The Misadventures of Michael Beattie and Mr. Toad

The aura of excitement hung about the house like those dense fog banks that occasionally surround the Golden Gate Bridge. The cause for this heightened state of anticipation was the pending visit of Michael Beattie, the author of that widely read and respected blog "Key West Dairy" and a hard riding Triumph motorcycle enthusiast. For those who have been in prison or literary exile, Key West Dairy provides a daily look at life in the center of the “Conch Republic,” a seething hotbed of cultural preservation, artistic revolution, architectural conflict, and odd local traditions designed to siphon tourist dollars into the municipality’s coffers.

Beattie was out to break his personal best on his second Iron Butt riding endeavor. The Iron Butt Association is dedicated to safe, long-distance motorcycle riding, and features a number of carefully certified events and programs that are prerequisites for participation in this 50,000-member international organization. On this trip, he was out to score 1500 miles in 36-hours. Sanctioned rides fall into the “Saddlesore” and “Bunburner” category, and require strict documentation to qualify. I refer to Beattie’s most recent run as a Glowing Red Butt ride, in honor of a rite of passage I suspect he undoubtedly enjoyed as a boy at a British boarding school.

Beattie’s original research produced an arc of travel encompassing San Antonio, Saint Louis, Albany (NY), or Montauk Point (Long Island, NY). A more precise study of the weather, traffic, and road conditions led him to choose Binghamton, NY (the sister city of Singapore, I think) as his final destination.

I took a personal interest in this ride for several reasons; the first of which was the mentor/young grasshopper online friendship Beattie and I have forged over the last two years. He has come to rely on my judgement for all kinds of things ranging from politics to the proper focus of photography. (Politically, Beattie stands somewhere between that great philosopher Michael Moore and that rascally government reformer Stalin. His photographs used to be dedicated to dumpy tourists, spilling out of brightly colored Bermuda shorts, but now does offer the occasional infusion of hotties, of which there should be no shortage in Key West.)

Other reasons for my interest in this ride relate to the basic charter of this blog: raw motorcycle adventure, research in two-wheeled transportation, and a commitment to exploring the performance parameters of various motorcycles. (This ride would provide me with an in-depth look at how certain marques dissolve upon impact with dampened leaves and highway runoff.)

The clock officially started at 9:50pm (2150 for my European readers) on Saturday, October 9, 2010, with a call from Layne, Michael Beattie’s long-suffering spouse, who informed me that the sideshow was about to hit the road. You could hear the distinct sound of a Triumph Bonneville in the background, and a bellowing voice that reminded me of the late Benny Hill. Michael is a descendant of Italian royalty (castle and all), who was educated in Britain, and who settled in the US, once he determined that most Americans regard anyone with a British accent as a kind of James Bond . He has had a remarkable career as a yacht skipper, a journalist, and a civil servant. His native Italian accent has yielded to the equally worldly tones of a Cockney cockle-monger. (Cockles are a kind of shellfish and not at all what the gentle reader was probably thinking.)

By 10am on the following Sunday (all times are approximate), Beattie was in the mountains of South Carolina and claimed to have frozen his ass off. Real adventure seldom happens when you are at the top of your game and every sense is fine-tuned to the task at hand. And so it was with Michael Beattie on this last Glowing Butt Ride. He arrived in Binghamton in time to qualify for the Iron Butt criteria, and felt good enough to go for a ride through the Catskill Mountains. The next I heard from him, he was exploring the limitations of room service in a discount hotel where the hourly rate exceeded the weekly charge for the same accommodations. (Beattie had never before stayed in a hotel room that had a coin-operated sink.)

My original plan was to ride my K75 and meet him at a rest stop on the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike (Allentown)... But a last minute writing assignment started to squeeze my schedule and a nasty flare-up of my arthritis in my right knee began to seriously hinder my already limited mobility. We pushed back the meeting time to later in the day and I decided the smart move might be might be to take Leslie's SUV. And then it happened...

Michael Beattie went down.

According to eye witnesses, Beattie’s Triumph Bonneville (estimated to be moving at 2 miles per hour) lumbered out of control across the parking lot of a topless joint. Michael desperately attempted to execute what would have been a very snappy gradual stop — with the engine barely ticking at idle. Yet the complexity of the maneuver must have confused the rider... Or perhaps he was thinking of huge derrieres attached to dumpy tourists spilling out of brightly colored Bermuda shorts... But his line of travel took him through a half-inch deep drainage slough, lined with mud from the weekend’s rains, covered by a layer of fall leaves.

The Triumph reared like a Shetland pony, hurling Beattie to the ground, then coming to rest atop his right ankle, pinning him under the wreckage of smashed motorcycle parts. Beattie found himself on all fours, in the muck, screaming like a debutante on prom night. An elderly couple lifted the bike off him, got him out of the mud, and refused his 25¢ tip.

But the damage had been done.

The force of smashing into the ground sheared the rider’s peg from the kick plate. State Troopers would find it a quarter of a mile away, embedded into a 234-year-old pine tree, planted the day representatives from Pennsylvania signed the Declaration of Independence. (There are some who believe this is no coincidence.) The right front turn signal lens was also shattered. Oddly enough, the lens was colored “amber,” which happened to be the name of the topless dancer performing at that moment in the bar. (Another coincidence? You decide.)

Beattie called me at once. He sounded seriously rattled.

“Michael,” I said, using the same tone that has proven effective on stampeding cattle, “Calm down. Are you hurt?”

“My right ankle. I think it might be shattered,” he stammered. I knew exactly what he was thinking: that free healthcare in Canada was only 350-miles to the north. (As a Bolshevic in the classic sense, "free" stuff from the government, like in Greece, really appeals to him.)

“Forget the ankle. It’s fine. And just remember, you don’t speak French. The flesh-eating French-speaking zombies of Montreal would tear you apart.”

That got his attention.

“Now tell me,” I asked. “What is the damage to the bike?”

“I’m trapped here,” Beattie wailed. “The rider’s peg is gone from the bike. I’ll have to make a stirrup from an old shirt and hang my foot from the handlebars.”

“Don’t be absurd,” I said. “Pop out the passenger’s peg and use that one. It should fit fine. All you need is a pliers and a screw driver.”

“Will you talk me through it,” Beattie asked.

“I just did.”

“But what about the turn signal?”

“The bike will start without having a lens over the turn signal,” I said.

“Will it,” asked Beattie, the skepticism dripping from his voice. “It’s not a BMW, you know.”

“Trust me,” I replied. I promised Michael that I would find a local Triumph dealer and get the parts he needed to make a permanent repair for Wednesday. He stopped crying almost immediately.

Two hours later, we shook hands in a rest area on the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Michael Beattie and the Triumph Bonneville make the perfect couple. It is a retro bike and he cuts a retro figure, despite wearing contemporary gear. He pulled up to the SUV and dismounted, displaying only a touch of a limp. His 2007 Bonneville represents the height of the retro motorcycle-builder’s craft. The elegant understatement of the Bonneville is extraordinary. It is to motorcycles what the Jaguar XKE is to sports cars. Slightly mud-scarred from its encounter with the ground, the machine bore superficial scratching on the windscreen, and a smashed turn signal lens. We agreed it could have been much worse. The ride back to the house was fairly uneventful, except for the stretch where Beattie passed me in excess of 80 mph and gave me the finger.

Above — Leslie Marsh, my significant other. Seeing the initial extent of Michael Beattie's limp, Leslie thought he'd be grounded for a couple of days. A multi-media artist, "Stiffie" is seen here holding a soldering iron. This photo is a self-portrait.

Michael’s limp got worse before it got better. He admitted it felt like a lightly sprained ankle (which is like describing a lightly delivered kick in the balls). Over a fragrant dinner of Stiffie’s/Leslie’s (my red hot squeeze) Hodge Podge soup and freshly baked pumpkin bread, Beattie regaled us with his most recent tale of the road. Headed toward Binghamton, the threat of rain caused him to take a three-hour snooze under a low-standing shelter in a field. Daylight revealed it to be a cow. And a visit to a local sheriff’s office to get his Pepper Butt papers signed resulted in him getting a good going-over by night stick wielding cops.

Above — Michael Beattie unsuccessfully attempts to activate a force-field to defeat this photograph, as he puts a bag of ice on his right ankle. Photo by the author.

“I fail to understand your fascination with women who lift up their shirts when you pass by on your bike,” said Beattie. “It happened to me in Virginia yesterday and I think it’s an overrated thrill.” As it turns out, the woman was about 92-years-old and had ridden a Triumph to Woodstock, when she was 56. Michael’s classical riding style convinced the woman that she was saluting a contemporary. “She could have used knee braces for a brassiere,” he concluded.

Above: Beattie in metamorphosis... Michael holds up his "Inflata-Pants." These are the actual size of the rain pants that Beattie will stretch over his ass and inflate by some mysterious means into form-fitting raingear. Photo by the author.

I was amazed at lightly Michael had packed for this trip. Both of the Triumph’s sidebags were stuffed with maps, cans of kippered herring, and biscuits (which is the British word for hardtack “cookies”). His other change of clothes, and his rain gear were tucked inside a bright yellow duffle bag, upon which was stenciled, “Contents: Human Organs.” Beattie explained that he’d gotten the bag at an auction of surplus gear held by the Key Fungo Coroner’s Office. “I paid two dollars for it in 2005,” he said, with obvious pride. "And it came with a gallbladder."

Beattie was limping so badly at dinner’s end that he was using one of my canes to get around. Leslie was convinced he was likely to be grounded for a couple of days, but Michael was putting a good face on it. A dog person from the inside out, he formed an instant bond with Atticus (our German shepherd) and Scout (the rescue mutt).

“I am impressed by the size of this dog,” Beattie said, standing on the kitchen table to pet the Atticus as he passed by, with the Triumph in his mouth. “And the smaller white one has such sharp teeth. What is the command for getting her to let go of my ass?” (Scout is trained to release perceived burglars when they say. “God I wish I had a K75.” But they have to say it sincerely.)

Shortly after breakfast on the second day of his stay, I introduced Michael to Dick Bregstein, a fellow BMW rider and a celebrated member of the Mac-Pac, our charted BMW-riding club. Dick ran us up to Hermy’s, the local BMW and Triumph dealer, so we could get the replacement parts for the damaged bike. Hermy’s is located in Hamburg, Pa, a scant 65 miles from the house. Beattie was astounded to find a full-service dealer, in the middle of nowhere. While utterly taken aback by the long row of lethal-looking BMW motorcycles on display across the front of the shop, Michael swooned when he saw the five current Triumph models parked toward the rear of the showroom.

We had no sooner stepped through the door when the parts manager held up two plastic bags, containing the replacement peg and the turn signal lens. They even extended to Michael the Mac -Pac riding club discount. Hermy’s is a great place to run into riding friends and acquaintances. Paul Paradise, a rider from Delaware, was trading in one 10-year-old BMW for 6 new Triumphs, which utterly astounded Beattie. Michael was chattering away at Paul, regaling him with stories of life among the cannibals in Key West, as Bregstein and I made faces behind his back. Before we left, Paradise told us he nearly pissed himself trying to keep a straight face. The trip to Hermy’s has a way of taking up the whole day, especially if you stop for lunch. I’d often said that if Hermy’s had a bar, I spend the night there.

Dusk found Beattie and I drinking beer in the driveway, making slight adjustments to our bikes and wiping the grit off the easy-to-get-to spots. A crescent moon rose and basked each machine in a dim glow.

“May I share something with you that I have have told no other person,” asked Michael.

“Certainly,” I said, conscious of the fact that while my reply suggested confidentiality, I had actually promised nothing of the sort.

“You know how I make fun of people who name their motorcycles? Well I feel like something of a hypocrite.”

“Go on,” I encouraged. “There are no secrets between men here in the driveway.”

“Welllllll,” he stammered... “I do have a name for my bike. It’s Neville... For that great British statesman and Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain.”

“Peace in our time.”

“Exactly,” said Beattie. “I knew you would understand.”

“You bet,” I said, with my best Iscariot smile.

I showed Michael the more subtle operating points of the vintage BMW K75. Chief among these is the self-retracting side stand. It comes up if you pull in the clutch. Beattie was like a cat with a ball of yarn. "Can I make it come up one more time," he'd ask.

"Now, Michael," I replied. "This is the 30th time you've made the kick stand retract."

Then he would stare at the side stand one more time in utter amazement while pulling in the clutch, as unseen forces would bring it up. (The purpose of this is to prevent the rider from pulling away with the kick stand down. The system predates micro-switches that kill the engine under the same circumstances.)

That moon became a ghostly galleon a few hours later, and we awoke to a grey overcast. A bitch of a cold storm-front was moving through with more than an inch of precipitation expected in the next 12 hours. It was my plan to ride with Michael down to where Route 222 hits I-95, in Port Deposit, Maryland. I wisely decided to take Stiffie’s Subaru, as my left knee was as stiff as Farouk’s dick. Michael’s destination was the AutoTrain station, in Lorton, Va., a three-hour run. I took Michael down through a series of beautiful back roads that ran through horse country, passing the last stable of that racing legend Barbaro, then through Amish farmland. There was absolutely no traffic outside of West Chester, Pa. The sun was out in places, and many of the trees were gearing up for their fall colors. We bypassed the snarled traffic of Wilmington, De (all of that state in fact) and eliminated over a third of the slab in Maryland. We crossed into Maryland at a sign that indicated we’d also hit the Mason-Dixon line.

The first fat rain drops splattered on the pavement when we were 8 miles from I-95.

Pulling into a gas station, Beattie topped off his tank one more time and slipped into his rain gear. He admitted he was wearing more layers of clothing now than he had ever put on in his life. The crowning touch was a pair of over-gloves that had a claw-like look to them. (The last time I had seen anything like this it was on the midway of a cheesy carnival in Trenton, NJ. The act was “The Amazing Lobster Boy.”) Now wearing his costume, the Beattie sideshow took to the road.

Above — Cold but not yet raining... Beattie is wearing the warmest riding gear he's got, anticipating ambient temperatures as low as 54 degrees, at the beginning of his run to the AutoTrain. This is the famed Triumph Bonneville named "Neville." Photo by the author.

The rain had become a horizontal torrent by the time Michael Beattie banked out onto I-95. I sat and watched from the overpass as he faded into a murky dimension of dense rain and tire spray. Triumphs are all about tradition. The running light on the back of Michael’s Bonneville is patterned after the stern light of Lord Nelson’s flagship. It was clearly visible in that fading light for a good eight feet. The next time Beattie and I spoke — three hours later — the trainmen had just strapped his bike down for shipment to Orlando. Michael had changed into dry clothes, but decided to still wear his lobster claws as they really scared little kids.

Above — Early for "trick or treat," Lobster-Claw Beattie, the mutant Triumph rider, sets off on the first stage of his victory run to Key West. Beattie's policy is to never buy a helmet if the manufacturer's logo is larger than his eye glasses. Photo by the author.

I had been waiting for this historical run for two months. Yet I felt gypped that this damned arthritis prevented me from getting at least one good ride in with Michael Beattie. It had been my attention to take him along some of my favorite Amish roads around Lancaster, but circumstances worked against us.

Beattie is a genuine pisser of a guy and I do look forward to doing that Amish run with him next year... And also riding through “Alligator Alley” in Florida with him on my tail, studying the configuration of a real running light. He is a conservative rider by nature (certainly in Key West, where distances are limited by traffic and water), who recently discovered that his Triumph likes to run at 85mph. He also discovered that he likes to accommodate it too.

Few are those guests who leave a void that is hard to fill after they depart. I found myself hoping that Beattie could have delayed his departure by at least one day, but his schedule was unforgiving. Before he mounted up, Michael came into my office and presented me with two priceless gifts: A palm tree coffee cup, and a snow globe designed to look like the southernmost point on Key West. I am delighted with both. I've had my coffee from the palm tree cup every day this week. (My daily coffee is a cross between the ancient Japanese cha ceremony and the annointimg of the Dalai Lama. It's the perfect cup for it.)