The Mouse And The Cobra...

The mouse stares at the cobra, paralyzed by the hopelessness of its situation, until the snake inevitably eats it. I know how the mouse feels.

Fall is nature’s way of paying you back for the heat of July. While I had big plans for riding this past summer, the opportunity to do so fell on days when the Mercury was bubbling at a stifling 95 degrees; or on weekends when a marginally cooler 87 degrees was accompanied by a matching 87 percent humidity — the kind of atmosphere you can stir with a canoe paddle. These are the days when strapping on ballistically practical mesh gear, with matching perfed leather gloves and a full-face helmet, rivals shower romance in a Turkish prison for overall appeal.

Like millions of other riders who remember the crisp fall days of youth (when every outdoor breath had the bite of a Macintosh apple), I have been waiting for September, October and November to arrive. I dreamed of mornings when I could strap on my asphalt-resistant gear — without breaking a tsunami-like sweat — and ride off in the direction of country inns, where warm mugs of spiced cider and hot-buttered rum are served by smiling waitresses (with perfumed good will spilling out of authentic 18th century bodices), alongside crackling fireplaces.

So what the hell happened?

September was a continuation of August’s heat, which made our lawn look like pre-smoked tobacco. October in this part of the country saw daytime temperatures in the high 60’s or low 70’s (Fahrenheit for my European readers, who are under the impression my ass must be fireproof), which is as perfect as you could ask for. But it was a damp October and my arthritis exploded. The pain was the worst I have experienced in the last three years. The throbbing was so bad that I couldn’t ride out 60 miles to meet Michael Beattie (Key West Diary) on his Iron Butt ride through these parts. I was compelled to take the SUV, expecting to endure all kinds of criticism from Beattie, except for the fact that he ran over his own foot with the Triumph — landing on his fat ass in a trench.

The first week in November was flakey too. Here in Pennsylvania, temperatures had been forecast to hit the lower 50s (Fahrenheit again), but barely hit the mid-40s, dropping to 33 degrees at dawn. The first frost of the season coated the lawn on Wednesday, November 3, 2010.

I do not consider temperatures in the 40-degree range (Fahrenheit) to be exceptionally cold. Dick Bregstein, Pete Buchheit, and myself have ridden on days when it was much colder than this, and I simply wore silk long-underwear (beneath jeans), the liner in my jacket, and a pair of off-the-rack leather gloves. So when the opportunity presented itself to take a multiple-day fall ride, I wasn’t anticipating any challenges. There is nothing like a periodic motorcycle adventure to put things in perspective. Now it should be noted that the phrase “motorcycle adventure” is subject to interpretation. My idea of a great motorcycle adventure is riding off to a place I haven’t been to before, checking into a nice hotel, and swapping stories at the bar with legitimate motorcycle adventurers, whose bikes are adorned with shrunken heads, claw marks from wild animals, or mini-dents from the spiked heels of painted pillion candy.

My destination was the pleasant city of Bloomsburg, Pa, a college town of great restaurants, interesting bars, and stunning women, who appeared to be all over the place. It was a scant 150-miles distant, and the meeting place for the BMW Motorcycles Owners Of America’s (MOA) board of directors, who were there to begin the final planning for the group’s summer rally. Expected to attract a crowd in excess of 10,000 (a huge number when applied to BMW motorcycles), the rally site is the fairgrounds at Bloomsburg, which are ideally suited for an event of this nature. My riding club — the Mac-Pac, is volunteering to serve on a number of committees and I thought this would be a great opportunity to participate myself.

But I hadn’t ridden in 6 weeks, and I was developing a paralyzing apprehension.

Not an apprehension about riding... But an apprehension of finding out this fucking arthritis had made another serious incursion in my capabilities. I was concerned that if I got my feet on the pegs, I wouldn’t be able to get them down again. (The drawbacks of this situation would become evident at the first “Stop” sign.) Then it is always is the back of my mind that I might be too stiff to make a good panic stop. Coupled with the knowledge that the first half-hour in the saddle is likely to be uncomfortable in the extreme, I lose the mad passion to go ripping out of the driveway. In fact, there is no “ripping out of the driveway,” as it can take me 15 minutes to put on my boots, and 20 minutes to mount the bike for the first time.

This ridiculous apprehension seriously delayed my departure. It had been raining earlier in the morning, and I decided to wait until the roads were less wet. Leslie (Stiffie), my significant other, wanted to know why I was stalling. (I think she was planning on bringing another guy in here as soon as I left. When I explained I wanted the piles of leaves on the streets to dry out some, she dialed a number on her cell phone and said, “Not yet. The ‘Man of Steel’ is too chickenshit to get on the bike.”)

First I bullshitted myself into thinking it would be significantly warmer than 46 degrees (F) around noon. (It wasn’t.) Then I decided it was absolutely critrical to re-adjust the new Air Hawk seat cushion that I bought, and that consumed another 40 minutes, bringing me to the question of a mid-afternoon lunch. The gentle reader is getting the picture. I had two dread fears that I did not want to realize: getting stuck in rush hour traffic, and having to ride any distance in the dark. Having identified these real fears, I then became the mouse looking at the cobra.

My departure at 4:30pm absolutely guaranteed that I’d get stuck in weekend and rush hour traffic, as well as the thrill of riding 80+ miles in the dark.

Bumper to bumper traffic snaked throughout the first 40 miles of the ride, as 48 million people left Philly for the Poconos (the five-foot high mountains between Pennsylvania and New Jersey) for the weekend. Ninety-eight percent of these people were in front of me, at a dead stop. I pulled over twice in the first 20 miles to shake the cramps out of my knees. Then I attempted to make up for lost time by adjusting the throttle at breaks in the traffic. I performed speedometer and tachometer checks whenever possible, pulling the ton a couple of times, and still managed to cover 60 miles in 70 minutes.

Above: The magnificent mountains of the great Pocono Plateau, with many peaks as high as card tables. The ridge in the background runs across Pennsylvania in this part of the state and is pierced by a tunnel on the turnpike. The gap in the ridge could be the Delaware Water Gap, or not. Photo from Wikipedia.

The bike ran like a champ, never missing a beat nor hesitating when I pushed it though an opening in the pulsating steel trap around me. At 16-years-old, this BMW K75 has no problem hitting the "century" mark on the clock nor holding a 90mph pace indefinitely. It seems to run better in the cooler weather, though there was no indication (on the instruments) that the K75’s systems were affected one way or the other. My route north is known as the “Northeast Extension” of the Pennsylvania Turnpike, and it connects the holy city of Philadelphia with Wilkes-Barre and Scranton. There is a fuel and food stop at Allentown, which was my immediate destination.

I can get 200 miles from a tank of gas, though the warning light comes on 60 miles short of that. The bike has a 5-gallon tank, which I have never run dry, and averages between 45 and 47 miles to the gallon — when operated between 65mph and 75mph. Considering the size of my ass, it burns a lot more gas when steadily pushed at higher speeds. My plan was to pull into the food and fuel stop at Allentown, and replace the 5 quarts of gas burned off in the first 60 miles. This way, I’d make Bloomsburg without looking for additional gas, regardless of how fast I had been traveling. There is nothing more frustrating to me than to have to deal with screaming knees and a glowing gas light when all I really want to do is call it a day.

I was ten miles south of Allentown when I noticed two peculiar things: daylight was draining from the atmosphere at the rate of 10 lumens per second; and my hands felt like ice. The sun didn’t set... It sank to the horizon like it had been assassinated. And the blood in my hands turned to slush, before being pumped directly to my balls.

“What strange bullshit is this,” I thought.

The rundown rest area on the Turnpike at Allentown, Pa. has been replaced by a modern food court and instant caloric ass-expansion system. Three sides of the interior are dedicated to pizza, pasta, roast beef sandwiches, fried chicken, and cinnamon buns that will inflate your ass like a life raft on a stalled Carnival Cruise ship. I wanted a scalding cup of hot coffee, and made the mistake of standing in the Starbuck’s line. This concession was staffed entirely by zombies, who had eaten each other’s brains. One vapid cashier was taking orders at the rate of continental drift, while a team of two alchemists struggled to construct coffee drinks requiring no less than 72 ingredients.

“My simple order of one, plain cup of black coffee will delight them,” I thought. Nothing could have been farther than the truth.

The cashier received my request with a nod, grabbed a cup, and then tilted the coffee pot, a large, square metal container, to drain the last out of it.

“Not for me,” I said cheerfully.

“You want me to make a fresh pot,” she asked.

“No,” I replied. “I’ve been standing in this line for 20 minutes just waiting to see if lightning would hit both of us in the ass.”

This response puzzled her, as she had never seen lightning hit anyone in the ass before, and it was highly unlikely that a fire had ever appeared under her’s. But the approving response from the crowd must have troubled her somewhat as she went through the motions off adding ground coffee to a filter, and sticking it under the faucet.

I remained standing there like a cigar store Indian while she took other orders. After processing the third one, she informed me I should move down to the receiving area, a counter about which a crowd of people hovered like the arriving flights in a pattern at Newark International Airport.

I emitted a sigh that sounded like a zeppelin deflating. “You want me to wait on another line while an expert reads a purchasing order before pouring hot black, liquid into a cup?”

She blinked at me, realizing this was a trick question. Then she poured my coffee herself and handed it to me with all the grace and aplomb of a Romanov attempting to get rid of a red from the receiving line at the Winter Palace.

Let the gentle reader take note that I do not find this performance typical of all Starbuck’s. The one on US-30 in Exton is staffed by coffee-conscious Kamikaze pilots. And the one in Missoula, Montana used to have an incredibly beautiful blond working the drive-up window, who presented me with a cookie because I had to wait a minute for a fresh pot. But your staff is only as good as their training.

My joints were looser from the hour’s run on the K75, but I was still puzzled by the cold. This had never been an issue before, and the data on my Droid Incredible still showed the temperature above 40º (F). I killed an hour and a half at the rest area, before donning an additional sweater and a heavier pair of gloves. These were Nubuck insulated leather gloves from Gerbings, with the new micro-wire heating elements. While bulkier than I like, they would be much warmer than the pair I had on — even though the bike was not yet wired for electrics.

Now ladies and gentleman, your hero faced a moment of truth. While many of you routinely ride in the dark, I do not. I have done so on occasion, and liked it. But I do not go out of my way to pursue it — despite the fact my bike is illuminated by 2 million candlepower. In fact, the last time I have ridden in the dark was two years ago. I am a superstitious rider and like everything to feel perfect. The Air Hawk seat felt odd... The new Gerbings gloves felt odd... And pulling out into the darkness felt odd. Traffic had faded quite a bit and I had a lane to myself. The ultra-bright Osram “Night Penetrator Darkness Ball-Buster” headlight that cost me $60 from Great Britain threw a bright white corridor of light ahead of the machine. It was very gratifying. Flicking to the high-beam illuminated mile markers several hundred yards ahead of the bike.

“Not bad,” I thought.

Then I switched on the 50-watt MotoLight spots, mounted down low on the brake calipers. These lamps are mostly used for daytime visibility, but bathed the motorcycle in a basket of forward-shining light that went a long way toward giving me a clear view of the shoulder, and of the pavement on the left.

“Cool,” I thought.”

And then for the piece de resistance: the PIAA High Intensity Discharge Lights. These are lightning bolts continually squeezed in a self-contained ballast and lamp arrangement, mounted on the crash frame. They take about 20 seconds to power up and the left one comes on a few seconds before the right. The light is of the blue/white intensity and enables me to read a newspaper two miles away. An abandoned farm shed came into view, and then vaporized in the light. These lights were a $600 investment, plus $150 to install.

“Fucking eh,” I thought.

Though my eyes were glued to the road, and wide open for the little orange/red reflections that indicate rats on stilts headed for the pavement, the ride became outright etherial. I know the road well and 15-miles north of Allentown it dashes through a mountain tunnel, with a sharp turn to the left. This was a pisser. Crossing into the valley on the other side brings you past the Town of Jim Thorpe (formerly Mauch Chunk), where the road begins to climb a series of ridges. The scenery was of no consequence in the dark, but the changes in elevation were met with an increase in RPM as the engine challenged heavier resistance.

Above: This picture was taken from the shoulder of the Pennsylvania Turnpike on the way home, two days later. My joints were screaming so badly I didn't feel like taking pictures, but grabbed this one to prove I made the run. This is looking through the scratched windscreen on "Fireballs." Picture by the author.

Though the highway is an interstate and has none of the hairpin curves you would expect from a country road in the mountains, this part of Pennsylvania is highly rural and loaded with deer. I found it exhilarating to tear around curves, with the tach and speedo needles parallel to each other, as I knifed through the darkness in a flash of light. Traffic had dissolved to nothing and I was less concerned with aggravating other drivers with my lights. Many cars now sport xenon headlights, which aggravate the shit out of me. Even the low beams are blinding, and leave me blinking for a good 15 or 20 seconds after they pass. I have my revenge now as these cornea-scratching PIAAs light up the road like it was a hospital operating room.

Above: Still on the shoulder, this shot shows the pleasant nature of Pennsylvania countryside, before 4 lanes of interstate cut through it. Photo by the author.

A truck driver, three or four football field-lengths ahead of me, flashed his back-up spots in protest, and I killed the PIAAs. They cannot be flicked on and off and require another full 15 or 20 seconds to come back up to full brightness. These unbelievably bright lights picked up the tenderized remains of full deer carcasses on the pavement several times, as well as lengths of blown truck tires that would have packed a greater surprise a second or two later.

The ride would have been perfect if not for two things. The first was the pain in my left hip and right knee. This discomfort was greatly reduced by the purchase of an Air Hawk Comfort System, which amounts to an inflatable seat cushion wrapped in a non-skid cover. This eliminates 40% of the bumps (and a major source of pain). The Air Hawk also gives me a bit of knee relief from some added height, but does not affect flat-footing the bike as the air in the seat moves toward the back as I slide to the front. (It takes about two breaths to inflate this cushion, leaving it with a very quashy, ass-coddling surface.) Still, the joint pain was substantial and I would pull over twice on the 90-mile stretch north of Allentown.

The second ride qualifier was the lingering cold in my hands. Despite the increased thickness and insulation of the Gerbings gloves (not yet connected), my hands were cold. I got off the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike at I-80 (West), and sat warming them on the engine casings for a full 15 minutes. This was a real puzzler as my hands never get cold in weather this mild. According to the GPS, I only had 49 more miles to go, but creaky joints would cause me stop again, a scant 13-miles from my hotel.

Above: This is my idea of the perfect parking space: 8 feet away from the lobby of the Comfort Inn and Suites. The side bags pop off and become convenient luggage. Click to get a close up look at the Air Hawk Comfort System on the Russell Day-Long Saddle.

I usually ride in the company of one or two others... But sometimes, you have to ride alone to get the full effect of the motorcycle experience. I really cranked it on whenever I got moving on this run, undoubtedly riding much faster than was prudent. This machine is a great equalizer and I can run and play just like the other kids with the throttle wide open. My thoughts are as weightless as I feel on this BMW. There are times when I think the bike is silent and the whine of the engine is coming from my soul.

The sound of the K75 has been the subject of debate among riders for years as there is no good connotation for the word "whine." To the untrained ear, this model BMW does have a whine to it. But so does a bullet fired from a beautifully crafted Mannlicher rife.

Above: The classic full-stock Mannlicher rifle... A thing of beauty, like the BMW K75. Photo from the internet.

Now there are those among you who raised an eyebrow reading the line that stated I spent "an hour and a half" in the food and fuel. "What the hell was he doing," you may well ask. Quite frankly, I was looking at some of the most beautiful and sexiest women I had ever seen on the Pennsylvania Turnpike, or in Manhattan, for that matter. These were ladies who had gotten out of cars dressed in a manner that suggested they were rushing off somplace to specifically reverse the process. And there were a lot of them. But the great motorcycle god works in strange ways, especially for the pure of heart. That delay spared me the invigorating pleasure of two rain squals that had passed 25 miles to the north. The road was still wet in places when I got there, with a hint of spray evident. But this was no bother as my PIAA HID lights dried the pavement with one pass.

The bike ran flawlessly, and as achey as I was, I took my exit from the interstate with a hint of regret. The engine wound down like the last line in an epic opera, resuming the factory idle without catching a second breath. The darkened face of the GPS pointed at the hotel, and I pulled up like I was carrying a dispatch from the fires of hell. Several ranking members of the MOA board were outside, smoking cigars and sipping spring water from glass slippers shed by debutantes.

“Care for a cigar,” asked a gentleman I had not yet met.

“Can I have one you haven’t been smoking,” I asked.

The lobby doors of the Comfort Suites opened, from which poured the fireplace-heated hospitality of a bartender named Rudy. The adventure was in full swing... And for the life of me I couldn’t remember what the hell it was I’d been worried about all day.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2010
AKA The Lindbergh Baby (Mac-Pac)
AKA Vindak8r (Motorcycle Views)