Free The Peace Correspondent by Garry Marchant

brackbrackbrack shattering the silence. Lightly touched breakfasts of strange Chinese concoctions sit uneasily in their stomachs and lunch is many miles and long hours away.
    It is another clear morning, and the bikers never face rain the whole week. Peter, an executive with a major German corporation, says this is fortunate, because most of the riders lack experience driving on wet roads. “When it rains, a Hong Kong Harleyrider takes his Porsche to work,” he adds.
    One of the ladies is caustic about bikes and bikers. “Nobody was cleaning their bikes yesterday morning when there was no one to see them,” the Harley wife remarks.
    â€œI came to see China,” she adds, zipping up her leather jacket. “To me, a bike is just a big mess of metal. It is not a toy for boys but for middle-aged, middle-incomed men.”
    The crowd of onlookers held back behind the velvet rope has grown to hundreds as the bikers prepare for the dramatic departure. An old biker once described to me the technique, the style of swaggering out to his bike in front of the locals in any small town, which always attracts a crowd. “You pull on your jacket and gloves real slowly, deliberately, ignoring everyone. And when you look at the crowd, you look right through them, focus about three feet behind their eyes. It really spooks them.”
    After posing for a photograph before the big banners welcoming the Harley group, riders and passengers mount up, 24 big muscle bikes revving their engines, the deep-throated Harley rumble echoing along the street. The main street through town is blocked off, TV cameras are rolling, escort cars and bikes with flashing red lights start their wailing sirens. Reed blows his whistle for this grand motor cavalcade to take off before the thousands of spectators now lining the road - but a wisp of a desk clerk runs out of the hotel to accost him. He waves his hands, signaling cut your engines. Someone has not handed in a room key and she is not letting the procession go without it. They find the culprit and, somewhat anticlimactically, depart.
    The showy bikes don’t come through unscathed, though. Going through a small town with heavy traffic, a rustic driving a tractor hauling a huge load cuts across the road despite the police car almost sideswiping it, then runs down Reed in the lead bike. He goes down sprawling over the dirt road, kicking up a huge cloud of dust. Police have trouble keeping back the hundreds of onlookers that appear from every shop and house. The gleaming bike is scratched, the turn signals twisted off but Reedsuffers only a bruised elbow, thanks to his red protective suit, which fellow riders call his Full Body Condom.
    Fame precedes this unique cavalcade by midweek. Outside Wenzhou, TV and newspaper coverage and sponsor Esso’s radio advertisements bring out tens of thousands of spectators. They line the road for many miles, laughing, some calling out “Halley, Halley,” so we feel like royalty or rock stars. George, the chapter president, gets spooked by all the people, terrified a child will run across the road and be flattened by a bike. Outside the city, two World War II style motorcycles, with sidecars flying huge flags, and some 100 small bikes from the local motorcycle club join the cavalcade for the triumphant ride into the city.
    Excitement builds with the entire populace out to see the parade, and we arrive very late to a gala reception, with blinding TV lights, strings of firecrackers exploding all around the bikes and great colored balls of fireworks shooting into the sky. It is like a victory parade and a near mob scene as the bikes roll into the compound. Inside, a banner greets the HOGs: “Warmly Welcome Halle Darvision Motor Car Hong Kong Branch Asso. to pass through Wenzhou.”
    Beyond Wenzhou, along the scenic coast where visitors seldom travel, the population thins and steep roads wind up into the mountains past terraced fields,