The Cantwell Factor...

The unmistakable rumble of a BMW “R” bike drifted up the driveway a fraction of a second before my riding partner Dick Bregstein materialized on his motorcycle. For those who are not familiar with BMW’s “R” bike legacy, these are the classic two-cylinder machines that the Bayerische Motoren Werke (Motorrad) has been cranking out, in one configuration or another, since 1923. The cylinders, commonly referred to as “jugs,” stick straight out about 3 and half feet on each side. Bregstein has a had a “love/hate” relationship since he bought this machine from a Gypsy horse-trader early last year. It replaced his brand new F800S, that he augered into a boulder on a tight curve in the early summer of 2008, before flying off to strike a house. While this “R” bike offers the seamless power and understated dignity of a BMW motorcycle, Dick misses the “bad boy” characteristics of his F800S, which combined the flickability of a pole dancer with the overall characteristics of a Doberman.

He switched off the bike, raised the chin-bar on his helmet and said, “I was in your neighborhood when I realized one of my MotoLights was out. I figured you’d have a spare.”

“No problem,” I replied. “Step into the garage. Can I get you a cold drink?”

“Do you have any prune juice and vodka?”

“The prune juice is in the refrigerator and the vodka is in the freezer,” I replied. (Dick calls this cocktail a “Russian Two-Step.” I believe he has one a day, regularly.) Yet before he could even open the freezer door, I had two replacement lamps in my hand. “Do you want a 25-watt bulb or the 50-watt one?”

“The fifty,” said Dick, with pure amazement in his voice. “But I’ll just take it and go then, as I’ll need the special tool to install it, and I have it at home.”

“No bother,” I said with a smile. “I have that tool right here.” I opened the third drawer in my rolling tool cabinet, retrieved the little “Y” wrench, and put it in Dick’s hand.

“Wait a minute,” said Dick, looking around. “What the fuck happened to this garage?”

Above — "Leather" Dick Bregstein, my riding buddy, knows where to find a spare MotoLight bulb in a jiffy. He is seen here posing with his "R" bike, named "Michele," after the President's wife. Photo by Patti Jacobs.

The three-bay garage attached to this house has a reputation for looking like a bazaar in Baghdad, after the Taliban has exploded a car bomb or something. But Bregstein’s glance revealed that everything had been organized and put away. The floor was spotless. All of my motorcycle gear had been categorized and stored in transparent plastic bins. My tools were filed by category and neatly placed in the appropriate drawer of my red, rolling tool chest. I knew exactly what stuff I had and where everything was. It took me 38 seconds to find the MotoLight bulbs.

“Have you got a clean rag,” asked Bregstein?

“Red cloth garage rags or heavy blue absorbent paper,” I responded, popping open a bin that had both, plus an assortment of micro-fiber cloth towels.

“I can’t stand this,” said Bregstein. “Not from you. Did you get abducted by aliens? If so, I hope they gave you the anal probe without lubrication — repeatedly.”

What happened to the garage was Michael Cantwell.

A mild-mannered, environmentally sensitive individual, who is trained as a forester and nature specialist, Cantwell lives in a world of perfect order. Everything exists without conflict in his little universe... Stars never collide... Bees never sting... And women never bitch. That’s because he makes sure everything is where it should be, without confusion nor conflict.

Above — Michael Cantwell takes a hit of Adirondack spring water while assessing the seemingly endless piles of shit stacked in the garage. His BMW K75 motorcycle, named "The Nobility of Mankind," is parked in the background. Photo by Leslie Marsh.

I first met Mike Cantwell years ago when I was a writer living in the High Peaks region of New York State’s Adirondacks. We were on “day 15” of an ice storm whose after effects still had another 10 days to go. I had been trapped in a cabin for two weeks with a woman who (without radio, television, or the telephone) was gradually turning into a vampire, when I staggered into a bar looking for help.

“Do any of you skinny assholes know anything about phone wires,” I asked a crowd of barflys.

One guy, who was sitting by the wood-burning stove, sipping a warm Nestle’s Quik, said, “I think I know what they look like.”

“Can you climb a pole for $20,” I pressed, fully examining his qualifications?

He was willing to climb Everest for $20, and that’s how I met Mike Cantwell. (He had my phone hooked up an hour later, when most of the Adirondacks were wrapped with dead and fallen wires.) We have been good friends ever since.

Cantwell had ridden down from Wilmington, New York to participate in the Mac Pac’s Guinness World Book attempt to assemble the greatest number of BMWs in one spot, and was staying with Leslie and me for the weekend. He’d gone to bed early enough on the evening he arrived (after a 400-mile stretch), yet I found him in the kitchen at dawn, dark circles around his eyes, sobbing into a bowl of Fruit Loops. (We normally keep boxes of “silly cereal” around for the warped tastes of the children of our visiting friends.)

“What’s the matter, Mike,” I gently asked, suspecting some secret family trouble, or a midlife male identity crisis, or a simple case of overwhelming motorcycle penis envy that stemmed from parking his underspoken blue K75 next to my flamboyant red one.

“I can’t tell you,” Cantwell whispered. “You’ll be totally pissed.”

“Did you get drunk and make a pass at Leslie,” I guessed. (I already knew this wasn’t the case as we didn’t have that much Nestle’s Quik in the house.)

“Worse,” he sobbed. “I can’t stay here another minute.”

“Why?”

“Because your garage is such a total shit house that I can’t close my eyes without seeing it in my sleep,” Cantwell said. “It’s so fucking horrible, that it scares the living shit out of me.”

“How can I help,” I asked.

“Could you... Would you... Could you let me clean it and organize it for you,” he stammered.

This was the only time in my life I ever came close to knowing how people who win huge lotteries feel.

“Only if you let me supervise while drinking rum and coke.”

“Thank you... Thank you,” he sighed. “Can we get started now?”

“But it’s only 5am.”

“If we get started now, we’ll finish in time for the Guinness Record ride,” said Cantwell, looking at his watch.

“The ride isn’t until tomorrow,” I said.

“I know,” said Cantwell. “I know.”

“Very well,” I said. “Make me a rum and coke.”

“You want a rum and coke now” asked Cantwell. “It’s only 5am.”

“I know,” I replied. “I know.”

Cantwell stepped out into the anguish of the garage with the expectations of a young sailor visiting a New Orleans whorehouse for the first time. The change in his demeanor was utterly remarkable.

“Now there’s a science to this,” he said. “We should begin be identifying all of the things in this shit house of a garage that you use very rarely or not at all. These will then be tossed out or placed in out-of-the way corners, making space for other things.”

I signaled my agreement to this concept by tinkling the ice in my glass.

Cantwell found 1 canoe, three bicycles, three portable bicycle racks, one semi-permanent bicycle mounting pole, one roof-mount storage capsule (for a car Leslie no longer owns), paddles, 6 tents, fishing gear, 6 shitty/cheap folding lawn chairs, canoe paddles and life jackets, 42 full boxes of art supplies (equivalent to 12 tons) 4 pieces of strange Adirondack furniture, a wheel-barrow with a flat tire, 3 metric tons of gardening supplies, 3 dog beds, a ramp (for Atticus to use to get into the Subaru), an Apple Tower computer from 1995, and a 300-lb. box containing an electric version of a “Total Gym,” that a friend of Leslie’s had to have immediately (“How much is it,” the friend asked. When he heard it was $1100, he said,“I’ll get back to you tomorrow.” That was nine years ago.)

Above — The author takes a boyish delight in categorizing box after box of motorcycle gear. Photo by Leslie Marsh.

In the motorcycle bay, Mike discovered motorcycle accessories and parts (many unopened in the original packaging); partially filled bottles of oil; transmission lubricant; tubes of room-temperature, self-vulcanizing shit; two ratchet sets (each missing the one socket that was most likely to be needed); a Kendon trailer; a couple of stools; three coolers (empty); and two spackle buckets (filled with shit). The entire garage floor was covered with leaves and sticks that had blown in from the driveway. And a mouse darted from corner to corner; while the neighbor’s cat paced outside

“The mouse problem was the easiest to solve,” said Cantwell. “I just carried in the cat.”

“The orange tabby from the driveway,” I asked.

Cantwell replied with an evil smile that said, “Nature is best when left alone.”

“That’s the neighbor’s cat who likes to piss in the garage,” I said. "Look over there."

The cat was hunched over, about to aim a stream of urine into Mike’s helmet. Homing in on the felonious feline's little round asshole, Cantwell's boot launched it into a perfect parabola that abruptly ended with a splash in the neighbor’s pool.

“How often do you use any of this shit,” Mike asked, gesturing to the inventory described above.

Once again, I tinkled the ice in my glass.

“Why don’t you just throw it out?”

“Because it belongs to the Vatican,” I said. “And she is absolutely certain everything is essential,” I said.

“Shit,” he replied.

“Ditto,” said I.

Cantwell went into high gear. Bicycle racks and the old car luggage pod were suspended from the ceiling. Various random items were dragged out into the driveway, to reveal the original floor plan of the structure. Meanwhile, I started going through all of my biking gear, organizing it into seven large plastic bins. The thermometer started to climb. By mid-day, it was dancing around 94º (F). I had a huge fan pointed at my head, yet the breeze stopped three times as Cantwell carried it out to the driveway.

Above — Mike Cantwell correctly identifies the state bird of New Jersey, while pondering the "Nobility of Mankind." Photo by Leslie Marsh.

“You touch that fucking fan one more time and I am going to fucking kill you,” I told him. He then made me feel badly with that ridiculously contrite look he gets on his face, especially as he then carried the fan around behind me for an hour.

Above — The author now understands why Native Americans did not have garages when Columbus discovered America. Photo by Leslie Marsh, the author's hot squeeze.

By late afternoon, I had the second-most thing I have ever wanted in my life: a spotlessly clean, well-organized garage, with a personal “Man Bay” solely for my motorcycle stuff. Cantwell had organized and hung garden implements on one wall, while reserving another just for odd sized bike-related stuff. These included my K75 "City Bags," which are hard, brief case-sized panniers, ideal for lane splitting in the city. (Cantwell was fascinated by these as he had never seen them before. "Cool," he said. "You'd look like a real Beemer douche riding around with these on.")

Parking my huge ass on my semi-hydraulic, 10-wheeled mechanic’s stool (a gift from Leslie’s dad and stepmom), I lit up a cigar the size of a hog’s leg and watered my throat with a deluge of beer as cold as an Alpine stream.

Above — Just washed, Cantwell's austere K75 exhibits a decent shine... His bike sports civilian crash bars and a manly, exposed set of throttle bodies. (They are covered on Fire Balls.) Photo by Leslie Marsh.

“Thank you, Michael,” I said. “Being gimpy like I am, this would have taken me a week, which is why it never gets done.”

“No problem,” said Cantwell. “I love doing stuff like this. And I’ll sleep like a baby tonight.”

“Maybe not,” said Leslie. “Jack, tell him to park his bike in your train room.”

# # #

Addendum... Congratulations to Nikos!

On behalf of the global Twisted Roads readership and the riding elite of BMW motorcycles — K75 Owners — I would like to congratulate “Nikos” on his recent acquisition of a beautiful K75RT. This is a variation of the machine that sports a full fairing with the surface area of the State of Delaware. This distinctive fairing is designed to provide the rider with maximum protection from the more distressing elements that are likely to occur in locales with the kind of weather that would have Saint Francis kicking cats... Such as Great Britain.

It is my delight to embrace Nikos as the proud owner of a motorcycle subspecies — the K75 — in a design category that is regarded by many as the ugliest fucking motorcycle ever conceived. The truth is that all K75s are like that woman in the office; the one with the black-framed glasses, the square shoes, and the flat ass; the one who reads 1930’s novels for the complex sentence structure... The one who puts on a little black dress just for you; the one who makes you feel like a 21-year-old bullfighter; the one who has a classic art deco body when outlined in the moonlight, and the one who will keep you young forever.

Above -- The classic art deco nude form of a woman, from a 1930's painting by Walter Beach Humphrey. If a K75 could transform itself ito a woman, it would look like this. If a K75 could transform itself into a man, it would look like me. Photo from the internet. The painting is in a private collection.

There are those who will look at your bike, Nikos, and roll their eyes in amusement. Some may even ride other BMWs. These are the dopes destined to be the punchlines of the cognoscenti. Learn to give them that special little, warm smile... The one that says, “Shove it up your ass and keep walking.”

Above — The profile of a beautiful K75RT, now owned by Nikos. Photo by Nikos and stolen from his blog.

Nikos, I have seen the K75RT before, but never with the array of switches high up on the fairing. These give you a tremendous number of options for cool accessories without the clutter of aftermarket switches. What is the center switch for? (Is it a night light to read a map?) I also noted that your rig has heated handgrips, and the electrically adjustable windshield. Very neat. I also love the fuel gauge and the temperature gauge. You have me thinking that these might be a cool addition to Fire Balls, if I can figure out where to mount them.

Above — The flight deck of Nikos's K75RT. Photo by Nikos and stolen from his blog.

At 45,000 miles (kilometers), this machine is barely broken in. You can easily tell that it has been pampered as the color of the handlebar control switches has not faded. And Yours has a stereo sound system. (Tell me you’ve got this hooked up to an MP3 player?) Looking at the front brake rotors, I’m guessing that this unit has ABS brakes. (Mine does not and I occasionally wish it did.) Here’s a stupid question that I should know the answer to: are the red lines across the headlight for defrosting it?

My only regret about you having this rig over in Britain is that we will not be riding together soon, Nikos. Congratulations again. I have taken the liberty of adding your blog to mt destinations column on the right. You will come to regret my comments.

Jack • reep • Toad

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2010

AKA The Lindbergh Baby (Mac Pac)

AKA Vindak8r (Motorcycle Views)

AKA The Chamberlain — PS (With A Shrug)