Under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness
Under neon loneliness motorcycle emptiness
All we want from you are the kicks you’ve given us
All we want from you are the kicks you’ve given us
All we want from you are the kicks you’ve given us
All we…
— The Manic Street Preachers from “Motorcycle Emptiness”
Motorcycle season is here once again. I like motorcycles. No, I love motorcycles. I do not have a motorcycle. This makes me sad. This makes me write in monosyllables. Except for the word “monosyllables.” If I still lived in northern California, where the sun shines 300 days a year, my wife would probably be wise to keep me away from sharp objects.
My last motorcycle was a jaw-dropping black ’92 Fat Boy, with gnarly, solid-cast wheels. I bought it new at Michael’s Harley-Davidson in Santa Rosa, California, after selling the Sportster I’d just paid off, for 50 bucks more than I paid for it. Harleys hold their value.
The Fat Boy was, to lapse into ’90s youth parlance, The Bomb. It was, to borrow from GMC’s ad campaign, “Industrial grade.” It was, to me, a hunk-a-hunk-a-burnin’ love. Every night, before I went to bed, I would wander out to the garage and stare at it for a quarter of an hour.
I sold my jaw-dropping black Harley-Davidson Fat Boy in 2009 to help defray the expenses of my daughter’s northern California Wine Country wedding. Greater love hath no man.
Out in California, I put 22,000 miles on that awesome machine in only 18 months. Back in Michigan, I racked up 30,000 over the course of the following 15 years. Out west, it was essentially my every day vehicle. The scenery was spectacular and the roads, well, the roads . . . You know, how here in Michigan, you’ll occasionally see a yellow road sign with a black snaky arrow promising: “Next 7 miles?” In California it would probably say” “Next 47 miles.” Those among you who ride motorcycles or drive small, nimble sports cars, will understand the attraction.
To get an idea of just a bit of the fun factor of owning a large, powerful motorcycle, consider this observation by my old riding buddy, Terry. “It turns a drive to the store to pick up butter and eggs into a RIDE to the store to pick up butter and eggs.”
One of the stand-out features of the Fat Boy was its solid-cast aluminum wheels. No other motorcycle had them. I appreciate classic spokes but if you decide to eschew the spoked look, these Bad Oscars are off the charts in the opposite direction. They were also entertaining when observed by down and dirty old-school bikers who’d been out getting into trouble on their Shovelheads when they should have been spending a little time in their high school physics class.
Rocky: “Them solid rims look real damn badass but they’re gonna mess with yer handlin’ big time.”
Me: “Why’s that?”
Rocky: “Well hell, son, you’ll get blown all over the road! The wind can’t go through yer spokes cuz ya ain’t got any!”
I’d simply nod and assure him I’d take every precaution. The fact is, you can have the spindliest spokes in the world but at 4,000 RPMs, the wind is not about to be slicing through them. The reason “Rocky’s” spoke jobs and my solid wheels both work is because motorcycle wheels operate just like those toy gyroscopes you had as a kid — the faster you spin them, the more stable they become. The gyroscopic forces created by a moving wheel, give the bike stability and keep it upright. Oh, and they look real damn badass. Thus endeth the lesson.
Over the next few weeks I’ll be chronicling the many extended cross country excursions I made on four different motorcycles. Traveling long distances on a motorcycle differs dramatically from going by car. More on that next week.
So if you are not at all interested in bold adventure, scenic America highways, historical locations, grave personal danger and colorful characters — come back in June. Otherwise . . . hang on. And just lean when I do.
And so it went.
Don Negus is a Morning Sun columnist. Email: dhughnegus@gmail.com