38 MOTORCYCLE TRADER
“I know,” thinks Charris, “Groff! He’s not
doing much, and his wife is a rider. Perfect.”
Well, it could have been perfect but there
was a small complication. Guido said in
print some time ago that there were only
four people in the world he would get on
the back of a bike with and I was one of
them. That’s because I take pillioning very
seriously. I try to be as smooth as possible,
leave plenty of space between vehicles,
don’t take any risks and remove as much
fear as possible from the experience. I’ve
failed in this area twice in my life: once
when taking a lactating mother for a lap
of Mt Panorama (she was so terrified her
milk dried up for four days) and the other
time was a week of riotous speed at the
Isle of Man with my wife on the back.
She told me afterwards she thought she was
going to die every time we went for a ride.
I was outrageously insensitive at thetime
but if you’ve been to the IoM, you’ll
understand why.
She declared afterwards she never wanted
to be a pillion again. She rides herself, of
course, and people who ride make the worst
pillions. I know plenty of bike passengers
who don’t have the slightest hesitation in
climbing onto the back seat of a bike being
piloted by an insane ratbag because they
don’t really understand the risks. Julia is
not one of those people.
I won’t bore you with the details of the
nine-page contract I had to sign to get her
to agree to come with me on the BMW
TS Safari in the NSW New England High
Country but it involved travelling at legal
speeds, riding at a comfortable pace,
ignoring peer-group pressure and making
sure she had access to single-malt whisky
at all times.SAFARI CULTURE
BMW has been running its Safari events
in Australia since 1994 and it’s the only
country in the world where this happens.
You probably know about the GS Safari
and GS Safari Enduro events because bothABOVE LEFT: Suggestions
that the rider number
represented this young
couple’s age are
completely erroneous.
MIDDLE TOP:BMW Motorrad
brings a fair bit of
gear of their own.
MIDDLE CENTRE: Some of the
participants were even
older than Groff.
MIDDLE BOTTOM: You can even
bring a GS on the TS
Safari if you want.BMWBMW
~ TS~ TS~~
SAFARISAFARI