MORONEY
Sjaak Lucassen on his World tour . Now imagine Moroney at Stonehenge on his decrepit CB175 Twin ...
Words : Roger Moroney
B ack in the summer of ‘ 97 I met a very adventurous Dutch motorcyclist and felt obliged to apologise to him ... on behalf of the populace of Hawke ’ s Bay where he was visiting . For , despite it being early February , the two days he spent in the sunny seaside resort of Napier , which he had heard about , it was more like late autumn . The rains came . But he shrugged it off for he had seen plenty of it before , and indeed ridden through plenty of it before ... given that 20 months earlier he had embarked on a world tour . On his terms of course , as he liked heading for places off the usual beaten track . He ’ d gone through Bangladesh as part of his remarkable list of global stop-offs . Sjaak Lucassen was an inspiring sort of bloke . He had embarked on the ride of a lifetime and took on challenge after challenge . He told me about having a knife pulled on him by a thug in Russia ... and how Thai authorities impounded his bike for three weeks , claiming it had been taken into the country illegally . About 20 people , from the Dutch embassy and motoring groups like the AA went to battle for Sjaak and he got his bike back , and the journey went on . “ It was an experience ,” was how he put it , with a smile when I interviewed him back then . What got
me , though , was the bike he was using to meander the world for a couple of years . A Honda ( OK so far ...) Fireblade CBR900 . Yep , a Fireblade ... basically a track-designed brute , but he loved the beast ... to the point where he fitted huge panniers and a backpack and a tank case . And in the fine conditions the lad wore ‘ Lookwell ’ racing leathers on his travels . “ People are very friendly here ,” he said of New Zealand , “ I like it .” He was gearing up for the Middle East and Africa as part of his next roadways , and summed it all up by saying that when it was all over he would sit back at home and “ think about where I will go then ... it will be hard to stop because I love it .” I can recall sort of mentioning to Sjaak that I had embarked on a motorcycle journey on the other side of the world back in ’ 74 and he was intrigued . Mine , however , was a modest effort aboard a modest bike , although I didn ’ t tell him exactly what it was , except that it too was a Honda . Had I told him it was a CB175 twin I suspect he would have looked at his watch and declared “ time to depart .” Though I don ’ t really think so , because getting about so far away is not about what you do it on ... it ’ s simply about just doing it . I found an old postcard in one of my stacked drawers of “ things ” the other day and it was one
90 KIWI RIDER