The Scarlet Letter "P"

Nothing is as sensitive as human skin. It is a dense weave of endless and inter-connected nerve endings, suspended in a living tapestry; a container for the organs and a mask for the soul. And mine felt as if the scarlet letter “P” had been burned into it with a glowing brand. The letter “P...” For “pussilanimous...” The letter “P...” For “pussy.” A “P” spit on me by the three BMW riders standing in my mechanic’s driveway. And I was so miserable in the fucking heat that I didn’t care.

My vintage 1995 BMW K75 had been in need of a little attention. Specifically, it was long overdue (3 years) for a change of coolant, a change of brake fluid, and a taste of fresh transmission oil. The manual, a rectangular, perfect-bound book, lists this service as “annual;” like the arrival of winter, or the return of the swallows to Capistrano, or the filing of taxes. Most of the guys I ride with in the Mac Pac (the local BMW club chartered and sanctioned by the BMW Motorcycle Owners of America) perform these services themselves, in garages attached to their houses; garages that are the equivalent of motorcycle operating rooms, complete with bike lifts, and tools arranged by purpose and size, and dozens of little jars holding exotic fittings (new and salvaged). They perform these routine acts of maintenance as foreplay to the riding season, and the manual is their “Kama Sutra.”

One man’s “Kama Sutra” is another’s “Ancient History of Basic Accounting,” however. Instead of being reassured by the pictures of disassembled throttle bodies or excited passages regarding spark plug gaps, glancing through the manual creates a dull throbbing in my balls. This is not because my manhood is in question, but because I have all the mechanical inclination of a cigar store Indian... And because every other page of the manual ends with, “Failure to follow these instructions carefully, getting every little detail right the first time, may result in accident or death, or even worse, damaging the parts of this German motorcycle that will cost more to replace than you made in the last ten fucking years.”

And they aren’t kidding.

Don’t get me wrong... My first choice of two-wheeled vehicles will always be a BMW. And in the long run, I don’t care what the bikes nor the parts cost. (Money is seldom an object when you don’t have any.) Leslie, my hot squeeze, once gave me a beautiful Raymond Weil self-winding watch. While I look at it to tell the time, I have no inclination to take it apart. I feel the same way about my BMW motorcycle. I like riding it. I don’t give a damn to know about the transmission splines nor the Hall sensor. So I take my bike to Tom Cutter.

Tom Cutter of the Rubber Racing Garage (in Yardly, Pa) is my bike’s primary care-giver. This is the same Tom Cutter who was honored by the BMW Motorcycle Owners as a “Friend of the Marque,” one of the highest levels of recognition granted in BMW circles... The same Tom Cutter who has restored a number of priceless vintage and antique motorcycles that were given away by the MOA as door prizes at their annual rally... The same Tom Cutter who races, and who is an “airhead” authority. He works only on BMWs and a handful of Ducatis. You will come across a bike for sale in the Philly area from time to time, and see it listed as a “Cutter maintained” bike. This is to help convey the idea that it has been flawlessly serviced.

My ride to Cutter’s shop covers 57 miles of turnpike, US-1, and a smidgeon of I-95. The traffic on a weekday morning defies description. At one point it is 6 lanes of merging metal madness (in one direction) and is either at a coolant-boiling standstill, or is moving at a nerving rattling 78 miles per hour (right lane). There are two showroom BMW motorcycle dealers in the area, but one is 60 miles to the west (over twisty backroads north of Reading), while the other is 54 miles north and east through the ghastliest urban sprawl you can imagine. There are two advantages to taking a bike to the Rubber Chicken Racing Garage: 1) Only Cutter works on it; and 2) He works on one or two bikes at time. You are given a time to drop it off and a time to pick it up. There is no screwing around. This means you will seldom be without your bike for a total of 48 hours. For someone who wants the minimum down time to enjoy the maximum riding time, it doesn’t get any better than this.

During the peak days of the season, you might wait a month to get an appointment.

Leslie followed me out for the fast hour-plus run. She asked me to stick to the speed limit. (It was the longest friggin’ 57 miles I ever rode.) Tom greeted me in the driveway by throwing a clean, dry shop towel in my face. The temperature was in the low 90’s and it wasn’t noon yet. Sweat squirted out of my mesh gear, creating a stream that favored the spawning of sturgeon.

Two days later, I rode out again in the passenger seat of the conditioned car of my riding buddy Dick Bregstein. The plan was to drop me off, and pick up another rider, David H., whose F650 needed tuning. The K75 was serviced and ready to go. Cutter had found an irregularity with the cooling fan’s relay, but told me it would be fine if I could avoid the worst stop and go traffic. He’d pop another relay in the following week.

Once again I was the largest mammal on two wheels and I began to sizzle in the heat. The thought of putting on that body armor (Joe Rocket Mesh Gear) and rolling out on the hot tarmac was the farthest thing from my mind. The stink of hot truck exhaust, the jellied shit smeared across the toll booth lanes, and the waves of heat rising up from 57 miles of microwaved roadway held the allure of a 60-year-old, three dollar whore.

“David,” I asked. “How would you like to ride my K75 back to West Chester?”

The question provoked the kind of stillness that would normally accompany taking a shit in one’s pants while standing on the receiving line at a black tie dinner. Cutter, Bregstein, and David H. exchanged glances that x-rayed the Letter “P” to my forehead. The silence continued, and they realized that I wasn’t joking.

David H. had ridden into the shop on an older F650, which is an unbelievably sparky, single-cylinder, chain-driven, highly flickable BMW, that can get a little buzzy around its top practical speed of 80mph. An experienced K75 rider, he took a few turns on “Fireballs,” smiled like a kid with an endless hall pass, and disappeared astride a red blur. (He later assured me he kept it under 90mph.)

Bregstein made small talk as we drove home. But the conversation was a trifle strained as he avoided even occasional eye-contact. He started to talk about the neighbor’s cats, but couldn’t help using saying the word “pussy” 17 times.

“Could we please talk about something else,” I asked.

Dick shrugged, and started to reminisce about the girls he knew in college... But the outcome was the same.

I couldn’t sleep that night. The thought that I had fobbed off riding my precious bike on a friend — on a day when the weather was absolutely clear (albeit hot) — was fundamentally troubling. I thought of great Mac Pac riders like Moto Edde Mendes, who rode his K75 across the Sahara (absolutely true), and felt the shame oozing from my soul. (I imagined I was in the Sahara, trying to call Bregstein on my cell phone, so he could ride my K75 to Sudan.)

The temperature was slated to be in the high 90’s again that following Saturday. I called Bregstein and conned him to riding with me up to the Strasburg Railroad Museum, over by Lancaster, Pa. (This is one of our most pleasant warm-up rides, of about 80 miles roundtrip.) Dick agreed.

I mounted the bike in humidity that was as wilting as my first mother-in-law’s voice. My gear was sticking to me before I could even press the starter. And when I got moving, the ambient air moved through my mesh gear with the cooling comfort of jet engine exhaust. “Fuck me and fuck this fucking heat,” I thought as I leaned into the first curve. The soft foam insert in my Nolan helmet was as soggy as a slice of Wonder bread, and sweat pour down into my eyes. My jeans felt plastered to my thunder thighs and I wondered if the bunched up denim doesn’t cause problems with the circulation in my legs. (I am presently too fat for riding pants and will not drop $700 for a custom pair from CyclePort while I am this size..)

I think the humidity has something to do with aggravating my joints. I went through three weeks of lessening pain (as I began to consciencously diet) and looked forward to getting on the bike. I had 15 minutes of pain-free riding before my hips and knees exploded. I had thought that dropping weight would make it easier for my hips to bend but this does not seem to be the case in this heat.

We shot along a little expressway (the US-30 bypass) that runs through some very pleasant farm fields. Normally, we would have flown through here like being fired out of a cannon, but the cops are out earning revenue and they are now hiding in the corn fields.

Coming up on the junction with Rt. 10, I began to slow for the merging traffic and for the red light ahead of me. A quick glance into my left mirror revealed that Bregstein had been cut off by the car behind me, which was so close to my rear wheel that only one of its headlights could be seen. I ignored this prick and concentrated on the stopped traffic ahead of me in the intersection. Easing into a graceful stop, I maintained my position in the left half of the right lane.

The douche in the car squeezed past me — in my own lane — looking me right in the eye, while he talked on the phone, as both of us were rolling, with 75 feet to go before the light.

I was furious. I wanted to pull him out of the car and beat the living shit out of him on the spot. Then I wanted to stomp on his fucking cell phone, and shove it up his ass with the front wheel of my bike.

The douche came to a stop at the light, still talking on the phone, behind a guy on a Harley. I lane-split up his right side and pulled in behind the mammoth cruiser. The rider looked back at me and smiled.

“Is Lancaster back there,” I asked, using my thumb to indicate someplace over my back. The Harley rider’s eyes followed my thumb and stared at the driver in the car behind me.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “It seven miles in front of you.”

Bregstein also used the opportunity to lane-split and pulled up beside me. Yet he paused in mid-maneuver to stop alongside the car and look in the passenger’s window. The middle-aged stooge behind the wheel looked like he was going to shit.

When the light changed, Dick and I pulled away at 35 mph. The douche hung far back, and there was no more of the tailgating.

"What would you have done if the guy got out of the car," I asked Dick.

Ever fast on his feet, Bregstein replied, "I'd have shown him my AARP card and kicked him in the balls."

There was an antique car show and an accurate railroad scenario (gandy dancer tents and an encampment) being staged through the use of actual equipment up at the train museum, which jammed the parking lot. But Dick and I squeezed our bikes through the crowd and got the last best parking spot. We spent the next two hours experimenting with a new media that will soon become part of twisted roads.

It blistering hot when we saddled up for the return ride. The seats and gas tanks of both bikes were scalding to the touch. There would have been little puddles of gas on the ground, from fuel expansion into the overflow tubes, had we not burned off a couple of gallons earlier in the day.

“Why did you pick the hottest day of the year to ride,” asked Bregstein, watching me struggle to get into sticky riding gear.

“So you could tell David H. and Cutter that I am not afraid to ride in the heat, and that I am not a pussy.”

“We weren’t giving you a 'pussy look,'” replied Bregstein. “We were giving you an ‘asshole’ look, which in your case will be a lot harder to disprove.”

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2010

AKA The Lindbergh Baby (Mac Pac)'

AKA Vindak8r (Motorcycle Views)

Addendum:

Twisted Roads is again rewarding its readers with prizes! Two great prizes will be offered for the month of August: A Progressive Suspension & Tire Plugging Kit, and an EZ Tire Pressure Gauge.

1) To compete for the Progressive Suspension & Tire plugging kit, please answer this three question survey:
Do you carry a first aid kit? (Yes, Or No)
Have you ever had cause to use your first aid kit? (Yes or No)
If the answer to the above question was “yes,” did you find it adequate? (Yes or No)

Copy, cut and paste your response to jpriepe@aol.com. Mark the subject line "Tire Plugging Kit." Include your first name and email address. Winners will be selected at random and notified by e-mail.

2) To compete for the EZ Tire Pressure Gauge, just leave a comment at the end of the blog. You can even say, “This blog sucks,” but then I’ll know you were either Chris Wolfe, Scott Royer, or Michael Beattie.

To leave a comment, read through to the blog’s end (sheer torture). For those who see the comments posted, just click on the option “leave a comment.” If you click the “anonymous” option, be sure you leave a readily identifiable name so you can be announced as a winner.
If comments are not automatically listed, read through to the end of the blog. At the end you will see something like “15 comments.” Click on the word “comment”. Type in your comment in the space provided. If you click the “anonymous” option, be sure you leave a readily identifiable name so you can be announced as a winner.

• Winners for both contests will be announced on the “Twisted Roads Blog,” on Monday, August 16, 2010.
• Winners will be chosen at random.
• Relatives and former wives of the editorial staff of Twisted Roads are not eligible for prizes.
• No substitutions
• Void where prohibited
• Prizes are awarded new as they are shipped in their original packaging from the manufacturer. Twisted Roads is not responsible for any defects in awarded prizes, nor for any incidents, accidents, injuries, damages or death perceived to be caused by defective prizes. Riding a motorcycle is a dangerous activity with special risks. We all ride at our own pleasure and peril.
• Unclaimed prizes will be held a year. It is up to all contestants to read the Twisted Roads Blog dated August 16th, 2010 to see if they are winners.
• Any additional taxes or fees due on prizes are the responsibility of the winners. Twisted Roads is happy to pay for shipping and handling.
• Topless contestants who send pictures of themselves usually do a lot better at winning prizes. My email address is posted on my blog. (I dare you.)