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CONTRARY to popular belief, there is something to watch on TV. Well,
at least on special cable channels and not on the local ones where
idiots rule and everybody is a comedian.
Now let me be more specific; there is something
on TV’s special cable channels that motorcycle nuts, car guys,
bike-and-car enthusiasts and petrolheads in general could actually
watch. Loads of programs, in fact, as I’ve found out the last week
of June when Sky Cable offered a free airing of Discovery Real Time.
The previous week, they showed the A1 channel—also for free—as a
way to entice subscribers to move up to a higher, more expensive
cable plan. Evil, if you ask me.
Because, and I kid you not, by the Friday night
of the free Real Time week I had caught the flu, my body resistance
down for lack of sleep. Been hitting the sack late and getting up
early to catch the programs, in the process averaging less than four
hours of shuteye a night. That’s bad for a just-turned-40 guy who
luxuriates on at least seven hours of sleep daily.
Another thing, the Real Time preview is a
genuine first-needle’s-free deal for freeloading bike-and-car
junkies like myself. Because now that I’ve tasted a dose of it and
the special offer is through, what am I to do? Eat into my
increasingly shrinking disposable-income pie to fund a new habit?
Like I said, it’s an evil plan.
I’m aware the non-bike nuts and non-car guys
that stumbled onto this column think I’m being dramatic about the
whole thing, overreacting to a silly non-issue. The truly cynical
may actually scoff at the juvenile-ness of it all. But not, I am
certain, my kindred brothers (and maybe even sisters).
Because, what petrolhead can resist a program
like An MG is Born, for instance?
In this A _____ is Born series, a British
handyman resurrects decrepit cars, turning them into showroom fresh
models. That week, he worked on a wrecked steel-bumper MGB—one of
the most beautiful cars. Ever.
Unlike in other ruins-to-resplendent car
transformation shows, however, the Born series is highly detailed,
and such, does not try to cram everything in one 30-minute episode.
What a viewer sees in the course of several installments, therefore,
is a sprightly old chap dismantling and rebuilding an MGB gearbox
and axle, or pulling out its camshaft, all the while noting on MG
idiosyncrasies. At times you get riled up at his methods, like when
installing a new rear wheel-well panel (he cuts it up in small
pieces!). But I guess that’s exactly the appeal the show has on
car guys.
Besides Born, Real Time features Classic Cars,
Top Marques, Wheeler Dealers, Appraise My Car, Wrecks to Riches,
Overhaulin’, Hard Time, Petrolheads and many other fine automotive
programs, including those on tuner cars and hot rods. The channel
also has Fifth Gear, whose presenters are former Top Gear staffers
who wanted to make an entertaining and informative show—a break
from Top Gear (the TV program) which have regressed into a
self-indulgent parody that even its star, Jeremy Clarkson, has
deemed it necessary to apologize for.
But enough of the auto programs. What elevates
Real Time into true petrolhead utopia is its bounty of motorcycle
shows. Yes, regular cable shows American Chopper, but I find it
difficult to get enamored at a family-run company that builds
$100,000 bikes yet only do testing after the bike is completed. The
Teutuls contrived bickering, I can take. Their shop’s advanced
array of tools, I salivate at. But form taking precedence over
function in building bikes, I simply detest.
So Real Time is heaven sent. It features Big Big
Bikes, The Road to Sturgis, Biker Build-Off and Kustomizer—all
dedicated to custom choppers and the unique culture that accompany
it.
The channel also shows The Reality of Speed,
which on that week featured its biker/host covering the legendary
Isle of Man TT race. As any motorcycle enthusiast will tell you, the
TT is one of world’s—if not, the—most spectacular two-wheel
races on Earth where competitors thread their way through Isle of
Man’s public roads at speeds well over 200kph. Racers die there. A
lot of them, in fact. And that’s what makes the TT so alluring.
Along with Rally Dakar, the TT is the last vestige of the dark,
mysterious era of motor racing where skill, speed and dogged yet
idiotic courage are all that matter.
To see a TT race—even on TV—is to get awed
at the determination of the human spirit and the sheer lunacy
required of motorcyclists.
On the same episode, Reality’s host
raced—for the first time, and also at the Isle of Man TT
weekend—a Suzuki Hayabusa drag bike where he rode the quarter-mile
in under six seconds. He also took part, also for the first time, in
an insane beach race. Riding a Yamaha WF 450, the host fumbled and
spilled his way amid a field of more than 200 riders. Truly an
awesome sight.
But what really got me hooked on Real Time was
Long Way Down. The second staging of actor Ewan McGregor and popular
bike racer Charley Boorman’s documented intercontinental
motorcycle journey, Long Way Down is certainly every ardent
motorcyclist’s dream road trip.
In the acclaimed first staging (called Long Way
Round), McGregor and Boorman rode BMW R1150 GS bikes on a
three-and-a-half month, 30,000-plus-kilometer ride from London to
New York. Three years later, the duo were at it again in Long Way
Down, this time taking BMW R1200 GS Adventure bikes from John O’
Groats in Scotland to Cape Town, South Africa, passing through
Europe and Africa. Although I only caught two of the many episodes
of this epic bike trip, every single frame of those episodes
provided me with enough entertainment and spark to keep on riding. A
Marikina-to-Port Area, Manila, trip may not hold the same allure as
journeying from Scotland to South Africa, but let me tell you that
riding on Metro Manila roads—with moronic pedestrians, homicidal
motorists, illogical traffic schemes, terrible roads and all—is
about as treacherous.
This is what Real Time has caused me; it led me
to romanticize riding even more and ignited my passion for things
mechanical—specifically those that roll—further. The A1 free
preview wasn’t any help, too, as the program featured a lot of
dazzling mountain bikes.
So I may just have to spring for a cable
subscription upgrade to get Real Time and maybe A1. It’s pricey,
but in cases like these, Car and Driver Editor Patrick Bedard’s
definition of what it takes to be a car guy (and by my
interpretation extends to a motorcycle nut, too) comes to mind. To
wit: “You gotta love cars ’til it hurts. ’Til it hurts your
marriage. ’Til it hurts your finances.”
Oh, yes, there will be blood.
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