It was spring of 1971, and Tom Meade had just surfed his first wave in nearly a decade. As he rode up onto the sand of Kuta Beach, jumped off his board and jogged into the pristine, flour-like sand, he contemplated how far he'd come in a decade. On that same day ten years ago, he’d been standing on a deserted Norwegian highway near Stavanger with his thumb sticking out, half frozen to death. Born in Hollywood on January 19 in 1939, by age 8, Nascent Thomas Meade and his mothe

I was never really a biker. I’ve always loved cars. My first car was a very impractical 1977 MGBGT which I acquired while I was at university and caught fire soon after on an expressway in Southern England while I was trying to impress a French girlfriend with its overdrive button. I’ve had a succession of sensible and less sensible motor vehicles since. Nonetheless, it’s a bike - the Honda Africa Twin XRV750 - which has played perhaps the most significant role at the crucial