“Anybody Can Ride One”

My wife is a morning television addict. We live in a rural area with no over-the-air television available and I’m too cheap for cable, so she watches the late night talk shows in the morning. The irritating noises coming from our living room inspired a hunt for the best noise-cancelling, Bluetooth, in-ear monitors so that I could avoid the morning squawking noise of Seth Myers and Jimmy Kimmel’s dry sarcasm that makes the awful seem even worse. Sometimes she is so inspired by what she sees that she is compelled to “share” it with me. This morning that interruption was inspired by a Kimmel interview with David Letterman. Apparently, Letterman bought Regis Philbin a Vespa scooter under the assumption that “everybody knows how to ride a motor scooter.” Like so many folks on Harleys every summer weekend around the nation, it turns out that assumption is idiotic. Of course, Philbin crashed after traveling a few feet on the scooter. "He could have been killed. He actually could have been killed. The last night before he retires he comes over, and I kill him," Letterman said with a laugh. "... Nobody checked him out on it, because the assumption was, A, anybody can ride a scooter. And B, certainly Regis will ride a scooter."

Back when I was still teaching the Minnesota Motorcycle Safety classes, in 2011, I wrote a Geezer rant I titled “#101 It's Not A #&^%#@ Wheelchair.” I summed up my irritation in that essay with, “My generation seems to have created a lot of people who think the laws of physics can be influenced by money, the legal system, and by a heartfelt ‘I wanna.’ Velocity and acceleration (up or down) are ruthless. Gravity is insensitive to your brittle bones and inflexible joints. You don't get special consideration on the highway simply because traffic is moving ‘too fast’ or you can't muster up the courage to make the bike stop or turn (or keep up with the flow of traffic). Other highway users expect you to ‘drive it or park it.’ Being handicapped on a motorcycle is often fatal.” Almost always, in fact. I don’t know where “anybody can ride a scooter” comes from. Sure, they have small flat wheels that almost balance themselves, but that doesn’t help at all with turning, stopping, or being aware of traffic and hazards and figuring out what to do about those hazards in an emergency.

While my wife was taking a break from her morning television routine, she was reminded of my father and his “scooter experience,” which actually was an electric wheelchair. He’d been house-bound for several years by the symptoms of progressive myasthenia gravis, failing eyesight, and CHF. My step-sister thought it would be good for him to get out of the house and she, Medicare, and the VA bought him an electric wheelchair. For a couple of days, he was like a kid with a brand new motorcycle. He rode that thing around his neighborhood, to the local grocery store, and had a great time. My step-sister, on the other hand, almost had heart failure watching him blindly (literally) barrel through busy intersections and head-on into traffic without a clue that people were dodging him and freaking out at the sight of an overweight old man in an electric wheelchair in the middle of the road. Eventually, some technical issue came up with the wheelchair and he went back to watching his big screen television and 14-hours-a-day of Fox News propaganda. It could have been as simple as the battery being run down, my father was that technically inept, and nobody showed him how to use the charger. When he died, a couple of years later, the wheelchair looked brand new. He proved that it isn’t true that “anybody can ride a wheelchair.”

In the late 1970s, we were living in a small Nebraska town and a friend, the drummer in a band I’d been in, decided he wanted to buy a motorcycle so he could ride with his friends. I was a dirt-only motorcyclist at the time and had been for 15 years, but I helped him find a good buy on a barely-used Honda CX500 Deluxe, gave him a little instruction about how to ride the bike, convinced him to buy a helmet, a decent leather jacket, some boots, and gloves. And off he went. The friends he wanted to ride with were an assortment of cruiser wannabe-biker types with a couple of actual hardcore bikers—prison tats and criminal records and all. None of the be’s and wannabes wore any actual motorcycle gear and they quickly convinced him to dump the helmet, boots, gloves, but he could keep the jacket for cool days. They also “helped” him install ape-hangers and disable the front brake, partly because the stock brake line wasn’t long enough. Not even a whole month into this experience, he flew off of the road in a mild turn, plowed through a barbed-wire fence, and tumbled almost 100’ before he ended up in a tangled heap in a corn field.

His head injury left him with a speech impediment for the rest of his life and other neurological damage that left him pretty much a very young stroke victim. His legs were broken so badly that there was talk about amputating one or both, but they ended up reassembling him with pins and rods so that he could hobble around on his own. Of course, he was no longer a musician. You have to be able to flex everything in your legs and feet to operate a high hat and kick drum and the rest of his coordination and strength wasn’t up to handling the sticks. So, he’s mostly just been a barfly for the last 40 years, luckily he had a significant inheritance to cover his expenses and to provide him with shelter. Like Regis and my father, my friend (and several of his friends over the next few years) proved that it isn’t true that “anybody can ride a motorcycle.”

The industry, of course, has a vested interest in convincing as many people as possible that they belong on an expensive motorcycle that will enhance their lifestyle and self-image. Unfortunately, the so-called “motorcycle safety” industry is usually directly connected to the manufacturers (MIC/MSF, for example) and their vested interests are all about “putting butts on seats” with minimal interference from actual safety concerns. Thanks to them and their efforts, goofballs like David Letterman are deluded into believing the hype and imagining "that anybody can ride a scooter."

Why It's Not So Obvious

All Rights Reserved © 2010 Thomas W. Day

"Wear all the gear all the time." 
 
"Never go anywhere without full protection."

". . .  there is no doubt after the first time a young kid crashes his little motorcycle that the idea of what might happen, and that it can hurt, takes hold."¹

"Approximately 80 percent of reported motorcycle crashes result in injury or death; a comparable figure for automobiles is about 20 percent."

You've heard it all. The politically correct choices are AGAT (All the Gear, All the Time) or Most of the Gear, All of the Time (MOGAT). Don't get me wrong. The intelligent choice is to gear up every time you ride. That idiot's claim, "If I think I'm going to do something risky, I'll put on the gear," makes about as much sense as saying "If I think I'm going to crash, I'll wear a helmet." Riding is risky. If you think you're going to crash, don't ride. Why that isn't obvious is lost on me. 
 
Those of us who started riding as kids probably have a better feeling for the disconnect between good gear advice and reality. My first (1964 or 65) racing gear was a pair of Converse high top canvas tennis shoes, a pair of Justin leather work gloves, Levis, a jean jacket, and sunglasses. I was racing either a left-turn only circle or on a modified figure "B" track with 4-6 equally well-dressed young men. None of us had ever seen a helmet outside of WWII movies. Nobody was shooting at us, so why would we need helmets? There was no AMA or any other rule-setting organization to interfere with our insanity. We just showed up at the track a couple of miles outside of town and rode 5-lap races until we got tired. A few months of that and we started putting a few dollars into a pile and awarding prize money. Someone set up a hotdog stand and sold drinks out of a cooler. Money changed hands and we kept racing in spite of the commerce. A few guys got hurt: broken arms, toes, fingers, and such. Most of us managed to get through a day of racing with no more than a few cuts and bruises.
 
Later, when I really got into off-road riding, I adopted a 3/4 helmet, gloves, lineman's boots, and lightly padded jeans and a nylon jersey. I crashed a lot, at races and in practice and goofing around. Between ages 20 and 28, I spent a fair amount of time flying over the bars, sliding down the road with the bike in front or behind me, flipping over backwards, and crumpled in a heap. All through that period, I managed to go uninjured. The lesson I took from all that good fortune was obvious: I am indestructible. I wasn't foolish enough to really believe that I couldn't be hurt. I got hurt often at work. I just managed to convince myself that on a motorcycle, I was "too good" to get busted up.
 
In early 1976, that all came to an end. Practicing for Sunday's motocross, I managed to crash and break all of the toes on my left foot. My brand new Hi-Point boots had to be cut off of my foot because the foot swelled up so quickly that I couldn't get the boot off myself. I might have cried when that happened, not from pain but from seeing my $150 boots ruined. $150 was a lot of money (for me) in 1976. A few months later, practicing again, I crashed and broke all the ribs on my left side. That event ended my period of invulnerability. I have rarely since thought of myself as being lucky, tough, or unbreakable. From then out, I was clear on how much pain I could tolerate and how quickly that point could be passed.
 
The difference between me and a real motorcycle racer was that new vulnerability added several seconds to my lap time and I never regained the confidence I needed to go WFO for extended periods. I kept riding and racing for the next four years, but I spent those years in the back of the pack. In 1982, I sold my dirt bikes and bought a used Honda CX500, upon which I moved myself to California in the early spring of 1983. My family followed a few months later by train. As insignificant as it was, my racing "career" was finished and I have never since lined up at a start gate with twenty testosterone-jacked young (or old) men. 
 
I have, however, put nearly a half-million miles on a collection of street bikes in several states and two non-US countries. Mostly, I've managed to stay rubber-side-down on my street bikes and the only breaks in that record have been on outback single-track trails or gravel roads. With that many hours on the road without mishap, it would be easy to start shedding gear.  I wear more equipment on my daily commute than I used to wear racing. What kind of sense does that make? Why not drop the armored pants? What could it hurt to ride in light-weight comfortable shoes occasionally? I'm just going to work, why bother with the helmet? Big Minnesota Mommy says I only need to wear eye protection and a speedo. If she doesn't think I need all that gear, what am I wearing it for? 
 

I've seen the results of naked biker crashes and it's not pretty. The lucky guys bust their heads open and die on the spot. The unluckiest guys end up sucking the meals out of a straw and staring at a hospital ceiling for the rest of their lives. In between, people spend their lives recovering from a fraction-of-a-second lapse. I'm not man enough to risk that for a little breeze blowing in my hair or the relief from a few degrees of discomfort. I like my skin where it is and my bones properly connected. I'll give it to you straight: I'm a coward. "I cover the stuff I want to keep."

Biker Reality verses Reality Reality

Some of the words used in this PSA might indicate where the real cause of the crash highligted here came from. In the case of this crash, the car didn't even contact the bike before she went down. Proving that "every panic reaction you will ever have will be wrong." Both the bike and the car were moving to the same lane, parallel to each other, and the car was in no way, as Ms.Katte stated, coming from "out of nowhere." Neither vehicle owned the lane beside the truck and both were equally responsible for anticipating the move of the other.

In the PSA, Katte stated that she was “checking her mirrors, putting my head on a swivel, looking for the vehicles around me” and she missed the vehicle right beside her. Riders need a bigger "swivel" on their heads in that situation. In freeway situations, mirrors are worthless on 99% of the motorcycles we ride. Mine, for example, barely show me what is directly behind me and tell me nothing about a vehicle right beside me. I’ve ridden a CTX1300 and beside the fact that it is far more motorcycle (power, weight, and maneuverablity) than someone with beginner skills can manage, the damn things vibrate so much that the mirrors might as well be blacked out. They are worse than useless.

One point of the PSA was to encourage motorcycle gear use; especially helmets. She was lucky, smart or both to have been wearing a real helmet; even if it was a cheap Chinese brand. A typical Harley rider’s toilet bowl would have been useless in that crash. Her “$35 leather jacket” probably didn’t do much other than save her some skin. Actual armor isn’t cheap, but it works. I know, being the idiot I am I’ve “tested” my Aerostich armor way too many times; fortunately, always off-pavement. 

Product Review – Gaerne Goretex Boots

There is no point in my making a serious attempt at identifying these boots. Gaerne doesn’t make anything like them anymore. I bought them sometime around 1995 from Ryan Young’s booth at one of the US Observed Trials meets in Colorado. Mostly, Young’s gear was all about Observed Trials, but he had a fair line of Gaerne boots and a little street gear and these boots were in that lot.

To say the least, they have seen a lot of use. For starters, I liked them because of their extreme riding and walking comfort, replaceable soles, good (if not great) protection, and the look. I wore these boots under suit pants during my medical device career and never heard a word about their appearance. Of course, I did clean, wax, and polish them a lot more often back then. Since 2001, their only maintenance has been irrecular cleaning and an occasional dose of Nikwax leather treatment.

They weren’t cheap, around $200. I’ve worn out and replaced 3 1/2 sets of Vibram soles and the zippers were replaced about 15 years ago. You can see by the picture (above) that the Velcro alignment isn’t great since the zipper repair. No problem, they still don’t leak. I wore out the original insoles pretty quickly, hiking and riding off-pavement in Colorado. I can’t guess how many replacements I’ve burned up in that category.

There is really no good reason for this review, other than me wanting to recognize a great product that I have owned and used for almost a generation. I have two other pairs of motorcycle boots, but I don’t often wear them. In fact, the Gaernes are the only boots waiting downstair by the rest of my gear. I might was well admit I wasted money with the other boots and get rid of them. I’ve worn these boots back and forth from Colorado and Minnesota to California a half-dozen times, to Alaska in 24 days of almost constant rain, to Nova Scotia and the heaviest rain storm I’ve ever experienced under any conditions, all over North Dakota and most of the Midwest, and in wind, rain, and even snow around my homes in the Cities and Red Wing. I don’t think it is possible to wear them out. I won’t live that long.

PRODUCT REVIEW: Aerostich Triple Digit Rain Covers

All Rights Reserved © 2008 Thomas W. Day

Aerostich Triple Digit Insulated Glove Covers $57.00 (Aerostich photo)
If you pick your motorcycle gear by trying it on and looking in the mirror, you will probably pass on the Triple Digit Rain Covers. They look stupid. This product will turn your elegant, well trimmed five digit manipulators into three-fingered cartoon-character paws. This is a product that appeals only to those self-assured, style-ignorant types. Freaks who ride year-around, don't like being defeated by the weather, and don't care what they look like in the process.


Triple Digit Rain Covers saving me from the cold. $47.00 (T Day photo)

My only true complaint about this product is that I found it too late to save a good bit of my 2007 trip to Alaska. So, I need to go back and do some of that ride again. I was set from head to toe and chest to wrist for the trip, but my hand protection plan was a disaster. I carried  two sets of "waterproof gloves" to the frozen north; a set of insulated First Gear motorcycle gloves and a pair of REI Goretex-lined skiing gloves. Both of these products failed to keep my hands dry and on several freezing days, my whole body comfort was destroyed because I could not keep my hands warm. It may be that 90% of your body heat is dedicated to keeping your brain and heart warm, but my experience demonstrated that the body doesn't want to let the hands go without a fight. The result of that fight is whole body discomfort.


Triple Digit Rain Covers protecting the back of my hand. (T Day photo)

Late in 2007, a friend and I were exploring the North Shore and stopped in Duluth for his first visit to the RiderWearhouse. I had been looking for a solution to my frozen hand problems and when I tried on the Triple Digit Rain Covers I found it. We both bought a pair and they have been a solution for a variety of cold and wet hand problems. The covers provide flawless rain protection, terrific wind and cold insulation, and the three finger design is absolutely functional, although a little comical. On my 2008 Nova Scotia trip, I was rained on for a dozen days and my hands were well protected. 2,,500 miles of North Dakota's 2009 spring rain and my hands stayed as dry as the rest of my 'stich-covered body. When the weather turned cold last fall, I didn't have to put away my summer gloves until after Thanksgiving. The covers pack small, too, so you can easily carry them in a jacket pocket for wet weather emergencies.

The Triple Digits are laminated ripstop nylon and the design includes an elastic drawcord and a hook and loop wrist cinch to keep the covers in place over your regular riding gloves. You'd think nylon would provide a slippery-when-wet grip on the bars, but the grip is fine. For my troll wrists, the cinch strap is too short to stay in place when I try to sneak my hands into the covers. Aerostich sent me a strip of the hook & loop material to extend the strap. If your hands don't look like hairy hams, you probably won't have this problem. The left thumb has a squeegee for cleaning your visor and you'll want to remember that when you wipe your nose. They come in dark blue and florescent orange and both have a Scotchlite reflective stripe to attract attention in traffic. They're available in M-XL sizes. Aerostich also makes an insulated version of the Glove Covers that adds even more protection from the cold, wet world we live in.

POSTSCRIPT: So, I’ve had my Triple Digits for seven years and they are still exactly as useful as they were in 2008. They extend (downwardly) the temperatures I can comfortably ride and even add a little to my visibility. I wouldn’t go any serious distance without these gloves in my tankbag.

Fixin' What Ain't Broke

Sometimes I wonder what goes through the heads of the average consumer? Take, for example, cable television. Why the hell would anyone pay a nickel for dozens of channels of "reality" crap, extended sales pitches, recycled network sitcoms, and 1950's programming? What moron doesn't know that all of that crap is free over the air? Originally, cable television was promoted as being commercial free, but today cable station commercials are longer than they are on the networks. What do you get for $85/month: HBO, mind-numbingly repetitive sports, Starz, Showtime, and repeats of the same 4 movies for a week. Since 99% of all movies are worse than reality television, that seems more like a punishment than a reward.

The REVIT Sand 2 Jacket.

Motorcycle gear appears to be going through a similar silly phase. The silly consumer was perfectly portrayed on a recent ADVRider thread when a wannabe wrote, "Aerostich's gear is superb but outdated. Maybe somebody else knows for sure, but most of what they sell appears to be circa 1985 or so. Motorcycle gear has come a long way since the Roadcrafter, Darien, and Combat Touring boots were invented. I'd love to see Aerostich modernize that stuff." Apparently, Aerostich isn't sticking on enough pockets and cupholders for this dude. A knockoff Chinese brand, Rev'IT, appears to have tripped this guy's trigger, which pretty much says all there is to say about his standards: trend over function.

 

The classic Darien Jacket, circa 2013.

Any gear is better than none, of course. Today, even the worst gear that tries to imitate the Aerostich Darien is better than everything except racing leathers from a few years back. And let's face it, everything that looks like a Darien is imitating a Darien. Outside of the canvas stuff from Belstaff, Aerostich pretty much invented modern motorcycle weather-resistant gear. While this douche bag imgaines that the Darien has been locked in 1985, I'm here to tell you that the first generation of this totally original product bears practically no resemblance to the current well-refined and massively practical gear. I owned one of the early versions and while it was state-of-a-brand-new-art, it sucked compared to my current Aerostich gear. For one, Goretex was a ways from being waterproof in 1985.



While I'm a regular maintenance guy, I'm not a fan of fixing things that aren't broke. My day-gig exposes me to a crap-load of people who believe that skill-lessly hacking into functioning gear to "improve" its performance  by mangling specifications and measurable characteristics. As a tech/engineer this whole perspective makes me want to move to my Montana hermit's cave and avoid contact with human beings until the big-asteroid Apocalypse settles the whole issue. The modern Aerostich-knock-offs are laden with silly shit that is more likely to be dangerous than useful. Belts and buckles, for example, are dangerous on a motorcycle. The only person who thinks multiple straps on a jacket is a good idea is someone who has never slid down a gravel road on his ass stuck to a 500 pound motorcycle by a damn bootstrap or belt tangled in some protrusion of the motorcycle. "Slow is smooth, smooth is fast," and smooth is also tangle-free. All those useless pockets make me nervous, too, for a totally different reason. With dozen pockets available to me on my Darien, I'm constantly losing shit; like my keys. I have been known to drive back 100 miles, convinced I'd lost something precious, only to find it in a pocket I use once a decade. Do not tell me I need more pockets. I'm warning you.

After giving me a lecture just like the ADVRider psycho-jabber a few years back, a friend decided to put his money where his mouth lived and bought a few bits of trendy looking made-in-China crap. The stuff lasted about 10,000 miles and two seasons before it bleached out, began to fray everywhere, and began to unravel itself everywhere from the multitude of unnecessary, weather-unresistant pockets to the seams that held the zippers in place. My 6-year-old Darien rig is still as water-resistant, tough, and practical as it was 110,000 miles ago and my new Darien is even tougher, more comfortable, better fitting, and more water-tight. I didn't really need a new suit, but it started with a brain fart and ended with $700 out the door and a 2nd set of riding gear. My excuse would be hi-viz. It would be a better excuse if the pants weren't black.

The Darien armor works. The hip pads and back armor are, I'll admit, expensive and big but I've fallen on my prosthetic ass hard a couple of times and it remains unbent. I've slid down the trail on my butt and back and not only did the Darien hold up but I didn't even get a bruise out of the ordeal. I'm old and I bruise easily. Hell, I break pretty damn easily.

So the gear costs a little extra. No CEO is getting rich from cheap Chinese labor or idiotically designed import laws that encourage companies to create jobs outside of the US. In fact, Andy Goldfine might be the most underpaid executive in American industry. He and his staff are all crazy people who would rather make great motorcycle gear and live in [gulp] the frozenest of all of the frozen woods of Duluth than go the usual route and pay $0.50/day for labor and cut rates on cheap and defective materials. If that bothers you, don't whine to me when your job gets Bain Capital'd into history. You deserve the misery you've asked for.

[Note: Yes I'm pissed off. This one has been boiling in my gut for a while.]

Perfect Motorcycling Weather

I've said this before, but fall is my favorite time to ride. The weather is usually pretty predictable in Minnesota, unlike spring. So, I can count on knowing what to wear and what to expect when I hit the road. It's cool enough to need gear and warm enough to be comfortable without all the bulky underlayers that I'll be packing on in a month or so. Tires still start the ride warm enough to have some grip.

But the best part is, for some reason, the motorcycle seems to be a whole lot happier to be working in cool weather. I don't mean that my trusty V-Strom minds the heat, but the engine just feels more alive on a cool fall morning. The throttle seems to be directly connected to the rear tire. It's probably an illusion, but it's one I like.

Sev, the MMM editor, had me all primed, this weekend, to get to ride a new Triumph (2011 Sprint GT) or Ducati (2011 Monster 796) for a review. He let me down, though. Apparently, there are better suited folks than me on tap to ride those two cool bikes. I'll probably get first dibs on the next Hyosung POS. No competition for reviews on that sort of ride.

Honestly, I have mixed emotions about test riding motorcycles. There is a nasty statistic that claims that a substantial number of motorcycle crashes occur on borrowed or new motorcycles. I can believe that. Getting used to a new ride takes some time. If I had my druthers, I'd druther test ride on a closed track. At least, I'd rather put a few dozen miles on a new bike on that closed course before I venture out into the vicious and nutty world of cagers and truckers.

Since a Triumph or Ducati isn't in the works for me, I'm going to make some miles in Wisconsin this weekend. On my V-Strom. By myself. I love this weather, so I'm not complaining.

Product Review: Roadgear Toolbag

All Rights Reserved © 2007 Thomas W. Day

The highly attractive Roadgear Toolbag before I loaded it with gear and spoiled it with grease.

I'm a paranoid type, always assuming the worst will happen and that it will happen to me. My V-Strom came sans-toolkit, which gave me the opportunity to put together my own kit of good quality tools. First, I needed a place to put all the tools I'd want to carry. The Roadgear Toolbag is one of those things I spied at the Cycle World Motorcycle Show in 2007. t that time, I hadn't figured out what I needed for the Alaska trip, so I stored the information in my computer and, early this spring, I contacted the Roadgear folks (http://www.roadgear.com/) to get my hands on their toolbag.

The toolbag was a pretty little thing, when it arrived in the mail. The bag is made of heavy duty nylon that comes in a variety of colors. I picked gray, to match my 'stitch and my personality. The bag incorporates a pair of straps closed with nylon buckles into a logo-bearing carrying handle. That feature is more practical than you might think. There are nine assorted-sized compartments for tools, a large partition behind the tool holders, and three small Velcro-secured partitions to store sockets and small parts/tools in front.

Some of the stuff I stored in my Roadgear Toolbag, also after 10,000 miles of Alaska abuse.

I immediately began to stuff tools into the bag until I had most of the things I expected to need in a mechanical crisis and a package that would fit into the storage container I'd added to my luggage rack. The bag would have held a lot more stuff, but then it wouldn't have fit into my available space (the inside of a 4" PVC pipe). As it is, I had almost everything I wanted to carry wrapped into a neat and convenient package.

For a lot of reasons, this was the perfect setup. It forced me to assign places for each tool, making it difficult for me to misplace a tool during a field repair. If I put everything back the way I'd originally organized the bag, it would roll up into exactly the right size package for my storage container. The combination of custom container and the Toolbag gave me fast and easy access to my tools and that meant that I would do maintenance a lot more often.

After 14,000 very messy miles, I am almost tempted to pull the tools and send the Toolbag through the laundry. Almost. The Toolbag has proved to be tough, well-made, and functional. It was a terrific addition to my touring kit and I recommend it without reservation.

Another Year, A Couple More Bikes

The 2010 Cycle World International Motorcycle Show has come and gone. Every year it feels like I spend less time circling the show looking for something new to care about. This year it's safe to say I'm not the only one. Wolfe and I planned a late day at the show to catch more than just the bikes. In the past, I have hit the show early on Saturday or as early as possible on Friday to avoid the crowds. That way I can get shots of the bikes without having to wrestle my way around bodies on the bikes. With a press pass I can slip in before the doors open on Saturday and have the run of the show with a camera or video. Last year was my last year for that approach.

Since 1998, I'd been doing the CWIMS as a segment of my cable access television show, Motorcycling Minnesota. But interest has been flagging in that segment. Not view interest, my interest. Lugging around a 25 pound video camera to get shots of the same bikes I shot last year in this year's colors just doesn't seem worth the effort. An advantage of being underpaid or unpaid is that I don't have to shill for anyone. I don't even have to do the show if I get bored with it. Last year, Wolfe and I did the early-Saturday bit and we ended up done in about 15 minutes. We went out for breakfast, came back, watched the bike watchers and talked to friends for a couple of hours and gave it up for a day back home building stuff out of his Electronic Projects for Evil Geniuses books.

This year, I knew there wouldn't be much new to look at so we timed our trip to hit the maximum crowd. As we arrived at the auditorium, I knew this year would be different. There were no crowds in the skywalk. Outside of the auditorium, no smokers in motorcycle jackets or patch-decorated jean vests. Unlike every other year, we instantly found parking on the streets for cheap. In the auditorium, there were no lines for tickets. No motorcycle accessory vendors outside of the hall. No free motorcycle magazines by the entryway. The upside was that I didn't have to stand in line for my press pass and there was no confusion about getting the pass.

Inside the show was more space than I've ever seen in that room. There was no waiting to sit on any bike you chose. I went out of my way to get shots of bikes that included people in the background, foreground, and on the bikes. I worried that those hyper motorcycle salespeople would be traumatized by loneliness. These are, indeed, hard times. Recreational items, like garage candy and overpriced toys get hit hard when people are just trying to hang on to their homes and jobs.

A couple of parts and accessory distributor reps were pretty depressed about the depression. One sales guy said he was taking on a line of non-motorcycle related clothing in hopes of finding enough income to keep his doors open. A couple of reps really wanted to drop samples on me for review and were disappointed when I didn't want to haul their stuff around the show, but opted to contact them later this month. The Zook guy remembered me from my review of his goo from a couple of years back. That didn't go down well. The state's MMSC booth folks looked lonely and bored. No Aerostich. Buell is dead. Observed trials is a thing of history. Still, I saw a few things that were cool. Outside of Jed Duncan's Rider Academy, there didn't seem to be much action around the small booths. Since Rider Academy is also doing the Total Control Advanced Rider Clinics, the downturn/depression hasn't affected his business as much as it has Harley's marketing/sales-based Rider's Edge program or the MSF's entry-level BRC course. This is one instance where targeting the high end of motorcycling (high end skills) may be a niche with a little staying power.

In the OEM booths, Kawasaki has the KLX250SF 250 Supermoto, which they had in the catalog last year, but didn't show at the Minnesota CWIMS and didn't seem to exist as far as local dealers were concerned. It's not light (302 pounds dry) and (ouch!) it's not fuel injected and it's not cheap ($5300). Ducati's Hypermotard is, still cool if overpriced, but who would put a Ducati on the dirt? Honda's NT700V is new, only to the US, but it's cool and I could see owning one if I could make a little room in the garage for it. $11,000 for a 650 is a bit stiff, though. The Honda supermoto, the CRF230M, was also new last year but didn't put in much of a presence on dealer floors. At $5400, with a carb, and no great weight advantage (280 pounds), the Honda seems like the Kawasaki; too little and too late compared to Yamaha's much hipper WR250X. The Kymco Quannon 150 is interesting, although $3000 for a Chinese-made 150 with limited dealer support seems steep even by today's over-inflated prices. Suzuki's RMX 450 Z is an amazing DP bike, but two things -- the $8400 price tag and the 955mm (37.6") seat height -- put it out of my sights. I desperately wanted to swing a leg over that bike, but I had visions of lying under it and listening to my grandson laugh. So, I passed on the experience. If Yamaha brought anything new, I missed it. Several of the brands that might have had something new to show didn't show at all. BMW, for example, had a lot less of a display going, for a company that is bragging that the economy isn't hitting them as hard as the rest of the industry, than I've ever seen from them. In fact, I'm pretty sure the factory wasn't there at all, although I did see at least one farkled-out BMW at one farkle shop.

After a couple of hours, we'd exhausted our interest in laughing at cruisers, checking out the vintage bike displays, and looking at bikes we don't fit on but love. Wolfe still has hope. He's 14 and growing. It's only going to get worse for me.

A Most Un-American Idea

For the last month, I've been barraged with catalogs, junk mail, and e-mail all promoting the "top 10 things to buy for the motorcyclist in your life." It's a sad fact, but I am the only motorcyclist in my life for whom I'd be inclined to buy Xmas gifts. Even worse, there is nothing that I want that I don't already have.

This is my all time least favorite "holiday" in the history of humanity. From the Coca Cola inspired Santa Claus propaganda to the wash of weirdness that comes from marketeers hoping to make a buck off of sentimentality and religion, I have overloaded on Midwestern guilt and am now suffering an allergic reaction to the whole idea. Like a life-long drunk who suddenly develops an intolerance for alcohol, I have developed a knee-jerk intolerance for anything that attempts to inspire guilt. Every phrase that begins with or sounds anything like "you should feel . . ." trips an anti-sales reaction that eliminates me from the vicinity of the pitch-maker. From the sad sort of douche who listens to every phone salesperson's routine all the way to the end before saying "no thanks," I have mutated into someone who hangs up the phone in 1 second if I have the slightest notion that I'm about to hear from an automated phone message or an auto-dialed live sales squid.

If it weren't for the rare phone call I get from my kids and grand kids, I'd disconnect the phone altogether for the month of December. With an encouragement at all from my wife, I'd just yank the damn thing from the wall and be done with telephones for the rest of my life.

As for motorcycle paraphernalia, I have more of that stuff than I know what to do with. I don't need more riding gear, a new motorcycle, an old motorcycle, or anything other than another set of tires for when the V-Strom's current shoes wear out early next spring. There is a lot of cool stuff in the catalogs that I could imagine wanting, if I had room for more stuff, but I don't want any of enough to bother my family with making a list. If I wanted to buy stuff for myself, I'd do it anything but during the Xmas season.

And that is my most un-American idea; buy your stuff anytime but between Thanksgiving and Xmas. Wait for the end-of-year sales. Wait for the beginning-of-year sales. Wait for spring. Wait for summer. Wait for your birthday or your wife's birthday or your kid's birthday. Just wait out Xmas. Don't encourage this idiotic behavior, this national frenzy of guilty and irrational spending. Statistics demonstrate that $15 billion of the $40 billion spent every Xmas results in unappreciated and unwanted crap that most of us throw away rather than bothering to return to the store. If you know you are going to be wasting $0.37 out of every buck you spent, why are you still doing that?

Yeah, I know. "Bah humbug." It's true. Outside of giving to people who actually need help, the rest of this season is lost on me. I don't need help with anything but my grumpy attitude and that won't be likely to change until the damn "holiday season" is done with.

However, if you can't control yourself, the V-Strom tires are 110/80 19 front and 150/70 17 rear. Honestly, I don't care all that much what brand you buy me, as long as I don't have to buy them. I never look a gift tire in the tread. If I get my druthers, I'd druther have Metzler Tourances, but anything that fits will get me down the road. Since I don't do Xmas thank-you notes, I want you to know I appreciate the tires even if I don't take the time to tell you so.

Product Review: Added Insurance

All Rights Reserved © 2009 Thomas W. Day

Thirty-nine years ago, I began my collection of protective gear. I started with a helmet, which promptly proved its value when I did an unintentional headstand on a large pyramid-shaped rock. A while later, I started wearing calf-high linemans' boots instead of hiking boots or sneakers. I followed that brilliant triumph with denim coveralls (no kidding!) with factory-installed knee and hip pads. Later, I moved up to tear-off goggles, hockey-style shoulder pads, real motocross gloves, High Point racing boots, early Malcolm Smith racing pants and armored jacket, and racing gloves.

The thing that I discovered about real riding gear is that the more of it I owned, the more experimental I became on the track and trail. That might sound like I was only taking extra risks, but I was also experimenting with my riding style, control techniques, and exploring the connection between myself and my motorcycle and doing it with less fear. Fear is not a useful component of a learning environment. The more we are afraid, the more conservative we become, the fewer options we have when exposed to hazards, and the less we learn from riding experiences. My protective gear allowed me the luxury of feeling confident in moments where I'd previously felt exposed to danger. On the practical side, when those "educational moments" turned into a crash, the gear did its job and protected me from serious injury. If today's chest protection had been around in the 1970s, I'd have probably managed to avoid broken ribs and busted collarbones.

All this brings me to a new kind of protection I used on a trip to Alaska in 2007. While studying what others had experienced in Alaska and on adventure tours, I stumbled on an article about a serious deficiency in medical insurance. Mainly, most US medical insurance providers only cover basic doctor visits in the 50 states and rarely pay for medical evacuation from remote areas. Most policies don't reimburse you for emergency medical expenses outside of the US. Since evacuation can cost as much as $50,000 and there appears to be no upper limit to hospital bills, an adventure tour could be a lot more of a financial adventure than most of us can stand. The more I learned about the crap we call "medical insurance," the more I realized I needed additional protection from a bankrupting accident and visit to a hospital; US or Canadian. That comforting Canadian national medical system doesn't apply to non-taxpaying, non-residents. Everyone else has to pay for a visit to a Canadian hospital and those unprotected visits aren't much cheaper in Canada than they are in the US.

There is a type of insurance that appears to be designed for adventure touring; it is called "Emergency Medical Evacuation Insurance," also known as "Supplemental Medical Coverage for Travelers." This kind of policy can provide coverage for emergency evacuation to the nearest medical facility. It will pay your "reasonable travel" expenses for a spouse or caregiver who may need to come to where you are hospitalized until you can travel home. When you are ready to travel again, the insurance will pay for the cost of returning home.

I ended up going with MEDEX (http://www.medexassist.com/), but there are several companies providing various levels of coverage for a variety of costs. Some other possibilities are:

• MedJetAssist http://www.medjet.com/
• SkyMed http://www.skymed.com/
• AeroMedical http://www.travelinsuranceservices.com/
• IMGlobal http://www.imglobal.com/

In 2007, I paid about $300 for 30 days of coverage. When I crashed 100 miles north of the Artic Circle on the Dempster Highway, one option available to me was to ask a truck driver who stopped to provide assistance to radio in a helicopter to fly me to a hospital. I was on the 9th day of a 30 tour and I was pretty sure, in my crashing past, I'd suffered through each of the injuries caused by the Dempster crash. Over the years, I've become a rehab semi-expert and while I was testing my limbs and bodily functions I was figuring out what I'd need to do to get better fast. When I made the decision to turn around, keep riding, and head for the semi-civilization of Dawson City and a hot bath, I had the security of knowing that if I was wrong needed medical attention, I could call it in at any time. My Emergency Medical Insurance was like a piece of gear that added confidence and security. Without it, fear would have had more control on my decision and I might have missed out on the next 20 days of the adventure of my life.

The next year, when I rode from home to the tip of Nova Scotia, I bought another 30 day policy for that trip. The price wasn't much different than it had been the previous year. To the surprise of everyone who knows me, I didn't have a single moment of excitement on that trip. There aren't a lot of interesting dirt roads out east, though.

When friends and family tell you that you are crazy for riding your bike from Timbuktu to Bolivia, you might have to concede that point. But you don't have to be stupid. You can armor up to minimize the damage when things go wrong and you can be prepared to deal with all sorts of disasters and distractions. "Emergency Medical Evacuation Insurance" is one more way you can put some padding between yourself and catastrophe.

10 Reasons NOT to Wear A Helmet

All Rights Reserved © 2009 Thomas W. Day

I've spent way too much ink ranting about why helmets are good for you. I'm a believer in protective gear, but that's just me. Most crash landings begin with a face plant, so I think anything short of a full-face is mostly pointless. You can argue that the DOT thinks a beanie-brain-bucket is "protection," but I'm unconvinced. The federal government is the last place I'd look for technical advice.

If you have some question about how well your gear will work in a crash, put a bow in your do-rag or button down your beanie and slam your face against a hard surface. If you snap off your front teeth and break your nose, you might decide to buy a real helmet before you try the same exercise on hard, unforgiving asphalt at 30mph.

Lots of solid cases have been made for every piece of protective equipment that is sold today. Other than the "live free and die young with a really gory corpse" and the "I scream like a baby when I put one of those boxes over my head" arguments, not many people have spent time (or beer or mixed drinks) coming up with good reasons not to wear a helmet, especially a full-face helmet. So, with a beer and a mixed drink in hand(s), I thought I'd give it a shot.

1. Nobody will ever say anything you want to hear. You are past 25, so you'll never enjoy any new music beyond this point. You ride without a helmet because you are trying to destroy your hearing.
2. You can’t smoke inside a full-face helmet. Cigars are especially incompatible with face shields and such. Since smoking is one of those "little suicide" activities, making the step to a larger, less passive, suicidal activity (riding helmet-less) is a short jump.
3. You can't eat or drink and ride. Even jerky is tough to filter through a face shield. Forget about ice cream cones. Since you're proud of your stylish American bulk, you are more concerned with getting your daily caloric intake than worrying about the goo inside your skull. You ride to eat and eat while you ride.
4. Hip wrap-around sunglasses won't easily stuff into a helmet, so, you're stuck wearing dorky geek glasses. This has inspired several shade manufacturers to make dorky geek glasses and call them hip. My last visit to a Harley shop was made much more entertaining by the collection of $5 tinted industrial safety glasses being sold as designer shades for twenty-times what those same frames (made of more durable materials) would bring in a welding supply shop. Looking like a geek has never been so expensive.
5. You can't pick your nose and wear a helmet. Even if you could get a useable finger past the shield, the chin guard gets in the way. Personally, I think that's a good thing because a small pothole and a cruiser's suspension would probably result in a finger poking through the back of your skull.
6. Telephones, you gotta have 'em, but you can't do telephones and wear a decent helmet. These days, nobody can do anything or go anywhere without a cell phone, so it's damned important that you be able to answer the important question of the day (which is either “Can you hear me now?” or "Where are you now?" or "Waz up?") whenever it's asked. The entire planet revolves around the concept that someone's lack of planning is someone else’s emergency, no matter how trivial the problem. Wingers display insane levels of connected-ness lunacy with headset installations in their helmets and Microsoft Office displays on their face shields. You, however, simply need to be able to answer the phone when it rings.
7. An excellent reason for not wearing a full face helmet is that you have nothing to lose. You hate your job, your wife is having an affair with your boss, your kids are on crack, and you're broke. What's the worst thing that could happen? You crash and survive, but are stuck at home recovering on the couch while your wife and boss hold business meetings in your bedroom.
8. Good hair days, you can’t have ‘em and wear a helmet. Helmets will turn any hair style to a greasy pancake look. Which raises an important question, does Donald Trump ride to work every day? Is his bad hair because of a helmet or did an ugly squirrel curl up and die on his head and the Donald hasn’t taken the time from his busy, motivational day to have one of his Fox News eunuchs scrape it off?
9. The "vision thing." From listening to years of lame excuses about helmets obstructing vision, I've decided this isn't about being able to see, but it's about being seen. Racers, two and four-wheel varieties, wear helmets and nobody needs to see better than those folks. After spending $45,000 on a custom cruiser, you probably want people who know that you have that kind of credit line. We're all equal inside a helmet and you're probably not happy about that.
10. Finally, the best reason to not wear a helmet is that you know your genetics have absolutely nothing of value to contribute to the human race and you want to make the ultimate Darwinian sacrifice for the greater good of the species. Good for you. Your contribution to the universe will not be remembered, but you are still doing a good thing. Consider immediate sterilization so that no nasty little accidents happen before your nasty big crash.

I think I've provided sufficient justifications for those cute little bikini-beanie "helmets" and the 100% Dacron-reinforced do-rag fashion statement. Even though it's very likely that any crash you may have will result in a face-plant, it's important to consider there are a lot of important things that you can't do while wearing full face protection. What's a little cosmetic surgery and a lot of dental work worth compared to the important issues discussed in this highly academic analysis?

As spectacular as my list is, you can probably think of even better reasons to avoid protecting the insides of your skull. Feel free to contribute your best justifications.

Chasing New Technology

A friend sent me a link to this picture as a comment on something I'd said a while back. If you look closely, you'll see that the carbon fibre front wheel disintegrated and the tire stuffed itself between the front fender and the forks and what was left of the wheel. I have no idea where this happened and under what conditions, but it's a pretty interesting look at what pushing the edges of available technology can produce.

A lot of racers have sacrificed their bodies to provide giant steps in technology over the years. Sometimes, the failure of one technology produces a completely different modification in the state-of-the-art, as when Roger DeCoster's Suzuki semi-experimental forks let loose during a 1975 Trans-AMA motocross and DeCoster suffered serious injury from the resulting face-plant. When he came back from reconstruction surgery, he was wearing a full face helmet and started a revolution in personal protection for motocrossers.

One of the good reasons some riders are so hung up on vintage bikes is that the technology is "proven." A bad reason for the same decision is that the proven technology is so far behind the state of the art that the proven stuff is dangerous; drum brakes, for example. Ignition points might be another example of deeply flawed historic technology, based on modern ignition systems and their reliability.

This last week, my wife drug me to the state championship high school rodeo at the Minnesota State Fair. Having grown up on rodeos, I was surprised to see all of the protective gear some kids were wearing. I like the change, but it's a long way from the "traditional" cowboy look. Helmets, armor, high tech shoes, and ropes that hold a loop even when they are dangling from the saddle horn, all stuff my older rodeo-riding cousins would probably spit on.

Everything changes. Some changes are painful. Some are easy. Some make sense, some ideas that look spectacular on blueprints turn out to be freakin' idiotic in application. As for motorcycle wheels, I still like aluminum wheels with spokes. Ideally, the wheels would support tubeless tires, but I can live with tubes. Someday, I suppose, I'll end up on a bike with plastic wheels and I'll like it.

All Dressed Up, Need Someplace to Go

When I was in Nova Scotia last summer, a card table full of old men at a campground were telling Hardly jokes (once they figured out I wasn't riding a Harley) to pass the time during a week-long rainstorm. The only one I remember was, "How are a Laborador dog and a Harley Davidson motorcycle alike? They both like to ride in the back of a 3/4 ton pickup truck and drool."

I have my Sherpa up and working again, after the countershaft seal catestrophe, but it now drools like a Hardly. I replaced the seal, twice, and the o-ring, once, and it's not leaking enough to be able to tell if it's the seal or the o-ring, but every morning there is a spot of oil below the countershaft sprocket. I can't see any sign that I'm losing oil at any dangerous rate, after 100 miles post repair, but I'm obviously losing oil, a drop at a time.

Yeah, I know, all the color-uncoordinated parts make the bike look like it just escaped from a salvage yard. More evidence that I will never develop a sense of style. You should be impressed that I even notice the color clashes at all. Two decades ago, I would have ignored any such comments as "gay eye for the straight guy" piffle. Now that I think about it, I don't feel much different today. I like the way the bike looks. It's obviously mine.

That aside, I'm really regretting not having been able to take the Sherpa to North Dakota. My new seat design is painless for at least a couple of hours on the road between breaks. The larger pegs make standing for extended periods much more comfortable. The luggage works and I can easily carry enough gear for a week camping trip. The 15 tooth sprocket makes crusing at two-lane speeds comfortable (freeway speeds are still a little hectic) and I can still get over logs and rocks without too much bar-yanking. The bike cruises comfortably at about 60-65mph, where the stock sprocket made the engine seem more strained at that speed. On the other hand, acceloration in 6th gear is pretty lame. The new Bridgestone DP tires work well on and off-road. The 3.2 gallon tank gets me at least 250 miles between filling stations. Changing the fork oil to a synthetic mixed for around 16 weight instead of 10 (mfg's recommendation) makes the compression damping rate a little stiff, but the rebound feels much better on really rough terrain, especially when I'm loaded with gear.

With all the luggage space, this is the cool way to travel around town. I can haul a pretty decent grocery trip in all three bags, even without expanding the MotoFizz. I never have to worry about finding a parking place. On a brief trip downtown to school last week, I hopped the curb, rode up the school's stairs, and parked next to the bicycles. If I'd have been there longer, someone would have complained, but I wasn't. Saved myself $0.75 and had fun doing it.

I gotta find someplace to go on the little guy to justify all that work this spring. I'll probably carry a seal and o-ring and a quart of oil with me, just in case. Once burned . . .

#16: They Are Not Men, They Are Bikers

Maybe this is an old age thing. Maybe I have always been a wimp. Whatever my situation, I'm not ashamed to admit that the Vikings I see on the road this time of the year are the kind of guys who have always intimidated and amazed me. If you're one of those guys who thinks Minnesota fall riding gear is a leather vest, a sleeveless flannel shirt, jeans, boots, and a protective skull-and-cross-bones bandana, you are who I'm talking about.

Last fall, I made a 40 degree late-September evening run from the Cities to Rochester, to hang with an old friend who was visiting from the left coast. On the way, I passed four bikes. Two of the bikers were "normals," wearing full-face helmets and cold weather riding gear. The third guy was a Winger, who probably had his heater going full blast, along with the grip warmers and the electric vest, while the heat generated by the Wing's helmet sound system toasted his ears. Finally, the last guy was a real Minnesota Viking on some kind of low-slung, ape-hung cruiser (sorry, I can't tell one from another). He was keeping up with traffic, which was doing about 75mph, and didn't appear to be any more uncomfortable than the guy on the Wing. Accounting for the wind chill and humidity, 75mph and 40 degrees Fahrenheit equals a wind chill of about 11oF.

How do they do that? I want to know. Seriously. This is the kind of weather that has always separated me from real bikers. When the temperature falls below 50, I wear a full-face Shoei (all vents closed), an old but very wind and water-tight Aerostitch suit, boots with heavy wool socks, winter gloves, and more clothing inside the Aerostitch than the Viking bikers probably own. Last September, by the time I got to Rochester I was close to chilled enough to serve with cheese and crackers. If I did a dozen miles in forty degree weather, without my helmet, I'd be nursing a head cold till next spring. If I went helmet-less and jacket-less for the same distance, I'd fall over like the guy on the "Laugh In" tricycle when I stopped. I'd bust like an empty beer bottle when I hit the pavement.

Riding in the cold has always been something that makes me nervous. It's a well known fact that you have to stay loose to ride smoothly. I don't know how you stay loose when you're frozen stiff. Those Viking guys don't even look uncomfortable, though.

Almost thirty years ago, I got talked into doing a 24-hour off-road race. The race was in south western South Dakota. The race was in January. The race was a two-man team deal and my teammate was a buddy who happened to own a small Suzuki dealership. We tricked out a 185cc dual-purpose Suzuki, including adding a half-dozen lights to the bike, and brought along his camper to serve as a deluxe pit.

The trick-est thing about riding this bike in that race was that, if someone tried to hang with me, I could switch off the lights and, for a few seconds, it was like the sun instantly eclipsed. Pause a few seconds, listening for the sound of crunching metal, fire up the lights and I'm back on my own.

We were clinging to first place, about 18 hours into the race, when we ran out of hot chocolate and coffee and had to switch to beer. Beer, in case you've not heard this, does not provide any useful energy. Beer will not help you stay warm. In fact, I would go so far as to say that drinking beer is a stupid thing to do during a race, regardless of temperature, but really stupid when the riding surface is covered with snow and ice.

I went down three times on my first beer-lap. Until we had made that tactical error, we had ridden about 400 flawless, fall-less, miles. My buddy not only crashed several times, on his turn, but he took out half of our lights when he went down. The last three hours of the race were miserable and we got our butts handed to us by a couple of sober guys on a Penton 175 ISDT; and whoever got second, third, fourth, and fifth place. The lesson I took away from that experience is "beer good, cold bad."

A decade later, I took a job in California. Since I figured my Omaha-rusted cars wouldn't pass any sort of physical inspection, I decided to sell my four-wheeled crap and move to the Sunshine State by motorcycle. On my very first street bike (a Honda CX500) and my first serious touring experience, I headed south toward Texas on a sunny, warm and windy April day. A day later, I was in southwest Kansas and it was snowing and 25 degrees. On the assumption that it might get worse before it got better (which it did), I decided to keep going south.

Late that evening, I rolled into Hereford, Texas; frozen, wet, and miserable. My bike was loaded with saddlebags, a large backpacking bag tied to the luggage rack, and camping gear was strapped to the passenger seat. I pulled into a 7-11 and stepped off the bike to get coffee, a phone book and a motel phone number, and whatever heat I could absorb in the store. With my right leg suspended in the air, I realized that I had forgotten to put the kickstand down. Me, the bike, and a good 150 lbs. of personal belongings landed in a heap in the parking lot.

Lying on the frozen ground, hoping someone in the store would see my predicament, I realized that the 7-11 had an "closed" sign pasted to the window. I couldn't budge the bike. I couldn't get my leg out from under it. Three hundred and fifty miles of freezing rain had sapped my strength and body heat. I lay there thinking how stupid my obituary was going to read, "Idiot freezes to death in abandoned store parking lot."

After only a few minutes that seemed like weeks, a light swung across the store front and stopped on me. A seven foot tall (I'm probably exaggerating) cowboy (they have real cowboys in Hereford, TX) stepped out of a big wheel pickup, pulled the bike up and dropped the kick stand. With the same hand, he drug me to my feet and said, "Those things get heavy sometimes, don't they? There's a motel down the road a piece," he pointed out the piece's general direction. "I think you might want to see if they got a room."

There was, I did, they did, and I spent all of the motel's hot water in a two hour shower that probably brought my body temperature up to about 80 degrees. A huge steak with trimmings and double desert got me back near 98.6F. The next day was sunny, still cold, and I held to the Texas two-lane speed limit (anything under 100mph) till I passed Lubbock, where the sun actually succeeded in warming the earth; a little. I stayed close to the Mexico border all the way to California. Again, I learned that motorcycles, cold, and me don't mix.

Now that I'm a geezer, I like being cold even less. All the places where my bones have had to reattach themselves do unfunny things when I'm cold. The joints that I abused so carelessly when I was a kid seize up and make snap, crackle, and popping noises. If it gets cold enough, I forget to breathe. I'm not a Viking. Never was. Never will be. But I envy the hell out of those guys and if I could pry my cold, cramping hands loose from the bars, I'd wave at them when we meet on the road.

Winter 2001