruise control all the way made it a much more straightforward journey to make than I had anticipated. We were easily able to rendezvous with the Team for dinner near the Naval Air Station, where they were staying courtesy of the USN for the two nights they spent up there.

The Team Riders had also eaten up the miles to Pensacola effortlessly on their bikes and, thanks to “gas” prices which are half those in UK, at relatively reasonable cost too. Gas was selling for around $2.25 per US gallon while we were over there, which is the equivalent of about 37 pence per litre.  (For US viewers of this Blog, gas currently sells for the equivalent of about $6 per US gallon in UK.)

I’m told that unless the air temperature gets above 95 degrees Farenheit, which of course it does in Florida quite often, motorcycling is bearable, although almost all riders will wear light clothing, such as a shirt and jeans.  Teperatures below 90 are needed to be comfortable.  But when the temperature gets above 95 the hot airflow become difficult to tolerate and the GoldWing’s windscreen vent becomes your enemy – it has to be closed to cut off the blast of very hot air to which the rider would otherwise be subjected.

So when making a long transit journey, these guys use highways and they try to make a very early start and try to finish their journey by early afternoon – it’s a lot cooler in the mornings, or of course overnight, which is another way they make some of these journeys.  They stop for fuel only, so every 200 mles or so they will fill up and maybe chew on a cookie, but otherise get going again without delay. Eating a bigger meal makes life more uncomfortable and, in my own experience, increases the risk of drowsiness.  (My problem is that boredom on a long motorwayjourney makes it even more tempting to break off to eat, but maybe the heat would cure me of that!)

In UK and when European touring, many of us are used to opting for a slower journey, avoiding motorways as far as possible in favour of some nice twisties and a bit of scenery – with which UK is of course well provided.  For example when I ride to East Anglia from my home in Lancashire, I use motorways to get to the other side of Manchester because there no atractive alternatives, but then divert Southwards to take in the A537, Cat & Fiddle, Macclesfield to Buxton road, which is a motorcycling road the like of which Floridians riders can only dream off, and then work my way South East through the Derbyshire National Park.  When I go to the Mosel in a couple of weeks or so, I will use motorways to get from the Ferry into Germany as quickly as possible, then come off the motorway in favour of cross country roads, even though it adds journey time.  Motorcycling journeys are made primarily for pleasure, so why rush the process unless you have to.

But to make a 1,000 mile round trip to give a one day display over a short weekend, a leisurely journey across Florida is not an option for the Drill Team and Florida does not offer many scenic or even remotely twisty motorcycling roads, so a fast trip along the Interstate highway is really the only way to go.

So eight Team Riders plus a trainee who wanted to come along for the experience of watching, plus their mascot Tom, who rides a Pearl Yellow Trike and leads the Team out flying three huge flags, PapaJoe style, made the trip to Pensacola, largely at their own expense, to give support to their Navy’s efforts to reduce motorcycling casualties among their Sailors and Marines.  During the past three years motorcycling casualties have exceeded combat casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan put together.  The US Navy is taking the promotion of safe riding programme very seriously and the US Army is doing the same sort of thing, for the same reason.

So Pensacola Naval Air Station, the home of US Naval Aviation and the location of the excellent National Naval Aviation Museum, itself worth driving 450 miles to see, had laid on quite an event – and the Drill Team’s Display was the highlight.  There was also an interesting display by the Florida Panhandle “Ride Like a Pro” team, who conduct riding training.  (If you haven’t heard of it, the Ride Like a Pro approach to rider training was started by a US Motorcycle Cop called Jerry “Motorman” Palladino; he has franchised his training system and it is now offered widely across the States.)

The Drill Team deployed eight riders for this Display and so it was quite a bit bigger and more elaborate that we could manage at Blackpool; it was an impressive and indeed spectacular display of skill.  As Randy explained when he tried to teach some of us the basic skills when they came over to UK, everything they do boiled down to a combination of sectors of 25 foot diameter circles and straight lines – but the permutations of these which they contrive and the resulting visual spectacle is really quite amazing.

They conducted the display in two squads of four and the routines often involve interactions between the two squads as well as formations of all eight bikes. There were many impressive routines but one which I found most  impressive involved the two squads riding towards each other from oppostite ends of the arena in parallel files about 50 feet apart then, as they the two squads came alongside each other all eight bikes simultaneously turned inwards to complete a 25 foot circle, timing the manoeuvre so that each bike “matches wheels” with a bike from the other squad.  It really makes you stop breathing as it seems inevitable that there will be a synchronised clash of heavy bikes.  The tyres of the front wheels virtually touch as the opposing bikes pass each other along the centreline – and that’s what’s supposed to happen, a bigger gap is an error.

Another routine involved all eight bikes riding in four pairs around the same spot like four spokes of a wheel, the inner one riding a 25 foot dimeter circle and it’s partner riding close alongside, and so just slightly wider and of course slightly faster, to stay in line.  Then they transform this formation, as if by smooth magic, into two lines of four bikes riding the same circle opposite each other as two spokes of a wheel, so that all eight bikes are in a straight line across the circle as they rotate.  I found this manoeuvre, which they sustain for several rotations, extremely impressive.

Their high speed crossover was pretty heart-stopping too and they have another routine called a box cross, when four bikes approach “Show Centre” at high speed from each corner of the Display Pad, pausing simultaneously in a box formation around Show Centre before accelerating away again, also simultaneously – and of course, since Harleys are involved as well as GoldWings, with a distinctly audible roar.  Harleys have their uses.

Timing – and complete confidence that all the other Team Riders will get their bit completely right – is the key to the awesome precision which they achieve.  Which is why they take the training and qualification of new riders so seriously.

Before a new Rider joins the Team on Displays, he or she must pass a skill test and then serve at least six months in the “Demo” team, attending the weekly practices and learning the display routines, riding with Team Riders.   Not until the Captain thinks a new Rider is ready will Full Team Membership (and therefore participation in actual displays) even be considered.  Even then each Full Team Member has to agree that the new guy is ready, so effectively they vote on whether to admit a new rider once his or her training is complete, the criterion being that they all feel comfortable enough riding routines with the newcomer to trust riding with him or her.

The basic skills test, a prerequisite to starting to learn any display routines during Team Practice  involves, obviously, being able to ride a tighter-than-25 foot circle either way, left or right, starting immediately as necessary, combined with stable and confident slow riding and the ability to make momentary halts without  putting a foot down, which is what the riders have to do during some routines, as well as when they have to slow down or tighten up suddenly, to cope with cock ups.  (I should perhaps explain for American viewers of this Blog that in this context “momentary” means for a brief period of time and not, as they will understand the word to mean almost immediately.  It’s always puzzling to Brits who are visiting America for the first time to hear an announcement that a theme park ride will “be restarting momentarily”.)

The Drill Team’s slow riding test used to be 50 feet in no less than 16 seconds without deviating more than one foot from the centreline and of course without putting a foot down.  But they’ve now tightened this to 40 feet in no less that 16 seconds.  That is extremely difficult to do; I’ve tried and, so far, failed miserably but I am working on it and I hope to get there eventually.

Last year in UK the four Riders who came over very kindly gave some of us Lancs & Lakes riders tuition on the basic skills of doing tight circles, which we very much enjoyed – indeed we even got keen enough to want to keep on learning and then form a Lancs & Lakes Drill Team, and although it’s gone fallow for the time being, that idea hasn’t completely gone away. They managed to get four or five of us Lancs & Lakes riders doing 25 foot circles reasonably consistently when they were in UK last year on the Practice Pad we organised for them at the Trafalgar Hotel.  And riding those circles, more or less, turned out to be rather easier to start getting right than you might expect, once you started to trust the bike to keep going round and round without falling over.

The moment when they got me doing a figure of eight repeatedly around two adjacent 25 foot circles was sheer joy; I couldn’t have believed I could do it.   And when four of us were riding the same 25 foot circle nose-to-tail on the Practice Pad at the Traflgar Hotel we were grinning from ear to ear with delight, it was really something.  They even had four of us doing a mini drill routine and we did, after a certain amount of chaos here and there but fortunately no crashes, and in a fairly ragged way, get through it.

There was even talk of the four of us doing this routine at Blackpool and those of you who were there might have seen two Lancs & Lakes riders, Graham Coleman and John Brayshaw, doing some circles in the Arena between Drill Team Displays. They were very good.

But it was very much a case getting us to master the beginnings of the requisite skills and we certainly weren’t good enough to risk four of us doing even the special mini routine we had practised with members of the public within striking range, so I’m afraid I vetoed the idea, hence Graham and John settled for doing their ad-hoc duet.  We had  started to get the basic skills right (we didn’t try the slow riding test) but we were taking only the first hesitant (and terrified) steps of the six or more months of personal skill development and pracice routines which the Team put their own newcomers through.  It is necessary to develop, above all, robust consistency and reliability before you can hope to make the grade for the Display Team proper.

Developing this degree of skill and interdependence among a group of men (so far all men in the Team itself, but there are two or three women in training, one of whom is conspicuously good and the other very good) inevitably brings about a close bonding in other ways too, so they are also, palpably when you are in their company, a very close group of friends. Everyone has respect for each other’s skills, which is a pretty good foundation for friendship. They are reasonably tactful about pointing out each others errors during practice between routine – actually that’s not true, they’re not tactful at all, but no one seems to take it personally.  They de-brief and criticise (and self-criticise) like the real professionals they are, pointing out errors and inconsistencies (including their own) freely in pursuit of excellence.  And there’s none of the chest-beating “we’re the best dogone riders…” stuff either; they don’t brag at all, they let their riding do the talking.

And getting a full display routine completely right is clearly very difficult to achieve, even for them.  There always seems to be scope for improvement here and there and occasionally somebody makes a bit of a bollocks of something – maybe half forgetting which bit comes next, or not being quick enough or slow enough or tight enough or too tight at a particular point, so that another Rider has to make a radical emergency adjustment to avoid a collison.

When you realise that the normal separation (nose to tail) between a squad of bikes in file is thirty inches and that a 25 foot circle isn’t much above a GoldWing’s minimum turning circle (of about 18 feet diameter) there isn’t a lot of room for error.

Crashes do occur because of misjudgements and the Team operates on the basis of a Gentleman’s Agreement that no-one ever tries to blame anyone else if a bike is damaged, everyone pays for his own repairs regardless.  And sometimes crashes occur because Sod’s Law has taken charge rather than an error of skill.  Last year Randy, the Captain, hit the tarmac hard and broke his right humerus (upper arm) because one of his footpegs suddenly broke off at a critical moment. This was during a Display in Tampa on Florida’s Gulf Coast; Randy presumably got some help picking the bike up before he rode the 250 miles home across Florida to the Atlantic Coast – and only after getting home did he seek medical attention! That’s perhaps a rather extreme example of their ability to pick yourself and the bike up, get back on and try again when you get something wrong.

Only once during the times I saw them practising did they congratulate themselves for having got the while thing more or less spot on. Normally they would de-brief noisily and more often than not walk the routine again so that everyone could see what had gone wrong.  Walking the routines, both before riding them and as part of the de-briefing process  is a vital part of both training and practice processes.  They had us walking the mini-routine we were trying to learn back in UK before we tried to ride it; it’s a vital stage, lest multiple crashes result.

There is however one routine which they have never been able to walk successfully, even though they can ride it.  It’s also impossible to descibe, you just have to watch it.  It’s called, very aptly, Confusion.

Blokes being blokes however, squaddy humour is also the order of the day and Smiddy, whom you might remember as the guy who provoked  Michelle Hill, the Honda lady who lent us the bikes for Blackpool, to ask if he could possibly scrape the bike’s footpegs on the ground just a little more quietly, turns out to be the current, and possibly the permanent, butt of the Team’s humour.  Smiddy is a long-time batchelor.  While most of the Team are married – it goes without saying that they are married to saintly women who tolerate their obsession with Drill Team riding, a week is a long time for Smiddy as far as relationships are concerned.  So they mock his inability to form long term relationships although maybe, although they certainly don’t let it show, they also envy his capacity to attract a continuoing stream of female conquests.  Smiddy is something of a cool dude and he reaps the benefits of being an unattached Star Rider in the way (metaphorically speaking) that Tom Jones used to attract showers of lady’s underwear when he performed.

The price Smiddy pays for his lifestyle is to have his Team Mates taking the p**s at every turn, which fortunately he seems to enjoy.  The running joke is that Smiddy can’t keep a woman, so he needs to take a plastic inflatable companion along on Team trips as a substitute.  I explained that in certain remote parts of UK, where they have also been known to play Rugby in red shirts, sheep are apparently regarded as an acceptable substitute companion for a needy man in such circumstances, but of course there arn’t any sheep in Florida.  I found myself tasked by the Team with sourcing and sending to Florida a plastic inflatable sheep for Smiddy – so if anyone can help me track one down, I would be most grateful.

Mark, who also came to UK is, in contrast with Smiddy, firmly attached to his Ladyfriend “Muss Karen”.  Karen also came to UK and incidentally turned out to have a remarkable capacity for enjoying specialty English beers, so she’s quite a Gal; good choice Mark.  Mark is no shrinking violet but nor does he strut his stuff; he is scrupulously courteous, the stereotypical Southern Gentleman, even though he hails from California.  Nevertheless he has Harleyism deep and maybe incurably in his soul and it’s perhaps as well that he is selling his GoldWing, or at least talking about thinking about it.  Bit of a schizophrenic impact it’s had on Mark buying a GoldWing.

Despite his outward manliness (Mark is fighting fit ex-US Army and  proud of it) he was revealed during our holiday to have a touchingly soft centre.   He bought his Gal a diamond ring while we were over there as a token of the duration and durability of their relationship – and was consequently subjected to all sorts of helpful advice from married Team Members about the profound implications, in terms of  toeing the line from now on, of this cataclismic gesture of commitment.

Mark is also, as many Team Members are, of strong and open religious faith – although his quasi-religious endearment to everything Harley Davidson shines even more brightly through.  As his recent decision to sell his GL1800 suggests, his flirtation with a Honda has had negligible impact on him culturally, although he does still like the Gl1800 as a bike and I would guess he might never actually sell it.   His batchelor home, which he may now

of course have put into great jepardy, contains a veritable shrine to Harley Davidson.  His settee has a huge Harley throw on it and his table lamp, also pictured here, makes a noise like a Harley starting and warming up whenever it’s switched on – and when a Harley starts and warms up it’s neither a quiet nor a brief business, as the lamp faithfully represents. Incidentally Mark’s camoflage pattern T shirt bears the slogan “Ha! Now you can’t see me” which gives assurance that he dosn’t take himself all that seriously, even if mocking his Harley Davidson, except in a light-hearted way,  would cause offence.

Nevertheless I expect he might be told that his Harley Davidson table lamp is unsuitable for bedside use in a marital home.  At the very least, if it’s allowed to move in with him, he will have to develop the capacity to get up for a pee in the middle of the night without switching on that particular light.

Mark’s a very good and dedicated rider, as are all Full Team Members, but he’s also conspicuously diligent in his efforts to continue improving, as he showed on the last Practice I witnessed, when he was suddenly asked to switch to an unfamiliar position in the Squad.  He was perhaps riding a little higher in the saddle as he concentrated even more than usual on where he should be and what he should be doing next.

In the Team’s efforts to stay being the best, they are planning to introduce more in the way of role changing during Practice, so that they are better prepared to make substitutions when a key Team Rider becomes unavailable for a particular Display.

John, the third Team Member who came to Blackpool, has since retired from the Team and although he still has his bike, has almost given up riding in recent months and so we didn’t manage to catch up with him or his wife Janet while we were over there, but we heard they were both otherwise well.

Randy, the Captain, as well as being an exemplary leader of men who has clearly had a very positive impact on the Team since he took over, is also a very acomplished rider – even with a broken arm.  Interestingly apart from his duet “Girl Up” routine with Smiddy, he tends to take a non-directive role within the Squads structure, even though he clearly can (and did in Blackpool) take the lead role and call the timings of the moves.

You may remember the “Girl Up” routine from Blackpool, in which his own exceptional riding ability is given an airing.  This routine involves Smiddy picking up a girl side-saddle on his pillion seat by stopping momentarily alongside her as she waits (English meaning again) without of course putting a foot down.  Then Randy comes up very close alongside as Smiddy circles the Arena, matching Smiddy’s pace and line so steadily that the bikes appear to have become joined at the hip.  The pair of bikes proceed so steadily together that the lady passenger (who has usually been plucked from the audience and had no special training or practice) can stand up between the bikes, one foot on each bike’s inside footboard. When she’s ready and feeling steady, she raises her arms high to show it her confidence and then sits back down on Randy’s passenger seat rather than Smiddy’s, and Randy then breaks away and rides off at speed, as if she’s been stolen.  It’s presented in a light-hearted way as if it was easy, but of course it isn’t at all easy.  This routine depends on rock steady formation riding by the incoming rider and Randy delivers this in spades.

And Randy is also a modest man.  All the Team members I met this year project modesty, or at least complete lack of any arrogance or self-promoion.  They are very much team players.  When I first heard Randy respond self-deprocatingly, when he was being interviewed by the BBC last year, I’m ashamed to say that I wondered at the time whether it wasn’t just a clever PR soundbite, and even whether it wasn’t false and contrived modesty.  But it wasn’t and isn’t; I got to know Randy quite well over the past year and he’s a genuinely modest and remarkably capable rider and leader whom I am proud to call a friend.

Disappointingly for me, Randy actually prefers bourbon and Coke (or alternatively bourbon and Dr Pepper) to proper whiskey, but then no one’s perfect.  As it turned out this time in Florida I quite took to bourbon and Coke myself and somehow I ended up drinking quite a bit of one evening, under tuition; it must be the climate.

And Randy is a gun owner, which shouldn’t have surprised me but it did.  Lots of Americans own guns of course, and this doubtless includes several Members of the Team; I didn’t ask.  It just came out in conversation that he had forgotten to take his handgun out of his bike, where he normaly kept it,  before riding into the Naval Base at Pensacola.  It seems that taking a gun on to a military base happens to be quite seriously frowned upon under US law, so it’s just as well he didn’t think of it until afterwards – and of course that he wasn’t stopped and searched at the Gate.  It would never have occured to me that deciding whether to take your gun out of its usual stowage in the GoldWing before embarking on a weekend trip needs to be one of the things you might need to have on your checklist if you live in Florida.

Different countries, different cultures and of course different laws, including motoring laws.  I had made many trips to America before but this time, thanks to our friendship with these lovely people, we got off the regular tourist trails and into places – and above all among company – that took our American holiday and our new friendships, into a new dimension.

Of course there are lots of differences between UK and the States other than Drill Teams and guns, including road traffic laws and practices – and not just that they drive on the wrong side of the road and don’t really do roundabouts.  But it took a long time to realise, having scared a few people, that  pedestrians have more or less an absolute right of way on roadways in a car park, so that cars have to halt and give way every time a pedestrian might cross their path.  In UK of course car drivers expect pedestrians to keep out or their way on car parks unless they’re actually on a marked pedestrian crossing.  Not so in America, so Brits on holiday over there beware. And if a Cop turns on his lights and/or siren behind you that constitutes a temporary arrest – if you don’t stop and cooperate you commit an extra offence.  And if you rent a motorcycle in America don’t try filtering through traffic as you might in UK . If the police don’t give you a ticket for doing this, which is illegal, there’s a fair chance someone who’s stuck in a car in the traffic will feel an urge to get his gun out out of his glove compartment and shoot you!

Having got to know Randy (and Mark) I have no reservations about them being trustworthy with guns but I happened in a bookshop, to come across a coffee table book called “Armed America” which contained a series of portraits of people and families with their gun – or in many cases collection of guns, including what seemed to be military-type weapons.  Some of them were scary-looking people.  In UK these days personal firearms, especially handguns, are held only by those who do so outside the law, but there seem to be plenty about and they are increasingly being used.

The differences between our UK laws and ways and those of America don’t strike me as worth asserting as better or worse and certainly not as right or wrong.  Both sets of laws and customs are the result of many generations of evolution and refinement and they are what suits the particular time and jurisdiction.  The fact that there are differences (including between States in America and between England and Scotland in UK) illustrates that neither set are yet perfect in character; they are just current custom and legal practice.

And I learned something else this year.  The sun shines in Florida doesn’t it – day after day, with maybe just the occasional  heavy but relatively short shower in the afternoon? They were begging for rain to reduce the risk of brush fires.    We in Lancashire know what proper rain is like, don’t we?  During our last week in Florida we saw hardly any sun and long periods of very heavy rain  A one stage the rain was falling at the rate of 3 to 4 inches per hour and one town suffered a total rainfall of over 25 inches in less than five days.  There were extensive floods.  So that’s why Florida has all those lakes and every road has a deep ditch alongside it; that’s somewhere for the rain to go when it’s falling so hard and fast. Driving becomes hazardous of course, and the sheer volume of water forces traffic on the highways to slow to as little as 10 mph. There was so much water around that I became convinced that Florida, which is very low lying  was actually sinking. And back in Lancashire they were enjoying an early Summer.

So thanks to the Central Florida Motorcycle Drill Team for being so welcoming and hospitable and above all for allowing my wife and I to get to know you a little better.