The Flying Dutchman is a touching story about how Jonathan Helmuth created an extraordinary experience for a man that had been friend, mentor and large part of his life. His friend Daryl Zook is going blind, and Jonathan wants to fulfill Daryl’s desire to take a 3000 mile motorcycle trip from Daryl’s home in Indiana to the Pacific Northwest coast. Daryl is more than a “bit” curmudgeonly and this leads to some humorous moments as well as some not so humorous. The film is available on Amazon Prime.
Jonathan has a motorcycle built for the trip by then newly established Janus Motorcycle company. A small bike with sidecar is prepared for their trip by Janus. There is an untold story in this film about the Janus Motorcycle, which I will get to below, which basically “blows up” not long into the trip. Jonathan and Daryl change up the original plans and find a new used motorcycle to finish the trip.
They do make it to the coast, still friends! The film was not about the motorcycles but about their friendship and the underpinning of their lives.
The story, photography and reason for the trip make this a fun film to watch. There are several cringe worthy moments (Daryl being the curmudgeon), the lack of trip preparation (proper motorcycle, good rain gear?) and that story of the Janus motorcycle is missing are reasons why I cannot give it 5 stars.
Now for the Janus Motorcycle story, this being a motorcycle blog…. My immediate take away was two fold 1) that motorcycle looked WAY to small to mount a sidecar 2) why use such a small manufacturer vice one that has a national footprint? I did not really get an answer to the latter question, other than my guess that they may have been going cheap and Janus was willing to help. I did find an answer to the first take away.
Janus Halcyon 250
Not only was that a small bike, it was a “tiny” bike! It was a 50cc 2-stroke pulling a sidecar, 2 grown men and some stuff. I am sure you are thinking the same thing I am… recipe for disaster, or “What was Janus thinking?” Well it appears that the, then 2-man shop, was thinking we want the coverage and we are aware of the risk. They warned Jon that the motorcycle was not the best solution for this adventure especially in that they only had weeks to get the bike and sidecar operational. The following quote from their website proves the old saying regarding hindsight….
“In the end, if there was a mistake it was certainly ours in allowing one of our 50cc Halcyons to be selected as a candidate for such a journey, especially with a sidecar. We did not have the foresight to see that we would be the one to lose the most from the film. While the documentary spends little time on the Janus and the strength of the story lies in the character of Daryl and Jon’s desire to create a perfect bonding experience, it proved for us to be nothing more than a great way to immortalize a naive decision on our part.” You can read the entire Janus Post here.
I have never seen, let alone ridden, a Janus Motorcycle but I hope, someday, that I could get a chance. They currently produce 3 models all 250cc (lesson learned? LOL) each starting at just under $7,000US. Of the three I really like the looks of the Halcyon, it gives that throwback to the 1920s early 1930s vibe, but their scrambler and café race are eye catching as well.
I JUST WANT 2 RIDE!! 