Wheels Archives - James Trumm

The Distinguished Gentlemen’s Ride on Calle Loíza

October 1, 2018 by James Trumm 3 Comments

One of the joys of living in San Juan is that there is no shortage of scenes. There’s a street art scene, a rat rod scene, a food truck scene, a Jeep scene, a punk scene, a cocktail scene, a surfing scene, a baseball scene — and a motorcycle scene. That last was on full display last Sunday.

I was enjoying Sunday brunch at Tresbé on Calle Loíza when I heard the basso profundo throb of big bikes — a whole lot of them heading east. I grabbed my camera and started shooting. As the first motorcycle came into focus, I immediately knew what I was seeing. It was the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, a global event where men (and a few women) get dressed in their dapper finery and ride to raise money for prostate cancer research and other worthy causes.

There was an eclectic mix of motorcycles: Japanese, American, European, Indian, choppers, boulevard cruisers, and cafe racers.

This being the Caribbean, some people took the dress code pretty liberally — or ignored it altogether. But most of the riders at least made the attempt to look both distinguished and gentlemanly.

I especially liked this guy on the chopper and was sorry not to have gotten a better pic of his ride. I haven’t seen pants like those since the Nixon administration!

This was the only sidecar I saw. These two definitely win the prize for cutest couple.

I was surprised that there were so many Royal Enfields in the mix. But maybe I shouldn’t have been. Royal Enfields are as natty and anachronistic as the Distinguished Gentlemen themselves. First manufactured in 1901, they developed a reputation in World War II as being nearly indestructible. “Built like a bullet” was the strange simile that was used to describe them. The company was eventually sold and moved to Chennai, India where it continues as “the oldest global motorcycle brand in continuous production.” Royal Enfield is surely a niche player in the global motorcycle market. But for whatever reason, they’re popular here in Puerto Rico. There’s even a dealership here in San Juan.

Not everyone was riding a big bike – or for that matter, a motorcycle at all.

I’ve ridden a motorcycle while wearing a tuxedo, so I think I could fit right into this group. Next year?

Filed Under: Motorcycles, Puerto Rico, San Juan, Santurce, Wheels Tagged With: Calle Loíza, Gentlemen's Ride, Motorcycles, Puerto Rico, San Juan, Santurce, Wheels

Women Who Ride, Women Who Travel

August 10, 2018 by James Trumm Leave a Comment

For several years now, I’ve made a similar post to Facebook every Friday morning. I put up a photo of a woman riding a motorcycle and caption it “It’s FRIDAY and the streets are OURS!”

To my surprise, this weekly post gets a lot of love every time. To my even greater surprise, I get more positive responses from women than men. That may be because the photos I choose are not motorcycle cheesecake shots — you know, the kind of photos that show a lushly upholstered lady wearing nothing but a dental floss bikini and a provocative smile improbably draped over a heavily customized show bike. That is, shall we say, not my genre. The photos I post are of real women actually riding motorcycles, or at least those who look like they are about to: real women, real riders.

Recently, the publication I work for, ConsumersAdvocate.org, challenged me to publish a feature story about women who ride. It was a labor of love. I profiled three women riders who inspire me every time I ride.

Bessie Stringfield was an African American woman who rode all over the continental United States and several foreign countries back in the 1930s. She traveled alone through the Jim Crow south during a time when lynchings were disgustingly common. During World War II, she became a motorcycle courier for the US Army. When the war was over, she became a motorcycle performer, doing death-defying stunts at carnivals and fairs and participating in dirt track races. She later moved to Miami and founded a motorcycle club.

Lois Pryce is an English woman who’s ridden from Alaska to Tierra del Fuego, from London to Cape Town, and into every corner of Iran. She chronicles her travels in prose that is at times amusing, at times poignant, and always insightful. She, too, usually rides alone. I asked her about how she kept herself safe during her journeys, and she replied that her very vulnerability was her strength. Seeing a woman riding alone on a small motorcycle in a strange land makes people want to help and protect her. Not that she needs a lot of help — her strength, resourcefulness, good humor, and courage have carried her though some fairly terrifying situations.

Melissa Holbrook Pierson writes about riding motorcycles the way some people write about religious rituals: deeply, beautifully, movingly. She favors Ducatis, brawny Italian bikes known more for their power and style than their reliability. In lapidary prose, she profiles people who ride, showing them as the complex three-dimensional people they are. And she gets closer than any other writer to understanding the allure of motorcycles. The title of one of her books gets at this: The Perfect Vehicle: What It Is About Motorcycles. Reading that book not only helped me understand motorcycles — it helped me understand myself.

The piece I wrote about these three riders became one of the most linked-to features out of the 450-some articles we’ve published. If you’d like to read the whole thing, please do. And send me your comments.

Filed Under: Wheels, Writing Tagged With: Women Who Ride, Writing

Meet The Beetles (of Peru)

July 21, 2018 by James Trumm Leave a Comment

Original Volkswagen Beetles were once common on the streets of Latin America. But now these sturdy machines are getting rarer. There are still some stalwart old Beetles on the roads of Peru.

The ones I saw there seemed somehow brawnier than they do in the States. Possibly they have larger tires? For whatever reason, they look to me taller and more capable of going over rough terrain than their North American cousins.

Nearly every Peruvian Beetle I saw had been modified in some way or another, making identification difficult. So I’d be glad if Beetle experts reading this could give me their estimate of the year of each vehicle here and weigh in on the larger tire question.

I saw this one in Cusco. It appeared to be in the best shape of all those I photographed.

This one was parked on a side street in Miraflores. It was one of several I saw that had a roof rack of this design.

This battered bug was driving around Plaza de Armas in Lima Centro.

I saw these four Beetles in Barranco. Being a mecca for hippies, artists, and other Bohemians, it didn’t surprise me to find a fair few old VWs there.

When I was growing up, we had a book of classic Volkswagen ads on our family bookshelf. They were clever and quirky — some of the first ads I actually enjoyed. During my trip to Peru, I remembered this ad and found myself thinking about how common Beetles used to be in Latin America. It says a lot about why these cars were once so popular in certain parts of the world.

Filed Under: Cusco, Lima, Peru, Travel, Wheels Tagged With: Beetle, Cusco, Lima, Peru, Travel, Volkswagen, VW

Living Next Door to Roberto Durán

November 6, 2017 by James Trumm Leave a Comment

I was taught that if your last name isn’t Windsor, you have no business having stone lions in front of your house. Unless, of course, your name is Roberto Durán. He’s got lions plus Roman statues of women with perfectly hemispherical breasts. I just found out he lives right next to the hotel I’m at. That’s an Excalbur replicar in the garage.

Filed Under: Panama, Panama City, Travel, Wheels

My Old Weird French (Rental) Car

October 22, 2017 by James Trumm Leave a Comment

Back when I lived in Tunisia, I became fascinated with old, weird French cars. I rode in them every day back then and saw scores on the roadways. What struck me is that, for good or ill, French car manufacturers go their own way when it comes to design. That’s true of Citroëns in particular. No one could mistake an older car that came out of their design shop for anything else on the road.

Here’s one of the Tunisian Citroën 2CVs I spotted on the streets of Sousse and blogged about two and a half years ago:

So when I got the chance to rent an almost identical 2CV here on Curaçao and drive it around the island for four days, I jumped at the opportunity. The company that provides them here, Ducks United, takes its name from the popular nickname that these beloved, stalwart cars earned: the Duck. Here’s one explanation of how that name came to be: it comes

from the Ugly Duckling, a Hans Andersen fairy story. Before World War II, Citroën had a logo with a beautiful swan on it representing the floating motor (Le Moteur Flottant). At the 1948 Paris Car Show, the 2CV was likened to being an ugly duckling amongst the other handsome Citroën swans on show. Another version is that the beautiful Citroën swans had given birth to the 2CV ugly duckling. This nickname appears in many languages.

The car was delivered to the Bed & Bike Hostel where I’m staying in Willemstad. After some quick and easy paperwork formalities, the owner of the company, Geert Net, showed me how to operate the two (!) convertible roofs, the keyless ignition (a toggle switch and a push-button), the horn (a stalk protruding from the right of the steering column), the flip-up windows, and the shift. And then he left me to learn the car’s many quirks on my own.

My ride was a 1981 2CV 6 Club, one of the many 2CV variants that Citroën built its 42 years of production (1948- 1990). It had a two-cylinder air-cooled engine mated to a four-speed manual transmission. The shift lever poked out of the firewall, ran under the rudimentary dashboard, and then at its very end turned up and was topped with a satisfyingly-large shift knob that felt good in the hand. Because the car is so underpowered, the transmission got a good workout, even on the very moderate hills of Curaçao.

I soon came to appreciate my ugly duckling’s many virtues. Its long wheelbase gives it a much smoother ride than most cars its size. Its shift pattern is intuitive and easy to learn. And its distinctive design incorporates many complex curves, giving the body something like an Art Nouveau look.

Other parts of the car were, frankly, not so beautiful. The one-piece instrument cluster and dashboard looked like 80s plastic. And indeed, they were.

But overall, the 2CV delighted me. It seemed to have that effect on other people too. I got a lot of honks, waves, thumbs-ups, and smiles on the roads, at gas stations, and in parking lots.

The word “jaunty” comes to mind whenever I look at it. And while it’s probably not a good vehicle for high-speed highways and long-distance journeys, it was ideal for exploring this 171 square mile island.

Filed Under: Curacao, Sousse, Travel, Tunisia, Wheels, Willemstad

By Scooter from Willemstad to Westpunt

October 1, 2017 by James Trumm Leave a Comment

On Saturday, I picked up a little no-name Vespa-style scooter from NR1 Scooter Rental to bomb around on for a few days.

And so on Sunday, I took advantage of being mobile to get out of Willemstad and see more of Curaçao. I planned a trip to Westpunt, a place locally known for its sea turtles and its laid-back atmosphere. My hotelier told me that it was quite the hippie hangout back in the day. It sounded like my kind of place.

Curaçao is shaped like a bent, misshapen cigar that’s angled northwest to southeast. Willemstad is in the southeastern fifth, while Westpunt is (as its name suggests) at the extreme northwestern end, a distance of about 48 kilometers.

I had traveled about a third of that distance before it started to rain. I’d been in Curaçao for 13 days and hadn’t seen a drop of rain before then. But now the roadway was wet and I was anxiously trying to keep the scooter off the oil stripe that marked the center of my lane.

By the time I got to Westpunt, the front of my shirt and pants was thoroughly soaked. I locked the scooter to a signpost and headed toward a beach called Playa Grandi (big beach) by the mapmakers and Playa Piscado (fish beach) by the locals. I was here:

I followed the sign and walked through some tropical woods toward the sea.

As I approached, I heard jazz echoing from the beach, standards like “Satin Doll” and “One Note Samba.” Until this point, my experience of the Curaçao beach scene was limited to Mambo Beach, a man-made stretch of sand and restaurants about four kilometers east of my hostel in Willemstad. They don’t play jazz there. It’s a very nice place, with lots of mid- to upscale eateries and bars, a Starbucks and a Subway, and little shops selling higher end T-shirts and clothing.

Playa Piscado, however, was not only about as far from Mambo Beach geographically as one can get on Curaçao, but was also as different in terms of atmosphere as one could imagine. It isn’t a beach where the Beautiful People go to see and be seen. It’s a local place, definitely down-home. I fell in love with it immediately.

The big attraction on Playa Piscado are the sea turtles, which swim in the clear waters just a few meters offshore. I walked out on the dock and took a look.

Sure enough, after a few minutes, I saw my first-ever sea turtle in the wild. My girlfriend Lori Seubert, my go-to with all questions about plants and animals, identified it via photos I sent her as a Green Sea Turtle.

I wasn’t the only one looking for turtles.

Then as I was scanning the waters, this unusual bird alighted on the dock beside me. Lori thinks it’s a juvenile Green Heron.

The turtles and the birds are attracted by the bits of fish guts the fishermen throw into the water after cleaning their day’s catch.

Playa Piscado isn’t very sandy; it’s a bed of coral fragments. And there are no fancy restaurants, just local hole-in-the-wall places. Literally: this place was recessed into a shallow cave.

The Beautiful People don’t hang out here. The people who were there on that rainy Sunday came to see the animals and just hang out. That was just fine by me.

Everything I saw–the boats on the clear sea, the relatively modest houses lining the cliffs by the beach, and the chickens bustling about the wreck of an old wooden boat–spoke to me of a calm, unpretentious life here on the less-traveled end of a relatively obscure southern Caribbean island.

By the time my clothes had dried out, it was time to head home. I walked the path back to my scooter, noting the rather alarming signs along the way.

Where the trail joins the road, I was greeted by this installation. Perhaps a remnant of the beach’s hippie heritage?

Since the rain had stopped, more cars were pulling off the road to park. An ice cream truck was just pulling up. I caught a glimpse of its dashboard and decided it would take an entire team of semioticians and pop culture historians at least a decade to work out all the references there.

My scooter was just where I’d left it–and hard to miss with the big blue and white arrow pointing it out.

I hopped on and rode back to Willemstad, singing jazz standards into my helmet as I drove.

Filed Under: Curacao, Motorcycles, Travel, Wheels, Willemstad

Every Moto Tells A Story, Don’t It?

September 6, 2017 by James Trumm Leave a Comment

Some of the battered motos of Santo Domingo have been stripped naked of all fairings and upholstery and now are little more than frames with 50cc motors and wheels. Some have suffered the indignity of serving as pack mules. And some still wear their manufacturer’s clothes, even if they’re going thin at the knees and elbows.

It’s tempting to shoot for a big metaphor here, and if I knew the Dominican people better, I might try. But only three days in the DR doesn’t give me much ground to stand on. So I’ll only say that for each bike, there is a story to be told about what it was like when it was new, who all its owners have been, and what its unique circumstances are.

Filed Under: Dominican Republic, Motorcycles, Santo Domingo, Travel, Wheels

Old Weird French Cars

February 26, 2015 by James Trumm 1 Comment

I shot most of these in Sousse, Tunisia.

Filed Under: Tunisia, Wheels Tagged With: Tunisia, Wheels

Cambodia: Siem Reap

May 8, 2014 by James Trumm 1 Comment

Siem Reap was a pleasant surprise. Since it’s the town closest to Angkor, I expected a ticky-tacky tourist town, just a place for people to stay en route to the ruins. It is a tourist town, but as the genre goes, it’s a nice one. It’s here:

The first thing I did upon getting to town was to get a haircut at the Fine Day Barber Shop. There is a certain frisson about not being able to communicate well with your barber.

And as he put the straight razor to my neck, I wondered if the tens of thousands of tons of bombs that America “secretly” dropped on his country 45 years ago killed many of his relatives.

I also found that the Angkor National Museum does a good job of showcasing and explaining Angkor civilization and putting the area’s ruins in historical context.

The town has a lovely and well-tended park that runs along the Siem Reap River, which cuts through the middle of the town.

For those whose tastes run more toward the vehicular, Cambodia’s climate does a good job of preserving the classics.

There are many shops, ranging from the tony to the homespun — and even the latter are neat and tidy.

After living in Yuxi for ten months, I found myself craving non-Chinese food. Especially enjoyed the beef stew at Molly Malone’s, an Irish pub run by a half-French half-Cameroonian man and his Irish wife. I swapped lies with him while holding down the Bullshit Corner at the bar.

On another night, as I wandered around town, I caught sight of Boston Red Sox posters hanging above the bar at Belmiro’s Pizza & Subs. Being a former Bostonian, I wandered in for the first pizza I’ve had since Christmas. It’s a great establishment, run by Belmiro Barros, a self-described “kid from Marion, Massachusetts” who got sick of a career in international finance and decided to open a restaurant in Siem Reap. Pizza and conversation were both very good.

There were posters up in the coffee shops and guesthouses advertising jazz concerts, dance recitals, a circus, and art gallery openings. After a few days there, I left thinking that even if Angkor was not just a tuk tuk ride away, Siem Reap would be a fine place to visit or to live.

Filed Under: Cambodia, Travel, Wheels Tagged With: Cambodia, Travel