In the Land of the Midnight Run

IN THE LAND OF THE MIDNIGHT RUN

From Normandy to the Arctic Circle, Where the Sun Never Sets On Malcolm Forbes and the Faceless Four

Shortly after 3 p.m. on what the French call 6 Juin we left Omaha Beach and pointed the bikes inland. It was the 36th Anniversary of D-Day, first step in the liberation of Europe and it was a good time to ride a Harley-Davidson across France.

It was also something of a diversion. Kenny Roberts would call Malcolm Forbes a World Guy. Like most people who don’t need an introduction, Forbes deserves several. He is one of the richest men in the U.S. He's owner and editor-in-chief of Forbes Magazine, which is to business and finance what CW is to motorcycles, that is, the best. He has holdings in America, France, England, the Fiji Islands. His collection of Faberge, jewelry in the form of Easter eggs, has been the subject of books. He holds world records in hot air balloons.

Not least, Forbes likes motorcycles. Ten years ago, at the age of 50, he tried to persuade an employee not to buy a bike, on the usual grounds of they are dangerous. The employee took the boss riding and Forbes, who had no background, no previous interest in motorcycles or motor sports of any kind, discovered that riding is fun. He bought a trail bike, then a BMW, then another and another. For a time he was a partner in a dealership, not so much for the money but so he’d get a deal and would have people to keep the machines running, Forbes having no knowledge of mechanical matters.

Now we go ’way up scale.

F. Scott Fitzgerald wrote that the rich are different and a critic said Sure, they have more money. Neither opinion covers enough ground. The rich have more money and it isn’t that they’re different. Rather, if they know how to use the money they live differently from you and me, in ways most of us find it hard to comprehend.

Forbes likes to ride motorcycles and he likes to ride them to different places, places most people only see on maps. He’s ridden all across the U.S. and Europe and he tends to do everything he does as completely as it can be done. (After he got interested in balloons he sank a cool million in a round-the-world balloon. Alas, he crashed on the launching pad and narrowly escaped, a history which becomes germane later in this account.)

Allan Girdler

Forbes is a student of history, naval warfare included and he knew that the northernmost part of Europe is known as the North Cape. Hundreds of miles north of the Arctic Circle, the cape figured large in World War II as the place you had to get around. The cape is the farthest north, the closest to the North Pole, that you can go on wheels so Forbes decided he’d like to ride there.

For most of us, impossible. For Forbes, a matter of detail. He enlisted me, his son Bob, nephew Duncan and a friend of the younger Forbes, Dr. Jan Enezelius, a Norwegian physician who was saddled with the job of planning the routes and stops. I got to take notes, Bob and Duncan are professional photographers. Distinguished company, I thought.

Not enough. Getting out of sequence here, when we got off the boat at Oslo there was a newspaper photographer and reporter waiting. They lined us up on the bikes and snapped away and took notes. Next morning the paper had a picture. Of Malcolm, the rest of us having been cropped out. And the story referred to Forbes’ “cubic charm” which I think meant he has lots of it, and contained a line about how he was making the trip with “four others.”

For the rest of the ride we others referred to ourselves as the Faceless Four. To his credit Forbes was embarrassed and the next interview came off with all five names and a picture of the entire cast.

For Forbes, getting five bikes some 5,000 miles across territory none of us had seen, was logistics. The Harley Electra Glide he rode across Russia in 1979, first time that’s been done, by the way, was in England so he had it shipped to his chateau in France. He’d just bought an FLT, so that was delivered to the chateau. He already had one Honda GL 1000 there, so Bob rode the English GL to and off the boat, and Duncan brought his brand new Yamaha XS850.

That made five motorcycles for five riders and it didn’t even make a dent in the Forbes stable. He thinks he has 30 or 40> bikes, but doesn’t know for sure and can’t always remember where they are at any given moment. As mentioned, people who have money and enjoy it don’t live like the rest of us.

Witness the balloon festival. Forbes likes and flies balloons, and a couple years ago he decided he needed a headquarters in France so he bought a giant and historic chateau in Normandy, a couple miles inland from Omaha Beach. He established a balloon museum in the stables and every year he sponsors a balloon festival. Teams from all over the world come and fly, Forbes sells tickets and the event makes friends and nearly pays for itself, which is how the rich stay that way.

Idea was, we’d go to the festival, then ride across France, Germany, Belgium and a corner of Holland, then take a boat to Norway, at the top of which is North Cape.

So, after the last balloon had gone up, we headed east in seriousness; two Harleys, two Hondas and the Yamaha.

So as to spare you the details of my summer vacation, I’ll leave out the ride across the known parts of that section of the world.

Mostly, it’s like the U.S. If you pick the scenic route you go through small town after small town, getting lost and getting stuck behind big trucks and small cars towing camping trailers.

If you pick the autoroute, autobahn or motorway, you're on roads like our interstates.

Except that in the U.S., the morally superior pig the fast lane at 55, while in Europe the morally smug drive fast cars and terrorize the fast lane at 100 and up. If you have an XS11 or CBX, you can ride their bumpers and move them over, ha ha, but on Wings with Vetter fairings and dressed Harleys, no chance. Instead you drone along at 70 or 80, checking the mirrors before moving out to pass tiddler cars.

Not the most thrilling riding.

I got the first hint of this trip’s secret pleasure when we crossed from (I think) France into Belgium. It was raining and we sloshed into the booth where you swap francs for marks. The man in charge knew we were Americans and he took me into his office. There on the desk, pride of place in his decal collection, was a sticker. He was a member of the Harley club in Holland. Didn't own one, never figured he’d have the money, but Harleys are his passion, so on the way out, me being on the FLT at the time, I gave him the full rumble of the big Twin.

Actual highlights here were putting people’s noses out of joint.

We tend to think that only in America are motorcycles frowned on. Not so. Europe has been able to afford cars for a generation, so they reckon bikers are crazy, just like at home, and when we walked into the various four-star hotels and restaurants, Forbes lives well, we got chilly stares.

But in this case, riding with a man who lunches with presidents and has kings as houseguests, the hotel manager rushed out to be sure the bikes were parked in a secure place, that we approved of the rooms. We lunched in leathers while the chef wrang his hands, because Forbes has been known to make public his disappointment in this gourmet place or that.

The other patrons, may they slobber paté on their neckties, didn’t know what to think. Just goes to prove the truth in the adage, Living Well Is The Best Revenge.

We took a ferryboat from Germany to Norway and, to my way of thinking, we escaped from Europe.

Norway is wonderful. Until this trip I hadn’t really thought much about the country, I mean, it’s part of Scandinavia, they build ships, and that’s all.

First, the place is huge. Well, not so much big as long and thin, about 1200 miles long and 280 miles wide. Norway is the northwest coast of Europe. Mountains, lakes, pine forests and such.

The roads are good but not too good. No autobahns, no arrogant Mercedes drivers. You’ll get a lovely smooth four lanes, then two, then oiled dirt with a construction detour or perhaps a tunnel with no lights and a dirt surface pocked by holes, terrifying. Not dull. Lots of curves. What you do in Norway is ride, rather than just sit there.

Next, the taxes are awful. On the order of 100 percent, meaning that if a Kawasaki 1300 sells for $5000 equipped, the taxes add another $5000 and yes, we met some guys with $10,000 Kawasakis and Suzukis. Good to remember when we bitch about U.S. prices.

The good side of that, for Americans anyway, is that because they take your money in the showroom, they don't have to take it in court. They have advisory speed limits and we saw a total of two patrol cars in a couple of thousand miles. If you drink and/or crash, they lock you in so deep Christmas carols arrive in June, but failing that the police are not a revenue agency. You can ride as fast as conditions permit, in short, and that’s fast.

The scenery is incredible. Like Glacier National Park for 1000 miles. Green fields, sparkling blue lakes, snow capped peaks. The first few days we didn’t ride more than an hour at a time as the photographers had to shoot everything in sight. After that even they got used to colors the developers won’t believe and we just hummed along, saying to ourselves Gee, another sparkling lake with snowcapped peak.

Travel tips: All the guidebooks I’ve seen talk about border crossings and papers, etc., but although I can’t say you don’t need all the papers, we didn’t have any trouble at borders. We went through the borders of France-Belgium, Belgium-Holland, Holland-Germany, Germany-Norway, Norway-Finland, Finland-Sweden and Sweden-Norway with nothing more than a brief glance at passports. If that. Couple of the borders were closed for rain and holidays, if you can believe that.

Where we did have trouble was at the motorcycle stores. I didn’t expect vast supplies of #60 Harley oil, but I was surprised that we couldn’t get silicone seal, Loc-tite, ACP sealer and balancer or Meguiar’s plastic cleaner. Not even in Oslo could we find the invaluable chemicals we in the U.S. take for granted. I found a biker with enough English to ask how do you clean your face shields if you don’t have Meguiar’s? and he said, we don't. Equip yourself beforehand, or if you want to be rich as Malcolm Forbes, figure how to introduce these miracle products to the benighted heathen.

Next tip is for Harley-Davidson. Once upon a time the American motorcycle was the standard of the world. We made the biggest and strongest and we sold them overseas, even taught the Japanese how to make them. Things changed and it will not come as a surprise to hear that nowadays the U.S. is well on the losing side of the balance sheet.

But. Harleys have fans everywhere. Soon as we were spotted by bikers, they had to see the Harleys, talk about Harley, ask about cubic centimeters and prices.

Just as Forbes’ international reputation got us into the Best Places, so did the Harleys make us heroes on the road. In one town, Alta, Norway, we asked directions to the hotel. The guy was on a KZ 1000. Soon as he told us where to go he zoomed off and got his pals, the three guys in Alta who had Harleys.

They came thundering up the driveway on their Sportsters with drag bars, shotgun pipes, extended front ends, just like home.

We were having a spot of trouble, as it happened. A truck pulled in front of Forbes on a detour and he dropped the FLT, something one does not do lightly. He was bruised and needed a rest, the T's fairing was askew. The 74 had broken a wire on the rough dirt road and the battery was flat, which I didn’t know until it wouldn’t crank over.

The lead Harley man looked at the T> and commented that it was leaking oil. Yes, I said, blushing in shame, we haven’t had time to fix it. Forbes was fascinated by the exchange. First that this guy had spotted instantly something Forbes wouldn’t have seen in a year, second that I had writhed with the loss of status that comes from arriving on this dream machine that wasn’t in tiptop shape.

But one of the bikers invited us to his shop, where he charged the battery, helped with the new wires and the whole crew volunteered to aid in getting the T back in alignment. If the hotel was full, they offered, we could stay in their clubhouse. As it happened we pushed on to another posh resort, but the offer was appreciated.

As a gesture of thanks we bought the first round and let the Norwegians sit on the FLT. Yeah, I know about taxes and import bothers and all that. But. If Harley ever decides to do something about the balance of payments and get serious about exporting, they have a potential market consisting of every bike nut we met in Europe. Meanwhile, it made me proud to be on a 74.

Along in here somewhere we crossed the Arctic Circle. Most satisfying. Not being a world traveller I wasn’t sure what to expect, save that all the pictures I’d seen involved fur-lined parkas and sled dogs.

We rode up a pass through a mountain range and the trees got smaller and more scrubby, then disappeared. Raw grass, rocks, glaciers to the left and right, windswept granite and right at the top of the bleakness, with railroad tracks protected by covers as the snow can’t be plowed from the tracks, was a sign proclaiming the Arctic Circle. The air was cold, the sun was weak and by Admiral Byrd it surely did look like it should. I was glad I had two sets of woolies, then a wool shirt and sweater, then leathers under my thermal rain suit.

I was even more glad when we rode down the other side of the pass and found pine forests, then little farms and fishing villages. The Gulf Stream warms the coast of Norway so it’s much warmer for its northern position that you’d think.

We took advantage of this by riding along the coast, with skips from mainland to islands and back on a series of coastal freighters and ferries. One freighter hadn’t hauled motorcycles before and nearly dropped the FLT but our shouts averted this and after that we werë allowed to sling the bikes ourselves.

One of the reasons for the ride, aside from having an excuse to go riding I mean, was to see the Midnight Sun.

Fascinating. We had the route and stops planned so we’d get to go to the top of the world in time for the sun to not set. Longest day of the year in an area where they have no sunset for ten weeks.

When I first heard about this I spent some time with a globe and a lamp, figuring: If the sun doesn’t set, where does it go?

Now I know. The sun moves in a big circle, as if a lasso artist was making a loop above your head.

When you wake up at 6 a.m. the sun is in the east, at about the place it would be at 8 a.m. in the U.S. At noon the sun is due south, but it’s risen to maybe 9 a.m. position. At 6 p.m. it’s in the west, as it should be except that it’s only dropped the equivalent of one hour. And at midnight it’s in the north, hanging above the horizon and still strong enough to warm your face.

Strange. More strange was the loss of time sense and orientation. We’d get up at what seemed like mid morning, ride for 11 or 12 hours, have dinner, work on the bikes and go to bed at what felt like mid afternoon, more tired than we felt entitled to be because obviously the day was still young. The natives adapt, they told us, but I never did.

The trip wasn’t properly a comparison test but 12 hours in the saddle every day for weeks do give some definition of what works on the road. Duncan’s XS850 was by far the quickest. He’d cruise through winding sections that had the Harleys dragging their floorboards. But the bucket seat did make for cramps and the tiny fairing wasn’t enough wind protection for hours of running 80 mph. The Hondas were unperturbable, as always. Just loafed along, the Vetter fairings keeping wind and weather at bay. Halfway through the ride we thought we might ought to check the Wings. One needed some oil, the other didn’t and that’s the only service they got or needed.

Both Harleys needed to be checked over every day and as it happened what maintenance we could provide minus tools and parts and supplies wasn’t enough. Best part here was that you could tell who was on the Hondas because at 3 p.m. they were shifting from cheek to cheek, sitting on the passenger section, sitting on the tank, etc., anything for relief. But the Harleys, especially the Electra Glide with frying pan seat suspended on a hydraulic post, were comfy as easy chairs all day long. Fast cruising on secondary roads is what Harleys are made to do, and no machine does it better.

Finally, Cape Nord. There’s a little town at the ferry stop, packed with tourists as you’d guess, then you ride 20 or so miles, up into the coastal mountains and right to the edge of the world.

Not a friendly place. Windswept, cold, no trees, land’s end for Europe is a barren cliff with cold gray seas stretching as far as the eye can see. Just what I had hoped for, in sum. There’s a cafe and a telephone booth and I nipped into the booth and called my wife, mostly to hear her voice but also to say we’d made it and that the trip home would be all downhill.

And so it proved to be, except that there’s more than one meaning to downhill.

With goal achieved, we picked up the pace. Back into town, back onto the ferry, back through what has got to be the worst tunnel in the world—made even more horrible on the return trip by the presence of a gravel spreader, yes, mid way through. We’d thought the slime on the road was accidental but no, they haul it there on purpose. Two miles worth, hitting potholes in the dark while trying to keep between invisible walls.

We emerged upright and headed for Finland, southbound and down.

For a couple of days I’d been worried about the 74’s back tire. The rough roads had taken a toll. Oh relax, Forbes said.

We’d been running hard, 70 and 80, with Forbes on the 74 for several hours. We slowed for a small town with pedestrian crossing and Bang! Soon as I heard it, I knew what it was and sure enough, the tire had popped and put Forbes across both lanes, lock to lock.

He’d been doing maybe 24 mph and kept the bike upright.

When we had our hearts going again, we reflected briefly on how it happened that the tire went just exactly at the only time all day it could have gone without serious consequences. Remember how the record-attempt balloon failed on the ground rather than at its planned 40,000 feet? Forbes overshot the land once on a coast-to-coast flight and set that balloon down nearly on the decks of some fishing boats that happened to be in the area.

Malcolm Forbes is a lucky man.

Not even the Forbes luck could interfere with the next event. We’d arrived at the height of the mid-year summer holiday. I can’t say that everybody in the Finnish town was drunk. Instead, everybody we met was drunk, all the stores were closed, there was no way we’d get a new Harley tire in less than a week, if then.

So we repacked and Forbes and son doubled up until we’d crossed the border into Sweden, closed, or maybe I should say open and unguarded, because of the holiday. Next morning we took Forbes to the airport and the Faceless Four headed down the coast of Sweden.

Somewhere close to halfway, the FLT’s clutch gave out. We towed it to a gas station where we learned how seriously the Swedes take holidays. Everything was closed, there was no hope of parts or even a rental truck for two days. So that Harley, too, was parked to await rescue by the Stockholm dealer.

We were now four riders for three bikes, with gear lashed precariously everywhere. Tell you what, I volunteered, I’ve been where I wanted to go, how about you drop me at the railroad station?

Soon as they rode off around the corner,

In walked a lady carrying a bottle of apple juice. Where did you get that? I blurted in English. From a restaurant that just closed, she said, adding that obviously my need was greater then hers, would I like the bottle?

I discovered that in Sweden holidays are total. The first hotel I hiked to had closed the restaurant. The holiday. It was 8 p.m. and I hadn’t eaten since before noon. I walked to a pizza place (closed) and a Chinese restaurant (closed) and a disco, open except touring leathers didn't meet the dress code. The other hotel was open but they, too, had succumbed to disco madness. No suit, no dinner. My explanation cut no ice with them, so I trudged back to the station and sat on a bench, wondering if, when the milk train arrived at 1 a.m., I’d have strength enough to climb aboard.

Yes. Face to face with the first sympathetic person I’d met in Sweden, I told all.

How awful, she said, adding that she used to ride a BMW, she thought leathers were much more attractive than John Travolta Whites and finally, she was on her way home from a wedding, with leftovers, would I like them?

Yes. Cold meat, cold potatoes, dry bread and apple juice, wolfed down while sitting in the train station, four hours until the milk train arrives, was fine.

So I dozed my way south, caught the next flight to Fondon and arrived at Forbes’ English HQ, a manor with even a ghost.

Forbes got home just about the same time, having gone for some business meetings in Germany, and he was sorry to hear the other Harley had failed.

But he wasn’t discouraged. The FLT could be hauled back to the Stockholm dealership and put right, then shipped to France or England or wherever he figured he might want to ride a Harley.

The Electra Glide, though, had already been across Russia and now Scandinavia, and it was bound to be a little tired. Forbes had been reading the motorcycle newspapers and he’d learned that there was a brand new Wide Glide in England. He has one in New York and likes it, so the thing to do that morning was go visit the dealership and work out trading the old bike for a new one, would I like to come along?

Sure, I said.

Being rich is fun.