Is that thing diesel?

by Paul Carter

  Transport contributes some 16 per cent of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. Seventeen per cent of that is from the burning of diesel fuel. Fuels made from used vegetable and animal fats are renewable, and the costs involved in production are very moderate; production of bio-fuel, called transesterification, is not a hard process. When bio-fuel is used it produces 60 per cent less carbon monoxide and total hydrocarbons than fossil fuels. It’s also non-toxic to animals or marine life. If there was ever a spill, after three weeks it would degrade to sugars and starches; it’s ten times less toxic than table salt.

  No, this wasn’t just another adventure. This entire project revolved around the effective use of waste cooking oil, and it was crucial that I didn’t fuck it up. There was a lot riding on this, apart from my arse; it wasn’t just about me getting from point A to point B and having my jollies. There was a purpose to it, and a responsibility as well. I drained my coffee, feeling good about the prospect of getting on the road.

  Rob and Steve, the workshop guys, arrived. They gave me a supportive slap on the back and wished me luck. Rob even lent me his personal generator and a full jerry can of fuel. Howard called from the airport; he was on the way. The lord mayor’s office called to tell me the TV networks and press were also inbound, as was the lord mayor. Last and most importantly, my wife and daughter were on their way. It was time.

  Howard got there first, followed by Dan. We jumped into the cab and we headed off to pick up the fuel. You’d think getting the fuel would be relatively simple, but no. We got lost on the way—incidentally, our directions included a line that said we had to turn right at a sex shop, brilliantly called Beaver World—and then I had a freakout when we got to the bio-fuel storage yard and discovered that the fuel was kept in a special vessel and my tanks were bolted to the floor in the back of the truck, and there was no way of connecting one with the other. I didn’t have a hand pump or any hose or funnels to transfer the fuel into my tanks; conscious of time ticking on and the assembling media, I started to sweat. Howard, being calm and capable, had a scout around and soon came back with funnels and a hose. We picked up the vessel using the on-site forklift, plumbed in the hose he’d found and funnelled fuel into one tank, then transferred fuel over into the other tank using the internal pump. Perfect.

  We got back to the workshop, where Howard put on the CB headset. I got on Betty, continuing to talk to him over the radio. Colin gave me the nod; we had to drive around the corner and pull up out the front of the uni where I was to chat to the media people, shake the lord mayor’s hand, kiss my wife and daughter goodbye and peel off into the waiting city like a bio-fuel poster boy.

  And, thank Christ, that’s exactly how it went. It was a perfect departure, all smiles and camera flashes, proud wife holding waving baby daughter, cue wind tussle of hair as wife looks happy but concerned.

  But just two blocks down the road I stopped, realising I’d just spent half an hour telling the country’s media that people could check out the journey online by going to www.thegoodoil.tv, yet this website was not emblazoned on the truck, or anywhere else for that matter. How did I miss that? So we detoured to the nearest Bunning’s and picked up some stick-on letters and fixed up my mistake.

  Our first night’s stop was due to be Mount Gambier via Keith. My initial joy at finally being on the road was ephemeral to say the least. The first thing that hit me—again—was how slow Betty was. The second thing that hit me—on a highway surrounded by trucks—was the shockwave of wind right after each truck has shot past. My hands were totally numb from the vibrations coming through the bars. Now that’s a weird feeling: you know you’re holding into the handlebars, you just can’t feel it.

  Betty’s riding dynamic was like no other bike I’d ridden. She didn’t like hills and hated cross-winds. I had experienced this before but this was fairly tough riding. The Coonawarra hammered me with a sudden freezing wind, blowing the bike all over the place. When the sun started to set the temperature plummeted, the wind picked up again and the rain set in. We were only halfway to Mount Gambier, and I was getting fatigued and a little scared at the thought of riding at night, when Betty’s CVT belt suddenly let go. We pulled over by the side of the highway. The trucks shooting past kept knocking Betty over, so I decided to ride her up the ramp into the back of the truck where I could put her in the wheel brace and work on her out of the wind.

  That was my first mistake. I had previously ridden her successfully up the ramp at home; you needed a good run-up as she didn’t have the torque to get up without it. But with all my riding gear and a full tank of fuel she was so heavy that the bottom of the frame slammed into the back of the truck when I got to the top of the ramp. I fell backwards, the bike landing unceremoniously next to me, smashing its tail-light and indicators. With me in the back seat of the truck, we pulled into Mount Gambier late that night. Howard crashed; I had a whisky and moaned to Dan for an hour about being a shit rider.

  I crawled out of bed at 5 a.m. and spent two hours fixing the tail-light and indicators and replacing the CVT drive belt. Dan was late getting up. I didn’t know it yet, but Dan is not a morning person: he likes a lie-in. Before the week was up Howard had renamed him Mattress Man. Poor Dan: half-man, half-bed.

  We fuelled up, pigged out, coffee’d up, and took off into another cold wet day. Next stop was Melbourne, and we had two days there to figure out how I was going to make this bike go all the way round the continent without it killing me. Twenty minutes after setting off we crossed into Victoria. I wouldn’t see South Australia again for over three months—that is, if I ever saw it again.

  We stopped briefly in Warrnambool, where I pulled on a few more layers. During the following leg frustration really kicked in. Bike after bike flew past me on the Great Ocean Road; everyone flew past me, even little doddery grannies in ten-year-old Honda Civics with their noses one inch from the windscreen. I got abused by all of them because I was so slow. They could not understand why this guy on a big motorcycle was only doing 80 kilometres per hour. I was in the slow lane, where you can legally do 80, but this just wasn’t good enough for the average mild-mannered motorist, most of whom simply defaulted to giving me the finger and/or a verbal serve on passing.

  I’d had enough, so we turned off the coastal route at Lavers Hill, heading northeast. This country was much better for an underpowered bike. Betty cruised over the Otway Ranges through some really pretty country. The sun came out, the road traffic was light and I started to enjoy myself—that is, until the sun went down and we hit the Princes Highway. Back to the road rage and abuse—again with the hand gestures—from fast-moving cars; trucks blew by threatening to suck me from the handlebars. It was impatient driving at its worst. One bloke even threw a kebab at me.

  We finally hit the last long artery that would plug us into Melbourne. The sun had well and truly set behind me. All I had to do was hold the throttle open and avoid getting pummelled in the traffic. At one point we traversed a series of big hills that came out into a huge sweeping run; the wind suddenly picked up on the eastern side and got behind me, and the highway fell away, descending sharply out in front as far as I could see. Betty hit a ton and I was happy. Tucked in behind her fairing, I optimistically changed into the middle lane for the first time since leaving Adelaide. Betty cracked 110, and I started ranting, ‘LOOK AT ME FLY NOW, YOU FUCKING WANKERS.’

  Howard got on the radio. ‘Pauli mate, did you pull over? We can’t see you.’

  I started overtaking the left lane. Kebab guy in his big manly red penis of a ute was in the right lane ahead of me, but was now stuck behind a truck. Betty hit 125; I couldn’t believe it.

  ‘Pauli, come back, over.’ Howard sounded concerned. ‘Where are you, mate? Over.’

  I pressed the little red transmit button on the left grip. ‘I’M DOING 130 K’S MATE, THIS HILL AND THE WIND, AWESOME—130! OVER.’

  Howard came back on the rad
io, laughing. ‘Just keep going, we’ll catch up.’

  I shifted my weight back and lay over the tank, tucking in my legs and elbows. She was still picking up speed—I stared at the speedo: 140 now—her wild vibration making the front end speed-wobble. Ute guy was level on my right side. He heard the tiny diesel engine shrieking in agony next to his phallic red turd. I was getting close to losing control of Betty; her vibrations were so intense my bum skipped forward on the seat.

  ‘ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY ON COOKING OIL AND AN EIGHT-HORSEPOWER PUMP ENGINE, YEAHHHHH.’

  He looked over, and his jaw dropped open.

  ‘FUCK YOU, CUNT.’ I gave him the finger with my left hand; my right hand was holding the throttle on full and completely numb. In fact, both my arms were completely dead from the elbow down, and I realised I was waving my index finger at kebab guy. He gave me a quizzical look, leaned forward in his nice warm comfortable seat to see what I was pointing at, then returned me the finger, stomped his foot into the firewall and disappeared, just as Betty’s CVT belt flew apart again.

  It was freezing cold as we crossed over the Bolte Bridge into Melbourne much later that night. I was in the middle lane following Howard; he was acting as a weather shield. The traffic was horrendous, bumper to bumper; I was boxed in between a bus on my left, a cab on my right, and a semi right on my arse. I heard the truck getting close. I fired a quick look over my shoulder—the bastard was two feet from my back wheel, all I could see in the mirror was chrome grille. Howard could also see what was going on. ‘Pauli, how close is that truck?’

  I was waving my left hand at the cab asking him to back off. ‘Too fuckin close mate, I’m boxed in.’ This was getting really frightening.

  We reached the highest point of the bridge, hundreds of feet up in the air, the cross-wind buffeting Betty, when the big truck applied the pressure again. I looked back: he was right there on top of me. I turned my radio over to channel 44, the one the truckies use. ‘Hey, truck on my arse halfway over the Bolte Bridge, back off.’

  He came back to me straightaway: ‘Get out of the way then.’

  ‘I’VE GOT NOWHERE TO GO. NOW BACK OFF MATE, THIS IS DANGEROUS.’

  Howard managed to pull into the right lane and slow down, creating a gap for me to cross into and get out of this idiot’s way. It was right at that moment that Betty started coughing and lost power.

  I pulled into the right lane just in time. It was so close, I thought the truck was going to go straight over the top of me. If Howard had not acted when he did and made that gap, I would have been stuffed.

  ‘GET THE NUMBER, GET THE NUMBER,’ I screamed over the radio. I was ready to kill that guy, no question.

  A few seconds later, Betty’s power came back; I didn’t know why it had dropped out—could have been a blocked fuel line or a clogged injector. We descended into the city. I was fizzing, full of adrenalin, but it passed. The safety of the city streets put me at ease.

  I had rented a small terrace house in Richmond for three nights, only a block from my mate James’ Supercar Club building. He had offered me some space to work on the bike, so I could spread out all my tools and take my time. However, I had not been able to raise him on the phone over the last few days. As it turned out he was overseas, so we made straight for the rental house. I was shattered.

  The tiny garage had once been full-size but had been converted into a bedroom; only the first metre was still garage, and it now housed a small laundry and two bins. There was a door leading from the garage into the bedroom, so we just opened it and parked Betty half-in, half-out of the room. Howard and Dan were as tired as I was, so we all had a beer together then called it a night—but not before I made a call on that truck.

  Melbourne is a wonderful city, and we had two days to relax. Howard had to bolt first thing in the morning; he was moving house the next day and his wife didn’t like the idea of tackling that alone with two girls under five in tow. He jumped into a taxi, job done; I couldn’t thank him enough.

  Dan has mates in Melbourne so he was off as well, intent on chasing all the things that a young single man chases on weekend pass. I pulled the tools out of the truck and lay in the street under Betty to do an oil change. The radio in the truck was on, the city came to life as the sun rose over the terraces, and people ambled past with strollers and dogs. Oil change done I replaced the CVT belt, then worked on the rest of the bike, which took up most of the day. That night I went out for dinner with my mates in Melbourne, the Jacobson boys (of Kenny fame) and their wives. As always, the two brothers had me in stitches, and the night was over way too fast.

  The next day Shane Edwards arrived, full of energy and boundless enthusiasm. Shane does marathons and triathlons and jogs every morning. He eats right, works hard—a real clean-cut Eddie who never has a bad word to say about anyone. But that boy can drink . . . ‘Let’s get on it,’ were the first words out of his mouth.

  ‘Er, OK,’ I said, and we went straight to the pub, where two of his mates joined us.

  Ten hours later Fast Eddie was walking on footballs and slurring his words, as we discussed whether to go clubbing or move on to another pub. We were in the corner of a pub somewhere in the city, a nice place, not too crowded for a Saturday night. ‘WHHOOOO,’ Eddie said suddenly, with his arms in the air, ‘we’re going to the Black Spurrr, me laddy.’ He raised his eyebrows to emphasise this and grinned.

  ‘What’s the Black Spur?’ I asked. ‘And why are you talking like a pirate?’

  Eddie’s mates picked up on the pirate thing. ‘Beware the Spur boy, it’ll swallow ye up like a prawn, so it will, arrr.’

  I started laughing. Eddie was on fire; he stood up and did a little drunk jig. ‘The Black Spur be no place for a bio-gay bike and a baldy-headed fool. Lucky for you I’m just the man te get ya there, ’n no bones about it.’ He flopped back into his seat and laughed.

  ‘OK lads, what the fuck is the Black Spur?’

  ‘BEWARE THE BLACK SPUR,’ they all joined in.

  I finished my drink. ‘It’s just a hill mate, the black spur,’ said Eddie. ‘BEWARE THE . . .’

  ‘SHUT THE FUCK UP.’

  ‘That bike is never going to get up it. Let’s get a taco.’

  Our night went on into the morning. At one point Dan called me; he was as smashed as I was and wanted to meet up with us at some club but that was never going to happen. Eddie, his mates and I ended up in a random horrid little bar, more like a public toilet with a bouncer; from the smell of the place it was bang in the middle of Melbourne’s urine district. I spent an hour doing shooters and sticking to the carpet.

  When we got back to the house, I was worried about the truck getting tagged by some kids we’d passed on the corner, so I went out to move it closer to the house. Bad move. My attempt to drive twenty metres down the road started and finished with the truck lurching forward straight into a streetlight, and that’s where I woke up several hours later.

  Bags packed, our laundry done, a decent breakfast, the bill paid: it was time to depart Melbourne and make for Sydney via Canberra.

  ‘All set, mate.’ Eddie looked and sounded like he hadn’t even sniffed a drink last night. Bastard. Dan looked the opposite, just like I did. I filled up the bike, pulling the hose through the little flap on the side and flicking on the fuel pump; the smell made me gag.

  ‘What was all that pirate talk about last night?’ asked Dan. ‘I called you to see if you guys wanted to join me and all I got was “Arrr this” and “the Black Spur that”.’

  ‘BEWARE THE BLACK SPUR,’ yelled Eddie from the cab. I shot him a smile. ‘Pauli spent the night in the truck, it smells like a brewery in here,’ said Eddie.

  Dan looked puzzled. ‘What happened?’

  Eddie described my drunken mission to rescue the truck from some taggers.

  Dan looked at me. ‘It’s still parked
in the same spot.’

  ‘Not quite.’ Eddie pointed at the front left side. ‘He managed to shift it all of five feet into that streetlight.’ Dan walked around to the other side and started laughing.

  Not too much damage, just a dented ego.

  The rain started as we pulled off and kept on going for the rest of the day. My head was thumping in perfect time with Betty’s donk. I sat behind the truck for ages, riding on autopilot, until we hit Healesville. Whap, whap, whap. Sports bikes blasted past us as we began to climb. This must be the start of the dreaded Betty-crushing Black Spur, I thought.

  Eddie swiftly confirmed this over the two-way. ‘THE BLACK SPUR,’ he announced. ‘You’re never gonna make it, sucka.’ I overtook the truck and put-putted into the most amazing high country forest. Two brand spanking KTMs pulled alongside and Betty got the once-over. There was some pointing, lots of laughing, then they barked the engines, down a gear on the throttle, front wheels effortlessly airborne—wankers—and off up the straight on the balance point through the gearbox.

  I couldn’t do that; I just didn’t have the power or the gearbox. But I could enjoy the scenery, hairpin after hairpin straight up into the Yarra Ranges. Betty was doing about twenty kilometres an hour, much to the annoyance of all the cars behind me, but there was nowhere to pull over with any degree of safety.

  The ride down the other side was a joy, all the same swervery but no longer underpowered so I could finally keep up with all the other bikes enjoying the run. The KTM duo were stuck behind a caravan, deep in conversation, doing twenty. I thumped past, rushing a really silly overtake on the apex of a right hander—no oncoming traffic but an overhanging tree nearly took my head off. Don’t look back, just hold her wide open and go.

  The game was on. I caught flashes of their headlights in my mirrors; Betty’s footpegs touched bitumen for the first time. I rode as hard and fast as the bike would let me. We duelled, always within our lanes, measured, experienced fun, ripping through turn after turn, the bikes well over, jittery on the lean from the leaf litter on the roadside, into the centre line and back, always thinking ahead, always looking towards the exit point and the next setup. No looking back, or they’d know I was trying, no glancing down at gauges or mirrors. We were flying. At the first straight section we came to the duo pulled up, one on either side of me. I was hopelessly out-gunned, out-wheelied and out-braked. We rode on, three in a row down the straight, no hard-faced manly nods or piss taking, just big happy grins.