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.