The wide, wild wanderings of two old friends, and the motorcycle that reconnected them

“Of course when the Russians kidnapped me, they held me at gun point for 36 hours, but I’ve got to go…” As the phone line went silent my mind drifted back to the day I crossed the Carpathian Mountains on my old Kawasaki KLR650 motorbike and down into the city of Bucharest in search of my old friend, Simon. The year was 199(?) and I hadn’t seen or spoken to him since the mid ‘80s when we ran together in our hometown on the coast in South Devon, England. Dropping acid, smoking dope and using all sorts of chemicals to stay up for days, I rode a battle-weary Laverda 1200 Mirage at that time. Simon always had race cars, but occasionally found himself on the back of the Mirage as we navigated our way through mass unemployment that saw us out of work and living on our wits. For a couple of years we were in each other’s orbit, and it was a mad and interesting time in our young lives, with plenty of colorful characters and excitement to pass the days. Yet by 1985 I was on the move to America, and Simon was out in Eastern Europe.

Leap-frogging over a decade of world travel, we reconnected in Romania as I mentioned, and I discovered Simon was running casinos for a Turkish gangster out of Istanbul. Over the next few days, we went everywhere with bodyguards, trying desperately to keep up with Simon in his large black BMW. Sliding sideways towards Ceausescu’s old Parliament building one night (the biggest palace in the world by the way), tires howling, smoke billowing up around us, it seemed like not much had changed since the old days in England. Simon could seriously drive. So with Simon busy taking care of business I headed off to Transylvania with the lovely Miss Ouna Muher for a few days visiting Dracula’s castle and that sort of thing. We ran from the very dishonest cops, stayed in centuries-old buildings and generally played tourist on the old KLR.

On our return to the city, Simon had been called to Istanbul on business and all my gear was locked in his apartment. Thankfully, Ouna was able to get it back for me and after a few days in the city with winter fast approaching, I reluctantly said goodbye on a cold, grey day and made my way across the Danube. It was then across Bulgaria, bound for the Mediterranean in southern Turkey. That was the last time I saw or heard from Simon. Over the next decades, I heard a few scraps here and there. A good friend made some visits to Europe to visit Simon, with hair-raising tales of blasting across the Alps on high-powered Ducati sport bikes, a Polish wife and son, and a few other sporadic bits of information, but nothing else in over ten years.

Fast-forward to 2020, and with our world knocked off its axis by a global pandemic, my latest project to restore the aforementioned Laverda 1200 stalled out as all my business evaporated and we all got locked in place. Hitting the keyboard, I put a story together about the early years with my Laverda, including how I shipped it to the States, and the first early, light restoration. These stories have been published on Common Tread and here on Road Dirt, and have been well received.

And then another thread in my life’s tapestry pulled. A friend from England I hadn’t seen since the 1980s found my Laverda story and forwarded it to Simon. He then sent me a message and for the first time in 24 years we actually spoke, and were quickly burning through our data plans catching up on the decades that had passed since Romania. Not surprisingly, he had gone on to be the Royal Photographer for the King of Sharjah, one of the United Arab Emirates, traveling the world with visits to the White House and many other world dignitaries. Then he went on to become the Creative Director for the Xposure International Photography Exhibition.

As we rolled back the years it didn’t take Simon long to ask if I would be interested in speaking at Xposure, and helping him with some media projects. I replied that I’d be delighted, and in early February the following year I was reunited in Sharjah with my old friend. Over the next week or so I met and interviewed some of the world’s top conflict photographers, got to see Simon in action, and then on the last night in a local pub, after sitting at separate tables due to business needs, I walked over, apologized for interrupting, and said, “See you later Simon, let’s try not to make it 24 years till the next time,” and I flew for home- the whole trip to the Middle East and reconnecting with my old friend the result of deciding to restore my old Laverda.

Speaking of which, stay tuned here to Road Dirt for Part 3 of “Resurrecting A Laverda” in the coming weeks!

Neale Bayly

*Top cover photo- H&H Classics, UK