Stuck in First Gear: The Holy Repair

Murphy’s Law says, “Any that can go wrong, will go wrong.” Those are words to live and ride by. Murphy is known to be a more frequent visitor among riding groups with a wider variety of experience. Like a cocktail party where no one knows each other’s drinking limits, riders can disappear under the table. One minute they’re there, and the next minute, gone. The two wheeled family is accepting though; all are welcomed, but all should be on guard. Doug was a guy with a robust build, quick wit and a Suzuki VStrom 650 dual sport. This is a sit up tall, look around type bike built for street and mild off road riding. It’s built pretty tough and so was Doug.

The riders on this Arkansas trip already had a chest full of war medals from blinding fog, a hail storm drag race and a missed curve crash into soft dirt friendly to the body. Mind you, this soft dirt was the only place on a long wooded, twisty stretch of road where this could happen without severe injury or death. Murphy had been writing checks that God cashed, every time. We were gingerly riding the rest of the trip in an eerily stunned blessing mode. What did Murphy have up his sleeve next? We didn’t want to know.

It's customary for group riders to keep up with the rider behind. If you don’t see them coming around the corner after you’ve gone through, sound the alarm and pull over. No rider left behind. That’s the rule. Further up the road from the soft dirt landing and thinking that we’d had our last glitch for the day, Doug was taking up the rear on his slower Suzuki so the fast guys on bigger bikes could have their fun up front. After a cautiously spirited run we realized that Doug had slipped under the table and was nowhere to be found. Pull over. Wait. No Doug.

Doubling back a few miles we come upon Doug’s bike on the wrong side of the road, in the ditch, pointed in the wrong direction. Parking on the edge of the road, we see Doug with his helmet off searching around in the nearby woods. Did he lose his keys? It was as if an alien spaceship had picked up his bike and dropped it where it nor Doug was supposed to be. Had this spaceship been following us the whole trip? You could have convinced me at that point.

Even though the physics still don’t make sense, Doug muttered out that his bike came around a right hand bend, did a spin mid corner and slammed sideways against a high dirt bank on the other side of the ditch. Dirt saves the day again. The luggage on the back of the bike flew off into the woods and Doug never could explain how he ended up walking around in the aftermath. Another check cashed. How much is in this Murphy account anyway? The good news was that he and the bike looked amazingly OK.

Back under way in the original direction, all was good until we realized Doug was missing again. This time after pulling over, Doug motored alongside and shouted, “I can’t get it out of first gear!” Quickly doing mental math, that meant a 30 mph top speed to cover the 500 miles back home with us in tow. Nope. That won’t work. Not having a clue what I was doing, I signaled for the group to turn around. There were no gas stations or much of anything else for miles. The sun was high the early afternoon and it was getting warm. Now leading the group (how did that happen?) I did the only thing I knew to do. Pray to the God Who had been cashing Murphy’s checks. “Lord, we need another miracle.” “This is a narrow road so we need a place to work on Doug’s bike.” “It would be nice if we can fix it, first gear is kinda slow.” “And if it’s not too much trouble to ask, could we find a place with shade and a flat surface?” It’s hard to work on stuff beside a narrow road at an angle. You’re just not sure when the next truck carrying a load of pulpwood drifting across the center line will take you out. With those prospects wafting through my mind as the closing thought of my earnest prayer, I glance to my left into a clearing.

To my left was a long, low red brick building with a hip roof and a steeple. On the entrance end of the building was an arched awning covering a porch. Making a command decision as if I knew to expect this all along, we all turn into a long driveway and ride down to a ground level portico covered with Astroturf. No bare hard concrete entrance for these Arkansas church going folks. Astroturf meant first class for their feet and my butt as Doug was waved underneath to shade from a glaring sun. As Al Michaels would famously yell after the impossible 1980 U.S. hockey team win over the Russians, “Do you believe in miracles? Yes!”

For a minute I sat staring at Doug’s bent gear shift lever, the faces gathered around and the roof of the church portico thinking, “Really God, you’ve got to be kidding. I don’t remember seeing this church the first time by, and Astroturf? Really? Thank you!” I half expected a waiter with a bow tie to come out of the front door with glasses of sweet iced tea on a tray. Our big problems were over.

Doug’s shift lever had been jammed underneath the engine case so he couldn’t pull it up. For a someone who had disassembled and repaired a Honda 450 transmission in a utility room as a 12 year old, this was thankfully a simple problem. I could see the solution in 3D immediately. Pull the pinch bolt, move the lever one notch lower on the shaft spline and voila. Don’t try bending it. If it breaks, Doug isn’t going anywhere without a truck. Another crisis averted. Sprinkle with holy water and we’re done.

It's funny how we see things, when and why. We didn’t see Doug and turned around. Doug was spared injury and had a running bike left to ride. I can’t see how. I don’t know why I turned around. With only first gear, what was ahead didn’t matter. We had to believe in miracles. Murphy’s check casher had been leading and protecting us the whole time. We just couldn’t see the guiding force. Maybe Murphy’s check casher was with that 12 year old in a hot, poorly lit utility room in the South in 1972. Maybe that was who helped the boy see for the first time that a bent shifter fork was why the Honda 450 was popping out of second gear. Maybe we’re shown things we don’t understand at the time so we can see anew to help others in need down the line. I’m grateful for this guidance working through others who see what I can’t.

When stuck in first gear (or any gear), pray for the covered porch and for those who can see. That’s a holy repair.

Anatomy of a Crash: Adventure Meets Ego

Crashes hurt. They’re life threatening. They’re expensive. Seemingly unexpected, we’re thankful for survival. We heal and move on. But are they really unpredictable? I don’t think so based on my years of living and riding experience. As Swiss psychologist, Carl Jung observed, “Until you make the unconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate.”

After breaking ribs and puncturing a lung in a more recent crash, I was reminded of another life maxim, “The lesson will be repeated until it is learned.” Apparently, I hadn’t learned my lesson from earlier crashes. This brings to mind a poster I’d seen on an office wall long ago. Published by Despair.com it pictures a shipwreck with the caption, “Mistakes, it could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others.” In honor of that purpose, I’d to share a story and a pattern that could save others a lot of pain in life’s crashes.

Every breath was another dagger in my side. Getting shallower and shallower with less oxygen, I was getting light headed. “Watch out for the rock!” I was still on the now heavier and bumpier KTM adventure bike trying to make it back to the truck. Normally, you stand up on the foot pegs to cushion yourself from the rocky terrain, but I couldn’t get up off the seat. The pain was too intense. Lost and separated from my riding partner, I was alone with hope fading between every strained breath. I could force myself to breath into the pain, but each one was getting shallower. With my lung collapsing and time running out, I wondered, how did I get here?

These situations like poker players have their “tells” or signals along the way. In poker, you play the other players, not the hand you’re dealt. Much of what we call fate is playing with our focus on the cards. We ignore streams of signals that a greater conscious awareness could pick up.

Stunned by an earlier motorcycle crash in 1995, I immediately went home and wrote down five successive “tells” that led up to it. Each of these signals were a decision point that could have avoided the crash. Handwritten in a notebook, I tucked them away. Then, a strange thing happened. I suffered other crashes in life while not on the bike. I began to notice that they formed a repeating pattern. I lost a job, suffered two broken family relationships and became estranged from my son. Each came as an abrupt “crash.” But, those seeds had been developing much earlier as I would see.

Beware of Your Ego Driven Emotion

It began innocently enough as these things do. A friend texted on a Sat morning asking if I wanted to visit the local KTM dealer with him. He had the done the research on their highly acclaimed new adventure bike that I’d never heard of. Unusually for me, I drove my truck there in shorts and flip flops. After a test ride, he hands his helmet to me saying, “Your turn.” So, there I was parading behind the dealer test ride leader until my ego told me, “Guys like you, ride bikes like this.” Having grown up on dirt bikes as a kid this really appealed to me. Again, unusually for me, I decided on the spot to buy a 2021 KTM 890 Adventure R.

Adventure bikes are designed to go anywhere on any terrain and carry more than a change of clothes with you. They are the best selling category of motorcycle, because the image they represent is irresistible in a buttoned down world. The new KTM could run the Paris to Dakar desert rally race off the showroom floor. It is the real deal.

On the positive side, this idea, vision and rationalization bypassed my thinking and appealed directly to my sense of identity. For example, ask someone, “Why did you by that red Mercedes?” “I got a good deal,” they reply. Nope. We make emotional decisions tied to our identity, then we use logic to cover our emotional tracks. This marketing sells a lot of cars.

Ever aimed to prove someone wrong who has rejected or underestimated you? Ego driven emotion also uses that as fuel tied to your core identity. It says, “I must gain acceptance from others or prove them wrong.” Once that link forms among identity, ego and emotions, your capacity to think and judge is colored for the rest of the process that follows. In this case, I was the 61 year old making a leap to call back earlier adventures. I had the vision and was on a mission.

The speed of the decision, the fact I did a test ride with flipflops (I don’t do this) and being with a friend were the tells. Seeds for a crash were planted.

Are You on a Familiar Path?

It had been 50 years since I had ridden off road on a 1972 Honda CL100, a bike designed for smooth dirt roads at best. Dirt is a lot of fun. You can fall down and it doesn’t hurt as much as the street. You can spin around doing donuts. You can explore logging roads until you get lost on a Sunday afternoon as a kid. It had a whopping 10 horsepower and weighed 200 lbs.

Fast forward to 2021, the KTM 890 Adventure R has 100 horsepower and weighs 464 lbs. That’s a big difference. My ego driven emotion bypassed this, saying things such as, “Off road riding is just like riding a bicycle, it’ll come back to you.” We all share a variety of attitude biases such as 90% of people believe they’re in the top 10% and so on. That meant not taking enough familiarization rides or admitting my rookie status by getting remedial coaching. Me, an experienced motorcycle rider getting coaching? Is my friend getting coaching? Not me. I was Hermes, the god of the dirt.

With that all conquering mindset, my friend and I trailered out to a local 2,500 acre adventure park to try out our new bikes. A new bike in a place I’d never been? A pattern is emerging here. Unlike the soft and loose sandy dirt, I’d known as a kid from the south, this was very rocky with concrete like hard surface trails. For a heavy bike, the KTM was easy to ride by emulating riders I’d seen on Youtube adventure ride videos. Modern equipment is so good that it takes you well past your abilities without much warning. All of this was confirming what my ego promised, “I’ve still got it.”

The reality is that my ego mindset combined with unaware unfamiliarity was taking me further out on a cliff like Wile E Coyote. I didn’t what I didn’t know and for a while, ignorance is bliss. Ask yourself, are you on familiar path? If the answer is no, then the risk of a crash is accumulating.

Live Your Pace

The park was massive. You could spend all day there and not see the same trail twice. There was a lot to discover. My friend had ridden there before years ago, so followed him at his pace. For the most part, I was getting the feel of the bike not knowing what was around the next turn. He showed some early signs of restraint by turning away from climbing what looked Bridal Veil Falls in Yosemite National Park. Whew… Then there was my first blind water crossing across a flowing creek. Employing my old sand surfing strategy, I held on loosely and kept the speed up. Yes! I’m Hermes after all. Ego confirmed once again.

To jump around on a 465 lbs. bike, no matter how much fun it is, you’ve got to have the trained stamina of an athlete to ride safely. During a break after our first loop in the park, I prophetically told my friend, “When you get tired, you make mistakes.” At the time, I was saying this theoretically, but after our second loop I was bone tired. Having been off bikes and riding a desk in a stressful job for the past four years, I was out of shape. The adventure morphine was wearing off and I was already feeling a bit of what I would tomorrow. Sore.

My friend, on the other hand, wanted to go for a third loop. Sitting on the trailer really wanting to pack it in and call it day, I made a third cumulative mistake. I ignored my own pace. It’s a law of nature that growth and strength mature at their own rates, not by our command or ignorance. As I would later learn, I was not exempt from the law of gravity either. It wasn’t me getting on the KTM for a third loop late in the afternoon, it was my ego identity matching the pace of my friend to keep this house of cards from falling down.

Heed the Warning Signs

After the safety of any remaining passengers, the black box recorder is a key piece of evidence that explains what happened in an airline crash. It shows what the airplane was telling the pilots and what they were doing, or not doing about it. Statistically, about 80% of investigated aircraft crashes are judged to be pilot error. That means warning signs were either not seen or heeded. There are always earlier warning signs in a crash. Always.

On the day of my crash, there were a number of warning signs I noticed, but discounted or overlooked. First, preparations for the ride were rushed. I literally bought protective gear after work the day before. With no time to test it on the bike, this would be a maiden voyage. Second, I did not bring enough food for what would obviously be a long day. There’s no taco stand in the middle of a sprawling adventure park and all we had were a few Clif bars. Third, I wear glasses and had no experience wearing those on a dirt bike with goggles other than skiing in Colorado. Snow and dry dusty conditions are not the same. Fourth, my friend fell twice during the first two loops. One, a simple tip over (these bikes are tall) and in the other, he disappeared into the woods on a dicey bend in the trail. Hello?

Finally, my fatigue was the equivalent of a Master Caution light along with all the other idiot lights flashing on my mental dashboard. Why didn’t I heed any one of these warnings? Because risk is systematically cumulative. Can you imagine paying compound interest on multiple loans on the same collateral? It builds faster than you realize. Once this inertia bypasses your better instincts from the beginning, it grows from being a light bicycle you can peddle to a runaway freight train you can’t stop. How do I know?

My older brother’s son was killed along with all three of his friends at the wheel of a car, racing on I-40 in North Carolina at night. It was the day before his high school graduation. When the full story unfolded, his son’s decision to downshift and accelerate the Mitsubishi Eclipse convertible was driven by a freight train of inertia. By then, it was too late. Succumbing to the last of taunts by Shiba the god of death in the other car, the Eclipse spun into a head on crash.

I ignored warning signs from the beginning, because the ego blinds and warps our ability to see reality. Equally blind, Air Force Col Arthur “Bud” Holland crashed a B52 bomber at Fairchild Air Force base in 1994 killing Holland and three other officers aboard who knew of his reputation for taking unnecessary risks. Tragically, the inertia debt came due.

Look Where You Are Going

Coming around a bend on the third loop of the park, we turned down yet another unexplored spur road taking us to a scenic overlook. For reasons I still don’t understand, I was in the lead. We had been through a wide variety of rock formations by then and their novelty had worn off. I don’t like riding on rocks. They are hard.

The spur trail bent hard right on a rocky turn and immediately before me was a descending rock staircase. It was as long as the one Jack walks down to Rose in the movie Titanic. Only these steps were much larger. The bike bucked around as I stood with my butt hanging out back for ballast. Now noticing that my goggles were silted with dust, I was straining to see the best path to the bottom of the steps.

This is the last of the pattern of perils leading to a crash. “Target fixation” is looking at the hazard you want to avoid which is the surest way to hit it. Like a microscope, the cumulative four factors narrowed my view of immediate options. Not seeing the bigger picture leads to doubling down on avoidance or denial. Getting lost in the process is remembering to look where you’re going with a wider, more flexible view. By that point bouncing down a rock staircase straight out of the Lord of the Rings, I had lost my flexibility. At the bottom of the staircase the charade of my ego met its match.

While in this dust blinded, tired and bucking stupor, the front of the bike went violently sideways at the bottom of the staircase. Forcing my right arm to stretch out with the handlebars, my right side pancaked on the hard packed road. I was down hard in a millisecond. Stunned, I rolled over as my friend came over and picked up the bike. Continuing my pattern of denial, I thought, “Crashes happen…, is the bike OK?” Getting back on, I had no idea what had just happened. The force of the impact broke four right side ribs, one of which punctured my lung. With the adrenaline kicked in, I didn’t feel it at first. My friend, thinking it was back to riding as usual, took off. Trying to keep up, I hit a bump and the pain hit me a medieval spiked steel ball on a chain. Everything hurt. Thinking even hurt. My friend now too far away for me to catch up, I knew I had to get back to the truck. Only the buzzards would find me our here.

Breaking the biker code of not leaving your wingman, I rode across a familiar path. “There’s hope.” Then, my breathing became shallower and shallower. I felt like I was suffocating while trying the make the KTM handle bumps like a Rolls Royce. Air in my lungs vs. rocky road vs. medieval pain vs. time to the truck, which one would win? I didn’t know, but I knew that I didn’t want to fall down again. There was no way I could pick up the bike or walk out. This horse had to get me home.

The forty minutes it ultimately took to get back to the truck from there was enough time to blunt my ego driven inertia. I had seen this movie before and didn’t want to see it again. What was I thinking? Answer, I wasn’t thinking with all my faculties. Pilot error again.

Thanks to breathless answered prayers, I made it back to the truck and the gritted through the ride to the ER. In continued grace, they were able to insert a chest tube and reinflate my lung. The pain daggers were still there, but I could breathe. I met so many great people and a couple of fellow bikers in the medical profession. They get you pain meds real fast.

About this time, I start thinking about the aftermath of my decisions, then remorse kicks in for those who cared about me. During my ambulance transport to another trauma level one hospital with the chest tube inserted, I waited in the second ER for a long time by myself. My long suffering wife had not shown up yet. Lying on the gurney, finally comfortable enough to wonder where she was, I thought, “Well, she’s had enough of me and is using this opportunity to finally leave me. It was a good run.” I deserved it. That’s ego’s return on investment.

Breaking the Pattern

There’s a proverb that says, “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.” Humility is the antidote to ego and its triggering emotions. These emotions tell us a story about our own image and foster contempt for what we don’t want others to see. I wanted to be the aged adventure rider recapturing past glories by buying the bike and not doing the work. Tired of feeling behind, I didn’t want others nor my friend to see my weakness. This kind of contempt cuts us off from crucial wisdom by one simple thing. I didn’t listen and I didn’t ask. “I” knew better.

Curiosity though, is a counterforce for such contempt. Why are you doing or about to do what you are doing? What’s really driving the inertia? Given permission, what would others who know you well say? These are the better questions to ask yourself.

There are easier ways to interrupt this pattern before it takes broken ribs or other trauma. We can heed Carl Jung’s admonition to become conscious of the unconscious. That takes self awareness. It means doing our interior work without short cuts or blaming fate.

Will I sell the KTM? No, I was having too much fun on those first two loops. Will I examine myself and my real motives? Yes.

The black box doesn’t lie.

Failure to Communicate: Driven to Drink by Tech Support

“Press option 2 if you want to hear a recorded message of false hope. Press option 3 if want to speak to a representative at 3:00 AM your local time. You are now number 346 in queue.” Been there? You’ve tried reading the manual in 86 languages. You’ve downloaded the app. You’ve pressed all the buttons in every possible sequence. And now you’re waiting as the original dream fades, steeling yourself to relive a tale of frustration. Hopefully there won’t be a language barrier. Poor customer service is salt in the wound of feeling dumb. It’s a last resort.

That’s where we found ourselves, in the penalty box. The dream of talking among ourselves while riding on group motorcycle trips is a game changer. Real time communication makes the difference between avoiding hazards ahead, running out of gas, making a wrong turn or, God forbid, leaving anyone behind. For years, we had relied on improvised biker sign language open to wide interpretation. “Did he just shoot me the bird? Am I #1? or am I supposed to look up? In its best form viewed from above, it looks like an ant farm on two wheels. Start, stop, turn around and the common question, where did they go?

Determined to get on the same party line for our next trip, we committed to buy the same brand of helmet communicator which cost as much as a mid range smart phone. For some of us that meant buying new helmets to mount these. At the price of a high end smart phone, new helmets are not a cheap date. Getting bikers to buy stuff like this is hard as dollars compete for more chrome and other mods that make the feel of the riding experience better. No, this was an investment in safety and the soft, gooey relationship stuff. Do bikers have hearts. Yes!

It turns out that you have to be physically together to put all these communicators on the same frequency. Simply follow a process of standing on one foot, do a chant and hold a button for 5 seconds. There we were in my garage planning for the trip like ladies at a cosmetics party trying various schemes, asking the Verizon Wireless question repeatedly, “Can you hear me now?” Tiring of this mating dance, we settled for two smaller groups who could connect with others whose phone lines were dead. How hard could it be? Really hard. The sponsors of this big idea, sensing the awkwardness of the moment, feigned urgency and left the party early. It would be another one of those hand signing trips after all.

Aiding our communication in other ways was the decision to rent a house as a base camp vs. splitting up in separate motel rooms. Complete with a long accommodating kitchen table, it was the perfect set up for story telling and more off road bonding experiences. There’s nothing like sharing a meal together on the road. With no women around, you can eat meat without vegetables, a kale salad, or with your bare hands if you want. Anything goes. Two wheels offers freedom from all kinds of constraints. Emboldened after a great meal around the table, we decided while in freedom mode to demand our rights as consumers of a certain helmet communicator brand. They had broken their promise to us. After a vote, we decided that we’re weren’t stupid after all.

Wearing our helmets around the table looking like we were at a space mission briefing, we took a big swing at the problem. We called customer service. After sword fighting through gauntlet of menus designed to keep us away from a live person, we ended up with an earnest young woman. After a number of customer service battle scars, you get a sense for these things, and mine was telling me that her crisp responses were from reading a script. “Yes, we tried that already.” “Oh, you want us all to reset to factory defaults?” Gulp. “OK.” Sitting at the head of the table with the phone, I felt like I was leading a prayer meeting where you wore helmets to protect you from what was about to fall out of the sky. Slaves to the heavenly gate controller on the phone, we just sat there in compliance until she apparently ran out of everything in her script. We’re weren’t getting in.

It's funny where your eyes go during these times of futility. Mine fell upon a bottle of Iron Wolf bourbon from the Spicewood, Texas distillery whose motto is, “For the strength of the Pack is the Wolf, and the strength of the Wolf is the Pack.” ― Rudyard Kipling

Deciding to be the wolf for our gathered pack, I thanked the customer service representative for her thorough, patient efforts concluding with, “Your (unnamed) brand’s product design and byzantine instructions have driven us to the only solution at hand; drink away this experience.”

One of the most important qualities a design engineer needs is empathy. They need to be able to put themselves in a seat around that table, or the earlier garage cosmetics connection party. They need to know what pioneers feel when their recommendation proves costly and frustrating for their friends. Companies who sell these products should give those answering the phone more than a script to work with. How would you feel if your expensive smart phone would randomly connect with only a few people?

Exercising our true freedom, we removed our helmets and lifted a toast. Against a backdrop of 10 bikers on an epic trip complete with tales of wonder and brotherly rescue, this was a minor inconvenience. No one, not even a poor product experience, could take anything away from us.

It’s what real wolves and their fellowship pack know.

Clutch Moves

Age is a state of mind. Never was that truer than for three grown men racing like boys south on a deserted Texas 118. Screaming engines were in perfect harmony with Randy Meisner’s high notes in the Eagle’s hit song, “Take It to the Limit One More Time.” There’s nothing else quite like a mechanical concerto with no audience around to cheer for miles. It was just us, the machines and our limits. Being responsible adults in a world of constraints we were living beyond budgets, legalities, social boundaries and reason. Little did we know, the music was about to die.

Playing a game of musical chairs meets motorcycles, I was on Robb’s R1250RS with BMW’s newest motor and switchblade handling.  Robb was on Randy’s R1250RT with the same motor but more of a gentleman’s express with bowtie looks. Randy, taking up the rear, was on my ten year older R1200RT with classic looks which is the nice thing you say about men in their 60’s. This combination of bikes and personalities left Randy, the fastest rider, on the slowest bike. When we pulled the pin out of the grenades for launch, he was not to be denied. Full expression of a biker’s personality comes out on someone else’s motorcycle. Treated only slightly better than a rental car, no one can wring out your bike like a trusted friend on a long empty road. Randy was whipping the old horse for all it was worth.

Killing our music was a decision made much earlier by people we didn’t even know. In this case, someone nearly 6,000 miles away in Munich, Germany made one of those back in 2003 mysteriously ending our fun. Like the rest of us, Randy had whacked the throttle wide open to keep up when the motor suddenly went to cut out. It would idle, but it wouldn’t rev. This is not too useful in the middle of nowhere along the 82 mile route from Alpine to Study Butte in Big Bend.

In a weird bit of fortune, I brought the one tool needed to remove the plastic panels covering the engine on my older BMW. In the sun by the road with Randy scratching his head over what happened, I did triage surgery on the BMW. When you’re used to fixing things with tie wraps and roadside prayer, there’s always hope. I was already imagining how to swap throttle cables when I came face to face with not one, but the three likely decision makers in Germany. This horse would breathe, but it was lame for the rest of the trip. A piece of black plastic broken by the throttle cable fell on the ground told the story.

Let’s call them Leopold the designer, Otto the accountant and Wilbur the test engineer. Leo decides that it would be easier to make a throttle cable lever out of plastic than steel. This is the critical part that turns your twisting right hand into a faster spinning motor. It’s the lever behind the go button. Otto the accountant approves because it’s cheaper or maybe Otto told Leo to make it cheaper. Who knows? Then Wilbur’s job is to make sure this actually works because if it breaks, you’re stuck. “What were they thinking?” These ideas usually have a noble beginning like shaving an ounce of weight and a few cents off of a 571 pound motorcycle. Regardless, none of these guys were there to help and the sun was getting hot with limited options.

Every great story has a hero and we had ours. Rodney is the crazy, fun uncle you had as a kid who drove a Ford F250 and rode a Harley Davidson. Entertainingly opinionated with a heart of gold, we called him “Clutch” because in the direst situations, he would make a clutch move. Never immune from our good natured ribbing, we made fun of his six shooter style Harley pipes that kept falling off and his immediate appearance when pizza with certain ingredients was served. We love Rodney.

As Randy and I were drawing straws over who was going to stay with the bike or strike out for help, Rodney rides up on his “loud pipes save lives” Harley. Quickly surveying the situation, he shouts, “I’ll go get my truck and trailer!” After the Harley storms off, Randy and I realize that it’s at least 100 miles back and forth from Alpine. It’s going to be a while. Then, in the shimmering distance, we saw what we thought was a store. Where was that before? I figure out how to ride a heavy bike at idle along the side of the road while Randy rides his bike over. Hopefully, this not a mirage because Randy is a diabetic. If he doesn’t eat, bad things happen. The plot thickens.

It's easy to miss the big picture in life. These unplanned interruptions give you a chance to reflect, if they’re long enough. I ran the gamut of emotions over how our fun ended and had a number of arm waving conversations with Leo, Otto and Wilbur. Of course, I just wanted to be helpful to the next rider. As we motorheads say, my mind was wrapped around the axle. That’s personality, character is another story. Our personalities show up in childlike fun, character is revealed when the fun is interrupted. Prejudice and pride fall are exposed for what they are. Even though you have a prestigious BMW, it’s still a dead BMW. Even though we can figure out our fair share of problems, there are those we can’t nor are we are intended to.

Rodney rode his Harley 164 miles and drove his truck another 100 miles that day on 118. He made another clutch move. You can say it’s common courtesy or biker code, but I don’t think so. Through the scrum of the rescue, loud pipes and hooking up a trailer by himself, Rodney remembered that Randy needed food and brought him a Wendy’s hamburger 50 miles from Alpine. He remembered that we were left beside the road. That’s empathy. That’s care.

You’ll notice that I’ve used a number of labels whether brands, nationalities and attitudes in the telling of this story. These are too often the way we categorize people as a matter of relationship short hand. I’ve done it.

There’s a book that says, “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” Clutch moves are another word for sacrifice revealing that we are far more than our labels.

A Harley and a Ford didn’t rescue a BMW. A friend rescued his friends. Riding a Harley with loud pipes falling off 164 miles is a supreme sacrifice in my book.

When Your Wife Becomes a Pit Babe

“You can’t always get what you want, but if you try, sometimes you get what you need,” sings Mick Jagger of the Rolling Stones. That was the anthem for my 40th birthday. Usually, these were planned affairs accommodating the needs of many. It’s a gift, right? For reasons still unknown, my wife Janet that year came out and simply asked me what I wanted. “Hmm, is this a trick question?” 40 is a unique birthday. According to Social Security actuarial tables, your life is half over. At the apex of life’s highest curve, I told her what I wanted in “Wow, this is as good as it gets” detail. Then I waited for the negotiation around my weirdness and the realities involved. Except, it never came. She did exactly what I asked for. Should I be worried?

One of the G rated items on my list was a motorcycle track day near Ft. Worth Texas. Motorsport Ranch at the time was a 1.3 mile tight paved course for those with fast cars and motorcycles. Chaperoned by experienced riding instructors, these events help the rider learn that their motorcycle is far more capable than they are. Check your ego at the door. It’s not a race; rather, it’s guided exploration of riding technique in an environment much safer and legal than on public roads. In other words, no cops, no worries. Said exploration process can and does involve the real risk of a crash.

Delighted, yet surprised by this gift, there were three possibilities. First, seeing me recently buy a 150 horsepower Yamaha R1 sport bike capable of a 172 mph top speed (classified info at the time), she wanted to explore my new world of speed with loving curiosity. Second, she held visions of being one of those skimpily dressed pit babes holding a shade umbrella over her gladiator on the race track starting line. Or third, there was insurance money to be collected and who could blame her for being such a supportive wife? I went with option one and prayed for option two. She is hot after all.

There are few things more stirring to a man’s soul than his girl wanting a taste of the gooey center in his passions. It’s as if they came into your man cave, smiled and popped open a beer without commenting on your décor or cleanliness of the place. Comfortable acceptance feels good. She brought the full package, lunch for the day, her Canon camera and the umbrella. Always in pursuit of impressing her Wile E Coyote style, this would be my magnum opus.

When you mention “race track” what comes to mind for most people is what they’ve seen on video like Indianapolis or Daytona. Stadium seating or sky boxes allow spectators to take in all the action, rooting for their favorite drivers. Club tracks like Motorsport Ranch on the other hand, are designed with only the driver in mind. Aside from the sprawling, usually flat, track in a field there are metal industrial buildings scattered across a large parking area. Have you ever picked a vacation spot by images of Balinese huts arrayed over clear blue water and found yourself in a Ramada Inn by the ice machine facing the parking lot? That folks, were Janet’s spectator accommodations.

Two existential problems were at work here. In the evolved version of “Look Ma! No hands!” I really wanted to impress Janet, showing her that I could handle those 150 raging horses under rein with a flick of my right wrist without becoming bug spat on the side of a metal building. Really, I just wanted her to have a good time on one of my crazy endeavors. All men have (or should have) insane ideas to keep themselves from joining a long gray line of gelded manhood. When your girl is willing to join you, that’s the special sauce. That’s not to say there’s no give and take or consideration of consequence. It’s “willingness” that keeps the hope of possibility alive in a committed relationship. Having seen a flicker of that flame in this mother of all birthday outings, I wanted to keep it burning. Going on 17 years, we weren’t newlyweds anymore.

Wearing my matching red riding suit with the usual butterflies of being on a track with other fast guys, I settled down and remembered how to ride the bike. Always start with the fundamentals. On a short twisty track like this, your skill and technique are more important than raw horsepower. It’s not a drag race. Mind bending focus is required for each 20 minute session. There’s no time to think about anything off the track. Yet around a sweeping turn called Big Bend which opened onto the only straight section, I could make my Wile E Coyote move. Janet, would of course be watching from the chain link fence between the straight and the parking lot. Big Bend was my chance to keep possibility alive! Relationship and manhood were on the line.

The combination of a liter of 93 octane burning fury in a motor spinning at 9,000 RPM cocked over in an unfolding corner and a coyote brain equals a wheelie down the front straight. Front wheel in the air, “That ought to keep the flame alive,” I thought. Rinse and repeat each lap. Idling back into the pit area with adrenaline spent, I looked for a pit babe shimmying a “Let’s party” dance with high fives. “Hmm…, where is she?” Parking by our RV and trailer, I thought, “She must have another kind of birthday surprise for me; I’m sweaty but good with that.”  Stepping inside with full gear still on, all I could hear was the sound of crickets… “Is anyone home?” Resolving the mystery, Janet walked down the hall from the back bedroom with a yawn saying, “I was just taking a nap, are you hungry?” This is known in track day terms as a non sequitur. Was our flame in jeopardy?

In the end, my pit babe checked everything off the 40th list making it the best birthday curve I’ve ever apexed. Many tend experience life as growth and decline. It’s gravity, right? What goes up, must come down. Some things defy those curves though where the flame of possibility transcends the gravity of age. Beyond proving I could ride a racing motorcycle in a circle without falling down, it proved that presence, not impression was really what I wanted and needed all along. Her “willingness” to be with me at a track day was the gift, of herself.

Hot wives like her are the pit babes’ real men need.

Baptisms and a Harley Riding Pastor

Always be prepared, for anything. The winds of the spirit blow out of nowhere bringing a bolt of lightning. “Do think there’s anywhere to get baptized around here?” This is normally a question posed to the robed papacy in buildings with stained glass. The question bolted through my Bluetooth helmet communicator from my friend Robb while following him on county road 166 in the Davis mountains of Texas. You talk about a lot of things on motorcycle trips like the best oil to run, tall tales and are the steaks done? Baptisms? Not so much.

Not one for idle chit chat, Robb is a thoughtful, meticulous former club road racer so this was no “hold my beer” kind of proposal. Seeking to buy time, I offer a consultant’s accurate, yet unspecific reply of, “I’m sure there’s water around here somewhere.” For entertaining reasons covered in another story, Robb and I were the only two of ten riders who could communicate at the moment. What are the odds? Being a people pleaser and problem solver, I immediately start sorting out the ingredients for such a holy endeavor while avoiding deer and the occasional Jeep sized Jackrabbit on narrow 166.

Let’s see, Alpine is the nearest town with stoplights. Surely a church is there. Check. Full tub immersion was needed for a man of Robb’s faith, no sprinkler head would do. Probably a check. Pastor with credentials? “Hmm, who do I know?” Empty check box. Coming to my senses as we see a deer sprinting off to the left, I realize this choice is a deeply personal matter. Venturing the next logical question, not knowing if Robb was tire kicking or ready to buy the car, “Who did you have in mind to do your baptism?” His immediate reply of, “You” put this proposal into a completely different orbit. Does a man who shares Robb’s faith with a Texas motorcycle license endorsement qualify?

Rationalization is needed in moments like these. Applying the biker law of association, my faith to ride a Norton Commando with no brakes and officiating an earlier wedding ought to qualify me. Right? Nope. Robb asked in faith and that was the only thing that mattered. Check.

This is going to be a long sentence so stay with me. Another friend and I made a run at buying our local BMW dealer, losing out, but meeting one of the owners who retired to Study Butte in Big Bend where he and his wife CC attended a church in Terlingua who was so nice to us during a ride by drop in on a precious trip that as Facebook friends she came to mind as I’m still watching out for animals on 166. Surely, she would have a lead on where we could do this? With only tomorrow remaining on our trip, time was short. Basically, we needed a warm tub of water in a church pretty much tonight.

Sending her a Facebook message at the next stop, I wait to see how this hail Mary lands in the end zone. Nervous to see what happens, my mind starts churning, “What do I say?” “I Baptist thee in the name of Harley, BMW and Honda,” covering all the faiths? No matter how many times you’ve witnessed it, you get nervous when it’s you up front. As I looked around the room after we landed back at our home base in Alpine, I sensed a peace and grace that Robb would be among a fellowship who were his adopted family. Ours’ is an uncommon bond of love forged over a number of bike builds, trips and unconditional acceptance.

My iPhone buzzed. Wasting no time, CC told me that she had made contact with an Alpine church pastor who had already driven from home and was filling the baptismal. Being much larger than a Jacuzzi, these things take time. Preempting any concern, I may have had, she paused and said, “Don’t worry, he rides a Harley.” That was enough of a sign from the heavens for me. Swinging into action, our entire group mounted up with Robb and I packing for the holy waters and rode the few miles to the modest church on a hill. As promised, there stood the pastor beside his Harley Softail with fringed bags and everything. You just can’t make this stuff up folks.

Looking out from the warm water into the pews standing next to Robb, we were taken by the talent in our biker gang. One played the guitar, another read poignant scripture and all sang. I saw something else though in the pews beyond our small gathering. A chorus of angels were celebrating Robb’s faith and the brotherhood lifting him up along with the Harley riding pastor.

It has never been about the bike. It’s about faith and fellowship.

Thai Food, Tires and Personal Boundaries

Drenched at Shell gas station in Burnet, Texas pelted by a violent thunderstorm and a tsunami of adrenaline, I was done. It’s one of the moments when you’ve gone beyond your limits and survived. There’s nothing left in the cupboard and your body says, “No more.” Being with Randy, my long time riding buddy, I wasn’t alone. Dealing with adversity and massive thunderstorm fronts on a motorcycle are best done in pairs. Like Hemingway’s Old Man and the Sea giant blue marlin, you need a witness. We had caught the 1,000+ pound marlin all right, but that thunderstorm had its hooks in us. Boundaries though, are an exquisitely personal thing. Put two people together under pressure and they will literally float to the surface as this story unfolds.

It began as these things usually do with an early glass half full or empty prediction. Some people plan for the worst case and others minimize for the best case. Taking a motorcycle trip involves a lot of decisions and small details that can become crucial later on. At best, it’s a healthy kind of joyful paranoia. At its worst you’ll have an EMS truck and trailer with a spare bike following you everywhere. My friend Randy is a maximizer. He has the best of everything and everything in its place. He loves to ride and has the ratio of joyfull paranoia finely tuned for a great trip.

On the other hand, I have a tendency to start backyard brush fires with diesel fuel and a low pressure garden hose as my fire protection device. Once the flames instantly became as tall as the house, it’s time to call the Fire Department. True story. I just think differently. With that philosophy as my guide, I take a look at the tires on my BMW touring bike before a 1,400 mile round trip to Big Bend. Randy and I love riding there. Doing the math, I considered the hassle of getting these changed and how much life they have left. Conclusion? “Good enough.”

At the time, Randy and I had the exact same BMW R1200RT. We were evenly matched when it came to tearing up twisty roads between the longer distances where you hit the cruise control and groove to the tunes in your helmet. I’ll admit that Randy is the better rider which is fine by me. When I’m giving chase, he’s spontaneous and fun. Remember that for later. Most of the miles for a touring bike are straight ahead which wears out the center of your tires faster than on their sides. Big Bend is a dry desert with coarse pavement that offers a lot of tire grip when leaned over. And, I had plenty of side grip which we both put to good use. As Randy would say, “We had a large time.”

Dressing up for these trips is another set of “good enough” decisions not because your stuff wears out, but because you have to tick so many different boxes. Hot or cold? Wet or dry? Fast or slow? Finally including whatever you will be wear when you get there. Having T-boned a deer riding an earlier bike with helmet, gloves and a T-shirt on, I’d made the decision years prior to buy the best available protective gear regardless of cost. Wanting to impress my wife with a newfound commitment to safety, I modelled it proudly for her. She’s always been supportive of my riding, though with a melancholy sense of humor. Looking up at me she said with a bit of congratulatory flourish, “You’re going to look great in the coffin!” Not what I expected, “Good enough though.” I’ll take it.

Randy shares this philosophy so we both wear Aerostich suits legendary among the hard core riding community. Thankfully, the undertaker will have less work to do on both of us. There ought to be a discount for that, but I digress. These suits are like putting on Tony Stark’s Ironman suit. You feel invincible and believe you can ride through anything. They even come in custom colors. I’ve had mine for over 25 years.

We’re getting to the boundary part, but it’s important to appreciate that for all intents and purposes we were Marvel characters on two wheels flying in rhythmic formation to the bass beat. What could go wrong? The one global variable that we can’t control, Texas weather.

The way back home from Big Bend is 400 miles, two gas stops and about 7 hours over the wide, straight and stretching expanse of west Texas. Like running a marathon, it takes a certain mentality to save something for the end of a ride like this. When you get tired, you make mistakes. Rain makes this worse. At first, it was a drizzle as we turned east out of Ft. Stockton only a few miles into the return trip and never stopped. No problem, we’re dry inside of our Marvel suits. Press on.

Often when you find yourself in a tight spot, it’s a drip by drip matter of degree gone unnoticed. The drizzle became a solid rain, then lightning and thunder, then a sideways driving rain. This was sort of a problem in that the Aerostich has one admitted weakness. In a hard rain the crotch leaks. “Hmm, wet underwear, but we’re getting closer to home.” Press on.

Torrential rains eventually lead to a version of Defcon 5 for a motorcyclist, flooding. The road had pools of water everywhere that we were weaving through like playing Dodgeball at comical, Marvel speeds. This is when another biker phenomenon kicks in. Seeing Randy not stopping, means this must not be a problem. It’s also known by the associative property of “How hard can it be?”

Right about then, I hit a pool of water. With a loose grip on the handlebars, I felt both wheels of my loaded BMW “float” over it. That got my attention snapping an earlier “good enough” decision into consciousness. Randy’s new tires had tread allowing the water to squeeze from underneath the rubber maintaining contact with the asphalt. In contrast, mine were two in line flat bottom water skies. Not good. No wonder he is the more fearless wet crotched Marvel character.

The Colorado river just before coming into Burnet runs underneath a long bridge over a dam on highway 29. By now, I’m very gingerly handling the controls as I ski along behind Randy. Thinking about how flat those bridges are with water cascading evenly over their pavement, there’s not many ways to play Dodgeball there. Pondering that, Randy and I come up behind a Jeep and truck throwing up rooster tails of blinding water. Randy’s signature spontaneity kicks in where he treads the needle between the two vehicles at a 45 degree pass across the center line into a clear air ahead of me. Affectionally called “squirrel mode,” this is darting at any angle, any direction at any time. I love Randy, I really do.

Left behind the Jeep with my eyes straining toward the bridge ahead, the driver suddenly slams on the brakes to make a left turn. Mere feet ahead I grab my brakes as much as I dare while my heart comes out of my chest on a spring flying forward. Bouncing off the tailgate of the Jeep on its way home, I’m wondering in slow motion what happens when the skis go sideways out from under me. Unlike the lake ahead, the pools of water underneath are not that deep. As my heart was snapping back into my chest and thoughts shifting from Randy’s squirrel move, the Jeep made the turn. Hallelujah! I’ll take a flooded flat bridge over a stopped Jeep as rolls of thunder clapped their approval.

Riding through Burnet as the rain became even more intense, we found shelter near the pumps of a Shell gas station. With the Jeep brand embossed on my heart, I got off the bike thankful to be wet, worn out and in one piece. Randy comes bounding over and says with his new tire, maximizing certainty, “Let’s keep going, I think it’s going to pass away from us.” Not sharing his enthusiasm and having hopefully learned my lesson about “good enough,” I said in a rare spec of wisdom, “Let’s see what the weather radar says.” Turns out that we had been riding along in it with the radar colors you don’t want to see where we were going.

My intensely personal boundaries surfaced like a Hemingway’s 1,000 marlin. Turning to see a Thai restaurant right next to the Shell station in a small Texas town under a thunderstorm, I went into my own squirrel mode saying, “I’m cold and hungry, I’m gonna go have some curry and dry out.” Randy chose food over more Marvel adventure action and we had a great conversation as we usually do. There’s nothing like surviving to tell the war stories especially when you’re complicit in starting the war.

Deciding your “good enough” is a healthy form of paranoia, known as boundaries by another name. Respecting those for yourself and others makes room for enjoying the marrow of life without too much drama. Four broken ribs and a punctured lung later taught me that more personally, but that’s another story.

New tires are a good thing. Thai places seem to be just where you need them. Don’t put too much stock in your Marvel suit and don’t show it to your wife.

Friends of adventure are for life.

Lost in Translation: A Rocky Mountain High

Riding on a motorcycle trip is very much like flying an airplane. Fly the plane, navigate and know how to communicate with others along the way. It’s a lot to do all at the same time, particularly when two out of those three are challenged. Our riding group was making way through the Gunnison National Forest having launched from Taos, New Mexico early that morning. Relying on paper maps stuffed in our leader’s tank bag, we were feeling our way along from stop to stop. We knew we’d have to stay overnight somewhere north of Gunnison to make the ride a two day loop. I wasn’t worried. Out front, Brett was our supremely confident General Douglas McArthur before the Philippine invasion.

These were guys I came to call the “Sport Bike Militia.” I’d met them a while back after a buying bike that could keep up.  Finding myself in that era of sensible responsibility with a wife, kids and a mortgage, I needed their brand of edgy energy only speed brings. Could I keep up? That was the unspoken question. 20 years of mature responsibility had passed since my last hair raising experience on a motorcycle. I needed to see if I could find the grove again. Age has a way of enhancing memories like a T-shirt I’d seen that said, “The older I get, the faster I was…” I didn’t want to be the grandpa featured on a legendary Harley Davidson commercial who told his grandchildren he’d bought aluminum siding instead of the bike. The stories you write for yourself and tell others need the speedometer of truth.

Like fighter pilots, sport bike riders have an ego that says they can make it through the next corner or set the fastest lap time. I’m not talking about those who ride around with shorts, flip flops and their custom painted helmet hanging on the side of the bike for show. Brett got my attention when I saw his blood type stitched on the waist of his letter riding jacket. That’s a big help for emergency personal, not a death wish. No, these were real bikers who took their craft seriously. Even though their egos clashed among one another from time to time, I wanted to be like them.

There are those who are moved by expertly choreographed stage performances of classical ballets. Dancer’s moving in timed unison on the gravity defying tips of their toes are art in human motion. This trip was a Swan Lake performance among men and their machines whose choreography was no less gravity defying. Staged behind them, learning rhythms that suspend fear and cleanse the mind, I was living the dream again.

After one stirring scene of this ballet, we came to a T intersection of the mountainous two lane road near a lake a short walk away. Consulting the map with no guiding road signs or a GPS, we were lost. On the late side of afternoon, a wrong turn now could end our hopes of making the loop. Visions of ending up in a Motel 6 near an interstate highway without a well stocked bar came to mind. Having never ridden the route, none of us had a clue.

Fighter pilots don’t ask for directions. Being desperate though, we noticed a group of Harley riders gathered around an RV parked at the edge of the lake nearby. You have to understand that a sport bike rider asking for anything from Harley riders requires two things. First, humility because you likely had passed them earlier at warp speed as they rode in staggered formation. Where’s the decency? Second, let’s just say that the demographics and life perspectives are very different between these riding groups. In a weird twist, it’s like cowboys and Indians. Sport bikers are the Indians on horses from foreigner lands coming out of nowhere with disregard for the superior pedigree of American “big iron.” This is a twisted analogy I know, but roll with me.

A decision had to be made. Swallowing all of the aforementioned dynamics, Brett walks over to the group with his map, riding leathers and hat in hand. For a while, we see him talking, pointing and waving while being relieved that he’s our worthy emissary. For a sport biker, Brett can talk really good. When he comes back, we’re relieved to make the loop after all. That many Harley riders can’t be wrong. Explaining his encounter with another culture, Brett tells us that after saying “Hi,” then rolling right into his lengthy story of how we got lost and asked how to complete the loop complete with arm motions and everything. There was a long silence. With some reluctance one brave soul in the Harley group then blurted out, “Vee are German” in a thick Bavarian accent.

It’s amazing how those three words expose so many stereotypes. Harleys are designed to be easier to ride which is why they are available for rental. This group had flown over, rented bikes and an RV chase vehicle to explore just like us. There were no attitude differences. We were actually speaking the same two wheeled language. We just couldn’t put it into words. Riding on two wheels is an international code of connection.

Making a best guess on directions from there, we arrived in Delta, Colorado on the northern tip of the loop so we could return west along the famed “Million Dollar” highway. Better than a Motel 6, the place had a pool and a hot tub to relax our creaking backs from a hunched over riding position. Advantage Harley. Finding the hot tub, we also found our German friends doing their best Octoberfest impressions without the lederhosen and plenty of beer. They really knew how to have a good time.

The next day, Brett’s alter ego Gary, who rode the same newly designed Yamaha 1,000 cc YZF-R1, asked to switch bikes with me for the more comfortable seat on my Honda VFR750. I’d been craving a chance to ride either one of those pair of rockets the whole time. Playing it close, I said, “I don’t know Gary, the butt is a tender thing on a long ride.” I wanted him to be sure in case I wadded up his new bike with a handful of throttle. Noticing that I wasn’t wearing flip flops, he insisted and I accepted. Harkening back to my earlier need for speed, this would answer a lot of questions. Some say it’s about the bike. Some say it’s about the rider. This is yet another of life’s false choices. It’s about both.

Pulling away from our lunch stop on the first stretch of open road, I gave this horse full rein and spurs in the four throttle bodies. “Good Lord!!” It was like an F16 launching with full afterburner off the catapult of an aircraft carrier. It had a ride by wire system connected directly to my brain. At the speed of thought, the R1 does what you want with no fuss, force needed or delay. Right now.

Twisting that throttle was the answer to my 20 year question. I still had the nerve and desire to explore what a fast horse will do. No aluminum siding for me. Selling the VFR, I bought my own R1. Just looking at it bridged early in life feelings of reaching escape velocity from a world of worries. This was the Andy only the militia could see when the dance started. It might be what warriors and ballet dancers feel. I don’t know.

There was a larger story of translation at work here. Those Harley riding Octoberfest Germans kept coming to mind. Their infectious gusto in celebration of life with each other was a dance of its own. What I had really missed was fellowship among those of shared passion. The motorcycle is just a tool for making memories and the ballet shoes that let others in on the joy.

Getting lost is often how we find ourselves by unexpected guides along the way. I’m thankful for Brett’s humility, that’s the translation I needed.

Carpal Tunnel, Chicago Pizza and German Throttle Springs

Friends don’t let friends ride sick. Dave was not a man who could ride from Austin, Texas to a BMW rally in Colorado, then home to Ann Arbor, Michigan. I could see it now, fever and chills in a Clovis, New Mexico motel with two bikes in the parking lot and only one rider. Having known him a long time, I could lovingly tell him, “Dave, you look like crap, this ain’t happening.”

With enough shared experiences, bikers can have bonds like Gus McCrae and Woodrow F. Call in the epic western adventure Lonesome Dove. In the gritty end of the story, Woodrow honors Gus’ dying wish by burying him in a grove near the Guadalupe River. Hauling Gus’ remains from Montana to Texas in the 1870’s was no small commitment. Inspired by Dave’s near death condition, I made a similar promise on the spot to ride his BMW R1100S to Ann Arbor from Austin sometime in the future. Dave got on a plane, and I thought “How hard can it be?” After all, this was the era of modern conveniences; no horse and cart involved.

The human brain is a funny device, rapidly processing and categorizing based on past experience to make helpful future predictions. In other words, it makes assumptions. For example, Dave can ride a BMW R1100S (aka the flying Tomato), I can ride it too. My BMW has roughly the same boxer twin cylinder engine, so all BMW’s are the same and so on. With that settled, I forgot about the whole thing while Dave recuperated at home. Unlike Gus McCrae, he lived through the ailment.

Waiting for cooler weather and thinking about the fall colors in the Ozarks along the way, I took off on a cool September morning. Ever meticulous, I had made a custom mount for my GPS on Dave’s handlebars with foam blocks and about 50 zip ties. Rube Goldberg would be proud. Taking off on a longer motorcycle trip is an exaggerated version of leaving the house. Got keys, wallet, pants, Tic Tacs? This continues for the first few miles while you feel everything out, looking around for anything falling off or flapping in the wind. All good. That is until a major assumption exposed the gift of my miscalculation.

Some motorcycles, like cars, have a magic button. This button makes the difference between taking in the scenery or requiring concentration of continued cattle nudging to keep them on the drive north to Michigan. It makes a difference between an unexpected roadside conference with local authorities or blissful relaxation. It would also prove to make another unexpected difference.

Seeing that nothing was falling off the RS and that I could actually ride Dave’s bike bent over in the scalded dog yoga position, I looked for the magic button. “That’s weird, it has to be on the handlebars somewhere?” “Hmm, did Dave relocate it?” “It would be like him to do that.” Nope. The cruise control button was not there since the R1100S is an earlier, sporty oriented bike with a hard seat. Apparently, the Germans decided that those willing to be in this yoga position don’t need magic buttons or the technology hadn’t been invented yet. “Whoops… missed that one during the trip prep, it’s going a Woodrow kind of ride after all.”

Early miles and anticipation keep you fresh enough to overlook these first world problems. The Fall colors in Arkansas were spectacular turning and burning up the snaking route of highway 7. I’d been watching my speed up to that point without the magic button, but on 7 you’ve got to let the scalded dog run and the motor stretch its legs a bit. That is until I crossed paths with one of Arkansas’ finest. “Well, that’s another form of cruise control” I thought. Be patient. Pulling over to just let him go on ahead, he pulled in behind me. “Uh, oh.” My brain was already processing the usual, “How fast was I going? I really don’t know officer.” Turned out that he was just being Arkansas friendly and wanted to chat. Of course, I told him I was on a Woodrow F. Call mission and all that. These friendly officers are smart though. Knowing what I was really doing on a road that begs for metal scraping lean angles, he just said, “Go on ahead and have a good time with a nod.” Who am I not to obey a peace officer? “Thanks brain, for yet another false assumption!”

Even though riding trips are fun, there are other incentives like food at points along the way. As you ride along, the initial urge becomes a full blown obsession. Having planned a stop near Chicago to visit a custom motorcycle shop in Union, I craved deep dish pizza from Gino’s from earlier memories. As it happens though at a candy store for motor heads, the custom shop visit goes long. With their ace welder and their shop dog waving goodbye, I headed for the nearest Chicago pizza oven as the sky was darkening. Ann Arbor was 306 miles and 4 hours away around the southern edge of Lake Michigan. I could still make it. Note the credible pattern of assumptions thus far.

When you grow up in a one stoplight southern town and live on the outskirts of Austin, Texas which is really a big college town for adults, you don’t have a perspective for the size of cities like Chicago. My stomach churning with obsession and real hunger, I find myself like an ant on  eight (or 12?) lane Interstate 90. Crawling along among semi trucks, cement mixers and local commuters darting into gaps with the “you look you lose” strategy,” I was pinned down. Another 220 miles to go and it’s about 7:00 or 8:00 PM. “I wonder, when does Gino’s close?” The Garmin GPS has a helpful feature that shows you restaurants by category with pointing arrows and distance. This only happens by looking down and navigating through a menu of buttons while staying out of the truck drivers’ blind spot beside you. Without being run over, I can now see pizza heaven mere miles to my left as traffic slows to even more to a start and stop crawl. “The smell of Italian sausage is wafting from right over there.”

At this point, my helper brain chimes in with a running calculation on time of arrival at a pizza joint vs. traffic vs. a very late arrival in Ann Arbor. “Better call Dave.” After more perilous button pushing, I call him with my Bluetooth helmet amid traffic to offer the latest arrival prediction. Hanging up, I feel the heavenly hope of deep dish pizza with pounds of meat and oily crispy crust slipping away. The GPS pointers became a mirage in the desert torturing me. The title of this chapter of the trip would be, “Death of an Obsession on I-90.” Facing reality, I flipped up the front of my modular helmet, unzipped the tank bag under my chest and did the unthinkable. I ate a Clif Bar.

This is not as simple as it sounds. Riding a motorcycle in stop and go track means pulling in the clutch lever with your left hand and stopping with the brake lever pulled by your right hand. The trick is to do this while avoiding becoming a speed bump. Clif Bars are packaged in titanium foil so this was a bit like juggling chain saws using your teeth as part of the act. No, it didn’t taste anything like pizza, not even cheap frozen pizza. This was the taste of a shaming loss of heaven just miles to my left. “Give it up Andy, time to move on.”

Now on I-94, I was trying to make up time being well past my last prediction to Dave. “Would he leave the lights on?” Going faster on a motorcycle means twisting the throttle in your right hand further toward you. Calling down from the bridge to the engine room for more speed, I twisted but realized nothing was happening. “OK helper mind, are you playing tricks on me? You know, your credibility is shot by now.” Nothing. I was still doing 65 mph or so when it takes 80 mph on an interstate at night to make Ann Arbor in two more hours.

When the early, giddy enthusiasm of a trip wears off like morphine, you can feel things more. Your body’s sensory inputs are magnified. In a moment of rare clarity, the big picture of the situation flashed in front of me. I couldn’t feel my right hand. Apparently, a BMW engineer  in Germany sitting next to the designer who chose the Tomato color decided that the R1100S needed stiff throttle springs.  That means hard to twist and hold still. My right hand had been fighting this decision for over 1,200 miles. The nerve going through the carpal bones in my right wrist had shut down. What to do? No magic button.

Recalling the Clif Bar gymnastics, I crossed my left hand over the gas tank to the right end of the handlebar to twist the throttle. Yes folks, don’t try this at home. These were desperate times. By dangling my right hand straight down by my side, the nerve would slightly recover a bit of feeling. “Whoa, get over in the right lane and remember that steering is backwards now.” Thus began a cycling of hands back and forth in a war of attrition against the stiff throttle springs for the rest of the way. “How hard can it be?” “Sometimes, really hard.”

Pulling into Dave’s driveway, I had the feeling Woodrow F. Call must have had by the Rio Grande by keeping his promise (without the distraction of deep dish pizza). Except in my case, Gus was very much alive with welcoming lights on.

Honoring a promise to a friend washes away the pains of a journey. Not as a bargain for the return of a favor, but just because they are your friend.

Though I like magic buttons as much as the next person, life is a journey that we need to feel in our bones from time to time. Roll down the window of the car or step out outside and stick out your hand. Feel the wind, smell the pizza and respect engineering that can create a steel horse that transports the soul and doesn’t get tired.

I believe we need more of Gus and Woodrow in the world to overcome the resistance of life’s German throttle springs.

Exxon Valdez Oil Slick in Big Bend

The Exxon Valdez 11 million gallon oil spill came to mind seeing Sammy’s shiny, slick rear tire. Dots of oil were landing on my wind shield helping me keep a safe but watchful distance. Oil is like ice between the rubber holding you up and the unforgivingly hard asphalt whizzing by. It couldn’t have happened to a nicer guy though. His composure was inspiring through so much strange adversity in the Big Bend desert.

Like a ticking bomb, some problems in life are waiting for just the right combination of circumstances. Through no fault of our own, stuff happens. Only this time, fate ran into the patience of Job when it came to our friend Sammy.

Cresting the rocky mountain bluff on Ross Maxwell Scenic drive in Big Bend, the Sotol Vista overlook entrance appears suddenly on the left. It’s easy to miss and that’s what happened to Sammy who had to ride further down the road attempting to make a U turn. Wrangling U turns on a narrow road astride a BMW touring bike is hard no matter how much cowboy experience you have. Taking in the panoramic view, we caught up with Sammy and his bike by the side of the road. Having fallen on its left side, the German motor was now leaking oil. This is not a good sign when the nearest BMW dealership is 428 miles away.

Limping down to the Cottonwoods outpost near St. Elena Canyon on the Rio Grande, we sought shade and perspective on the situation. Deciding to call Mike the sage at our local BMW dealer, we stood on a picnic table to get a cell signal. Doing a dance to keep the signal, we were told this was temporary since oil got into places it shouldn’t have and will sort itself out. Except it didn’t. We had to keep pouring oil in before it leaked out and seized up the motor. That is a bad thing that instantly turns your German motorcycle into an expensive paper weight.

You have to realize that for bikers, this is more than a mechanical issue. There’s the impression you make by falling off the bike. Even among friends there is a certain embarrassment. I feel it because I’ve done it more than a few times. Doubling down, Sammy dropped his bike again backing away from the Terlingua hitching post in full view of the locals on the porch. Sitting on our running bikes we just stared while stunned until we realized, “Hey, we’ve got to help out our friend.” What were we thinking?

Then there’s injury to your pride of owning such a prestigious brand. It’s not the experience buyers have in mind. This came into glaring light during a stop at Coopers, a famed BBQ joint in Llano on the way back to Austin. The place is popular so you stand in line outside to get your meat before going inside. Having our riding gear on, a young boy comes up, and asks, “Whose BMW is parked over there?” pointing out our bikes. When Sammy admits ownership, the boy in a loud, helpful voice says, “Well, there’s a big puddle of oil under it.” Normally, this would not be a problem except that Coopers is frequently mainly by Harley Davidson riders, some of whom are particularly proud of their brand. The Germans would not be proud.

It gets better. Sammy lives in Amarillo, TX so he transports the bike all the way to Dallas to get it fixed leaving it there for weeks. Whomever installed the crash bars bolted them on wrong so instead of protecting the engine, they punched a hole in it on the first tip over. We were blessed to get it back home. In the end, Sammy makes two trips to Dallas to finally get the bike solid with essentially a new motor. All good.

If you’ve made it this far, I hope you can see the full picture of adversity in this story for a biker. Sammy took it all in stride. He’s one of the nicest people you’ll ever meet. Easy going, he always brought a Texas panhandle kind of generosity with him over several trips through the years. He’s the first to buy dinner, drive his truck into town for supplies and share his fine cigars.

When someone of this kindness meets adversity, what are fellow riders supposed to do? Add more of course.

With his repaired bike, Sammy joins us on another Big Bend trip the following year. We meet in Marathon at our favorite motel where you can park your bike right outside the rooms. Cowboys like to have their horses hitched nearby. We had a great first evening together reliving last year’s Valdez tale. Sammy and his bike were redeemed.

The next morning Randy and I are waiting for Sammy to get off a phone call before riding to breakfast in Alpine at Penny’s diner about 30 minutes away. Sitting in the room together I say to Randy, “You know what we have to do right?” Great riding partners think alike, so we quickly went outside and poured some spare oil under Sammy’s bike. We had to do it. Sammy can’t really be that nice all the time. Can he?

Getting ready to mount up, Randy points out the oil to Sammy who is stunned and speechless. I’m waiting for a bomb to go off, but it doesn’t. Hunger takes priority over oil spills so we head over to Alpine. Along the way, I’m imagining the cloud of thoughts riding above Sammy’s helmet. “Those guys in Dallas $#!!!” Or, “Not again…” That had to be a very long 30 minute ride.

Arriving at Penny’s, Randy dismounts and walks over to Sammy. At some point this kind of torture ceases to be therapeutic. There are limits, so Randy spills the prank like Captain Hazelwood of the Valdez. He (we) did it. Randy and Sammy have history which kept me calm while Sammy lunged at Randy’s throat to choke him. But this was just for show to let Randy and I know that we had not lost our edge when it comes to sharing this kind of love.

I’m thankful for people like Sammy who take things in stride. They remind us not to take ourselves so seriously. They use the oil of adversity take friction out of life’s tip overs. They don’t care what others think of their brand or oil slicks. They just keep giving and serving.

Job had his friends and so does Sammy. Like them, we just can’t keep quiet about him.

Never Drop Your Key on the Ground

Some guys have the gift of being meticulous in a uniquely artistic way. A retired dentist, my friend Bob is one of those. In fact, he earned the well deserved Fellowship of the Build shop name, “Dr. Detail” by precisely fitting a vintage Norton swingarm bushing. This may not sound like a big deal, but he did it with a foam sanding pad wrapped around a wooden dowel instead of the proper bronze cutting tool. His is an interesting quality of calm paranoia. Having once dropped a nut into the Norton’s engine crankcase while I was watching, he never flinched. Despite the potential having to do major surgery, we got it out. Bob is cool.

You can imagine what Bob does to his own motorcycles with a mindset like this. He’s the first I’ve ever met who installed a GPS controlled chain oiler with pipe and wire routing that you can’t see from the outside. A patient craftsman, he can put clear protective film on curved surfaces without any wrinkles or air bubbles underneath. Me? I’d be wrapped up in the sticky film like a shipping tape dispenser gone wild. All this to say, he really cares about his bikes. If Dr. Detail had a harem, his bikes would be included. They have souls too.

And then what I thought might be a chink in his polished armor happened. In a rare lapse of concentration, he dropped the key to his bike in the parking lot of the Chisos Basin Lodge in Big Bend. Bob had retired for the evening while the rest of the group were enjoying cocktails on the porch overlooking the Lodge’s scenic parking lot. One of us found Bob’s key lying on the pavement and we debated what to do. It’s important to note that Sammy (one of the nicest guys you’ll ever meet) had been the perennial victim of an earlier, ingenious prank. Maybe it was the fine libations at work, but I perceived that Sammy wanted to get the monkey off his back. After all, you can only wear these badges for so long.

Since I was a willing actor in this earlier prank, I felt an obligation to help pass the torch from Sammy. Asking for the key, I hopped on Bob’s bike with the idea of faking a theft. It’s mean, I know. How do you steal a bike from a friend without stealing it but have him think it’s stolen? Simple, ride it out of sight behind another building, park it and keep the key. Energized by this latest plot twist, the rest of the loving crew committed to the code of silence to see Dr. Detail’s reaction the next morning.

Mornings on trips like these follow a ritual. Some guy’s fire up their bikes first thing, some pack and fiddle, but everyone eats breakfast. With the bikes lined up in front of the strip of lodge rooms surely Bob would find his bike missing and we could yuk it up during breakfast. Nope. Then surely when packing for the day’s ride afterward, he would miss it. Nope. The rest of us are going through the motions with furtive glances wondering when the suspense will end. Finally, the rest of us are on our bikes with the engines running when Bob walks up and says, “I can’t find my key!” Doing our best nonchalant shrugs, only then does Bob say, “My bike is stolen!”

Feigning surprise, we start milling around waiting to see Bob’s reaction. After his wailing and gnashing of teeth, we can produce his stolen bike with a caring flourish and have a good laugh. That’s not what happened. Instead, he goes bounding up the steps toward the rear of the building, turns back to the group and shouts with glee, “I’m getting a new bike!!” Despite the best laid plans, I think to myself, “Well, that didn’t work.” Then Bob’s wife who had suffered through his hotel room key search the night before comes up to us and says, “Are you f@#*ing with Bob? This is serious!” Still holding it in, we just smile and say, “No, it’s really not.”

Having failed to hide the bike far enough away, Bob finds it quickly and rides it back to the starting point. Yep, it’s the same Bob who dropped the nut in the Norton crankcase. Only I was the nut this time; he was cool as a cucumber. Either that, or he hides his emotions very well for a guy with a custom mounted GPS triggered chain oiler.

The important point in the end was that Sammy was absolved, no bikes were actually stolen and the bonds of adventure were tighter than ever. “Think of the war stories you can tell.” This was the empathy my older brother shared on a hospital visit during my three month stay. I don’t think much about the teenage motorcycle accident that put me there, but I never forgot that line.

Maybe that’s part of the marrow of life, seize the opportunity to make war stories where no one dies or bikes are actually stolen.

Go make some of your own with friends like these. And, keep your key in your pocket.

No Rider Left Behind: Laundromats Save Lives

Have you ever joined a trip with grizzled veterans as the new guy or girl? It’s an exciting, yet exposed feeling. You don’t know what you don’t know. Bring the cannoli or the chain lube? Preparing for a motorcycle road trip is an art of prediction based on past experience. Wanting to fit it and not ask too many dumb questions, new riders will usually bring what they have. That’s where this story begins.

Joe was a Texas transplant from Indiana who makes a quick connection and becomes the life of the party. He’s a great neighbor whose 1967 Sears Puch was restored by our Fellowship team while he was between jobs. A class act, he air shipped deep dish pizza to us from Chicago after his family and the Puch moved there. Everybody loves Joe.

Seeing that we were trustworthy enough to rebuild his Sears heirloom, he joined one of our annual five day Big Bend trips. These are roughly 1,400 mile rides in late November where we dress for the heat of the day and cooler desert temps at night. Rides like these are not parties or wedding showers where there is a lot of advance detailed planning. Show up with what you have. And that’s what our friend Joe did.

As I’m headed out of the garage to get on my loaded bike, Joe walks up and I do an automatic body scan for required safety gear. Having faced wives in the aftermath of prior “incidents,” this is a learned response. My eyes follow from his helmet (check), jacket (check), pants (might get cold) and finally to shoes that looked like he was dressed for a lakeside lunch in fern bar.

We’ve all been there; caught unaware wearing a Hawaiian shirt to a formal dinner party. Etiquette is a tricky thing. Looking at Joe’s shoes, I imagined his frostbitten toes numb in the winds to come. Pulling out an extra pair of riding boots like a dinner jacket, I said, “These are yours’.” We take care of our own in the Fellowship. Little did I know that this was a preview of coming attractions.

Ever wonder what artists see in other’s art? Whether it’s a painting, prose or song there’s always more nuance the longer and deeper you look. Big Bend is one of those canvases that never gets old. Every trip it becomes more alive when seen through new eyes. Joe’s eyes were telling tall tales at the White Buffalo Bar in the Gage Hotel on our last evening in Marathon. A lively time was had by all. So lively that I ended up riding Joe’s bike back to our accommodations up the road. He really was the life of the party.

Early next morning after a fine Mexican breakfast, we headed north on two lane 385 toward Fort Stockton. Looking to the right where the sun rises with such majesty that you sing hymns to yourself, all I could see was fog. Everything on a motorcycle like a fast horse is different than sitting in a car. The sunrises are more spectacular, the smells liven your senses and the temperature matters a lot. At 48 degrees and 20 miles into the 60 miles to Ft. Stockton, Joe pulls alongside me pointing at his gas tank. Usually when a warning light goes off, this is code for, “I need gas now.” On a group ride, you plan around the smallest gas tank which was Joe’s. Remembering now that his bike had not been topped up the night before, I signaled for him to turn around. He wasn’t going to make it. Not leaving my wing man, we rode back to Marathon leaving the group to motor on ahead.

Now, on the way back to Ft Stockton the air temperature dropped from 48 degrees to the low 30’s. This is a combination called freezing fog ice which blinds your face shield and makes the road slick. The new challenge was threading the needle on getting further ahead into shelter sooner vs. conditions. How fast to go? Riding with one eye on my rear view mirror with Joe behind me, I was concerned. He had no cold weather riding gear. His bike did not have a windshield. He had to be really cold because I had all those things and I was really cold. My helmet visor was crusting with ice behind my windshield. He later reported only being able to see my tail light like a lighthouse in the fog.

This is where the tension of icy conditions makes your mind start to play tricks. Does Joe have frostbite back there? He looks awful stiff. Maybe he is so frozen that on the next turn he will miss the curve and keep riding straight off the road? Knowing I may have to explain this to his wife, I slow down and literally ride with my eyes glued to the mirrors around the next bend in the road. Hmm, he’s still there. He may be the new guy, but he’s got true grit.

Coming into Ft. Stockton, our group had parked to the left off the main road through town at a gas station with a laundromat. What a combination. The thing about laundromats is that they are warm with hundreds of clothes dryers where our guys were huddled inside to thaw out. How did they know that? Doesn’t matter, I’m just glad Joe made it. His tale of not being able to feel his face with petrifying body tremors spurred us into action. Seeing Joe drop his trousers for warmer gear in full view of the laundromat patrons and passersby added further urgency.

The temps were still in the 30’s which meant swapping his bike for Bob’s on the trailer which had electrical connections for heated riding gear. Then, everyone dug out their extra stuff until we had Joe wrapped up like Hunter S. Thompson’s Song of the Sausage Creature. “Here Joe, take my pants, please.” He was toasty as a brat in a jalapeno tortilla wrap all the way home.

It was a heartwarming scene (literally) to see everyone pull together through adversity for Joe. Some bikers treat their motorcycles like their wives and girlfriends; no one else can ride them. But Bob gladly put Joe on his bike. This was just another way of showing love and generosity with each other.

Do laundromats save lives? Indeed. But fellowship bonds souls who leave no one behind.

When Buddies Become Perp Walk Spectators

Riding together for a long time, you’d think you know how tight your relationships are. There are times when you find how deep and humorous, they are. This was one of those times.

Few bonding experiences are like group motorcycle adventures. Unique personalities are on stage in a two wheeled ballet both on and off the bike. You get to know each other’s moves by sharper senses required to stay upright and make it through the tight bends in the road. As trust and experience builds, the ballet gets smoother in the same way the Blue Angels fly wing tip to wing tip. It’s a beautiful thing that turns into coded hand signals and unspoken understanding. That’s part of what we call The Fellowship.

Big Bend National Park on the Texas and Mexico border is a world of towering mesas, scenic roads and desert expanse. When you crest the last rise on Highway 118 headed south out of Alpine to the Park, it’s a road into the distant mountains as far as you can see. Naturally, this fires the urge to crank up the speed, not because you’re in a hurry, but because you can. By can, I mean finding the limits of your bike that becomes a speed adrenaline for the rest of the roads to come. At full gallop with music in the background, it’s a transcendant feeling.

The fun stops though when entering the National Park.  Across the 1,252 square mile park area is a maximum 45 mph speed limit patrolled by Federal Park Rangers. Beautiful scenery has its price. On this mostly annual trip I was following Dennis, the new rider to the group out respect for the safety of the group. You don’t throw a new violinist into the orchestra without an audition, but the cool thing is that their excitement reminds veterans that riding is really kids having fun. Turning off the main Park road we head into the Chisos Basin, one of our usual stops. The Basin is a naturally formed bowl shaped canyon surrounded by mountains with a twisty road where the speed limit drops. Dead ending into the Basin Lodge parking lot, it’s the only way in or out.

Out front, Dennis is taking in all the scenery while I notice that the speed limit drops to 35 mph. He keeps going while two of our buddies are hanging further back behind us and another is right behind me. Over the hill ahead, a Park Ranger’s truck pops up out of nowhere passing us on the narrow two lane road. A lot of riding experience is informed instinct, some with scar tissue. And my gut was telling me that the Ranger’s truck would turn around. Thinking it better to meet our fates with humble hats (helmets) in hand, I passed Dennis and pulled the three of us over to the side of the Chisos Basin parking lot entrance where the road ends.

Waiting like the compliant citizens we were, sure enough, the Park Ranger came driving up and parked in front of us. We weren’t going anywhere. The female officer with a short build and crisp attire walked up and reminded us of the purpose of these limits. Bears and other critters are crawling through the park without paying attention to things like roads, cars and motorcycles. Being a reluctant veteran of these encounters, I nod silently and politely in the affirmative. What she didn’t have in physical stature, she made up for by her stern tone and direct eye contact. She was to be taken seriously. Compliance was the way to her heart.

Being a church pastor, Dennis took another approach by chatting her up as if we had crossed her path while lost on a hike (You know, these trail maps are the darnedest things to read…). A charm offensive with an officer like this never works. In her mind, we were the handcuffed perpetrators (perps) you see on video being taken from the back of a police car into the courthouse for sentencing. Hands clasped in crossed formation and lined up in front of the truck, we awaited the verdict.

While discretely signaling Dennis to assume the perp position, I notice something out of the corner of my eye. Again, my gut is telling me that something is amiss in what I’m seeing. There were our two buddies who lagged behind (let’s call them John and Randy) slinking into the parking lot keeping their engines as quiet as possible. Hugging the leftmost edge of the parking lot away from us, they motored up the hill to the Lodge and out of sight. It took me a fat minute to realize they didn’t stop near us out of solidarity, mercy or even to put in a good word for our character. Having found the limits of Fellowship, we were on our own.

Returning with our licenses after a search of our driving records since birth, the Park Ranger returned from the truck pronouncing sentence by handing to each of us. To Dennis, she said, “You’re clean.” To me, she said, “You are a speeder.” After that helpful confirmation, I stopped listening so I don’t what she said to Sammy standing to my left. Then she intoned to all of us with authority, “A federal ticket is $500 and stays on your record. I’m going to give you a warning, but you are now in the federal database. If you get stopped again, you will get one.”

Appropriately reprimanded, we headed up to the Lodge, thankfully with money left to buy lunch. This is where we learned that John and Randy had found a high perch on the Lodge balcony to photograph three perps with the Ranger. By capturing these intimate moments with law enforcement, they showed true friendship. Not only that, “speeder” became folklore forever for the joy of others.

I guess I learned that you don’t follow a church pastor on a motorcycle into a canyon. I learned that compliance is some situations is the best policy. Most importantly, your true friends are those who are willing to take the risk of finding ingenious ways to poke fun at you. Fellowship is not about the bike.

Bridge Too Far: Colorado Pucker Factor

The fully loaded BMW twin fishtailed violently back and forth when the throttle cracked open. Thoughts of, “Well, this is it,” “Life has been a good run” and, “Hmm, that’s weird?” coursed like lightning through my mind. It’s amazing how much you can comprehend in a flash before the adrenaline kicks in. My wife and kids are always in the mix too. “Houston, we have a problem.” This was not good.

The day started with noble, yet competing goals. Enjoy the sparse beauty of the Utah Canyonlands and a narrow path through the Black Canyon of Colorado ending up at a friend’s cabin near Chama, New Mexico. That turned out to be 750 miles through breathtaking scenes and twisty roads. This kind of experiential beauty has a quality of distraction all its own. You lose track of time. Plus, you do things like answer a phone call from your daughter in your Bluetooth helmet while dancing through the curves on 149 south into Lake City.

These roads are old friends you haven’t seen in a while. When you meet again, a flood of memories come that mix the old with the new. There’s always more in the familiar yet freshness of discovery. In this case, I was reliving a trip over a decade ago with testosterone laden sport bike riders where the scenery was a blur as I kept up with their pace. Now, instead of racing a go kart through an art museum, I was taking it all in at the speed of a painter’s brush stroke.

As night fell on straighter roads, a drizzling rain began falling. Rain at night on a motorcycle is an entirely different world. Cars in front of you trail a blinding mist. Water on a road at night becomes a mirror for oncoming headlights that put pencil beams of light in your eyes. Density of oil is lighter than water, so rain floats thousands of drippings from passing vehicles to the surface of the road. Like black ice, it’s slick in places you can’t see with the naked eye.

At the same time, a 750 mile day is about fourteen hours of butt in the seat time. Driving a car on the interstate wanting to make it to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving, is not too much of a stretch. On a BMW R1200RT with a heavy 49 liter case mounted high behind the passenger acting like a pendulum when leaning, it’s a stretch. To make matters even more personal, my sports massage expert working on my backside back home asked, “What were you doing?” When I shared my 4,200 mile trip, he said, “Did you ever get off the bike?” Thinking back, I offered sleep and gas stations since I had a Camelback for water and Clif bars I could reach on the bike. Hearing this, he said, “Basically, you sat so long that your butt muscles switched off and aren’t working.” After showing me some Keanu Reaves, Neo style leg outkick exercises, he said, “That will be $75.” Who knew? It’s weird to pay someone $75 to tell you that your butt isn’t working, but if that’s the price of adventure, I’ll pay it.

Turning south off of the notoriously police patrolled 160, I was anxious to make up time. Now even darker with a heavier drizzle I found myself behind a car throwing mist while going only 45 mph. Mindful of the conditions, I was slow to do anything rash, but the water torture was too much. Moving to the left to pass on a two lane road, I cracked the throttle open. Maybe it was being tired or my butt not working that explains my survival. When the rear of the bike broke loose like a bronco bucking sideways, It was eerily calm. In an instant, I knew what had happened. An opposed twin cylinder 1200 cc engine has two big pistons that produce a lot of twisting force each time a spark plug lights off compressed fuel vapor. It’s a succession of hammers banging against your turning rear wheel. Twist the throttle and the hammers hit harder. Add that force to a tire with about six square inches of rubber between you and a wet road and it will slide without warning. This is not good when you’re in the passing lane overtaking a car at night in Colorado on a slick road.

What to do? At first nothing, just absorb the butt puckering sensation like you earned it because I did. Then calmly remember the physics of the situation and slow down, not stop, the hammering. It’s a Goldilocks problem, not too much and not too little. Too much and the bike goes completely out from underneath and you become deer meat for an oncoming car. Too little and the bike snaps back into line so quickly that it flicks you off. In biker parlance, this is known as a high side where the bronco wins and you lose the rodeo prize. Gently, backing off the throttle, the bucking BMW wove less and less until it was straight. Pucker mode was still on, and I was still alive.

Living my life mostly without a governor, not knowing when to quit, this was a violently graceful lesson. Get off the bike to keep your butt working, meet people in the small towns and take it all in. Know when to quit when the bridge, even a commitment to friends, is too far. Grateful for all the near death experiences up to that point, they kept me calm when over reaction is the worst thing to do. Finally, machines like motorcycles are designed to stay upright if we respect their boundaries. It was my hand on the throttle. As in life, my hand is on the throttle of much that comes my way.

Here's hoping we all keep an aware and steady grip while enjoying the scenery of life for many miles and years to come. Get off the bike. It’s not about the destination. It’s about the journey.

Sweat, Movies and West Texas Heat

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man in the moon
"When you coming home, dad?" "I don't know when"
But we'll get together then
You know we'll have a good time then

Harry Chapin

When adult children are about the leave home, we realize just how fast the time went. And we try to do things to make up for it before their rooms in the house are empty. This is the heart of a father who invited his high school graduated son on a motorcycle road trip in the sweltering heat of Texas in July. Let’s make a memory, pass on a few bits of wisdom and assuage the guilt I felt. In times of great emotional uncertainty or pain, pointing a motorcycle down the road with my heart in the wind was the sanctuary I knew.

The alternative was a July 4th gathering plan that went sideways at the last minute so we jumped on the bike and took off headed for the closest cooler temps in New Mexico. Getting there meant riding through the West Texas Permean Basin in heat over 100 degrees for nearly 10 hours. You know when you cross the Pecos into the basin since the smell of crude oil is a constant welcoming fragrance. The excitement and adrenaline kept the heat at bay at first. Father, son, motorcycle, road trip and no plan were all the ingredients for an adventure and a few war stories.

Well, that lasted until about 2:00 PM sitting in the small air conditioned lobby of a small town gas station. To the cashier, I’m sure we were strange looking vagrants who wouldn’t just gas up and go. Beads of sweat just kept forming. The inside of our bodies felt like uncontrolled nuclear fusion. Looking outside at the bike, I imagined a Denver omelet cooking on the seat where my butt would soon be.

There’s nothing like desperate times to break down your normal patterns and boundaries. Most trips, you point in a direction, keep the bike gassed up, the bladder empty and rock on, always onward. The very idea of stopping feels like you’re going backwards or not holding up the Iron Butt biker code. But heat and being with your son got me to thinking differently. Turning to him, I said, ”Let’s go see a matinee.” Hearing this his reaction was, “Has someone else inhabited your body?” I was not known as the fun dad. For me, it was protective and logical. I did not want him to dehydrate and fall off the back of the bike.

Sitting in a two hour movie during the height of the day’s heat would allow our nuclear reactors to cool all the way down. You’d ride away refreshed as the heat drops into the evening and find a cheap motel before dark. Once again, a strategic insight borne of adversity. The motel stays would be more restful. We looked forward to a break in the heat. We felt cooler knowing it was coming. In all, we saw four movies on that trip going to and from Cloudcroft, New Mexico in small towns whose names I don’t even remember.

While I was busy being logical, a deep thing happened. We found a rhythm of our own. Talk came more easily at a time when he was pulling away to be his own man. We didn’t die at the altar of egos that won’t stop and smell the cool theater air. We laughed, a lot. There were other rites of biker passage during the trip like doing the ton (exceeding 100 mph) and understanding why some Harley riders don’t wave.

In our case, it was a new connection borne of a kind of heat that melts Harry Chapin’s silver spoon. These adventures are an elixir for the soul, but it’s not about the sound, fury of the steel horse. It’s about hearts strumming in rhythm with the roads and with each other.

Italian Sign Language Saves the Night

When your boss offers you his KTM 990 Super Duke to tour the Alps the answer is, “Yes.”

Having been the chief engineer behind the resurrection of a storied motorcycle brand, he wasn’t just any boss. Throwing me a twist, he asked me to top up the coolant tank which required some disassembly at a petrol station as the sky darkened. Bikers after all, always want to know what other bikers are really made of. Passing that test, I left Nuremberg, Germany on a late Friday evening with a map, no GPS and no reservations.

Later that evening, he texted to ask where I was. Having found the last room an inn near the Austrian border, he realized I’d been whipping his bike like a racehorse. His reply, “Go dog, go!” meant passing the second test. All good. The next morning brought a beautiful Saturday in September which would be the last clear weekend in the Alps mountain passes before snow season. All I knew was that in order to hit as many passes as possible, I had to make it to Bolzano, Italy to complete a loop through the Dolomites. My boss’s KTM had stickers on its gas tank which you get when you summit a pass. I wanted as many of those stickers as possible.

The no reservation thing was working well so far based on one experience, so I pressed on through a series of small towns getting lost in nearly every one. Zen navigation has its limits which cost me precious time. Then, there were the side detours. When I saw that the Oberammergau passion play venue was on the way, I rode the bike right up to the steps imagining the crowds gathered. Walking in without taking my helmet off, I checked these moments off in a mad dash of discovery.

Getting lost, took time of course eventually landing me at a petrol station in Bolzano, Italy late that night. Unlike Americans, Europeans don’t run around at night figuring things out without a plan at the last minute. With no reservation, in a well lit but vacant petrol station beside the motorway, I was tired and homeless. Only after fueling up the bike did I ask myself what to do. Determined to make the Dolomite loop, my total focus had been on navigation, fuel and enough food to keep going. At home on my bike, I knew the timing of getting there, wherever “there” was. Riding in Europe for the first time, I improvised as I went along. Now I was stuck without speaking the language or having any sense of where to find a bed. When you’re tired on a bike you make mistakes. That meant slowing down for the next step.

Bathed in the light, I did the only thing I knew to do at times like this. I prayed, “Lord, I need a place to stay.” Not knowing what to expect, I sat on the bike and waited. God is not a cosmic vending machine, but there are times when you have to push the button and see what comes out. Right about then, another motorcyclist pulled up to the pumps to fuel up. Waiting for him to finish, I waved for him (her? Who knew?) to come alongside. He, as it turned out, flipped up his helmet visor to see me communicate my need in the only Italian sign language I knew. Putting my palms together by my head, I tilted it to the right as if lying on a pillow.

On cue, he held a finger in the air, nodded his understanding and whipped the raised hand behind his bike. This was biker language to follow, so we rode out onto the motorway into the night. Having just placed my trust in a complete stranger in just seconds, my mind starts wondering, “What have I just done?” Before I can get too excited about those possibilities, we pull off the motorway with a zig zag to the parking lot of a hotel a few kilometers away. Riding up alongside him, he again flips up his visor to shout over our idling engines in a crisp Italian accent, “Nice hotel for you.. Arrivederci!” When he revved out of the parking lot with their typical panache, I didn’t know just how amazing this answer to prayer was.

It turns out that in Italy, theft is a big problem. Imagine the phone call to my boss, “Umm, I sorta lost your bike in another country. I’ll see you on Monday.” That could be career limiting. This hotel had a secure parking garage underneath with an elevator to the lobby. Check. The room was very nice for tired bones, a sore butt and a sprained mind from navigation by GPS (Guesses Per Second). Check. The best though, was yet to come.

Throwing open the window curtains to a balcony in the morning revealed a breathtaking scene. Too much to take in at once, my eyes followed rows of orchard trees all the way up to the foothills of the Dolomites. From tired homelessness to one of the best balcony views in Northern Italy, this was both a turning point and highlight of the trip. Collecting stickers for crossing storied passes such as Stelvio at 9,000 feet, the second highest paved road in the Alps, this was motorcycling at its finest. The pristine mountain lake in Misurina, pizza in Cortina, and a gaggle of Ferrari’s screaming past were more bucket list experiences than I can remember in a single trip.

Most of all, I will never forget the kindness of a stranger in Bolzano who perfectly interpreted my need.

The best was much more than I asked for or could have planned. Here’s to navigating by GPS (God’s Protective Service).

Drag Racing a Hailstorm

Spring weather in the Arkansas Ozarks can be unpredictable. I learned this in an unforgettable way on a ride with a new and eclectic group. Planned and led by a younger, throttle enthused rider, some were newer to the sport and the types of bikes were a wide range. From a laid back Honda cruiser to a Suzuki dual sport and two Yamaha FJR 1300’s, there were small gas tanks, rocket speeds and a lot of variables. Like assembling a jury of peers in court, the outcome was far from known. That’s what makes life interesting, and on motorcycles even more so.

After a stay at the Happy Days hotel in McAlester, Oklahoma (that’s a real place) we made our way through thick fog on the Talimena Scenic drive into western Arkansas. This was the pea soup kind of fog where you had to go fast enough to turn your helmet so the wind could wipe off blinding water droplets while not running into the rider ahead. Tense stuff. That was weather event number one, so like Tom Hanks says in the movie Apollo 13, I thought, “Well, that’s our glitch for this mission.” Turned out that it was just a warm up for the main event.

Our leader had scouted out the route on a previous ride so he had a plan and the maps on his smart phone to back it up. The fog however, had slowed down the pace so his route timing was off.  We ended up at a gas station at the crossroads of a twisty road leading further north. This was a decision point on whether we could make it to the next planned stop. The problem with plans on motorcycle trips is that they’re more of a guide since you can’t control construction road closures or the weather or mechanical issues or potty breaks. There’s always something. But you’d have to have the war stories of those experiences to know that.

While our leader was intently poring over his phone maps doing mental math as we stood around, a man out of nowhere appeared. He pointed the group’s collective gaze up into the hills of our destination and said with a certain urgency, “That’s a hail storm. You’ve got to get out of here. Now!” In the moment I was slack jawed at how we could have missed such ominously dark clouds while milling around in the open. Hail storms can range up to 10 miles wide and 100 miles long. Large enough to hit a group of bikers standing near the flimsy awning of a gas station.

After a pregnant moment of gazing at this black front coming at us over the hills, I thought I saw the man go into the convenience store near the gas pumps. Seeing the gravity of the moment and his care to tip us off, I walked inside to thank him but he was nowhere to be found. Like an angel, he just disappeared. Returning to the group, I looked at the leader whose maps had stopped being a source of enlightenment and said, “You’ve got to make a call.” His rather immediate response was, “You’re in charge.”

Maybe it was running from the cops as a kid riding my motorcycle on public roads illegally without a license, but adrenaline has always given me focus. In this case, it was a protective kind of fear for the group even though this was a brand new challenge. Deciding that the flimsy gas station awning was not an option, I mounted up and waved for the others to follow. Having not paid any attention to maps, I didn’t know where we were. All I knew was that the route was away and ahead of the storm clouds. Now fiddling with my GPS, looking for the path of least resistance and highest speed, I could see that we were near Interstate 40. You can go fast on a four lane highway with no stop signs. Keeping an eye in my rear view mirror for the storm and the group turning right onto I-40, we dialed up the speed.

The hail storm was chasing us from behind at a north east to southwest angle. Traveling due west on I-40, it would intercept us but who knew for how long? More speed. As Winston Churchill is quoted, “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.” We had the exhilaration for sure, until the first ice balls hit. Moving at over 90 miles per hour horizontally with ice falling up to 40 miles per hour from the sky, these things really get your attention. Check the rear. Yep, they’re still there apparently sharing my motivation.

This is where I can say that advertising really works and can save the day. The GPS had a helpful feature where you can push a button and it will find places for you. The thought was, a) find shelter, b) near the interstate and c) not far away. Then, I remembered the Holiday Inn Express commercials. The one where something goes wrong, but a well rested actor says, “But I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night with a smile.” The great thing about certain hotel chains is that their buildings all look the same. In this case, I remembered that this kind of Holiday Inn is a boxy building with an awning bolted onto the front with no fancy planters or curbs to get in your way.

Mash the button and voila, there’s one just up the road in Clarksville, AR. I don’t think the marketing folks at Holiday Inn had me as a customer in mind when their agency thought that up but, familiarity and recall would save our day. By this time, our speed was enough to punch us out ahead of the ice pellets like fighter jets ahead of a subsonic bee swarm. Did I mention that ice pellets hurt even through protective riding gear? Peeling off the exit in a few miles with a zig zag under the interstate, we pulled under the thankfully empty awning of the Holiday Inn.

In less than a minute, the parking lot was white with ice. The sound was as deafening as we were grateful to have won the race. Having had enough excitement for one day, we returned our thanks to Holiday Inn by dropping anchor there for the night. Another crisis averted.

I believe guardian angels do a lot more to protect us than we’re aware of. I’m thankful for them and Eddie, the South Carolina Highway Patrolman who would sometimes catch me on the tobacco roads. I’m thankful for the trust of a new group and, Holiday Inn Express.

The Naked Truth About Riding to a Wedding

A young friend of mine invited me to his wedding, I said, “Sure, where is it?” His reply of Bozeman, Montana became a 10 day, 4,200 mile loop from the Black Hills of South Dakota, through the Tetons, Utah and Colorado. I am a committed friend after all. Who would do less?

Formal events are harder on a bike trip because your nice clothes and shoes take up room. Plus, you don’t want to show up on the wedding day looking like you slept in your clothes for 10 days in a cheap motel. Being careful, I arrive with no oil stains on my tie or a bad case of helmet hair. Montana is nice in the summer and it was a beautiful outdoor wedding with mountain peaks in the background. I’ve always wanted to feature a motorcycle in a church setting. You could come riding in stage right up onto the platform, deliver a sermon or perform a ceremony then exit with a smoking burnout and wheelie. But I digress.

After the wedding and other adventures, I made it down to red rock country near the entrance to Bryce Canyon, Utah. There are few experiences like sitting on Sunrise point at the edge of the canyon at dawn. The rising sun lights up the thin rock spires standing on the canyon floor. It’s fun to watch God paint these silent sentinels with colors that cannot be captured in a photograph. Some scenes are reserved only for the naked eye and seeing heart.

It was getting late. Thankfully, I found an available cabin among a group arrayed around a central outpost. Unpacking your bike after a long ride to do something like take a shower right away has its challenges. You forget where everything is packed and start taking short cuts. The bike was parked right outside the door so I only brought in what I thought I needed and laid it out on the bed. Ready for the shower, I stripped down and was about to step in when I noticed with a glance that something missing. It’s important to point out that while I notice a lot of things, this usually leads to an intense focus. I thought, “It’s dark outside, the bike is right there at the door and it will take just a second.”

Swiftly stepping outside to open the saddlebag with my back turned to the room, I hear a “thunk.” Hearing that sound was like the time I was staring down into the open frame of a Norton Commando with a shop light hanging by its cord overhead. These are the kind with older screw in light bulbs that heated up their metal case. Staring intently, I started wondering what that smell was? Electrical problem with the Norton wiring? Turned out that it was the metal case burning a spot into my forehead. First you smell it then you feel it. That’s intensity.

There I was, intensely buck naked outside, slowly realizing that the cabin door had a spring that shut it behind me. It was self locking and, of course, the key was inside. Our brains try to be helpful during these times by dumping everything they have in a pile to sort out. “Where’s the key to the bike?” “Are the bags locked?” “What kind of idiot am I?” Out of all this, three basic choices emerged. First, I could just walk back to the front desk clerk commando and act like this was what road warrior bikers do. Second, I could go dumpster diving for a used pizza box like a fig leaf cluster to cover my nether regions explaining that this is what idiot bikers do. Or, third I could put on whatever was left on the bike.

Selecting the longer and eye retina saving option for the clerk, I put on my wedding outfit with no available underwear. Thankfully, there were no turning cars with headlights in the gravel parking lot to “paint” me dressing for a wedding beside a motorcycle against the front of a perfectly suitable cabin. Since I came in alone, I felt obliged to explain to the clerk why I needed a second key now dressed in a suit. His reaction ranged from something like, “We see this all time,” to “Bikers are amusingly weird.” Thank God I didn’t have a hole in my pants as I walked out.

Moral: Intensity can be a good thing until it’s not. Don’t wait for the smell or the “thunk” to take a wider view of your situation. Most importantly, always have extra clothes on your bike.

Stranded Near the Marfa Lights

Certain fears strike the heart a little more closely like being exposed or not having enough. Usually this involves an imaginary desert scene where your car breaks down and there is nothing or no one for miles either way. You might as well be on Mars. Unlike a car, a motorcycle can’t carry jumper cables, an extra gallon of gas or a spare tire. If your horse breaks a shoe, you’ve got to fix it on the trail with what you have. Because of these possibilities bikers on road trips carry tire repair kits, first aid, tools and sometimes even metal 90 degree fuel pump fittings to replace the factory ones that break (another story). The wise biker doesn’t skimp on this stuff because there is rarely a Plan B if you are solo.

So, there I was having just ridden one of the best roads in Texas along the Mexican border and headed from Presidio to Marfa. This is where the landscape changes from being in a John Wayne western to the rolling vistas where buffalo roam in Dances With Wolves. I was Kevin Costner riding a horse without the flag and gun. I had the movie soundtrack from John Barry going in my helmet. The 1800 cc flat six motor on the Honda Gold Wing was singing along with the French horns. Life was good.

You know those moments when something is out of tune in the orchestra or a cover band is just getting it wrong? Well, I had that feeling in the back of my mind as the usually predictable handling of the Wing felt mushy around what was a smooth bend in the road. Then you resort to the slot machine of possibilities rolling through your mind. Like banging on the top of your computer to fix a software problem, I pushed the handlebars back and forth hoping to feel the usual crisp response. Nope.

Pulling over to the side of what was now a straight stretch of road near high noon, I put my feet down and immediately knew what the problem was. Normally, you know where your foot should land because a loaded Gold Wing is around 1,000 lbs of bike and rider. When coming to a stop, the timing of your foot plant will keep you from dropping a bike that would give you a hernia to pick up, not to mention the averted glances from onlookers. Anyway, my feet touched down way too soon which meant I had a flat rear tire in the middle of nowhere.

No problem. Pull off the rear cover and break out my tire repair kit bought from my local BMW dealership. Only the best and finest will do. I know it was the best because it cost the same as a fine meal at a Japanese restaurant. To fix a motorcycle tire, you have to do something counterintuitive by making the small hole of a nail or screw bigger with a tool that looks like and ice pick used for medieval torture. Then, use another tool to push a plug inside the tire where it expands to seal the leak. My kit had five odd shaped rubber plugs that must have been the best because they had the BMW brand molded on each one. Note my trust in brands here.

I pushed the first plug into the now bigger hole in the tire and… it shears in half. Hmm.. “OK, that didn’t work.” Obviously, the hole needs to be bigger so I apply the torture device with more verve this time. It was getting hot by now and I had not seen a single car go by as I sat on the pavement behind the broken Wing. Second try and I add the patented body English of subconsciously sticking my tongue out of my mouth at a certain angle. It’s a concentration thing. Here we go, and…. the second plug shears. By now, BMW’s accessory brand promise has become a betrayal. No 800 number to call in the middle of the buffalo range with no cell phone signal. What to do? I made the hole bigger. I prayed. I tried different tongue positions and sheared the remaining three plugs. I was stuck.

When you’ve applied all your ingenuity, resources and tongue positions to a tough situation and come up short on highway 67, different possibilities come to mind. You think of your wife and children. You imagine that you see buzzards circling overhead. An 800 lbs bike with a flat tire can’t be pushed into Marfa from here. Still no cars passing. It’s getting hotter.

I’d run out of quarters to put into my mental slot machine of possibility. We don’t like these powerless and exposed feelings. The prairie was quiet and I sat with that feeling. I sat with it until I realized that I had put my trust in the wrong things. I had put my faith in pieces of rubber with a German brand. I had put my faith in my ability to fix things having gotten though a number of tough situations. As the 1970’s philosopher Clint Eastwood in the Dirty Harry trilogy says, “A man has got to know his limits.”

Having met those limits while sitting with those feelings, a peace came to me. I can’t describe it really. It just was. There were no more fancy tongue positions, slot machines or future worries. Nothing but a peace.

Right about then, I could see a white vehicle coming up behind me in the shimmering distance of the road. It took a while until the driver pulled up to park behind me. Seeing my predicament, he smiled and asked if I needed help. Noticing the Texas Department of Transportation logo on the truck door gave me relief since I was in an area known for bringing drugs in from Mexico. Funny how I hadn’t earlier considered the consequences of that kind of encounter. Whew… The slot machine started up again before I answered him since it was not obvious what he could do with a pickup truck and even if he had more BMW plugs, that was not the answer.

Between my wanting to hug him and not having an immediate answer, he offered up, “I can radio into Marfa and have someone drive down with what you need to fix your tire.” Wow, a radio in a place with no cell service. What an old school concept! Immediately accepting his offer, we chatted about things I can’t remember, but I do remember this. Before I knew it another truck pulled up from Marfa with good old American made fiber tire plugs and a tank of compressed air. You’ve got to be kidding me. He brought the physical things I needed but as importantly, a sense of humor for what he knew I needed spiritually. Jumping out of the truck he yelled to his coworker, “Ah man! You didn’t tell me it wasn’t a Harley…” implying that otherwise he would not have dropped everything to come to my rescue. Harley riders are a faithful bunch and I love them too. Fortunately for me, he could not smell the grilled Teriyaki of the Japanese Honda sitting by the road all the way from Marfa.

I needed the laugh as we quickly plugged aired up the tire.

Thanking them profusely, I was grateful to be a taxpayer in Texas and for the character of those in our public service. They were lifesavers and an answer to prayer. Only after they left did I fully realize how true this was. Not only did the BMW plugs not work, there were not enough CO2 cartridges to fill the tire if they did. The tire took a lot more air from their tank than I realized. You don’t exactly want to ruin a tire with a nail to test your repair kit but there were other ways I could have been more prepared for this. Though nails and screws randomly flatten tires this was a graceful rescue from my having created my own powerlessness.

Diverting to Midland to get a new tire for the rest of the trip, I was thankful for the nail in my tire and where it happened. I was thankful for the peace that came realizing that I worried about a lot of things that I am powerless over. That’s the kind of peace we can travel with and live by. No slot machines are required.

Critters and Camp Stoves in New Mexico

The weather finally cleared in October of 2003 and I headed west on a Honda Goldwing, the ultimate mile eating magic carpet. I had a lot to sort out about the future and there’s nothing like a road trip to connect with deeper stirrings of the heart. Not having any reservations, I prepared for everything including a whole bunch of new high tech camping gear.

There’s nothing like being able to carry your stuff on a motorcycle. This bike held enough to get you to Tiera del Fuego and back without having to recycle your underwear. That meant staying anywhere no matter the accommodations. Even so, there is a certain zen packing method to get everything to fit. It takes a lot of focused trial and error but I had missed a key step.

Riding into Ruidoso, New Mexico through the fading light of the Apache National Forest, I needed a place to stay. Time was short, yet everywhere I checked was full. Motels, campgrounds and cabins. Everything. Weird I thought, but pressed on turning left on a road just north of town looking for anything. At first, it was a paved two lane then it got narrower, darker and unpaved. Not good. Depending on your age, I felt like I was either in the Blair Witch Project or Ned Beatty in the movie Deliverance. I could hear the twang of the toothless banjo player.

In complete darkness I finally arrived at what looked like a campground with picnic tables with not a soul around. I’ll take it. After parking the bike, I began to set up camp with my new spot light strapped around my head. After all this, I was starved since my last meal was Texas imitation BBQ in Cloudcroft nearly 9 hours ago. This is when I realized that I had broken a fundamental rule. Always try our any new gear before you go on a trip.

So, there I am with my stomach growling in the dark figuring out how to use a new camp stove to cook freeze dried lasagna. Real men don’t read instructions so it tripled the time to eventually get the heat going. Standing near one of the picnic tables intently studying markings on the stove, I felt a slight brush of something on my lower leg. Once again, there was that weird feeling now salted with a pinch of sheer terror. Without dwelling on the fact that I was in the middle of nowhere, all by myself and in the dark, I did the only sensible thing. I looked down.

There, in the bright beam of my headlight standing next to my right leg was the biggest skunk I had ever seen. He was looking up at me as if to say, “I live here you know. This is my place and I could really ruin your day if I wanted to.” A version of me standing aside as neutral observer actually admired his poise like a trained circus animal. The other version of me with the stove in my hand starred into his (her?) eyes in a moment of connection and silent communication that for me sounded like, “Let’s be reasonable. It has been a long day so let’s not get too excited and hurt each other.” Or maybe it was more like he was blinded by the light and I was too stunned to move.

Anyway, the moment of truth came and I simply looked up taking the klieg lights off and stepped up onto the bench seat of the picnic table. I imagine that God looked down and was shaking his head in amusement at a hungry guy in the dark with a freeze dried blowtorch in his hand somewhere in New Mexico. When my heart started beating again, I looked down and my new friend was gone. At that point, I remember thinking that the skunk looked overweight. I mean it was huge.  Eventually, I was able to taste my camp lasagna for the first time and go to bed with my stinky boots outside my tent.

Confidence is that feeling you have just before you become aware of the reality of the situation. So, there I was in the tent reflecting on what seemed like a good idea at the time to take a solo road trip without a plan. About the time I processed enough confidence to go to sleep, I hear this brushing sound on the side of my tent. I think it was my new friend coming back to pay me a visit, but I did not unzip the tent fly to find out.

In the brightness of a new morning, I could see that I was camped next to a reservoir in a beautiful spot. Calm like my new friend was. I guess I learned that when the road gets narrow and dark, keep going. I learned that the road less travelled is the most rewarding. It was like I was being guided by a force that knew where I needed to be with an unlikely friend to greet me there.

I could have learned to use my stuff ahead of time, but so many war stories in life are the result of this kind of confidence. The important thing is that I lived to tell about it.