Data Port Two

Oiling The Carport

2009-08-30T14:33:00.002-06:00

My Sunday is usually spent on the scoot, trying to avoid death at the hands of some cage driver blathering on a cell phone, but there was no ride today.

It was time to oil my carport. This is something I do about every three thousand miles. I don’t intend to do it, I just do it. It’s a motorcycle guy kind of thing.

Over the last fifty years motorcycles have become so high-tech that there is not much I can still do myself in the way of bike maintenance. I could no more get a steel belted radial off a wheel rim than I could fly to the moon; the carburetors that I used to re-jet myself have been replaced by fuel injection. Adjust the timing? Forget about it, that’s all done by a sealed black box. If you are in Dismal Seepage Nevada when it goes south ain’t nothin’ you can do but wait for the Greyhound Bus.

About all that’s left of my pride of independence is changing my own oil and filter.

And oiling my carport. I never do one without the other because the bike in question has no center stand, and can only be worked on from one side.

It’s a sidecar outfit. It’s a monster of inconvenience to work on. The tub is on one side and the sub-frame for its mounts are attached to the fittings that used to carry the center stand. There is only six inches of clearance between the oil pan and the carport floor.

The only way to work is stretched out on the ground. By the time the drain plug is out and the oil is draining into the drain pan I have burned myself at least once on a hot header pipe and accidentally shoved the drain pan so that oil is pouring out on the floor.

Every move I make drips or splashes oil on the floor. Getting the cover off the oil filter and then unscrewing the filter will loosen things just enough so that hot oil drips down my arm and….wait for it…on the floor. The whole job takes about an hour. Cleaning up takes another hour.

The bike purrs along in well-oiled condition and the carport floor looks nice and shiny. It’s been a day well spent.

2009-03-02T14:28:00.003-07:00

I ran across these pictures while I was rummaging about in some old image files. I don't remember where the bikes are from, or who gets picture credit. Just thought it would be fun to post them here for a bit.

Ooops!

2009-01-14T07:47:00.007-07:00

This is Jamie Jackson.
He is a nice guy. He is not,
as I confess I was rather
hoping, a beautiful woman.

He said not to worry, folks
are sometimes misled by his name.

I have corrected a pronoun.

Just Under This Post...

2009-01-13T15:21:00.002-07:00

...you'll find an article by Jamie Jackson. It appears in the February newsletter of the BMW Owners of Alabama. Jamie writes:

Our club is BMW Motorcyle Owners of Alabama. As one of the oldest BMW clubs, we are listed as Club#5 with the BMW Owners of America. Our club web site is www.bmwmoal.org On the site you may view newsletters, club activities and photos, and join in on the forums section.

A Message From Red Cloud

2009-01-13T14:46:00.012-07:00

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL

Red Cloud

The bike runs effortlessly on the slight downhill run into a blind right hand corner as I pick my line…easy…easy…not too fast… aah, smooth. Now pop the bike upright and set up for the left hander ahead…look for the groove…that’s it…add a little power andWow, what a feeling. Don’t get too complacent for there is another blind right hander just ahead. The road sign says “Caution: Congestion Ahead” but I ignore it as the tourist season has not yet set in and I know the locals do not walk or park in the road.

The road is a smooth ribbon of asphalt that wanders along with the river on one side and a black bluff on the other that drips moisture out of the mountain. The thought crosses my mind that this road was originally carved out of the wilderness so that someone could get his wares to market. The settlers that laboriously hacked out the road probably followed a trail that my ancestors had used for hundreds of years for the same purpose. Even this early in the Spring the bluff side is dusted with small blue flowers that are already blooming. As I gaze ahead down the road and drink in the sight of the road and river I realize that this is still America the Beautiful.

The old woman that is working in her tiny garden on the other side of the river stops to give me a glance and a wave. I wave back and set up for a quick ess curve that almost catches me off guard. Although it has been a while since I saw another vehicle I know how important it is to maintain lane discipline; all it takes is to swing wide on one curve and things could turn nasty. The road is smooth and the air is clean. All is well in my head.

Since I fueled up at the gap I have plenty of gas left; I have ample rations on board and a permit to camp anywhere on Federal Land so there is no pressure to arrive on time at any destination. With this new sense of freedom Raven and I charge on down the river road and pick up the pace a little just because it feels right, not because we must keep up with anyone nor do we have anything to prove, but because it feels right. My head is clear. For a moment there is no war in Iraq where my brothers are being killed, there is no economic recession, there is no racial stress, and there is no drug problem. All that exists for me at this very moment is America the Beautiful.

I become a little hungry so Raven and I pull into a roadside table for a short rest. I have some jerky in my bags and find a little spring of crystal clear water coming out of the mountain. Lunch is good and I reflect briefly how it may have been not so different a couple of hundred years ago as my great-grandfather could have passed through this very spot on horseback. I can feel the cold of the river as it rushes past, seeking its way toward larger and ever larger rivers before pouring into the ocean. I wonder if the river has always been here; is it eternal? It seems to never stop or slow but plods on with an unfaltering determination.

Back on the highway we leave the river for a little while and climb towards the mountain range ahead. As we climb the air becomes cooler and dryer. I can breathe really well. Although it is getting somewhat late in the day I think it would be better to seek a camp at less altitude. The road crests the mountain and it seems that I can see forever. The bike acts if it likes the altitude and makes good power as I exit the long sweeper that leads into the tunnel. Darn, I never do like the tunnels and this one is no different. Bright sunlight with contracted pupils and then bang into the darkness of the tunnel. Is that something ahead? A bicyclist? Or worse yet, a bear? Darn it, why don’t they put better lights on BMW’s.

Safely out of the tunnel we press on toward the valley below that I had spotted from the mountain top. I point Raven toward a series of curves ahead and let him kind of have his head, so to speak. The bike falls into a comfortable rhythm of downhill left then right then left then right turns. This continues for twenty or so miles before arriving onto the valley floor. My head is clear. I realize that I am smiling.

The road begins to follow another river and we settle into a comfortable gait along the slow sweepers as I enjoy the scenery of this calm valley contrasted against a background of steep mountains. I see a spot ahead just off the road that looks like a good place to camp and pull in for a better look. The ground is dry, there is plenty of spring water, and firewood is for the picking up. I set up my tent and gather enough firewood for the night. I have some dehydrated soup in my bag that is easily prepared and very warming. I settle into my sleeping bag and zip up the tent. For just a short while before falling asleep I have time to think…this truly is America the Beautiful.

Fat Old Men Redux

2009-01-13T09:27:00.004-07:00

It's always flattering when folks like what you write enough to ask to publish it.

Jamie Jackson, the editor of "The Alabama Beemer," has been kind enough to do just that for the January newsletter of the BMW Motorcycle Owners of Alabama. (BMWMOA Chapter#5). Incidentally, Jamie has a wonderful piece in the February issue of the mag. I'm going to ask him if I can post it here.

Judging from all the good stuff reported in the newsletter the Alabama Beemer people are an active and enthusiastic group.

Brass Monkey Redux

2008-08-31T11:58:00.018-06:00

I have pictures scattered all over my computer. As a result stuff gets lost, only to be rediscovered at random moments and then forgotten again. So...before I lose these again I though I'd post them here.

Of course I have long since lost the notes I made so I'm not sure who owns which outfits---but what the heck, the outfits are fun.

On the way up to our first night's stop in Kingman we made the obligatory stop in Wikieup to Eat At Joe's.

I Like it!

So Does Katherine.

Not everyone camped. Some of us stayed in the motel (with the red roof) at the marina.

Some hung out at the campground parking lot.

Or in the campground. The Monkey is so much fun that even solo riders attend. Hey, I though this was a sidecar rally!

This is a Globe sidecar. I owned one of these years ago, bought from Doug Bingham. It's a copy of the "canoe nosed" Steib and was made in India. Something very like that is still being manufactured as a "Cosy" sidecar for the Royal Enfield bikes.
Here's an 'oldie but goodie'. I don't know if Watsonian still makes this model. I once owned a "Monza" mounted to a BMW /5. But that was years ago.

See...I did take notes! That's me in the background with the yellow notepad. I have no idea where it disappeared to.

Hacking Winslow

2008-03-25T10:04:00.010-06:00

The title tells the tale. We went sidecaring up to Winslow to spend two nights at one of our favorite restored hotels. La Posada was one of the Harvey House grand hotels on the Santa Fe Railway. Much of it has been lovingly restored by Allan Affeldt and his wife, artist Tina Mion. They continue the restoration and expansion, extending it to a second wing of the hotel. La Posada is beautiful and one of our favorite riding destinations. You can read the history La Posada here.

Mion is a well known artist and La Posada is filled with her art. I'm particularly fascinated by her large painting of the Purgatory party, attended by men and women who have either committed suicide or whose life styles killed them. Liberace has been invited, because he loved a party, even though he was not a suicide, and Tina Mion- still alive- is seen in the front row, second from the right.

We are anxiously awaiting the re-opening, at the end of ’08, of the El Garces hotel in Needles, California. This restoration is also an Affeldt project. Here’s a 1930 postcard view.

Of course one of the reasons to motor up to Winslow is to revisit a section of the Mother Road, Route 66 and a corner made famous by this verse from the Eagle's 1973 song Take It Easy:

Well, I'm standin' on a corner in Winslow, Arizona
It's such a fine sight to see
It's a girl, my Lord
In a flatbed Ford
Slowin' down to take a look at me

Katherine and friend.

Exposure is not so hot here, but there is a real flatbed Ford parked on the street and you can see its reflection painted on the wall behind it. There's an eagle sitting on the windowsill over the W in Winslow

The Brass Monkey

2007-12-16T12:17:00.000-07:00

What is it? … One of the best informal motorcycle rallies, this year in its 35th year. Originally patterned after Germany’s Elefanten Treffen, it was intended to be a cold-weather snow-camping rally for the die-hard. For the most part this meant sidecarists although solo riders were welcomed.

The first Brass Monkey was held in Flagstaff (I believe in December) at the KOA. Over the years the venue has shifted to snow-free but occasionally nippy climes and to south of the border in Mexico.

The tradition of winter rallying has been maintained with the Presidents Day long weekend in February being the favored dates.

Although generally thought of as a sidecar rally, solo riders attend and are welcome. This is still essentially a camping rally, although since the Brass Monkey is a spontaneous gathering with everyone pitching in there is no one to “in charge” to complain if you find a local motel and visit during the day.

Be warned that it’s way more fun if you camp.

When is it?… The long Presidents’ Day weekend, Friday (if you skip work) Saturday, Sunday and Monday. February 15, 16, 17, and 18, 2008

Where is it?… The campground is at Cottonwood Cove Campground on the Colorado River. This is on Lake Mojave at the south end of the Lake Mead Recreation Area.

Cottonwood Cove is located 14 miles East of Searchlight Nevada on Route 164. There is motel at the Cottonwood Cove Resort if you’re not camping.

Phoenix Bike Show Report

2007-11-01T11:18:00.000-06:00

There was a major Ural presence at the Phoenix International Motorcycle Show. I had a long talk with Terry Jenkins of Logan’s Valley Motorcycles, the Phoenix area Ural dealer. He passed on to me a list of 2008 model year improvements:

There’s a complete new totally outsourced valve train: 7mm valve stems, sealed valve guides, hardened valve seats, and progressive valve springs. The kick start shaft is the only Russian part in the transmission. Herzog gears and Japanese seals comprise the balance of the parts.

Also new in ’08 are Italian clutch springs, shock absorbers from Sachs (Italy), and pivot bearings instead of bushings in front and rear swing arms. Also new are tapered steering head bearings (SKF) instead of bushings.

When these are added to the ’07 model improvements…Herzog timing gears, SKF bearings, Herzog shafts and precision cut gears in the gear box, SKF bearings and NAK seals, concerns about reliability begin quickly to fade as reasons not to buy.

Fuel injection? A definite maybe for ’09.

We took the K-bike outfit to Phoenix and ran the interstate at a steady 75 mph, staying in the right lane. We were passed by just about everyone on the road, but the rate at which we were overtaken seemed well within a reasonable limit of safety. That is, cars coming up behind us wouldn’t be suddenly surprised to find a really slow moving vehicle ahead of them…causing what I call a “Holy Shit!” reaction followed by a rear-ender.

And therein lies the rub with Urals. Reliability and metallurgical problems seem solved, or virtually so, a front disc brake helps with the ‘stop’ part of the ‘stop and go’ equation, and improvements continue all around the bike. But…and there’s always one of those… there’s still some question as to whether or not the outfits can cruise from gas stop to gas stop at 65 mph. That would seem to be the minimum safe speed on the interstates.

A Short Ride in The Mountains

2007-07-15T05:01:00.001-06:00

Just home from a week in the mountain cool of New Mexico and Colorado. It was a farewell trip with the yellow hack, which its owner cruelly demanded be returned to him after nearly a year in Arizona.

Our new outfit, Coda 2, is sprightly and fun to drive. It will be even more fun after I change the steering geometry just a tad. (Sidecarists will understand)

Katherine and her ride at Monarch Pass. She's an excellent
hacker and we changed off driving chores.

The Yellow Peril and Coda2 at Independence Pass.
I'm the bald guy, the U-Boat captain is our friend
and long-time riding buddy Dave Atlas.

Not all three wheelers are the same.

The standard joke is that riders travel through
beautiful scenery and end up with pictures of their
bikes in the parking lots of National Monuments.
Katherine took pictures of Canyon de Chelly.

We had a great ride, made even better by the challenge of wracking the outfits through the mountain twisties. Two-wheel riders find this hard to understand but the fun of sidecaring is setting up a driving rhythm that powers through right handers and taps a brake so the car pulls you around to the left. Faster is better!

Nine Wheels at Coco's

2007-06-03T18:28:00.000-06:00

Three USCA hacks met for breakfast this morning.
Cathy Crandall and George Mortimer rolled in in their
red BMW outfit. I rode the Yellow Peril and Katherine
Jacobson brought the new BMWK75 rig.

USCA Has a New Arizona Representative.

2007-05-29T09:02:00.000-06:00

That’s me. I volunteered to be a volunteer and see what I could do to promote sidecar activities here in Arizona. I proably should have known better. Southwest Region Director, Tom Hansen, came down on the offer like a duck on a June bug so here I am.

The United Sidecar Association is a major United States organization devoted to promoting “the development, interest and general welfare of sidecaring.” Put another way it is simply a nationwide motorcycle club that brings together fans of the sport to share information, ride together, kick tires, and tell lies about their exploits.

Anyone interested in the third wheel is welcomed, and it seems to me that sidecarists are simply having more fun together than if they rode in splendid isolation.

But ain’t that always the way?

AZ Beemers Road Runner Rally

Last weekend Katherine and I took the new K75 outfit up to Heber for the AZ Beemers Rally, which was back on track after a year off. There was a good turnout despite the rain, cold weather, and wildfires along the Mogollon rim. There were only two sidecar outfits there—ours and a nice Hannigan rig.

In case you’re confused AZ Beemers is the old Phoenix International Touring Society. Guess they didn’t like being known as the pits.

The K-Hack ran like a champ, despite a pinprick sized hole in a fuel line that directed gasoline onto my left shoe. I didn’t realize it until we hit the gas station in Globe and I noticed gasoline vapor wafting around the injectors.
I’m glad we got home without bursting in flame. All fixed now.

Getting to Know Folks

A great advantage to USCA membership is that it helps you find other hackers in your area. There are five here in Tucson and I hadn’t known any of them. Of course there may be others who aren’t USCA folks.

At any rate, one of my new acquaintances is Tucsonan Jonathon Hayt, who is the proud owner of a beautifully restored Stoye sidecar outfit.Take a look:

The Long Haul Home

2007-04-28T05:18:00.000-06:00

I rode home from Leonard Texas in two days, well over a thousand miles on the route I took...most of it on interstate highway where I could simply grind out the distance. Was it fun, relaxing, and pretty? Certainly not, but is was efficient. I had decided simply to ride until I was tired and then go to ground. The nice thing about the Interstates is that you are never far from a gas station or a motel, both conditions necessary since I had no idea what my gas mileage was likely to be or when I would want to stop.

The first day I went from Leonard, Texas, to not-so-beautiful downtown Van Horn Texas. More about the trip later but for now here are a couple of pictures of the new outfit. The bike is my 1990 BMW K75, the sidecar is a Texas Sidecars Ranger.

The pictures were taken by Bob Darden of Texas Sidecars.

Stormy Weather

2007-04-25T05:38:00.000-06:00

Okay, that was fun! The heavens opened up and dropped about a monsoon season's worth of rain on Bonham Texas, where I'm waiting out the Texas Sidecars. Happily, I was in a Motel and not on the bike. Hope to have some pics of the mounting procedure in a day or two.

Texas Sidecars !

2007-04-24T10:41:00.000-06:00

The ride to Denton, Texas, took two days...almost 1000 miles. I felt pretty badly beaten up by the wind, which gusted between 30 and 40 miles an hour. It didn't blow the bike around much but the constant buffeting was annoying and tiring.

I rode to Leonard, Texas, this morning in low clouds that turned into a fine mist and then to a soft, persistant rain. It never actually started raining. The atmosphere just seemed to congeal, going from 100 percent humidity to rain.

Rain was clearly in the books, it had been solidly overcast all during the second day of the ride, so when I got up this morning I put on all my rain gear in the comfort and convenience of my Motel 6 room.

I'm sure I'll want to say more about routes in a later post, but US Highway 380, when it runs through Texas plains country is as straight and lonesome as the fabled Nevada lonesome highway.

I am very impressed by Deb and Bob Darden's shop and by Bob's solid, long term, experience. He started sidecaring when he was a young guy because sidecars were fun... not because he needed the third wheel.

The sidecar is a beauty. Black gelcoat but of such quality that I couldn't tell, from looking at his personal tub that it was three years old. Bob laughed and said I probably just saved myself 750 bucks...just keep the car waxed!

The noon siren that keeps Leonard citizens' clocks and watches correct just went off. Time for me to find lunch.

On The Road

2007-04-21T21:36:00.000-06:00

I leave tomorrow for a dash across Texas to the town of Leonard, Texas. I'm having a Texas Sidecar hack hung on my 1990 BMW K75. I'm really looking forward to it, although the new outfit will be a world different from the "Yellow Peril," a picture of which graces this blog.

I'm sure the new hack will be slower than theYP...after all there's no comparing a three-quarter liter machine to a K1200RS...but it will be well able to hold its own on the Interstates and will be a sporting challenge in the mountains. Emphasis on sporting, please.

One of my pet peeves is the tendency of some folks to treat an outfit as if it were either grandad's golf cart or the penalty some poor guy had to pay for having children.

More about this the next time I'm within striking distance of an internet cafe!

The Lovely Crutch of Words

2007-02-08T11:03:00.000-07:00

Rehearsals for The Rogue Theatre’s production of The Good Woman of Setzuan have begun. Our first two meetings were devoted to “getting to know you,” where the ‘you’ was the text of the play, the music we’d be singing, and our fellow actors.

There are 18 performers in the ensemble but there are 24 parts, which means that some of us will be ‘doubling.’ It also turns out that some of our characters have almost nothing to say, which is not as easy as you might suppose.

It’s the nature of the Rogue to put its actors on stage at the beginning of the evening’s performance and then leave them there…thank you very much. No ducking off to the Green Room when you’ve done your bit because in a very real sense you’re never “done’ with your ‘bit.’

The problem: How to stay in character, be that character, stay focused and “alive behind your eyes” as Joe McGrath says, without the lovely crutch of words. It’s to the end of responding to that problem that director Cynthia Meier put us through a series of improvisation exercises that I for one found exhausting.

I went home last night feeling as if I had been beaten with sticks.

The Tyranny of the Blog

2007-02-08T10:52:00.000-07:00

When x4mr launched his excellent blog, Sustainability, Equity, Development, I dropped him a congratulatory note and warned him that a blog can be a cruel mistress. At the heart of that cruelty is the demand that she be attended to daily.

The urge to post daily is hard to resist. Bloggers are no less anxious for an audience than any other popular writer; no less eager for numbers rolling up on their hit counters than, say, John Grisham is for good sales figures. We quickly fall into the trap of thinking that if we don’t offer our readers something new every day we’ll lose our audience, so we rush to post.

When I was writing regularly for dead tree publications I never sent off an article or column as soon as it was finished. I set even “final drafts” aside for a day or two to see how they worked when I wasn’t in the fell clutch of a creative fury. I was ruthless about using my wife as my editor.

Incidentally, I think every writer needs an editor. Good editing is as much a creative act as good writing and that writer is rare indeed who reaches publication without a graceful nod in the direction of his or her editor, ”without whom none of this would have been possible.” Effusive, possibly, but true.

Bloggers, on the other hand, don’t have editors and the rush to post without allowing a draft to sit often results in sloppy writing. I know that’s true in my own case.

Perhaps a final observation? Great blog entries are short. When they are over-long it is probably due to rush and hurry. Remember Pascal:

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had time to make it shorter.

Rehearsals Begin Tomorrow

2007-02-05T13:12:00.000-07:00

It's like Christmas Eve, or the day before the start of a new school year...pretty exciting. Rogue Theatre rehearsals for The Good Woman of Setzuan (Bertolt Brecht) begin tomorrow. The cast will gather at six-thirty in the evening in the warehouse space affectionately known as The Son of Clubhouse. It will be like getting together with friends and family members we haven't seen for a while.

The Rogue is an ensemble theatre. Many of us have worked together before, but we will be welcoming new members to the group. Okay, here's a disclaimer. I'm in this show, but I love the idea of this company, which stretches both the actors and their audience. I'd be a booster from the audience. It's exactly what theatre should be...demanding, engaging, troubling, conversation-provoking.

After the last Rogue production, Genet's "The Maids," a group of us sat around a favorite restaurant (Pastiche) chewing on snacks and the play and washing it all down with a bottle or two of wine.

Until someone pleads with me to stop I'll be posting my impressions of the play, the rehearsal process, and the famous Rogue ball game--- of which more later.

More about The Rogue here.

Riding With The Fat Old Men

2007-02-03T05:53:00.000-07:00

I have been riding with the fat old men. Their bellies lunge aggressively over their belt bands like boulders hanging balanced over a cliff's edge. They wear blue jeans suspended from bright red galluses as broad as four fingers of a thin man's hands. For real comfort 'overhauls' are the informal uniform of the day.

The fat old men are sixty-something to seventy-something. They have knuckles scarred by slipping wrenches, and small patches of white skin where burns have healed from rubbing against red hot exhaust headers. They were too anxious to get the work done to let their motorcycles cool; too eager to get back on the road.

The fat old men do not walk to breakfast with their riding companions unless the cafe is across the street. The fat old men are genial companions around a campfire, or at a breakfast table, but they leave the congeniality of group walks to their younger, merely plump, riding buddies and their buddies' comfortable wives.

The fat old men will ride the hundred yards to breakfast and load up for the day with buttered pancakes, fried eggs, rashers of bacon, home-fried potatoes and biscuits. If there is a slice of orange garnishing the plate they will ignore it and wash breakfast down with coffee laced with cream. I have known them, on occasion, to drink a red beer or two...beer and tomato juice...as a corrective to the previous evening's tire kicking session.

These are not soft men. Their bellies are as hard as a table top; the kind of belly you see on construction workers who have spent their lives leaning on jack hammers. This is not the middle-aged guy's gut and flabby love handles. My fat old men do not have love handles, they are as free of such overhangs as a cement sewer pipe.

These men require motorcycles as substantial as their breakfasts, huge touring machines that the trade knows as "luxo-tourers." The fat old men have serious riding business to undertake and they need proper tools for the work.

Not for the fat old men some younger guy's "crotch rocket," which is nothing but a citified version of an honest racing motorcycle. They don't want to go a hundred miles an hour crouched over their gas tanks like a monkey making love to a watermelon, although they admire these motorcycles and will talk flatteringly about them with their owners.

What my guys want is to go hundreds of miles hour after hour after hour… and for that these substantial men want substantial comfort. Huge engines, special seats, windshields and fairings, power adjustable gas shock absorbers, radios and tape players, and of course radar detectors.

The fat old men have served their country, been blown out of their tanks, jumped out of their bombers, held dying friends in their arms. They understand shell shock, battle fatigue, and post traumatic stress syndrome and have gone on charity rides to help comrades who suffered from those ailments. They are not scornful of modern psychology.

But they have, themselves, simply sucked up their problems and got on with their lives. Some few of them are old enough to have had to "deal with depression," but that depression was the sort where pop was out of work and their mamas made sister's blouses out of gaily printed flour sacks.

So here we are ready to ride for a weekend on winding mountain roads. Big men on huge motorcycles. These motorcycles may weigh close to half a ton "wet." That is, with full gas tanks and topped-up radiators. Yet they ride out of the parking lot, pull a graceful U-turn on a narrow two lane country road, and purr off for a day of canyon carving with a lightness and grace that shames the rest of us who have to paddle our lighter bikes around the parking lot and off onto the road.

Understand what's going on here. The fat old men have ridden 600 miles on a Friday to spend Saturday with friends riding 300 hundred miles on hairpin curves and badly banked blacktop roads. On Sunday they will ride six hundred miles home. This is not "long distance riding." This is a pleasant weekend jaunt.

Take a look at their triple-extra-large T-shirts, the souvenirs and records of the riding by which they define themselves. "The Iron Butt"...a thousand miles in a day; "Fifty CC" which means they have ridden coast to coast in fifty hours; "The Four Corners" a ride around the four corners of the United States; and the relatively mild "Three Flags" run- from Mexico to Canada over a weekend.

That's riding. A sixty mile ride with your buds to a tavern just ain't in it.

Not that the fat old men are judgmental, they think all motorcyclists should do their thing, they just want to do more of it than some other folks. And for the most of it the fat old men can ride rings around the rest of us.

Katherine and I are puttering up the New Mexican curves bound for the town Reserve, New Mexico, and a sentimental return to Uncle Bill's Bar, when we are passed by the fat old men, who whisper by us, dip into the curve ahead just letting their foot pegs touch the road, and are gone.

There is not the briefest flicker of their brake lights to betray a second thought about what they were doing or the speed at which they were doing it.

The town of Reserve is the center of ranching activity for the area and the bar is the social hub of the town. On a non-weekend day you can hear an exhaustive analysis of what is wrong with the BLM, sandal-wearing environmentalists, and the idiots who want to re-introduce wolves where sensible men are trying to make a living raising cattle.

The bar's souvenir T-shirt shows a cowboy and his horse taking a companionable piss together. It is not clear what they are companionably pissing on.

On the weekends the bar is a destination of choice for clubs of Harley-Davidson riders and a scattering of Japanese motorcycles worked to look like Harleys. These are not biker gang people, just young guys and their wives or girlfriends. They are not as dangerous as they look, despite the leather and tattoos, but they would be disappointed if they thought you weren't just a bit apprehensive.

You know, they're going to have a goat roast and you're the goat. That sort of thing.

When Katherine and I hit town the fat old men were well ahead of us, strolling up and down a line of some twenty or more bikes parked in front of Uncle Bill's. It would be wrong to suggest that there was anything ponderous about their progress; their stomachs did not precede them in any way that suggested the swaying trunks of elephants.
Rather, there was something stately and grand about the way they walked along the line of motorcycles… a convocation of bishops discussing difficult issues of theology on a stroll through the cloisters.

Some riders come out of the bar for a smoke and walk over to where the fat old men were examining their motorcycles. Nice day for a ride…where y'all from…those your Goldwings?…how do you like the Harley belt drive…the random stock phrases one scooter person asks another to get a conversation going, set a tone.

It's pretty clear from a kind of swaggering body language that the young guys, the ones with the thin-lipped Appalachian girlfriends, are sort of sorry for the fat old men. The fat old men have to wear protective riding suits, big heavy helmets, ride huge "safe" motorcycles. The fat old men are not riding free in the wind, bare chested, with their halter topped girlfriends pressing their breasts against them.

The fat old men, who have been blown out of their tanks, jumped out of their bombers, and ridden their motorcycles into (and out of) ditches avoiding idiots passing in the wrong lane; these fat old men don't much give a rat's ass what anyone thinks.

And it's right here that the conflict between the old bulls and the young bulls arises.
It's head butting, antler locking time, and one of the fat old men says something like,
"That's a good looking scoot. Chrome's nice. Must have cost you a fortune."

The young bull paws the ground with pride. "Yeah, thanks. I ride a lot. Like the scoot to stand out."

"That's a 1990, isn't it. Interesting engine mods made that year to fix the generator problems," says the fat old man, leaning over to check the odometer.

Whoa, what is this? The old fat guy knows something about scoots. Is this a put-down? Is he knocking my ride?

"Goldwing's the same year. Didn't do much to the bike that year, but I've tinkered a few changes just for comfort. Getting old is hell." And then comes the killer head butt, the sand in the sandbag:

"How many miles ya got?"

"Damn near 16 thousand…live to ride, ride to live, bro. How about you?"

"Well, coming up the hill here I just turned 140 thousand. Good to talk. Keep the rubber side down… but guess I'd better get going, I'm supposed to be in Denver tonight."

The fat old man waved and turned to walk back to his Wing. Just before he shrugged into the top half of his riding suit you could read the back of his T-shirt:

YOU DON'T STOP RIDING BECAUSE YOU GET OLD, YOU GET OLD BECAUSE YOU STOP RIDING.

The fat old men are not saints. Inside the fat old men are the brash young guys with the go to hell attitudes who were blown out of their tanks or who jumped out of their bombers.

The fat old man wrenched the Wing upright and hip-swung the big tourer into the intersection, where he pulled a lock-to-lock figure eight, waved goodbye and went on his way.

(Republished from an earlier blog. Copyright Art Jacobson)