"Blueballs" Goes Down... Forever!

Asheville, North Carolina is one of the most beautiful places in the United States. Saved from the ravages of the Civil War, this city of 76,000 is a mountain metropolis of quaint urban customs and architecture dating back to the late 1890’s. It is a Mecca for Art Deco construction and home to the Grove Park Inn, a hotel built in the arts and crafts tradition (Stickley and Roycrofters). The city’s location in the Blue Ridge Mountains made it a major challenge to connect by railroad as the tracks had some of the steepest grades to be found anywhere. For hills, the city rivals San Francisco both in number and steepness. And like San Francisco, Asheville is cool. Cool bars... Cool restaurants... Cool neighborhoods... And cool customs. Crowds gather in Pritchard Park on Friday nights to form a drum circle. Too cool for you? Then try Shindig on the Green, the bluegrass music and dance festival held on Roger McGuire Green at Pack Square Park. The city is a necklace of cool things to wander in and out of.

Above: The ultra-swanky Grove Park Inn, built and furnished in the "Arts and Crafts" style, is one of the most famous and beautiful hotel properties in North America. Photo from the Internet.

Above: Most folks don't realize the extend of the "Arts and Crafts" movement in the United States. These furnishings, found in the lobby of the Grove Park Inn, represent the artistic movement of the Roycrofters or the Stickley school of design. I once went to buy Leslie an authentic, mica-shaded lamp like the two pictured above for a present. I found one in bad condition. It was $29,000. (No joke.) I let it go. Photo from the Grove Park Inn.

I arrived there in the summer of 2007 with Dick Bregstein (Mac-Pac BMW rider from West Chester, Pa) and Lee Kazanas (A BMW rider from Jay, NY, in the Adirondacks). Our objective was to attend the BMW Riders’ Association Rally, which convened on the grounds of the Biltmore Estate. This was my second season of long-distance re-entry riding — after a 25-year hiatus, and my second year of debilitating arthritis n my hips and knees. I am always amazed when natives of the “Deep South” speak about the cooling glades of the Blue Ridge Mountains. It was July, and the temperature outside was 25,000 degrees (F). Asheville is a great place to practice holding the full weight of your bike on a 45º incline, in a simulated blast furnace, while a traffic light leisurely cycles through the colors.

Above: The City of Asheville, NC... As cool as San Francisco and a great place to visit. Photo from the Internet.

“Riding in this fucking place makes me feel like I am trapped in a painting by M.C. Escher,” I said to Bregstein. “Every turn I make ends at an uphill traffic light, which is invariably red, and I feel like a lizard gradually turning into a bird.” Even parking had its challenges as driveways, parking lots, and city streets invariably sloped in opposing directions.

Despite having a great time, I never really got used to the place and I had a bad omen riding out on the last day. We had breakfast at the hotel, and were in the saddle by 8am on a Saturday morning. Our first stop was for gas and I nearly dropped the bike twice negotiating slow, uphill turns to the left at traffic lights. (I was really off my game, and we had between 400 and 650 miles to go that day.)

“I have that peculiar feeling that today is not going to turn out well,” I said to Bregstein, as we tanked up at a “Brand X” gas station. (I may have also added something like, "I hate this heat, and I'm sick and tired of leaning into a 45º turn every 20 seconds, and the thrill of holding my bike with my fucking balls while climbing the mountans around here is wearing thin." Checking with Bregstein, he thinks I did mention the heat. — author's note.)

“What do you want to do?” asked Bregstein.

“What is there to do,” I replied. “We go. I’ll be all right once we get on the interstate and start winding these things out.”

A lot of riders hate the interstate. I am not one of them. I am good for a limited number of hours in the saddle and given the choice, I’ll trade maximum miles for minimum hours every time. There was no thought of screwing around on the Blue Ridge Parkway. We had come down that way, and it would be the preferred escape route of every BMW pilot headed north. That meant getting sandwiched between those riding 5 miles slower than the 45 mile per hour speed limit and the real peg scrappers boiling out of the turns going much faster (in violation of federal law). Besides, I wanted to make real time without dodging the cops, inching around blind curves, or slamming to a halt behind city folks sitting in the middle of the road, admiring the verminous deer.

Above: Three Blue BMWs headed south on the Blue Ridge Parkway... Two will make it to Asheville, NC... One will return to Chester County, Pa alone. (From left) Pete Buchheit's 2003 K1200S; Dick Bregstein's 2007 F800ST; Jack Riepe's 1986 K75. Pete will ony go as far as North Carolina. Jack will crash. And Dick will return alone. The author is no longer this cartoonisly fat. Highly unflattering photo of Jack Riepe by Pete Buchheit.

I was already drenched with sweat and dealing with a throbbing hip when we left the gas station. Bregstein and I had our directions down pat, and we headed north, toward Tennessee, on I-26. Traffic was heavy getting out of town but the interstate between Asheville, NC and Johnson City, TN was just fun. The road has broad sweepers, six-lanes wide, that arc up and down mountainsides like a roller coaster. The countryside was extremely pretty. The traffic was absolutely minimal, and we went like bloody hell.

Above: Pete Buchheit (left) and Jack Riepe survey the view of Irish Creek from the Blue Ridge Parkway. Photo by Dick Bregstein.

I rode my 1986 K75, which was 21-years-old, like it was brand new. We blasted up and down mountainsides with the throttles close to wide open. The fully loaded K75 took it in stride. Bregstein’s F800ST was brand new, and quite in its element as we literally flew along the ground. We stopped once in a treeless rest area, high atop a mountain, where motorists were encouraged to walk another mile or so to the top. (I passed.) The arthritis compelled me to put me feet down, but I didn’t get off the bike.

Above: The legendary Dick Bregstein with his F800ST. Photo by Peter Buchheit.

The urban confines of Johnson City, TN called for a more prudent interpretation of the speed limit, which we followed right onto I-81 north. Interstate-81 can best be described as a pressure-cooking, grindhouse of a road. The heat of the sun is absorbed by the rutted pavement, and magnified by the exhaust of 10 million trucks. It is a major north-south artery for truck traffic and these hulking, diesel mammoths commonly push 75 and 80 miles per hour. After getting boxed in a few times, Bregstein and I decided to “set the pace.” We knifed through traffic like it was butter, and I discovered how easily my old bike could “pull the ton.”

Above: One of many encouraging signs to be found on the Blue Ridge Parkway. Photo from the Bregstein Collection.

Quarter-second glances into my Napoleon bar-end mirrors revealed Bregstein was in tight and to my right. We were in the far left lane — moving along well into triple digits — when I noticed something odd. A two-tone colored car was closing in on Dick. And by two-toned, I mean dark brown and worse brown. Colors that no sane person would pick for a personal vehicle.

“Shit,” I thought, scanning for an opening on the right. One popped up... I signaled... And flicked the bike into it, shedding 30 miles per hour as fast as I could. Bregstein followed me like a shadow. A Tennessee State Trooper shot past us ten seconds later. In a rest area up the road, I ask Dick why he didn’t flash his lights at me or something.

“I never saw that cop,” said Bregstein. “I hate the stock mirrors on this bike and can’t see a thing. You’re looking for the both of us.” A fast review of Dick’s GPS revealed our “average speed” was well above the middle 90’s. He looked at me with a stern face of admonition and said, “We’re going get in big trouble if we don’t slow down.”

But a kind of madness was on me. Gone were the jitters of the morning. We were somewhere in the middle of Virginia, when I said, “Want to take it all the way back today?”

Dick smiled and said, “Why not?”

Our stops became less frequent, and while we lowered our speed, the difference wasn’t noticeable to the naked eye. (It isn’t likely we would have gotten the death penalty had we been pulled over, but ten years on a chain gang was a definite possibility.) Yet with 5 hours in the saddle (and a 90-minute stop for lunch), we had barely covered 425 miles.
Dividing the remaining mileage between Harrisonburg, Va and West Chester, Pa by the pain in my hips, the truth was that I was not going to make it.

Above: The author, relaxing in the breeze on the Blue Ridge Parkway, wearing the kind of smile that only comes from a mad ride in the clouds with a couple of good friends. Photo by Dick Bregstein.

I’d heard of a great old hotel, bar, and restaurant in Strasburg, Va, and my resolve to make the run in one day dissolved in the vision of a tall Tom Collins. The Hotel Strasburg has been welcoming guests to the Shenandoah Valley since 1915. It is a a quirky old hotel (no elevator), in which every guest room is like something out of Aunt Pitti-Pat’s guest house. The rooms run from middling to small, and each is decorated in a very tasteful, and deluxe way. For the exception of the elevator, it would be my model for the perfect small hotel, (and as a former travel writer for a major trade association, I have stayed in some of the best hotels on Earth.)

The Hotel Strasburg has an impressive and delightful menu in the main dining room (which is fully half the reason anyone should stay there). There is a more casual (cheaper) bar with a TV, but so what. After a brief consultation with my partner in crime, we set our sights on Strasburg, Va.

We made one more stop for gas and for a couple of bottles of cold water at a road-side stand, where the temperature scored 96 points in vertical mercury. And it was here that I encountered my first somewhat malevolent exchange with the representatives of the “Motor Company.” There were four or five Harley’s parked in the shade at this rest area, which Bregstein and I took pains not to crowd as we parked our Beemers — in the sun. The Harley gentlemen were wearing sleeveless leather vests, “do” rags, and tattoos. Bregstein and I were in full ballistic mesh, with body armor, gloves, and full face helmets. My skin temperature was 449º (F), two degrees short of the flashpoint.

“Why do you dopes dress like that,” asked one of the Harley riders.

The engine on my bike was still running, and I was tempted to say, “Because your wife and sister fuck me extra hard when I show up looking like Darth Vader.” But Bregstein had already dismounted, and I thought, “They’ll take him alive, paint his ass blue, and stretch him out over a fire ant hill.” Yet my response would have been so good, so fast, and so vicious, I was almost willing to make that sacrifice.

My actual response was, “Sweat’s cheaper than plasma, and easier to come by.”

The other H-D riders seemed a trifle embarrassed by their friend’s attitude, which I thought was interesting, and they attempted to engage us in conversation.

“How far did you guys ride today?” asked one.

“We were in Lubbock, Texas, this time yesterday,” I said, straining my eyeballs to keep a straight face.”

“What’s going on in Texas?” asked another.

“We were character references for the defense in a murder trial,” said Bregstein.

“Way to go, Dickie, boy,” I thought, giving Bregstein a Clint Eastwood nod of silent approval.

One of the riders made perfunctory remarks about how much he liked our bikes, which was pure bullshit, and we returned the compliment in the same vein. I was obsequiously solicitous of one custom job where the forks stretched 12 feet from the seat, mentioning how I always wanted to have one, but could never scrape the cash together between bail bonds and alimony payments.

Actually, this was the second time Dick and I were targeted for some bullshit from the leather and chrome crowd. Once, at a breakfast run to to the now defunct Brass Monkey Diner in New Jersey, a couple of the leather boys walked down the bike line and stopped at Bregstein’s F800ST. One said, “This guy must have ridden in on his little sister’s bike.”

My mouth clutch started slip that day too, and I was on my way to saying, “It is his sister’s bike. She’s having five inches trimmed from her cock today so it won’t be more than three inches longer than yours,” when Bregstein gently kicked me in the ankle. Later Dick asked if I had been Custer’s PR guy at the Little Big Horn. BMW's F800 series needs no apologies.

I am compelled to say these two exchanges are far from the norm. I have a lot of friends who ride Harleys, and I am looking forward to riding with them this summer. I have a soft spot for the Harley dealership at Willow Street, Pa, and go in once a year to buy gloves or something just to say "Hi" with my wallet. I do not believe in the perfection of any one marque over another (Deutschland, Deutschland, über alles...), nor would I criticize anyone for their choice of bikes.


We exited I-81 a handful of miles south of Strasburg, Va, found Route 11, and turned left toward town. We were on the last few miles separating us from a cool drink, and I felt none of the jitters I had earlier. While there is a bit of release in reaching the end of a good day’s run, I was also delighted that there would be at least one more full day to our big seasonal ride. Bregstein is a pisser of a good time, and responds to each of my inane suggestions with, “Okay.” Dick falls into that rare category titled, “amiably agreeable to most activities that offer the option of a fine.” A friend will help you move. A friend like Bregstein will help you move a body.

I noted that despite being pushed relentlessly in ghastly heat, my K75 ran flawlessly. At stops and traffic lights, it immediately went to the correct factory idle. The cooling fan came on and off with predictability. It was running like a mature quarter horse, at home on the prairie.

South of Strasburg, Route 11 is divided by a grassy median, with opposing lanes coming together a block or two outside of town. There was virtually no traffic. Bregstein and I were cruising at 35 miles per hour, with me in the lead. We were coming up on the intersection of Funk Road, and I could feel the hair stand up on the back of my neck. In that instant, a car came out of the trees and rolled right to the edge of the intersection. I could see the driver clearly, as the lowering sun fully illuminated his face. He was looking right at me, when he started forward again. Though I had the clutch and front brake covered, my mind did the trigonometry and ordered my thumb to unleash the twin FIAMM screamers. That horn was loud. The driver looked at me again and stopped.

“Fuck me,” I thought. “Maybe that was it. Maybe I dodged the bullet today.” There was a clue in this, but I didn’t see it at the time.

We entered Strasburg a few minutes later. There was absolutely no traffic at all, on a late Saturday afternoon. That should have set off warning bells too. But I was tired, and the alarm bells were muted by fatigue.

The community of Strasburg is one of the most charming little places you could hope to visit. Folks are friendly, helpful, and appear to be genuinely happy. They celebrate their community too. On this day, the town’s girls’ field hockey team, softball team, or synchronized sharp-shooting team (I forget which) had just had a big win, and the whole town had turned out for a surprise victory parade. The sidewalks were lined with people. The cops were out. The fire department was there. The ambulance corps was lined up. The mayor was ready to commence the festivities. The bus with the victorious athletes was entering the north edge of town... And to the south, a blue 1986 BMW K75 entered an intersection at the same time as a late model minivan.

I analyzed the sight-picture of the intersection as I rolled toward it. The traffic light was green... The corners were clear... One minivan was approaching directly-on at a speed similar to my own, about 25 miles per hour. There were lots of people on the sidewalks. It was broad daylight... The sky was cloudless... I could see the glint of a golden sun (to my back) coming off the windshield of the minivan. I was lugging the engine in third gear. My intention was to go a block, then turn right. Bregstein was behind me by about 30 feet.

With 25 feet left between me and the minivan, it turned left. My entire filed of vision was that minivan. Not taking the forward momentum of the other vehicle into account, my speed meant I was covering 36 feet per second. It was a lottery I couldn’t win. I was screaming in my helmet, with the clutch and front brake fully pulled in, with the back brake pedal fully depressed. I was 9 feet short of the perfect panic stop.

The sound of the impact was very impressive. I was airborne, briefly, before slamming down on the front of the vehicle and then the ground. The wind went out of me like I was a blowfish with gas. I came to rest flat on my back, on the ground, looking at the undercarriage of the minivan. My first thought was that the driver might exit the vehicle without shutting it off, and that it would roll over me. And then I felt the pain in my chest... The sledgehammer pain that rolled over me with every breath.

“The asshole driver of this fucking minivan has crushed my chest,” I thought.

Dick Bregstein was horrified. He claimed it was like a cheap magician’s trick. First you see the man on the motorcycle, then you don’t. The law of gravity, aided by the tenets of centrifugal force and physics, hurled me from the seat of my beloved Blueballs. In an instant, the street had been swept clean of K75’s.

It would not have been possible to get a better emergency service response time had this been a rehearsal. In fact, I might have landed in the ambulance had the doors been open. An EMS team and the Strasburg Fire Department appeared out of thin air. In the course of very few minutes, competent first responders had stabilized me and were doing an injury assessment by the numbers. Someone was asking various questions, which I pretty much ignored at the moment. I wanted the Rosary in my pocket, but the effort was beyond me. So I began to recite the Apostle’s Creed, as I have learned it through years of Catholic schooling. My reasoning was straightforward: if this was the end of Riepe, I was going go out with whatever kind of a shine I could put on a tarnished soul. One of the EMS workers, a gentleman named Carlos, prayed with me. I was under the impression that as long as I appeared lucid, a challenge for me on the best of days, that gave the EMS folks some of the information they were looking for.

I faded in and out of consciousness once or twice on the ground, and once in the ambulance. I got strapped to a body board, had my helmet removed according to the proper procedure, and my neck secured. A state cop asked me a couple of questions, and went off to cite the operator of the minivan. I believe there were several hundred witnesses. Throughout all this, a well-dressed guy in a suit, carrying a walkie-talkie, kept sauntering up, and looking down at me. Then he’d say something into the radio. About the fourth time this happened, I asked, “Who is that guy? If he’s the local undertaker tell him I plan to live.” (I actually think it was the mayor, who was waiting to start the parade, though I really have no idea who this gentleman was.)

Bregstein’s face emerged from the crowd, and I swear the smug bastard smirked. Then he said, “The state cop is looking for the paperwork on your bike. Do you have it, Jack?” I had to think for a second, and I told him it was under the seat, in the plastic jacket of the owner’s manual. Dick then asked, “Jack, is there anything I can do for you?”

“Get my laptop out of the saddle bags,” I choked, clutching my chest. “And delete all the naked pictures of any blonds.” Every person doing something at the accident scene stopped and looked at me. “Just kidding,” I hissed.

And then, according to Bregstein, came the ordeal of the fireman. The biggest guys in town, men whose upper arm diameter is greater than the waists of Russian ballerinas, stood in total solidarity and picked me up on the stretcher. Dick claimed you could hear testicles popping clear across the county. “It sounded like champagne bottles opening at the end of WWII,” he said.

The ambulance ride to the hospital was not without its moments either. The crew hooked me up to all kinds of devices to measure vital signs, and my arms kept getting in the way. One of the EMS team members, a woman with a delightful voice, said to me, “Here... Put your hands between my knees. Now you can tell all your friends you rode to the hospital with your hands between a woman’s legs.” She had the sweetest voice. I have no idea what she looked like, because I was very woozy at the time and decided to just keep my eyes closed. But I couldn’t resist. I replied, “Honey, you wouldn’t try this if I wasn’t lashed down.” The same Carlos who prayed with me at the crash site rode in the ambulance too. I tried to give him my watch.

The emergency room facilities at the hospital in Winchester handled me like I was one of Dr. House’s guest patients at Princeton Plainsboro General. They cut my gear off and I could hear several women gasp. You see, I am so fat that my shape is defined by the Kevlar-reinforced gear that I wear. Without clothing, I start to expand until I take on the dimensions of the containment vessel. I could hear the sounds of x-ray equipment and other stuff being shoved aside by my expanse. I opened my eyes and I said to the ER team, “I’m sorry about this... But the next time this happens I will a lot thinner and have a great tan.”

I made ‘em all laugh.

Dick Bregstein had ridden almost 500 miles that day, in intense heat. He got my computer from the saddle bags. He went through the paperwork with the cop. He oversaw the pickup of my motorcycle by the towing company. And he followed me to the hospital. He called Leslie (my hot squeeze) and gave her the details. And then he waited until he got to see me, around 10pm. His reward for this was a ride in the dark to a hotel that had no food service, but allowed him to glom an apple from the registration desk. He headed back home by himself the next day. Leslie swears she passed him on I-81.


I had no serious injuries. I had no concussion... No broken limbs... No busted collarbone... I was told I had bruised ribs. Can the gentle Twisted Roads reader guess the difference between a cracked rib and a bruised one? There is no difference at all as far as pain or treatment goes. My chest hurt so badly that I could barely move, and so I was detained for the night. (Getting upright to take a piss was a 12-step program.) My Nolan helmet had hit the bumper of the minivan and then the ground. It was not cracked. My Joe Rocket armored ballistic mesh jacket remained intact. I was riding in jeans. These exploded in flight and I had road rash for a couple of weeks.

Leslie picked me up the next morning. She stepped through the door and I said, “I am so glad to see you.” Then I got weepy.

Above: The hulking wreck of the author in the hospital, as captured by the love of his life, Leslie Marsh. The only severe scrapes were on my lower legs. Not shown, thank God, are two massive bruises on my chest. No broken bones. (The author is no longer this fat.)

She replied: “Don’t move. I’m going back to the car for a camera.” That woman is a tower of quivering sentimentality. But the accident impressed her too. She offered to have the letters “DNR” tattooed on my forehead for my birthday.

“Blueballs” did not survive the wreck.

Above: The day before the wreck, this bike didn't have a scratch on it. The tires were almost brand new. And now it will be canabalized for parts. Photo by Leslie Marsh.

The fairing vaporized. The forks bent. The luggage detached and exploded (two out of three bags). The front wheel deformed... The handlebars bent...The gas tank was dented and the pristine engine cases were scuffed. (The clock still worked though.) The bike was totaled at a glance, probably because of its age. The insurance company of the minivan driver started out by explaining I was riding an old motorcycle and that they went to three dealers for accurate estimates of its value. (A statement like that from an insurance company makes me want to cover my ass with a stove-lid.) They went to “Fogo’s Cycle” in Sri Lanka, the Hog Waller General Store and Motorcycle Repair Shop, and “We Fix Bikes Good” in Latvia. They determined through fair analysis, that my bike had a value of $863. Two years later, they sent me a property settlement check for $400 more than I originally paid for the bike. This did not quite cover the price of the MotoLights nor the oversized alternator, but it was a hell of an improvement over their first offer. I did my own negotiating.

Above: The ignominious end to a great motorcycle. Photo by Leslie Marsh.

I bought “Fireballs” seven weeks after the crash. It was from the last production year that BMW made the K75, which was 1995. The bike had 11,000 miles on it. I felt like I had stolen the crown jewels. In truth, I thought (and still do) that “Blueballs” was the more spirited of these two machines. It was my intention to remove the Parabellum “Scout” fairing from the new bike, and to replace it with a new “Sprint” Fairing, which I could still get custom molded for $1,400 — unpainted. A famous BMW wrench, who has threatened to beat the shit out of me if I ever mention his name in this blog, said, “Why add an accessory that will complicate a lot of routine maintenance on this bike?” He was right... The Parabellum “Scout” fairing stayed and it has grown on me. I really love it.

Above: "Fireballs..." The 1995 K75 - with the Parabellum "Scout" fairing - that has become my signature bike. Photo by the author.

What was the clue I missed riding into Strasburg? You all guessed it. The sun-glare on the driver’s side window on the car coming out of Funk Road, and then the same glare on the windshield of the minivan. I am positive neither driver could see me, despite the fact it was broad daylight on a clear afternoon. In the first case, I hit the horn and gave myself dimension. But I never saw a turn signal on the minivan, so it never occurred to me that it was going to turn. There’s a lot I would have done differently if I could relive that ride into Strasburg... But there is no guarantee it would have turned out any differently.

It was almost three months before I trusted myself to get on another motorcycle. This was due to pain and fear. (I bought “Fireballs” without riding it. What the fuck, it’s a K75.) I took it easy, but was nervous to the point where I was ready to piss myself. I planned a five-mile route that was likely to have the least amount of traffic. Three blocks from the house, some asshole in a minivan made a snap left turn across my lane. But I was ready this time. The driver was a stupid kid — talking on the phone. It was my intention to follow him someplace, and to beat the shit out of him when he got out of the vehicle. But what would that prove... I would have gotten the drop on the dopiest member of the million-person-asshole minivan league.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011