Touring England On Royal Enfield Motorcycles, Part One

It was the first hotel-slash-pub-slash-restaurant we had found that seemed respectable. Only hours before, the two Royal Enfields we would borrow for our jaunt around England were waiting patiently in a small town south of London boasting the oldest Cricket field in the United Kingdom, if not the world. Justin and I had been anxiously anticipating our adventure—scouring England's early fortresses for history we could probably find on Google and an experience you can't quite catalog. Nineteen accumulative miles by foot and several pints later, it was finally time to exit the fog, say goodbye to Big Ben, and try our luck on the left side, looking right.

Motorways have a tendency to be the same most places in the world: distracted teens at the wheel, impatient delivery services trying to make their deadlines, crabby Corporate Zombies excusing themselves for nearly running you off the road because your antiquated motorbike won’t cruise kindly past 60 mph without losing a heat shield or some bolts or whatever else you’d expect a 500cc single-cylinder to shed…

But what the British freeways lacked in character—and shoulders—it overflowed in abundance on their country roads. Lanes made for maybe a car-and-a-half, sometimes with and sometimes without defining white lines. Canopies of ancient intertwining branches tunneled our pathway intermittently shading us from rain or sun at just the moment we needed relief. Tall hedges gave speed to our ride, blurring as they fell behind us. Wheat fields, stretching as far as the eye can see, painted the horizons golden yellow and dated our surroundings to the birth of agriculture, hiding what was left of the primeval forest we imagine from the stories.

I felt like a collegiate drop-out in the early 20th century, when motorcycles were still new and exciting (and dangerous), ready for an experience not defined by the confines of contemporary and classic society. Perhaps feeling free for the first time on this beautiful glossy-black beast I opted for over the four-legged furry one that had carried humankind for thousands of years until then.

The Royal Enfield, at that time still British, gave the stifled youth the prospects of glory, escapade and infamy. And now upon an Indian-made Continental GT and Bullet 500, nearly a century past my daydream, we make our way to Portsmouth on the first leg of this iconic expedition reincarnated. The English Countryside is infamous not just for its fairytales but for the circuit of narrow, short-sighted avenues often crumbling at the edge that have taken many lives from those who dared to challenge them. Even after the motorways were ready for two mid-sized vehicles—lorries included, the blind corners lined with barely pruned bushes, a timeline of ancient homesteads and stone walls built to kill protect, gave the Bullet and GT a ride worth the effort.

Hours of hyper vigilance can work up an appetite and rob you of your energy. We were cut off by Brits all the way to the water riding well under the suggested speed limit. And when the George Hotel caught our eyes, we dismounted with fervor, grabbed some cider and waited patiently for Six O’clock Supper.

"How was your ride?" The gentleman sitting in the corner, clad in khaki shorts and possessing a brand new camping chair, sniffed us out. He too had ridden the hard miles of the motorways aboard his motorcycle to settle at a quiet pub in his comfy cushion, pint in hand, and observe the locals. We three talked for nearly an hour before the man, whose name I daresay I can't remember, departed only to be replaced by the next 70+ year-old Brit bloke ready to chat up the Americans on Enfields. Clive was a character I will never forget. The pure definition of jolly, and as nationally proud of England as Justin is of America. After introducing us to Graham and John—one of which a visiting Kiwi, Clive extended his formal invitation, authorized by the Queen herself, for America to rejoin the United Kingdom. "All would be forgiven!" Big smiles as contained as we could muster, we said with a straight face that we will immediately notify the American government and the people of such wildly generous opportunity. Please stand by. After cider (ours) and white wine (Clive's) drained 'business' from the conversation, we mostly reminisced over motorcycles loved and lost, adventures had and hoped for, and the many Enfields that—like Harley-Davidsons to Americans—have drawn in generations of Englishmen, sufficient or shit.

As if our first conversations weren’t enough, we met Barry—a Brit whose sister lives near us in Washington, who spent his adolescence in my hometown in California in the 1950’s and had retired 15 years ago from a lucrative career in Marketing. He led us through the positively stereotypical English pub to a table seating an 85-year-old gentleman harboring a 20-year-old spirit named Alan who could describe his first Royal Enfield like it was still parked outside his flat.

And Russ, the American-come-Brit whose work at Sir Arthur Conan Doyle’s Portsmouth estate was to make its contents more accessible to the visually-impaired. But most notably, Russ was the only person we met that night under the age of 70… Famished, I was happy to devour one of the best meals I’d had since our arrival over even more cider, then more pints of “real ale” and plenty of conversation. From the bar attendants to the patrons, good food and warm beer, thoroughfares both breath-taking and treacherous, our first day on the open road had Justin and I buzzing, laughing, clenching and sticking to the (far) left, looking right.