Wild Will
05-04-2006, 12:32 PM
My obsession with two wheeled motors began in ’64, when I found out I could ride immediately, but had to go through burning hoops to drive a car. So I bought a new Ducati 160 Monza bevel drive red and chrome beauty for around $750. I recall fondly polishing that red enamel over chrome tank with the caress of an idolator. The bike went 1,000 miles before the crankshaft broke in two one cold Autumn night far from home. I was 16. I still dream about that perfect gas tank. And I still recall that pitch black 15 mile hike. You just didn’t call my old man at 2 a.m.
My next bike was a Honda CB160, very predatory to my young eyes. It was an excellent little black twin with a stamped steel frame and electric start that carried me all over the Jersey shore, to girlfriends far and near, and on many a weekend frolic. We lived in a seaside resort town, and the local kids loved to race on the streets. The police were uncaring bastages and hated us all. They were merciless and caught every car they went after, but they couldn’t catch a motorcycle for all their noise, light show and blue streaked threats. Sure, we raced all the time. It was a blast beating the other bikes, if you could, and even some of the cars. We’re talking 90cc vs. 125cc here – heady stuff. Those were the days of common 426 Hemi Dodges, 427 Chevys, and there were lots of 409’s running around on blue Sunoco 260 gas. You stayed away from these.
When the speed Nazis came, we’d thread through traffic, cut across peoples’ lawns, whatever we had to do, and we always got away. A little mud splatter on a license plate went a long way towards anonymity. In retrospect, I find my love for dual sport riding was born way back then, far away, while transitioning from street to yard being loudly pursued by black and white Ford Fairlanes. We discovered early on that we could cut through a yard and come up behind the police car while he chased us in front of us! Oh, what testosterone and adrenaline soaked times those were.
I graduated to a 250 high piped Kawasaki twin, one of the first sold around those parts.
A two stroke street scrambler that promised new heights of street racing abandon. The bike had a slight problem, it turned out, having a 28mm carb on one side and a 32mm on the other, so it ran out of poop when it was just getting on the pipe. It took the dealer many days to discover the cause, and he gave me full trade-in on a beautiful blue ’65 305 Yamaha YM1 twin, oil injected, and one of the finest bikes I ever rode. Power that was serious, smooth as an electric motor, quiet and with a hot knife through butter tranny. That bike took me to college in N. C., where I won’t bother you with tales of the wild 3.2 beer Confederate street racing, but I will tell you I never got caught because I was a wild young dual sport pioneer with mud on his plate.
We went everywhere on street bikes in those days. Mud, snow, rain, through streams, across fields (jousting between corn rows on bikes) and all on street tires. We didn’t know any better, and were self taught, but we always wore helmets, boots and gloves. One day in June, I was hanging out at the BSA-Yamaha dealer and the man asked if I’d like a job. This guy was a mechanical visionary who raced midgets and was a bowlegged, swaggering cowboy type. Dusty, oily trophies lined the high shelf that went all around the show room. “Sure, I can do this stuff”, I said. I sold dirt bikes, street bikes in 2 and 4 stroke, parts and accessories, all for a tiny percentage. Soon the Cowboy offered to take me to Yamaha Mechanics’ school. I have vivid memories of a Yamaha 305 twin 2 stroke, on a work stand in front of a big fan, running wide open and screaming, exhaust going up a pipe through the roof. The instructor said it had been like that for a solid week, and they wanted to see how long it would run like that, full throttle, high RPM, smoking and screaming like the monster it was. He said it would probably “run forever”. Those Yamaha 2 strokes were something else!
So having learned to dial gauge top dead center, time, tune and de-carbon the 2 strokes, I was taken to BSA Factory school , I forget where, and things were vastly different. No way a BSA would run on a stand at full throttle for half an hour. So I learned to fettle the beautiful, legendary red and chrome Hornets, Lightnings, and Thunderbolts. And despite the dripping, the design flaws, and self destructive engines, I fell in love with the thunderous vertical twins. Oh God, those high piped Hornets! Nobody changed pipes back then; there was stock and there were megaphones, and that was all. One time a guy came into the shop and said to me “how fast can you make her go for 50 bucks?” That was a lot of money back then. I proceeded to change his oil, adjust his carbs and put 50 psi in his K 70’s, and off he went, happy as a kid. The Cowboy was happy too – it was the first $50 oil change he’d ever seen.
I soon found myself unhappy with the BSA’s infirmaties, and bought a Triumph 500
T100R Daytona Special – a twin carb visual and auditory masterpiece that I dearly loved.
That led me to a relationship with the rival shop several miles away, Dave’s Triumph/Honda. Cowboy would wince when I parked that Jacaranda and silver Triumph right below the BSA sign on the highway.
Dave lived behind his filthy shop with his 2 sons, who went to school with me. These guys were heavily into dirt racing their 500’s and their bikes wore TT Special pipes, God’s own mufflers. The shop’s back yard was festooned with examples of every gnarled crankcase, dented rusty gas tank, bent girder fork, peeling frame, once-chromed exhaust pipe, and ancient cracked tire that had ever been made. The shop started way before WWII, and I’d give anything to be back there with my camera.
Dave’s living conditions were godawful, there being no woman anywhere in sight. His older boy had a face full of blackheads so formidable that he resembled a tattooed Maori, but without clarity of design, uniformity of dot. No girls hung out there, but I learned to jump a 500 twin at that shop, and to hold the throttle open to slide the rear and to never shift uphill under power. The shop had a quarter inch of grease and black filth on the floor, and was filled with Bonnevilles, TT Specials, T100C dirt racers, Hondas in 50, 90, 125, 150, 160 250 and 305cc’s. He had a Panther single from Britain, with twin exhausts, that would idle so slowly and rhythmically that it was like one of those early farm engines with an open pot of water and oil that powered farm tools via belt drive and idled at about 25 RPM’s. I was amazed by that bike, but he wouldn’t allow anyone to ride it. It was covered with the same patina as Cowboy’s trophies, only thicker. Dave was enthralled with that machine. It was, I believe, a twisted sort of moto fetish, greasily feline, after all Dave had not had the company of a clean woman in 12 years. Things were going downhill like a DT 1 with a stuck throttle. But he had this very odd (and rare on this side of the Great Pond) Limey twin-piped four stroke single that just spoke to him in quiet, mortal whispers, even when she was idling.
About then, I decided to take a trip to England to see where TriNorBsa bikes were made. I was drawn by castles, long haired misses with accents and pubs that were far more welcoming than any bar back in Jersey. Around $150 with Icelandic, bless their adventurous spirit still, would get you both ways across the Pond. That was, for a young tool mercenary, kick starting, leather clad Yank abroad, quite cheap. Everything in Europe was reasonable then,, and you could get a worthy bed and breakfast room in one of the most exciting parts of London (Notting Hill Gate, for you geographers) for $2.50 – a pound sterling then. Last time I went, 5 years ago, it was $175. The economy of my youth was ever kind to the young and willing.
I navigated the Underground, found the Triumph shop that was willing to take my $1,250 For a brand new ’70 Bonneville (export, not the style-less, bloated, misshapen tank provided in the home market), and the blighting toad-provoking bastard, pasty skinned latter surviving fetus in gabardine had taken my deposit but sold my bike to another traveler. Whoever the fuck he was, he was definitely less worthy than I, and I found myself in the midst of the kind of lethal mist that has gotten me into very hot water during my formative years, notably until I was approximately 57. All he had to offer me was a stone gorgeous jacaranda and silver 1970 Triumph Daytona Special twin carbed Brit masterpiece that I fell immediately in love with, and all was forgiven. It was just like the beauty that I’d just sold back home to take that trip! I even got a refund. Oh joy! In London, free of everything, cash in the money belt! The prince of youth, dashing around Picadilly Square at three a.m. with a European woman riding pillion. This is obviously the stuff of personal legend. The bird had a bedsitter room (a closet with a hotplate) in Notting Hill right off Portabello Rd. What street life there was! Buskers with open guitar cases ‘playing real good for free’, throw the guy some play money and off you go to the next scene in the exotic ’70 London street carnival. Donovan and Jimi Hendrix were in the same building as ‘my’ bird. Moroccan hash was everywhere; mixed with tobacco it would blow your mind. Or so they tell me. No more street racing, but I met blokes-with-fair-pillion on Tribsas, cafe racer Atlases, Norvins, and more alloy and steel machinery from the magical era that was then. From pub to pub we rode, somehow, in the most raucous, pushrod-propelled black and chrome (and jacaranda) manner. I rode south, and slept right in the middle of Stonehenge, with no other soul in sight. I rode into the harbour that launched countless British Naval invasions, Portsmouth, and day dreamed of the reek of black powder under sail and felt the familiar pang of historical poignance that I still enjoy. I saw Jimi Hendrix’ last performance at the Isle of Wight Concert which was happening just then. Later that month he died in Notting Hill Gate. I knew his ex wife for awhile and visited her in Copenhagen a few years later. My Captain America helmet and my T100R made friends everywhere we went. Motorcycles had become an integral component of my identity, let alone my life. I was a biker. But I never even considered a Harley. They were nothing to a young Triumph man on the loose in a foreign country where they spoke my language! What a summer.
Back in the USA, I was faced with a winter’s ride from N.Y. to Chicago, where I’d dwell for a few, cold and dark years lit only briefly and inconsistently. I picked the bike up from the shippers, broke open the crate, fed it some fuel, tickled the carbs, kicked it twice and she was purring like a proper 500. A 500 was a big bike then. So was a 250. Actually, I believe I’m alive due to the steady progression I went through of small to large bikes over a few years. I cannot imagine having a modern crotch rocket for my first bike.
It began to snow in Pennsylvania, and it was cruelly cold. The trucks threw up huge rooster tails of icy water and filth. I was unprepared. The American adventurer back from Europe was dying slowly, wet leathered hands and feet numb I knew I should have gone to Morocco (but that was not to be until a couple of years later). Somehow I lasted and made it to the Land O’ Lincoln beneath a cold sun. That Triumph never missed a beat. In fact, I’ve never had a problem with any old-style triumph, except with the electrics ala Joseph Lucas, Prince of Darkness. In Chicago it snowed early and stayed till late, so I traded the bike for a car. I found a new as you please ’57 Pontiac Bonneville convertible with factory fuel injection, replete with a two inch F.I. chromed logo on the sides of the beautiful machine. That car alone and what it was party to would make a passable book.
Then came several years when I wrenched for money, all air cooled stuff of German nature, and saved every penny, literally. I could pull a 356 engine and rebuild it in a day, including a full valve job. The money was good. I moved to California to buy land where the legendary redwoods meet the green Pacific. I learned how to build a house, clear the land, fall and mill timber and a few other skills that have come in mighty handy. I became a well known and constantly working Tool Whore. I’m proud of that, actually, in my own twisted and home grown way.
Years pass, sons are born in my hand built log cabin with midwives in attendance, life matures and expands nicely. I can stand it no longer. It’s 1986 and I must have another motorcycle. The interim years sacrificed for duty, honor and property numbered 12, and my time was up. I chose a gorgeous red, white and blue Honda XL 600 R dual sport, kick-only fire breather with a piston the size of an oatmeal can. It was a street legal wheelie machine. It had gold wheels with spokes and a red powder coated radial 4 valve engine with dual carbs. I was again in love, although in my soul I grieved deeply for Triumph, killed by its own hubris and the UJM. The sign on the pearly gates will surely be in jacaranda. I’m certain of it. So, all the miles of logging roads that festoon the wilderness between the coast and 101 were mine! There was the seldom seen security officer in his tall 4X4 who was too easily evaded. There was plenty of mud for my license plate.
A rapid succession of motorcycles came onto the timeline of my world. A Honda V4 Shaft Jacker demon, a ‘crate perfect’ triumph Bonnevile Special, with oil in frame and disc brakes (but kick start only), a ’70 Bonneville rebuilt so sweetly that I sold it to a Hollywood actor for far too much via a home made video tape, an ’85 Yamaha FJ 600, the bike that launched Kevin Schwantz’s racing career, a ’91 red VFR with single sided swingarm (which was exotic then, if passé now) and a clever little fairing just for the sidestand. RZ 350 Kenny Roberts, ’89 R100GS (two of ‘em), ’96 1100GS, 900 SS SP yellow track toy, plated XR 400, XR 650, 996 Super Hawk (what an engine!) and my latest objet’d’lust, the black KTM 950 V twin Adventure, which I’m now integrating into my challenged circuitry. My ejection seat from the blandness and pain of life; those days when the tools are half dead and sawdust covers the sun, and the shadows of scaffolding appear as renaissance art. Those days when all the Makita batteries are flat from rounding off too many Phillips screws.
One look at my new black Austrian beauty and those gnarly, twisted ribbons of cold tar and river rock beckon me for a short 50 mile blast up along the switchbacks that lead to the abandoned Point Arena air base. All the roads follow old Aborigine trails, and later wagon roads – following the contours of the ridges through impossibly rough terrain. These roads train very proficient motorcyclists. The views at the top are forever and ever, light playing on the ocean six miles away, sunlight rippled and faceted, usually a tiny-appearing monstrous container ship bound for Seattle or the Orient is on the horizon far away.
Then back down to the sea, to the wharf where the salmon fleet lies at anchor, for a pint of Boont Amber, watching as the surfers race down 20 foot waves, toward the rocks and pull out fast as they reach the point of no return. And the treat of walking back to my machine always makes me smile. The precision sound of the quietly ticking engine at idle belies its vicious snarl at 7,500 rpm.
Snarling out of a turn like some mad Doohan wannabe, vastly more blurred by life. It’s just me, on the way back to my ridge top ranch, to overlook the last vestiges of an explosive rose pink sunset, if I’m lucky.
Consider a thought I first had in the 90’s: a timeline of earth’s existence, geologic eras on the left, gradually coming to dinosaurs and early man, Babylon and the Jersey Shore. Internal combustion engines have been around for a razor thin period, short lived in the scheme of things. Invented today, it’s doubtful motorcycles would be street legal. I’m certain of it in these increasingly safety conscious, govt. protected BS days of the Aquarian age. And so a few of us are allowed to ride these machines, these anomalies of mechanical transport. A veritable fly speck on our timeline. We are so lucky
to live in this brief time slot when a person can rocket down a fine piece of road, thread the perfect needle around a decreasing radius turn, leaving aluminum streaks from the peg feelers, and ride fast and free, you and the road, sky, hills, trees, ocean and that crisp air, ram fed into your helmet.
What could be better.
My next bike was a Honda CB160, very predatory to my young eyes. It was an excellent little black twin with a stamped steel frame and electric start that carried me all over the Jersey shore, to girlfriends far and near, and on many a weekend frolic. We lived in a seaside resort town, and the local kids loved to race on the streets. The police were uncaring bastages and hated us all. They were merciless and caught every car they went after, but they couldn’t catch a motorcycle for all their noise, light show and blue streaked threats. Sure, we raced all the time. It was a blast beating the other bikes, if you could, and even some of the cars. We’re talking 90cc vs. 125cc here – heady stuff. Those were the days of common 426 Hemi Dodges, 427 Chevys, and there were lots of 409’s running around on blue Sunoco 260 gas. You stayed away from these.
When the speed Nazis came, we’d thread through traffic, cut across peoples’ lawns, whatever we had to do, and we always got away. A little mud splatter on a license plate went a long way towards anonymity. In retrospect, I find my love for dual sport riding was born way back then, far away, while transitioning from street to yard being loudly pursued by black and white Ford Fairlanes. We discovered early on that we could cut through a yard and come up behind the police car while he chased us in front of us! Oh, what testosterone and adrenaline soaked times those were.
I graduated to a 250 high piped Kawasaki twin, one of the first sold around those parts.
A two stroke street scrambler that promised new heights of street racing abandon. The bike had a slight problem, it turned out, having a 28mm carb on one side and a 32mm on the other, so it ran out of poop when it was just getting on the pipe. It took the dealer many days to discover the cause, and he gave me full trade-in on a beautiful blue ’65 305 Yamaha YM1 twin, oil injected, and one of the finest bikes I ever rode. Power that was serious, smooth as an electric motor, quiet and with a hot knife through butter tranny. That bike took me to college in N. C., where I won’t bother you with tales of the wild 3.2 beer Confederate street racing, but I will tell you I never got caught because I was a wild young dual sport pioneer with mud on his plate.
We went everywhere on street bikes in those days. Mud, snow, rain, through streams, across fields (jousting between corn rows on bikes) and all on street tires. We didn’t know any better, and were self taught, but we always wore helmets, boots and gloves. One day in June, I was hanging out at the BSA-Yamaha dealer and the man asked if I’d like a job. This guy was a mechanical visionary who raced midgets and was a bowlegged, swaggering cowboy type. Dusty, oily trophies lined the high shelf that went all around the show room. “Sure, I can do this stuff”, I said. I sold dirt bikes, street bikes in 2 and 4 stroke, parts and accessories, all for a tiny percentage. Soon the Cowboy offered to take me to Yamaha Mechanics’ school. I have vivid memories of a Yamaha 305 twin 2 stroke, on a work stand in front of a big fan, running wide open and screaming, exhaust going up a pipe through the roof. The instructor said it had been like that for a solid week, and they wanted to see how long it would run like that, full throttle, high RPM, smoking and screaming like the monster it was. He said it would probably “run forever”. Those Yamaha 2 strokes were something else!
So having learned to dial gauge top dead center, time, tune and de-carbon the 2 strokes, I was taken to BSA Factory school , I forget where, and things were vastly different. No way a BSA would run on a stand at full throttle for half an hour. So I learned to fettle the beautiful, legendary red and chrome Hornets, Lightnings, and Thunderbolts. And despite the dripping, the design flaws, and self destructive engines, I fell in love with the thunderous vertical twins. Oh God, those high piped Hornets! Nobody changed pipes back then; there was stock and there were megaphones, and that was all. One time a guy came into the shop and said to me “how fast can you make her go for 50 bucks?” That was a lot of money back then. I proceeded to change his oil, adjust his carbs and put 50 psi in his K 70’s, and off he went, happy as a kid. The Cowboy was happy too – it was the first $50 oil change he’d ever seen.
I soon found myself unhappy with the BSA’s infirmaties, and bought a Triumph 500
T100R Daytona Special – a twin carb visual and auditory masterpiece that I dearly loved.
That led me to a relationship with the rival shop several miles away, Dave’s Triumph/Honda. Cowboy would wince when I parked that Jacaranda and silver Triumph right below the BSA sign on the highway.
Dave lived behind his filthy shop with his 2 sons, who went to school with me. These guys were heavily into dirt racing their 500’s and their bikes wore TT Special pipes, God’s own mufflers. The shop’s back yard was festooned with examples of every gnarled crankcase, dented rusty gas tank, bent girder fork, peeling frame, once-chromed exhaust pipe, and ancient cracked tire that had ever been made. The shop started way before WWII, and I’d give anything to be back there with my camera.
Dave’s living conditions were godawful, there being no woman anywhere in sight. His older boy had a face full of blackheads so formidable that he resembled a tattooed Maori, but without clarity of design, uniformity of dot. No girls hung out there, but I learned to jump a 500 twin at that shop, and to hold the throttle open to slide the rear and to never shift uphill under power. The shop had a quarter inch of grease and black filth on the floor, and was filled with Bonnevilles, TT Specials, T100C dirt racers, Hondas in 50, 90, 125, 150, 160 250 and 305cc’s. He had a Panther single from Britain, with twin exhausts, that would idle so slowly and rhythmically that it was like one of those early farm engines with an open pot of water and oil that powered farm tools via belt drive and idled at about 25 RPM’s. I was amazed by that bike, but he wouldn’t allow anyone to ride it. It was covered with the same patina as Cowboy’s trophies, only thicker. Dave was enthralled with that machine. It was, I believe, a twisted sort of moto fetish, greasily feline, after all Dave had not had the company of a clean woman in 12 years. Things were going downhill like a DT 1 with a stuck throttle. But he had this very odd (and rare on this side of the Great Pond) Limey twin-piped four stroke single that just spoke to him in quiet, mortal whispers, even when she was idling.
About then, I decided to take a trip to England to see where TriNorBsa bikes were made. I was drawn by castles, long haired misses with accents and pubs that were far more welcoming than any bar back in Jersey. Around $150 with Icelandic, bless their adventurous spirit still, would get you both ways across the Pond. That was, for a young tool mercenary, kick starting, leather clad Yank abroad, quite cheap. Everything in Europe was reasonable then,, and you could get a worthy bed and breakfast room in one of the most exciting parts of London (Notting Hill Gate, for you geographers) for $2.50 – a pound sterling then. Last time I went, 5 years ago, it was $175. The economy of my youth was ever kind to the young and willing.
I navigated the Underground, found the Triumph shop that was willing to take my $1,250 For a brand new ’70 Bonneville (export, not the style-less, bloated, misshapen tank provided in the home market), and the blighting toad-provoking bastard, pasty skinned latter surviving fetus in gabardine had taken my deposit but sold my bike to another traveler. Whoever the fuck he was, he was definitely less worthy than I, and I found myself in the midst of the kind of lethal mist that has gotten me into very hot water during my formative years, notably until I was approximately 57. All he had to offer me was a stone gorgeous jacaranda and silver 1970 Triumph Daytona Special twin carbed Brit masterpiece that I fell immediately in love with, and all was forgiven. It was just like the beauty that I’d just sold back home to take that trip! I even got a refund. Oh joy! In London, free of everything, cash in the money belt! The prince of youth, dashing around Picadilly Square at three a.m. with a European woman riding pillion. This is obviously the stuff of personal legend. The bird had a bedsitter room (a closet with a hotplate) in Notting Hill right off Portabello Rd. What street life there was! Buskers with open guitar cases ‘playing real good for free’, throw the guy some play money and off you go to the next scene in the exotic ’70 London street carnival. Donovan and Jimi Hendrix were in the same building as ‘my’ bird. Moroccan hash was everywhere; mixed with tobacco it would blow your mind. Or so they tell me. No more street racing, but I met blokes-with-fair-pillion on Tribsas, cafe racer Atlases, Norvins, and more alloy and steel machinery from the magical era that was then. From pub to pub we rode, somehow, in the most raucous, pushrod-propelled black and chrome (and jacaranda) manner. I rode south, and slept right in the middle of Stonehenge, with no other soul in sight. I rode into the harbour that launched countless British Naval invasions, Portsmouth, and day dreamed of the reek of black powder under sail and felt the familiar pang of historical poignance that I still enjoy. I saw Jimi Hendrix’ last performance at the Isle of Wight Concert which was happening just then. Later that month he died in Notting Hill Gate. I knew his ex wife for awhile and visited her in Copenhagen a few years later. My Captain America helmet and my T100R made friends everywhere we went. Motorcycles had become an integral component of my identity, let alone my life. I was a biker. But I never even considered a Harley. They were nothing to a young Triumph man on the loose in a foreign country where they spoke my language! What a summer.
Back in the USA, I was faced with a winter’s ride from N.Y. to Chicago, where I’d dwell for a few, cold and dark years lit only briefly and inconsistently. I picked the bike up from the shippers, broke open the crate, fed it some fuel, tickled the carbs, kicked it twice and she was purring like a proper 500. A 500 was a big bike then. So was a 250. Actually, I believe I’m alive due to the steady progression I went through of small to large bikes over a few years. I cannot imagine having a modern crotch rocket for my first bike.
It began to snow in Pennsylvania, and it was cruelly cold. The trucks threw up huge rooster tails of icy water and filth. I was unprepared. The American adventurer back from Europe was dying slowly, wet leathered hands and feet numb I knew I should have gone to Morocco (but that was not to be until a couple of years later). Somehow I lasted and made it to the Land O’ Lincoln beneath a cold sun. That Triumph never missed a beat. In fact, I’ve never had a problem with any old-style triumph, except with the electrics ala Joseph Lucas, Prince of Darkness. In Chicago it snowed early and stayed till late, so I traded the bike for a car. I found a new as you please ’57 Pontiac Bonneville convertible with factory fuel injection, replete with a two inch F.I. chromed logo on the sides of the beautiful machine. That car alone and what it was party to would make a passable book.
Then came several years when I wrenched for money, all air cooled stuff of German nature, and saved every penny, literally. I could pull a 356 engine and rebuild it in a day, including a full valve job. The money was good. I moved to California to buy land where the legendary redwoods meet the green Pacific. I learned how to build a house, clear the land, fall and mill timber and a few other skills that have come in mighty handy. I became a well known and constantly working Tool Whore. I’m proud of that, actually, in my own twisted and home grown way.
Years pass, sons are born in my hand built log cabin with midwives in attendance, life matures and expands nicely. I can stand it no longer. It’s 1986 and I must have another motorcycle. The interim years sacrificed for duty, honor and property numbered 12, and my time was up. I chose a gorgeous red, white and blue Honda XL 600 R dual sport, kick-only fire breather with a piston the size of an oatmeal can. It was a street legal wheelie machine. It had gold wheels with spokes and a red powder coated radial 4 valve engine with dual carbs. I was again in love, although in my soul I grieved deeply for Triumph, killed by its own hubris and the UJM. The sign on the pearly gates will surely be in jacaranda. I’m certain of it. So, all the miles of logging roads that festoon the wilderness between the coast and 101 were mine! There was the seldom seen security officer in his tall 4X4 who was too easily evaded. There was plenty of mud for my license plate.
A rapid succession of motorcycles came onto the timeline of my world. A Honda V4 Shaft Jacker demon, a ‘crate perfect’ triumph Bonnevile Special, with oil in frame and disc brakes (but kick start only), a ’70 Bonneville rebuilt so sweetly that I sold it to a Hollywood actor for far too much via a home made video tape, an ’85 Yamaha FJ 600, the bike that launched Kevin Schwantz’s racing career, a ’91 red VFR with single sided swingarm (which was exotic then, if passé now) and a clever little fairing just for the sidestand. RZ 350 Kenny Roberts, ’89 R100GS (two of ‘em), ’96 1100GS, 900 SS SP yellow track toy, plated XR 400, XR 650, 996 Super Hawk (what an engine!) and my latest objet’d’lust, the black KTM 950 V twin Adventure, which I’m now integrating into my challenged circuitry. My ejection seat from the blandness and pain of life; those days when the tools are half dead and sawdust covers the sun, and the shadows of scaffolding appear as renaissance art. Those days when all the Makita batteries are flat from rounding off too many Phillips screws.
One look at my new black Austrian beauty and those gnarly, twisted ribbons of cold tar and river rock beckon me for a short 50 mile blast up along the switchbacks that lead to the abandoned Point Arena air base. All the roads follow old Aborigine trails, and later wagon roads – following the contours of the ridges through impossibly rough terrain. These roads train very proficient motorcyclists. The views at the top are forever and ever, light playing on the ocean six miles away, sunlight rippled and faceted, usually a tiny-appearing monstrous container ship bound for Seattle or the Orient is on the horizon far away.
Then back down to the sea, to the wharf where the salmon fleet lies at anchor, for a pint of Boont Amber, watching as the surfers race down 20 foot waves, toward the rocks and pull out fast as they reach the point of no return. And the treat of walking back to my machine always makes me smile. The precision sound of the quietly ticking engine at idle belies its vicious snarl at 7,500 rpm.
Snarling out of a turn like some mad Doohan wannabe, vastly more blurred by life. It’s just me, on the way back to my ridge top ranch, to overlook the last vestiges of an explosive rose pink sunset, if I’m lucky.
Consider a thought I first had in the 90’s: a timeline of earth’s existence, geologic eras on the left, gradually coming to dinosaurs and early man, Babylon and the Jersey Shore. Internal combustion engines have been around for a razor thin period, short lived in the scheme of things. Invented today, it’s doubtful motorcycles would be street legal. I’m certain of it in these increasingly safety conscious, govt. protected BS days of the Aquarian age. And so a few of us are allowed to ride these machines, these anomalies of mechanical transport. A veritable fly speck on our timeline. We are so lucky
to live in this brief time slot when a person can rocket down a fine piece of road, thread the perfect needle around a decreasing radius turn, leaving aluminum streaks from the peg feelers, and ride fast and free, you and the road, sky, hills, trees, ocean and that crisp air, ram fed into your helmet.
What could be better.