Travel Story: lawrence bransby - russia
Later in the afternoon, Gareth and I took the unladen bikes for a fast and invigorating ride along the low-tide beach until a heavy burst of rain drove us back. One very inebriated Russian biker, who had managed to get his Africa Twin onto the beach, proceeded to ride it drunkenly for 100 yards before he crashed it. He was not particularly happy about his cracked plastic and bent crash bars, looking at them through drink-blurred eyes as if wondering why they were shaped like that. He needed help getting his heavy bike over the low, very soft dunes back to camp when he buried it down to the engine in the sand.
Back at our tents, Gareth commented on the tremendous sense of camaraderie and fellowship we could sense amongst club members, almost as if they band together, wearing their club insignia and distinctive leather cut-off jackets, as a kind of defence against a system which has broken down - the state on the one hand, criminals and perceived enemies on the other - and the feeling of brotherhood gives them not only protection in numbers but a sense of belonging in a country they feel has lost its way and is ignoring the ordinary man in the street. But behind the acceptance of us into their midst - because without doubt, they welcomed us into their fraternity and made us one of them in a way that was most moving - both Gareth and I had a sense, a feeling, just below the surface, that anything could happen, just a wrong word or gesture away, was the brooding potential for violence or something - just what we could not say - especially with people the worse for drink as many of them were. (But never towards ourselves; we never felt anything but complete acceptance, a brotherhood of bikers.) Strangely enough, later that night that something that we had felt simmering just below the surface materialised - although we obviously knew nothing of it then.