VANCOUVER, CANADA, where a brush with the law threatens to bring my trip to an untimely halt...

I finally entered Beautiful British Columbia, and a day spent twisting through the Rocky Mountains was indeed awesome. A steep, twisty dirt road took me over the mountains to the famous Sea to Sky Highway into Vancouver, and gradually trees and grizzlies gave way to skyscrapers and traffic jams, and the orange glow of urban lights beckoned me into the city. 

At the Canadian border

I was weaving my way across town when a police checkpoint flagged me down, waving laser speed guns at me. I wasn’t particularly worried; after all, the Serow had many uses, but breaking speed limits wasn’t one of them.

 A burly, middle-aged cop motioned for me to park my bike on the sidewalk. I obliged. He looked angry.

'NO!' he barked, 'over there!' pointing to a spot about six inches from where I had parked.

Crikey, I thought. I've got a right one here. Keep smiling. It’ll be fine.

'Can I see your driving licence?' requested Angry Cop.

I fished out my UK card style licence.

'WHAT IS THIS???' he fumed.

'It's a British driving licence' I replied in my plummiest English tones, resisting the temptation to preface it with 'What ho, old boy!' 

Angry Cop peered at the licence for some time, turning it over and over as if it was some rare and ancient document he’d unearthed.

'How do I even know you are permitted to ride a motorcycle?' he demanded snidely.

I pointed patiently to the picture of a motorcycle on the licence.

'But it's got pictures of everything on here' he said, sounding both angry and confused, a lethal combination in an authority figure.

Oh no, I groaned inwardly at the thought of explaining the intricacies of the British driving test to a Canadian Mountie. But he soon bored of my detailed account and paced towards the back of the bike. I knew what was coming next.

'WHAT IS THIS?' he yelled in disgust upon spotting my homemade number plate. The bear facts

'It's a British licence plate' I said unimaginatively.

'But... but...but...' he spluttered, barely containing his rage, 'it's a piece of plastic with letters on it.'

'Uh, yes it is'. I responded.

We hadn't really got a repartee going at this point.

I started telling him how I had flown the bike into Alaska, that I was riding to Argentina. His eyes glazed over...

He snatched the keys out of the ignition and his knuckles turned white as he gripped them and my driving licence in his ape-like hands. He glared at me menacingly and uttered the dreaded words.

'I need to see proof of ownership of this vehicle and your insurance'.

Aah...slight problem.

'I'm afraid I don't have my documents on me but I can bring them into a police station tomorrow' I offered.

'YOU MUST CARRY YOUR PAPERS AT ALL TIMES' he yelled. Blimey! Did I take the wrong road out of Alaska, I wondered. Am I actually in Russia?

'Anyway, how do I even know this motorcycle is yours?' he demanded.

'Well...let's think' I proposed, just about keeping the sarcasm out of my voice, 'I'm English and this is an English registered bike, and we're both in Canada. Just working on probability alone, it seems pretty likely that this is my bike'.

He thought about this for a while and seemed to see my point.

'Have you got insurance?'  This was the sticky one.

'Yes' I lied.

'What kind of insurance?'

'Oh y’know, um, the usual kind' I waffled hopefully.

'I DON'T BELIEVE YOU HAVE INSURANCE' he shouted.

I’d hoped to get away with it, but I hadn’t banked on a run-in with the Mounties.

He radioed into HQ with his victorious tale of catching an evil villain on a motorcycle, and then, still fuming, began to bark short sentences at me in the style of a telegram.

'YOU CANNOT RIDE THIS BIKE. stop. IT IS ILLEGAL TO BE ON THE HIGHWAY. stop. YOU CANNOT TOUCH THIS BIKE. stop. YOU CANNOT PUSH THIS BIKE. stop. YOUR BIKE WILL BE TOWED AWAY. stop. DO YOU UNDERSTAND? stop.'

I understood only too well.

With a flourish, he whipped out a large form and started taking down my details. Name, address, date of birth - the usual stuff. Then it got personal. He peered into my eyes.

'Blue' he muttered, scribbling furiously, 'how tall?'

‘Five feet four’.

'And what's your REAL hair colour?'

Cheeky devil!

'I don't know' I replied truthfully, 'I haven't seen it since I was twelve'.

He stepped back and eyed me up and down as if I was a horse he was considering buying.

'Hundred and ten?' he asked.

'What?'

'HUNDRED AND TEN???' he bellowed impatiently. Lake Muncho Lake Muncho

'I'm sorry, I don't understand' I replied, confused.

'Oh Jeez, it's STONES with you people isn't it' he said wearily.

Oh my God! He wants to know how much I weigh!

'Nine and a half STONES' I said through gritted teeth.

He smirked. 'That'll be hundred and THIRTY then'.

Bastard!  (Mental note: must cut back on the pancakes for breakfast).

He proceeded to write me out a ticket for 575 dollars, but I think he knew he was on to a loser.

'I am fining you for riding without documents, but I guess you won't be around to pay it will you?' he said, resignedly.

I decided to reserve my right to silence on this one.

I heard a vehicle pulling up behind me. The tow truck had arrived. A roguish young man in greasy overalls jumped out of the cab and surveyed the Serow with an interested eye.

'Great! A dirt bike' he proclaimed. 'Any gas in this thing? I haven't ridden one of these in ages!'

I forced a grim smile and realising this was my final chance, launched into a desperate, ditch attempt to rescue my bike from the clutches of the steel claws that swung above my head like a hangman’s noose. But it was too late. A mechanical whirring and clanking from the truck drowned out my plea and before I knew it, my trusty motorcycle was dangling forlornly in mid-air. Destination: the local vehicle pound.

Angry Cop stuffed a wad of paperwork into my hand and sped off without a word in a self-important display of flashing lights and screaming sirens. The tow truck trundled off in the opposite direction, and as for me…well, I just stood there, all helmet and no wheels. My head was spinning, it had happened so fast, I’d hardly had time to think and now here I was, just two weeks into my Pan-American motorcycle trip, with no motorcycle. Is there a sorrier sight than the rider without a ride, I wondered miserably, as I trudged through the empty suburban streets in the darkening evening gloom, helmet in hand, wondering what on earth I was going to do next.