Twisted Roads By Jack Riepe

License... Registration... Insurance Card...

2012-02-13T15:28:00.006-05:00

I acquired my first motorcycle on impulse 38 years ago, and had taken none of the first steps that would be regarded as de rigueur today. These included getting the necessary paperwork for riding a motorcycle. I’d had the bike about two weeks before it even occurred to me to get the appropriate permit for a motorcycle operator’s license. It was not that I totally dismissed New Jersey’s authority on this level, but there was no requirement to have a motorcycle endorsement, nor a permit, by the insurance company nor the state at the moment I acquired the bike, filed the title and registered it. Consequently, I assumed it was a low priority.

Getting the permit seemed like a good idea, but the requirement at the time mandated me to ride only in the company of another, fully licensed rider, on an adjacent bike. I didn’t know any other riders then. Besides,what the hell is the value in having another rider close by on a different bike? Is he going to yell, "Hey stupid! You’re in a front wheel skid. Let go of the brake?” But I rode to the Division of Motor Vehicles office (on my bike, by myself) to secure the necessary permit. And with the investment of a few minutes and a few bucks, I had a piece of paper that sort of gave the impression that I was playing by the rules. At the time, the State of New Jersey assigned each motorcycle permit holder a riding test date at the time the permit was issued. My riding test date was December 18th, a day when 9 inches of snow was blowing across the range in drifts. The motorcycle Gods had apparently dismissed the necessity of getting an endorsement.

It was my thought to tell any inquisitive cop rash enough to pull me over that the other rider broke down and rode the wrecker back to the shop, leaving me to deliver the life-saving medicine to the orphanage. My response was “Fuck it. They’ll never take me alive.”

I was on Interstate-80, threading the tach needle through the pinker section of the dial, when I discovered the distinctive red and blue lights of a New Jersey State Trooper in my rear-view mirrors. Have you ever noticed that some police cars look absolutely sinister? Regardless of whether the issue is an out-of-date inspection sticker or a drive-by shooting, the cop can make it seem like he's chasing an accomplice of Osama Bin Laden. I glanced down at the speedo, and confirmed I was going fast enough to qualify for the death penalty in six southern states.

“I am so fucked,” I thought, as I began to throttle back the Kawasaki H2 onto the shoulder. There was no inspection sticker on the fork and the excuse I had devised for the permit seemed utterly feeble at that moment. (It was my understanding that New Jersey State Troopers could shoot you and dump the body in the nearest trench, if they felt like it. These were the days when the NJ State Trooper test entailed running through a room full of puppies while wearing army boots.)

My feet were barely on the ground when the voice of the cop, amplified by a portable sound system used to motivate political prisoners in Bolivia, demanded I remain on the bike, with my hands on the gas tank. Quite frankly, I had no notion of what the hell I was going to tell this guy, except I knew that no variation of the truth would do.

“License... Registration... And insurance card,” the officer demanded, without blinking. “Do you have any idea how fast you were going?”

This is a trick question asked by cops who are going to fry your ass regardless of the answer. However, there is no solace in knowing this. Nothing you can say is going to sway them from their purpose of issuing you a piece of paper that will cost you two or three hundred dollars, at the business end of gavel, swung by a judge whose face will give the impression of not having taken a satisfying dump in the last two weeks.

I simply looked at the cop blankly, and waited for trick question #2.

“What reason could you possible have for going that fast on a public highway?” asked the cop. I swear he was fingering his gun, either to pistol-whip me with it, or to fire a warning shot into my knee.

The cop was young, in his 20’s. There was a lot going on here. This was a case of state-fueled testosterone compelling him to address me like I was shit on his shoe versus the untamed stallion blood surging in my veins — which was percolating the statement “Kiss my ass and just give me the ticket,” right behind my teeth. Though it would be several years before I launched my career as a public relations specialist, the serpent inside me was thinking at the speed of light. I had to find some common ground on which to stand with this guy... Some sympathetic stance on which we could agree.

“My old girlfriend is home on a surprise visit from college and I haven’t been laid in four months,” is what I told the cop. And with my wallet open, I removed a small black and white photograph (actually a proof) of an 18-year-old female acquaintance, in a tasteful pose of full-frontal nudity at a time when pubic hair was still a novelty in Playboy.

The cop stared at the picture for a full 60 seconds. And then he blinked.

“Well you’re not going to get laid if you’re crushed under the wheels of a truck on this highway,” said the cop. “Slow down.” Then he let me go.

I pulled away, careful to stay in the boring realm of 55 to 60 miles per hour. It felt like the tires were glued to the pavement compared to the exhilarating pace I’d previously set. I thought about the picture. It was not my current girlfriend (of that moment), but of one I would chase for years. I have no idea why she gave it to me if I was never to taste the fruit. But here I was, a young guy, with long hair, racing to a destination alleged to be a assignation, on a screaming Jap motorcycle — with some cop wishing he was me.

I pulled into my real girlfriend’s driveway ten minutes later. She was 21-years-old at the time, and two years older than me. Her hair tumbled down her back like a waterfall of burnt sienna, against a complexion of warm honey. She was every inch as beautiful as the woman in the photograph and had a smile that molded itself into perfect kisses... Kisses with the sweetness of a summer peach... Kisses that occasionally covered me in a blaze of candle-light. She’d have cut my balls off in my sleep had she known I had that picture in my wallet. And she’d have been right to do so.

Naked images of discarded girlfriends are traded like baseball cards on the internet today. Yet this was in the day when everything had to be committed to film and captured by chemicals. I had taken photography in college and persuaded this beautiful woman (with the sienna hair) into posing once, wearing naught but perfume. I printed the photo myself. That picture is long gone... As is the one I carried in my wallet... And there is not a single picture of me on that Kawasaki motorcycle. So much of my younger life now exists only in my mind, and my mind so easily becomes the witness for the prosecution these days.

Why is it the night before Valentine’s Day that visions of beautiful, naked women of past romances torment me as freezing cold winds blow in from the Atlantic, making my sense of exile complete? I have written that the motorcycle is a metaphor for life, but it is also the perfect vehicle for romance. The pillion is the threshold of foreplay. I can hardly wait for my next bike and next spring, regardless of the season in which I encounter both.

Postscript: I had company this weekend, 50 percent of whom was a striking redhead — the paramour (since college) of one of my closest friends. He was here too, and will probably comment on this blog. She looked (down) at me through eyes that are a maelstrom of emotion, and presented me with a heart-shaped, chocolate ginger cake.

“This is for you,” she said. “I thought it especially appropriate as it seems to have collapsed in the center.”

It would appear I am a clay pigeon for every woman in the world now.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

Jack Riepe will be the guest speaker at the New Jersey Shore BMW Riders monthly dinner on March 14th, 2012, at 6pm. Held at Schneider’s German-American Restaurant in Avon, NJ, the subject of Riepe’s presentation will be “How Abstinence Makes The Heart Grow Fonder... For So Many Things.” The guest speaker has promised not to savage BMW “R” bikes in his presentation, nor to imply their riders are aptly depicted in prehistoric cave paintings.

Riepe’s dietary limitations of pickled herring, wiener schnitzel and spaetzle are presenting less of a challenge to program chairman Don Eilenberger than his request for a blond waitress, in traditional Bavarian dress, with even more traditional Bavarian hooters. It is thought Eilenberger himself will wait table in drag. Rumors that Riepe will be transferring his membership to the NJSBMWR from the Mac-Pac are rampant. Sources claim the delicate feelings of the guest speaker can no longer sustain commentary beginning with “that fat son of a bitch on that poor K75,” which is the way he is commonly greeted in Pennsylvania.

©Copyright Jack Riepe/Twisted Roads 2012

The Payoff Of Living Dangerously...

2012-02-03T13:51:00.008-05:00

• To read the exciting adventure piece on living dangerously, continue below.
• To read how you can own Jack Riepe's legendary K75, click here.

It was 1975 and my year of living dangerously. Without any prior motorcycle experience, I had acquired a nasty, 750cc Kawasaki H2, two-stroke street bike from a dealer who would have sold nuclear waste to a school lunch program. Then I snatched one of the most beautiful woman on a liberal arts college campus from the arms of an Adonis (a man who combined the rugged good looks of a professional condom model with the personality of a toilet seat). It appeared that I was on a roll.

What was left?

The answer to that question was flying lessons.

Rocketing around on a primitive motorcycle gave me a feeling of invincibility that fed other hungers. I was intrigued by the sensation of weightlessness that came from cresting hills under maniacal power and the miniscule “G” forces that I imagined I felt when leveling out at the bottom. The Kawasaki’s two-stroke engine had a guttural stutter that came from three cylinders that apparently hated each other. Missing was the traditional scream of anguished metal when loading the clutch and downshifting to achieve that “time warp” effect. It occurred to me that the only way I could experience the sound of an engine in a power dive and the feeling of being jammed into a seat as I yanked the stick into a blood-draining climb was to assume the controls of an aircraft.

“Who would be stupid enough to let you at the controls of an airplane?” asked the brunette beauty I had stolen from the arms of the campus matinee idol. (She was gorgeous, soft-spoken, incredibly sweet, and painfully honest at times.)

It became apparent that I would have to enroll at a legitimate flying school, and persuade the adult in charge that I would be both attentive and relatively responsible. There were two flying schools relatively close by. The first was at Teterboro Airport, which was a sleepy suburban aviation crossroads at that time. (Today, Teterboro Airport is under the jurisdiction of the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, and is one of the busiest hubs for corporate aircraft in the world. CEOs traipse in and out of this place with their feet barely touching the ground from limousine to corporate jet.) The flying school there had a selection of familiar Cessnas and an atmosphere that was a cross between a driving school and a remedial math class. The thought of hours of classroom work, coupled with chatting on a radio while sitting on the flight line, wasn’t exactly what I had in mind.

But the second flying school was right up my alley. Not five minutes east of Teterboro lies the town of Little Ferry, New Jersey, on the banks on the bucolic Hackensack River. Here, behind a bar that had huge illuminated sign that read “Tracey’s,” was an honest-to-God seaplane base. The base consisted of a shed, a mechanic’s shop, a dock, and a gas pump. Tied to the dock were three or four standard-looking high-wing aircraft on pontoons.

This was more like it. Flying lessons from an airport which was nothing more than a straight stretch in the river, with the final approach coming in over the US-46 overpass. And there was even a bar to enjoy a few post flight snorts when the class was over. I was 19-years-old. I had cash in my pocket, a new motorcycle, a hot brunette for a girlfriend, and an apartment in one of the swankiest neighbors in the Garden State. And now, I was about to master the skies as well.

The gentle Twisted Roads reader cannot imagine the swagger factor as I arrived for my lessons on the back of a street demon, only to exchange my riding goggles for a pair of aviator sunglasses. But the best is yet to come. The aircraft used to train dilettantes such as myself was one of the most forgiving airplanes ever built. It was a 1946 Aeronca Champ. While the airframe was tubular steel, the cabin and flying surfaces were doped canvas. This airplane was older than me by ten years.

Above: An Aeronca Champion on floats. Picture from the internet... Not the plane I flew.

My first lesson was little more than an hour-long get acquainted ride, in which the pilot, who was 23, ran me through the particulars of the aircraft. The preflight check started at the front, by sticking the oil in the engine. (The stick was withdrawn, but not pulled out, so as not to drip oil on the inside of the cowling.) Then a little valve was turned to release an ounce or so of fuel into the river. (This was to make sure there was no water in the gas, an issue with aircraft engines around rivers.) The gas cap was removed, and I was instructed to insert my finger. The tank was full if my finger came out wet.

Then we examined the propeller, which was metal, not wood. The pilot/instructor explained to me that spray from the floats could occasionally get into the prop, where it had the consistency of gravel, and could easily chip the knife-like edges on the blades. When this happened, the prop was removed and the chipped edges filed. There was evidence that this had happen at least once with this prop. Then he pulled an inspection cover off each of the pontoons and used a hand pump to remove excess water from each float.

I got inside, sitting in the front seat. The “Champ” had a narrow cabin, and the student sat in front, with the instructor pilot sitting directly behind. The pilot watched me “belt” in with a seatbelt that was barely more than a webbed strap. He then explained the starting procedure by pointing to a switch and a throttle.

“When I yell ‘Off and closed,’ he explained, you will confirm the switch is ‘off’ and the ‘throttle’ is closed by yelling the same thing out the open cockpit door. When I yell ‘Contact,’ and only when I yell ‘Contact,’ will you flip that switch and yell that you’ve done so.” He then untied the floats and — balancing on the right one — yelled, “Off and closed.”

I repeated the litany, and he hand-turned the prop two full turns.

“Contact,” he yelled.

I hit the switch and repeated the same.

He yanked down on the prop and jumped back as the engine roared like an Amish firing squad. The rotating prop produced an instant draft, even at idle, and the untied plane began moving at an accelerate drift. The pilot scampered back to the right elevator, and grabbed it, causing the plane to swing out from the dock. With a practiced movement, he stepped onto the float and squeezed into the seat behind me.

He roughly pointed out the seven instruments, noting that two of them didn’t work. The important ones were the altimeter, air speed indicator, the turn and bank indicator, the tach, and the compass. The gas gauge was one of the non-functioning ones. The other was the clock. The run-up procedure consisted of switching both magnetos on and off, which caused a ripple in the RPM. (This was to determine they were working.) Then I was instructed to switch on the “carburetor heat,” which would noticeably slow the engine down, and then to switch it off again.

There was no radio.

All of these activities were included on an abbreviated check-list, which I might add was shorter than the recommended lists for pre-flighting a modern motorcycle. The last item was for resetting the elevator trim to “zero” and for retracting the water rudders at the back of each pontoon.

“Ready?” yelled the pilot.

I nodded, and he reached to my left, opening the throttle to the “full” position. The unmuffled engine noise became really impressive. This box kite of a flying relic instantly became a huge hornet with one purpose. The nose came up and the instructor put the aircraft “on the step,” which is a planing attitude that keeps the spray out of the prop. The key to propellor preservation was either a fast taxi or a really slow one.

The plane’s gentle heaving gave way to a purposeful surge and the vibration was incredible for a second. There was a brief sense of power-boating and a slight slamming as the chop on the river smashed into the floats. And then there was nothing but the fierce growl of an engine that had once again broken the suction of the Hachensack River — as it had down thousands of times before.

We were climbing at the same speed I had ridden to the flying school on my bike: 75 miles per hour. The rate of climb was gentle, but insistent. The engine in this aircraft had scant more horsepower than my Kawasaki, yet seemed to be accomplishing a lot more. The pilot told me to switch on the carb heat at 6,000 feet over the George Washington Bridge, before throttling back on the engine speed. Even in the full heat of summer, the carburetors could frost over at altitude with the engine cut back, providing a bit of unnecessary drama. He put the plane through a number of gentle maneuvers, designed to gauge my ability to look straight down at 6,000 feet, protected only by canvas and a plexiglas windscreen.

I was thrilled.

The landing was cool too. Unlike land-based aircraft, which essentially stall over the runway, floatplanes hit the surface of the water under full power. Any technical difficulties can be resolved by going right back up again. And it assumed that on rivers like the Mississippi or the Nile, you have plenty of room to get up and down. There were procedures for restarting the engine in a stall, like recovering in a shallow dive to get the prop turning, and some things to remember about the wind when taxiing. A really good crosswind could dip the opposing wing if you weren’t careful.

I had twelve lessons like this and was doing well on take-offs (with more practice required on landings) when the God of motorcycles and aging aircraft decided to yank my leash. It was one of those great summer days when you just knew you’d have a terrific flight, a fast bike ride down the shore, and two days of languishing in the arms of pure naked sensuality. The deal was to head down the shore right after the flying lesson, and my brunette girlfriend was packed and on the back as I roared into Little Ferry. The flight would be a full hour and the plan was to drop her off at the adjoining bar, Tracey’s, where she’d dawdle over coffee and a cigarette, before meeting me on the dock.

There was a bit of a crosswind and rumor of a passing thunderstorm north of us. The plane seemed a trifle cranky but the instructor wasn’t concerned. He confirmed our last maneuvers in my log book and let me preflight the aircraft. We roared off for 40 minutes of stalls and and tight turns before a sprinkling of rain on the windscreen suggested heading back. I flew the pattern to check for other aircraft on the river, or boats from one of the marinas in the area, and saw a familiar figure waiting on the dock. She looked firecracker hot as I passed at 500 feet and 75 miles per hour.

I lined the “Champ up with the US-46 overpass and ran through the landing checklist... And it got real quiet. This was because the engine was no longer running.

There are times in man’s life when he wishes he could say “Fuck” in 40 languages. This was one of those occasions.

“Restart procedure?” I yelled back to the instructor.

“You haven’t the option,” said the instructor. “You’re clear. Just fly it down to the water. Your first shot has to be your best. And you don’t have to yell. The noise stopped.”

And then I made one of the best decisions of my life.

“You do it,” I said.

“Sure thing,” he replied, looking over my shoulder. He handled the controls with quiet confidence and we fluttered down to the water with nary a ripple. Then he restarted the engine while standing on the float and taxied to the dock.

“Wow,” he said, looking out the open cabin door at my girlfriend. “I sincerely hope this is my next lesson.”

I said nothing, but delighted in the wild kiss I got (and the pinch on the ass I gave) upon disembarking.

“Did you make that landing?” she asked, breathlessly.

“I called the shot that got us down in one piece,” I replied.

The pilot/instructor looked at me and laughed.

“Ever fly a seaplane?” he asked my brunette lover. Knowing the answer, he invited her to sit inside. He propped the engine, started it, and ran back to grab the elevator.

“Do I have to fly it myself?” asked the brunette, laughing from inside the cockpit?

He jumped in and the two of them roared off for twenty minutes of sightseeing.

She was all smiles when the “Champ” landed without incident.

“Did you like it?” I asked.

“Yeah,” she said. “And he told me to come back when I got sick of motorcycles.”

Two hours later, the Kawasaki blew a back tire. I was on a secondary highway doing about 55, when I heard the pop and got the rear-end wobble. Chopping the power, we rolled to a stop on the shoulder. My girlfriend helped me push the bike 300 feet to an independent custom Harley shop, where the owner laughed, offered us a couple of cold ones, and changed the tire and tube — in exchange for a good chunk of my weekend spending money.

It was dark when we got to the shore — Seaside Heights — grabbed dinner in a bayside seafood shack, and found the house. We were about to shower, when she said, “I just got my period.”

Some weekends look so good at 700 feet and 75 miles per hour.

Author's Note — The brunette in this story was the elusive "SnowQueen," who has decided to stop posting in the comments section of Twisted Roads. I can only assume she has stopped reading as well. Someone annoyed the hell out of her. Wanna bet it was me?

Addendum...

I am not an easy person to photograph. But my former paramour managed to take one of the best shots of me ever captured. I like it a lot and use it as my official photograph. (See picture below.)

Photo by Leslie Marsh Photography

But my kid, who is one of the most amazing daughters anyone could ask for, felt compelled to take an official photograph of her own, one-upping poor old dad. There is a reason why some species devour their own young.

Photo by Katherine's boyfriend Tom... Picture cleaned up by Roy Groething of Jersey Pictures.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2012

Change In Riding Plans This Spring...

2012-02-01T14:45:00.016-05:00

Last week started with a loud pop, not unlike the sound of a cork exiting a champagne bottle. I was out and about with a close friend who remarked, “Did that sound come from your hip?”

It was the left hip to be exact, and my next step (a cross between a limp and a bridge collapse) reflected the jolt of pain that followed the sound effects. Unlike previous jolts, this one lingered for a day or two, as the hip joint took its time in resetting. A visit to my orthopedic specialist resulted in an x-ray that looked like a crime scene photograph.

“This is a normal hip joint,” said the doctor, manipulating a scale skeletal model depicting the bone structure of an 18-year-old competitive pole vaulter. The joint moved smoothly and with the kind of precision reflected by a half-million years of bone evolution. Yet I couldn’t help wondering what happened to the rest of the “pole vaulter” that only this section of his left hip remained on display in a medical office. I wondered if I’d visited a urologist would a perfect model of male genitalia be on the guy’s desk.

“This is your left hip,” said the doctor, using a pointer to highlight the ghostly white spots of a film that hung over an illuminated panel. The x-ray depicted the hip bone of a brontosaurus that had been pickled in brine. “In a worst case scenario, the joint is reduced to a cartilage-free assembly of a loose bone-on-bone connection, that may audibly grate as it generates pain. Your hip has replaced the cartilage with broken Coke bottle glass and carved the rounded ball joint into a perfect cube.”

The doctor frowned and added, “If you were a horse, I would just shoot you now.”

The past two years has been an ongoing attempt to halt the spread of the arthritis with various formulas of Glucosamine, Chondrotin, fish oil, snake oil, herbal teas, honey and vinegar, juice from South America, real drugs and exotic massages from a place in Philly. The result has been a losing battle as the disease has made slow headway in both knees, both hips, and other joints as well. Compounding the problem is a body chemistry that absorbs fat calories from the air. Consequently, my options are limited. According to my orthopedic specialist, the only mechanical joint that will effortlessly function in my body now is nose gear from a Boeing 747.

Part of my arthritic evaluation was a process that measures the restricted mobility of various joints. It appears I’ve suffered a loss of motion that makes it almost impossible for me to get my left foot on the high peg of my beloved K75. BMW’s have fairly high pegs enabling the motorcycle to nail 46-degree curves without scraping anything. (The left peg on my bike is three inches below my left ear.) In prior years, the joint seemed to stretch as I rode more often. That is no longer the case. A friend of mine, Mike Evans, recently stated that the rigid nature of my left leg gives me a strange stance in the saddle. He followed me for 30 miles one day, convinced I was about to make a right turn at any second.

My first thought was to lower certain aspects of my K75, such as rebuilding the forks and carving the seat. (This is already a “low seat” version of this model.)Yet options for lowering the pegs are either not practical nor economically feasible. (I have exhausted all reasonably priced options for dropping the pegs on a K75. There are none.) In fact, I am opposed to dramatically altering the geometry of this fine motorcycle for what may amount to one or two more riding seasons. The only option that seems to make sense is switching to another bike. I tried a “cruiser” with a seat that was as low to the ground as a bull dog’s nuts. This didn’t work either. The far forward controls pose a different set of challenges to these knees.

On a hunch, I sat on a 2004 BWM K1200 with lowered forks, a lowered seat, and lowered pegs — with a lot less difficulty. This motorcycle is somewhat longer, heavier, and more powerful than the K75. In fact, it has a 60 horsepower advantage over my current bike, which is something I would just have to get used to. (The thought of being able to accelerate quicker and go faster — shedding a year in age for each mile per hour over the 100 mark — holds little appeal for me. Furthermore, I’d have no interest in owning a bike that would make me feel like I was 17-years-old just by looking at it. Nor would I lend any consideration to the fact that the 2003, 2004, and 2005 K1200s are the most beautiful “K” bikes to claw their way out of the Teutonic design suite.)

If I had to have a 2004 BMW K1200, however, there would have to be some modifications. The most practical of these would be in lowering the pegs, the forks and the seat, so I didn’t need a step to mount it. As members of my riding club — the renegade Mac-Pac — are quick to point out, a lowered bike shouldn’t impact my riding style, as I have to take a curve at 30 degrees, let alone 46. There are plenty of existing kits for lowering K1200 pegs that do not require the services of a machine shop and the skill of a tool and die maker. Lowering the forks would also allow me to custom choose the ridel, while the saddle would eventually go to the folks at Russell Day Long. My thought is to end up with a hot-looking BMW that is only about 27 or 28 inches above the ground, with pegs that do not require me cover my ears with my knees.

My K75 was a labor of love and reflects it with a ton of custom extras incorporated into its frame. A K1200 would follow the same pattern. My choice of a color would be the rare “Orient Blue” or a “Jet Black.” On the gas tank would be an air-brushed black widow spider (in some shade of deep red), with the telltale hourglass in black or orient blue on it’s abdomen. The factory panniers would be in the flattest of black paints, each adorned with a white skull and cross-bones. The license plate would read, “POIZN.”

I would eventually equip the bike with a Russell saddle, PIA HID lights, Moto -Lights (mounted on the front brakes), and another set of LED riding lights. This would require a custom side-bar light mount (similar to that on the new K1600s.) I’d also want a heated seat and a digital thermometer for ambient temperature. This would be my second “dream” bike. There is nothing prohibitively expensive about acquiring and equipping this machine... I just can’t own two motorcycles, especially if it is painful to ride one of them. This will mean selling the K75, something I swore I wouldn’t do.

I am now onto several potential candidates for a K1200, which means the time has come to list the K75. I am planning to list it through a local dealer this week. The machine is a 1995, BMW K75 — Low Seat Model — in “Mystic Red,” with 25,126 actual miles on the speedometer. It’s extras include:

Inspection/Registration: current
Condition: Very, very good — Garage kept, never dropped

Extras:
• Eastern Beaver Relay in headlight
• Moto-lights ($450) - separate relay
• PIA HID lights ($650) - separate relay
• 36 Flashing LEDs auxiliary stoplight ($100)
• 36 50% running lights, 100% stoplight LEDS on plate bracket ($135)
— 72 extra LEDs total —
• Centech Auxiliary fuse box
• Russell Day-Long Saddle (electrically heated)
• Auxiliary volt-meter
• Fork Boots
• Works Perfomance Shock
• Square custom mirrors
• Stone Guard for throttle bodies
• Parabellum Scout Fairing (Tinted Plexiglass - clear spare included)
• “Authority Style” crash bars (powder coated black)
• Muffler -- Jet Hot Black
• Factory sidebags (really tight mountings)
• Factory topcase
• Pigtail for tender connection or heated gear
• 6,200 miles on the tires
• New Front Brakes in 2010
• New clutch cable
• Clear plastic belt buckle scratch guard on tank (at seat)
• RAM mount for GPS

Above: Left side of "Fireballs," the legendary 1995 BMW K75 of song and story. Note PIA H.I.D. lights mounted on rare "authority" bars, powder-coated in black. Light switch is integrated in dash panel.

Above: Right side of "Fireballs." Note theme of "Black and Red" is carried through to the Moto-Lights mounted on the front brake caliper mounts. The width of the Russell-Day-Long Saddle is enhanced by the fact it is a heated seat.

Above: The business end of "Fireballs." One of the last low-mileage K75's in existence... And a real find equipped like this one.

Above: "Fireballs" wearing her traveling bags. All three keyed to the ignition lock.

This motorcycle has been featured in my column BMW MOA’s publication — The Owner’s News (ON) — and has been regularly profiled on “Twisted Roads.”

Asking $4200... Interested parties contact: jack.riepe@gmail.com
No international sales...

Ducking the Valentine’s Day Bullet...

2012-01-27T09:28:00.004-05:00

The Annual St. Valentine’s Day Turkey Shoot is about to commence, with millions of hapless men scrambling to buy tokens of their love for women. Nothing confounds the average American male more than the phrase “a truly, romantic, original gift.” One reason for this is the concept of “romance” differs so radically between men and women. To a man, true romance is watching the moon rise, while getting a trombone solo from a hot squeeze, in a pick-up truck, after beer and pizza at the local gin mill. This was what they dreamed about when they were 17-years-old, and generally the strongest selling point of their first wife. (That bubble burst about twenty seconds after the wedding cake was cut.)

The second reason is that the phrase “a truly romantic, original gift” seldom occurs in a sentence ending with “cheaper than a decent pair of motorcycle gloves.” The current economic downturn has placed many men in the unnatural position of having to weigh the joys of getting a trombone solo against the thrill of treating themselves to a new motorcycle helmet, a riding jacket, or even the more mundane self-gifting of an annual bike service.

What the staggering majority of gentle, beautiful, sensitive women really want for Valentine’s Day (or a birthday or an anniversary) is a token of affection that reflects forethought, consideration, and the enduring passion of the soul. (This rules out an engraved, chrome air filter-cover that fits your Harley.)They want something that transcends the mundane. Regrettably, you can squeeze any six guys and not get enough forethought, consideration, and enduring passion to fill a shot glass.

This is where Twisted Roads steps in.

Our panel of gift experts have been getting laid for years by feigning sincerity, by exchanging mysteriously soupy looks, and by presenting gifts that reek of originality. Each of our gift recommendations is the work of an artist, unique in its own regard, and designed to appeal to the soul of a woman. Purchasing one, or a combination of these gift recommendations, is virtually guaranteed to raise the stock of any guy looking to be regarded as “something special” in a world of romantic mediocrity.

How can a man put a price on romance? The answer is “easily.” Yet these Valentines Day gifts are priced to appeal to a man’s heart as well. Each has been selected for quality, availability, and emotional impact. And ordering these online will eliminate the mad scramble endured by so many other hopeless souls, locked in a desperate search for romantic originality during the final hours of February 14th.

The Ultimate Original Alternative
To The Sappy Store-Bought Card...
A Love Letter Written By A Professional Writer!

Nothing turns a woman’s heart into into Silly Putty like a love letter written by a man who understands passion. Yet nothing is harder for the average man to write. Well-intentioned men try to put their passion into words, but end up spewing tired metaphors for a woman’s eyes, thread-bare synonyms for love, and thinly-veiled references to boudoir embraces that sound suspiciously self-serving. And yet, the assembly-line quality of store-bought cards can be much worse.

Jack Riepe is a professional writer who has been melting the iron-clad hearts of the world’s toughest women for years. A man of average looks and less than average intellect, he plays his keyboard like Cupid’s violin. His first wife was a newspaper reporter, who used to slam him in the headlines. His second wife was a KGB poisoner and he is still alive. His third enduring love was a rodeo rider from Texas, who once asked, “How do you write this stuff?” She would later refer to his love letters as “the tail of the rattler.”)

Let Jack Riepe write a love letter for your special Valentine.

Each order (domestic US) will be accompanied by an interview (call or by internet) to get a few critical details required to generate a two-paragraph letter (ten to twelve full lines, or more). Orders from outside the US will be detailed solely by internet. Each letter will be printed in script, on quality paper and mailed in a reinforced envelope. Clients ordering these letters may present them in two ways:

A) As a letter they themselves wrote, bearing their signature.
B) As a letter they commissioned, complete with a certificate of authenticity. (How many guys would hire a writer to listen to them describe the manner in which they adore their wives or lovers, so they could have it stated in a really unique way? This is the height of originality.)

Each letter is guaranteed to be absolutely unique, one-of-a kind, and totally confidential. Letters are available from men to women, women to men, and same sex. (What the hell? Love is love.) Valentines come mild, spicy, or vague (for anonymous applications). No porn. No poetry either, sorry.

The cost of each Valentine/love letter is $18.00, plus $2 shipping and handling.

To order, send your name, address and telephone number to jack.riepe@gmail.com
Put “Valentines Day Love Letter Order -- Rush” in the subject line. Please include a good time to call. The interview process takes about 5 minutes. (No phone number automatically means you’ll get the interview questions via e-mail, which adds time.) You should assume it will take two full days to process each order. Unless a client is willing to accept text by internet (to print out themselves), the cut-off date for ordering one of these Valentine/Letters is February 10th, 2012. (The cost is the same, minus the S&H.)

Anyone ordering a copy of “Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists” as a Valentine’s Day gift — either for themselves or others — is entitled to receive a Valentine/Love Letter included in the $30 price (plus $5 S&H). Follow the same ordering instructions as above, but place the phase “Book Order Valentine -- Rush” in the subject line.

The Ultimate Valentine’s Day Confection...
The Power of Chocolate And
The Taste That Drives Women Crazy!

Nothing is more closely associated with Valentine’s Day than those huge, red, heart-shaped boxes of chocolates. Yet sometimes you are paying more for the box than the contents. There is a link between chocolate and passion dating back to the ancient Mayas, who regarded it as an aphrodisiac. But anyone relying on boxed chocolates to get the fires of the heart roaring should consider Big Jim’s “Riotously Delicious” Chocolate Chip Cookies as their first shot. There is so much of the rich passion stuff in the chocolate chips used in Big Jim’s cookies, it is rumored that the cocoa beans must be picked by eunuchs.

Big Jim stands about 6’7” and no cookie was big enough, nor rich enough to satisfy his tastes... So he crafted his own. Each of the five varieties (Chocolate Chip, Purely Pecan, Chocolate Chip and Pecan, Chocolate Chip & Peanut Butter Chip, and Chocolate Chip & Peanut Butter Chip & Pecan) is an irregularly shaped pleasure puck of cookie perfection. (A family of five* could live on one cookie for a week, but that would be torture with an open box in the house.) Technically speaking, one cookie is about as satisfying a full slice of pie. Professional motorcycle racers - like Chris Carr - have enjoyed Big Jim’s cookies in the pits for years. (They even made it into a YouTube clip at one track!)

All cookie varieties are $14.95 a dozen... (Minimum 2 dozen order west of the Mississippi or south of the Mason-Dixon line.) Anyone ordering one dozen will be immediately sorry they didn’t order two. No Valentine’s Day orders can be guaranteed after February 10, 2012. All cookie orders are filled on demand. (Did we mention these were unique gifts that smacked of originality? When was the last time you got a candy heart that was made to order?)
* The family “of five” cited in the text is a family of Meercats.

Click here for Big Jim’s “Riotously Delicious” Chocolate Chip Cookies.

One Of The Most Original Romantic Gifts Ever...
An Enduring Valentine In A Work of Art!

Sid Dickens’ Memory Blocks (tiles) are a highly collectable series of exquisite wall art that strike the perfect balance of color, expression, and emotion. Each tile not only captures the passion of the artist, but forever holds the passion of the moment, be it an anniversary, a holiday, a birthday, or St. Valentine’s Day. The subject of the tiles vary, spanning birds, flowers, elements of sculpture, Roman numerals and letters. Some are mesmerizing details from paintings, while others in the collection have the characteristics of a bas relief.

The detail and quality of these tiles is astounding, with the majority retaining an “Old World” theme in both the artwork and the coloring. The designs are offered briefly, only to have the masters broken, guaranteeing that a limited number of each piece will remain in circulation. Sid Dickens Memory Blocks are made from “environmentally friendly” materials, and priced around $80 for current designs. (This is less than what you would pay for roses.)

While they can be ordered online, the true beauty of these tiles must be experienced in person. For my readers in the southeastern part of Pennsylvania, the best place to find a broad selection of Sid Dickens Memory Blocks is at Perennial Interiors (formerly Perennial Pleasures of Exton, Pa), at the Paoli Design Center, 1604 East Lancaster Avenue, Paoli, Pa, 19301-1506. The resident expert, Martha Naylor, can steer you to the most current Sid Dickens acquisitions (which include four separate heart designs) or show you some of the older designs with immediate collector value. She can be reached at 484-318-8376. To find then online, click here.

And trust me, they way they gift wrap these things at Perennial Interiors even the unopened box is special.

Want To Celebrate Your Love In A Hundred Years...
Give The Floral Arrangement That Lasts Forever!

Do you have the kind of romance that will endure for the ages? Then plant a tree... In your kitchen, family room, or living room. Bonsai trees have been known to live more than 200 years, with some species providing full-sized blooms on miniature, twisted trunks, three generations after the original lovers moved into oblivion.

There are two ways to present a Bonsai tree for Valentine’s Day, and Waterloo Gardens of Chester County, Pa is an expert at both. The first is to buy a fully established Bansai well advanced in the process of becoming a miniature tree. These make delightful gifts, in little ornate pots, with gnarly roots covered with soft green moss. And they run from $75 to the sky is limit, based on the age of the tree. The second way is to meet with a Waterloo Gardens associate and plant your Bonsai tree — together. You and your Honey can get your hands dirty — in the clean way — introducing a tiny tree to pure romance.

Need a bigger splash than a tree? Waterloo Gardens has a great selection of orchids too. Or get a miniature garden constructed in an oversized brandy snifter.

Waterloo Gardens has one of the best gift shops, with incredible choices (from exquisite silver jewelry to cloisonne boxes). They have two stores, one in Exton, Pa, and one in Devon, Pa. The Exton shop is vast, at 200 North Whitford Road, Exton, Pa 19341. Reach the Exton store at 610-363-0800. Find them on-line by clicking here.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2012

Dispatches From The Front...

2012-01-24T16:15:00.003-05:00

There are letters from allegedly living Twisted Roads readers. The Twisted Roads editorial staff will entertain questions from serious bikers regarding advanced riding technique, mechanical issues, rider safety, relationship building, how to break up with a woman (while tapping her sister on the way out the door), how elected officials get such big heads through such tight assholes, and which comes first: the pothole or the $900 bill to replace the wheel?

We will attempt to effect resolution for some readers with substantial bribes of Big Jim’s Chocolate Chip cookies — at our discretion. Don’t even think of hinting that you should get a box, unless you look like the woman in the first letter and include a picture.

The Publisher....

Dear Twisted Roads:

I am getting married in a couple of weeks to a woman who I met on a motorcycle run last summer. We are both a little nervous as this is an “inter-racial” relationship. (She rides a Harley and I ride a Vespa.) First there is the question of the blood test. I asked her about it and got a bone-chilling look. Then she pulled a Buck knife out of her boot and sliced her own palm, asking, “Do I pass?”

I really didn’t know what to say, so I just nodded.

Do you know if during the wedding ceremony the minister still asks if there is anyone present who objects to this marriage “to speak up now or forever hold their peace?” I jokingly mentioned that my mother might object. My fiance just laughed and said, “Not if she’s tied to a tree with a dead rat in her mouth.”

It’s not that I’m getting cold feet, but we were meeting with the caterer to finalize a few reception arrangements, when the gentleman asked, “What sort of napkins would you like?”

My fiance tested 20 of them by blowing her nose in each one, finally choosing a roll of paper towels as “best.” When asked if she wanted our initials printed on them, she replied only “FU,” in the dead center of each one.

She is stunningly beautiful, with a seamless tan, a few hidden tattoos (from the Kama Sutra), and likes to walk around the house naked. She has the skill of a gourmet cook and occasionally serves paté that she has created from all natural ingredients, using her flat stomach as a platter. When it comes to matters of the bedroom, she does things that would embarrass a farm animal.

Yesterday, I was moving some of her stuff into the bedroom, when I came across a strange red metal box marked, “Snap-On Tools.” I immediately suspected some higher level of sexual perversion, so I called her on it.

She was topless as usual, but I noticed a slight blush of embarrassment coloring her perfect nipples.

She bit her lower lip in hesitation, then said, “Don’t open it.”

I did.

It was filled with the strangest tools I have ever seen, including a wrench like a dental pick, complete with a series of paper-thin shims.

“What are these?” I demanded.

She started to sob, and replied: “When I get really hot and sexually uncontrollable, I have a mad desire to service German motorcycles.”

I can’t believe she kept this hidden from me. If a woman will hide secrets like this in the bedroom, what else will she conceal? I think it would be wise to postpone the wedding at the very least. My riding club — The Really Hard Guys Scooter Squadron — tells me I’d be much better off finding a woman from my “own” Vespa-riding kind. What do you think?

Sincerely,
Sylvester T. Simons, III
Accountant To The Pet Grooming Profession

Dear Sylvester T. Simons, III:

Your riding club is undoubtedly correct. A woman like this is thoroughly unpredictable, and could go off the deep end in the blink of an eye. Just imagine how mortified you’d be at the next national Vespa Week (in Sturgeon, South Dakota), if she started walking around topless among the pup tents and bingo games! Worse, she could start doing stuff like this now even as you try to do the decent thing and unceremoniously dump her.

I have never left a reader in the lurch and I’ll de damned if I’ll start today. I’ll marry her, giving you a chance to escape on your Vespa. I’ll do the best I can to distract her over the next six or eight months, allowing you to get as far away as you can at 36 miles per hour.

Don’t waste time, however. Bring her over here right now.

Fondest regards,
The Publisher

Dear Twisted Roads:

I have been a devoted reader of your blog for two years and go over each story several times, sometimes taking notes. You constantly reference a handful of guys as your riding buddies, and allude to a much larger cadre of moto-acquaintances as the Mac-Pac, a riding club with a preoccupation for BMW motorcycles that borders on sexual deviance.

Your description of these guys, for the exception of a Ducati jockey and an MV Agusta enthusiast, would lead your readers to believe they are all cool, accomplished riders, capable of getting a laugh from the guys and a smile from the ladies at the drop of a hat. Yet it has been my experience that a staggering majority of BMW riders are unbelievable douches, who leave 8 percent tips on the counter, sleep with a GPS under their pillows, and who wear full ATFGATFT (All The Fucking Gear All The Fucking Time) — even when taking a piss. (You have to really wonder about a guy who takes a leak wearing ballistic gloves.)

How do you explain the discrepancy between your perception of BMW riders and mine?

Sincerely,
Mavis LeBustier
The Waitress At That Shithole Where You Guys Meet For Breakfast

Dear Mavis:

The mayor of a southern town hosting a gathering of BMW GS riders once said “These guys arrive with one undershirt and a $10 dollar bill. Then they stay a week, changing neither one.” That cannot be denied. I have seen several GS riders, en route to remote and desolate destinations on the far side of Canada, stop just long enough to chew the bark on young birch trees. They get this way from making BMW bike payments and from occasionally buying spare parts. These transactions can force a man to live on $3.80 a week, all that is left from a $4,000 weekly pay check.

Sleeping with the GPS under the pillow becomes a reflex action for many BMW riders on weekend runs where each day begins with the tradition of “2,000 miles before breakfast.”

Many BMW riders wear full protective gear when they piss because they are doing so at 90 miles per hour, while standing on the seat, with the most important tool on the bike in their hand. Naturally, they are wearing riding gloves. This practice, taught by most BMW clubs as a rite of initiation, can save up to 28 minutes a day. This is a significant economy of riding time as the average BMW Saturday afternoon run is the distance between Chicago and Tahiti. Things are more difficult for women, who must drop their pants. Many feel shy about this if they do not have a perfect tan on their butt, or a coiffed squirrel.

Now I do not mean to imply that the Mac-Pac does not have its share of douches. There are exactly six, and they always sit together at breakfast. Just look to see who is always sitting together to find them. You can confirm your sighting by asking them, “What is the best oil for my bike?”

The person who responds with, “The absolute best oil to use...,” is the head douche.

Sincerely,
The Publisher

Dear Twisted Roads:

I have been a mental health professional serving the needs of the maniacally insane for over 25 years. Even a casual reading of remarks left on a previous blog episode, allegedly by “SnowQueen,” describing the publisher of this blog — Jack Riepe — as good looking, stimulating, and sensual, would lead anyone to believe there is a woman in basement someplace, wearing a ski mask while trying to start a chainsaw.

Now this may seem like a nice diversion for a few sentimental readers, but things are likely to change quickly when the door of the Twisted Roads office is sliced into sawdust by an infuriated “SnowQueen” looking for justice. And from what I can tell, she may certainly deserve it. Forcing a gentle beauty to ride pillion on what amounts to an outboard motor (1975 Kawasaki H2) with two tires is nothing less than the height of male hubris. In fact, seven southern states still have laws against this. Adding insult to injury was the fact this “bike” was painted in a shade of reddish purple that occurs only in bad science fiction.

In a more perfect world, real men would hold Riepe down while the SnowQueen diced him into lizard chum. The only thing saving Riepe’s life right now might be that most chainsaw killers neglect small engine maintenance in the winter. Chances are the plug needs replacing, the oil and gas have probably separated, and the chain itself is need of lubrication. Since this blog so frequently dwells in the land of the extinct two-stroke street bike, I think it is only fair that one or two articles on two-stroke engine maintenance appear, regardless of the danger to its author and publisher.

Sincerely,
Dr. Albert Hissingaz
Director
Wilmington Institute, Wilmington, NY

Dear Dr. Hissingaz:

If I had a dime for every woman who tried to kill me, I could afford to donate another book to the Wilmington Institute’s extensive research library, bringing its total up to 23. Woman have tried to shoot me... Poison me... And marry me to death. Things got so bad in one of my marriages that the dog would no longer take scraps from my side of the table. My neighbor would cover his ears and close his eyes every time I started the car. One wife even ripped my soul out and held it in her hand while crows pecked at it. (The soul of a moto-blog writer is often confused with a huge testicle.) And still, I have endured.

Though the SnowQueen has once again slipped into oblivion, I sent a box of Big Jim’s “Riotously Delicious” Chocolate Chip Cookies to her last known address. She’ll have to put the chainsaw down to eat even one... And with that first bite (the culinary personification of the battered baby seal look), I will be saved.

Thank you for your concern...
The Publisher

Dear Twisted Roads:

Moved by one of Jack Riepe’s weekly appeals to buy one of his current books (Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists), I ordered a copy provided it was personally autographed and inscribed “with a highly motivational” text. I followed the complex ordering instructions and paid in South African Krugerrands as requested. While the book itself lived up to expectation (with stories curing baldness, removing crabgrass, and promoting marital harmony), the personal inscription was illegible. I hired an Egyptologist to transcribe the hieroglyphics scrawled on the front — to no avail.

This expert concluded that this was either data from the Dead Sea scrolls or a horoscope for the missing 2000 years from the Mayan calendar. On a bet, I had a Seeing Eye Dog sniff it. The animal gave it a good going over, then lifted its leg on chapters 6 through 10. Can I send a picture of this page to the Twisted Roads editorial staff for a translation? Otherwise, may I suggest Riepe train a chimp to autograph books? Then again, if he could train a chimp to autograph them, he could probably train a primate to get this blog out on time as well.

Sincerely,
Colin C.
Fort Worth, Texas

Dear Colin C:

Your correspondence — and that of every Twisted Roads reader — is important to us, which is why we passed it on to the Director of Marketing, which is the code we use around here for “Legal.” The last time we saw the Director of Marketing, he was sniffing the seat of a motorcycle last ridden by a fashion model in a lingerie ad. You may not be aware of this, but Jack Riepe has a medical condition that causes him to brush his teeth with gin, and to drink bottles of Woolite® from brown paper bags. He autographs books from his work station, which is on the curb of a Cape May, NJ street corner. Please accept a box of Big Jim’s Riotiously Delicious Chocolate Chip cookies for your trouble. A box will be sent to you shortly. (All of Big Jim’s Riotiously Delicious Chocolate Chip cookies are sold by the box. Some boxes may appear to be half eaten, like the one you’re getting. Please be advised that this is an optical illusion. You did not get the open box that was on Riepe’s desk.)

Sincerely,
Pauley “Fitz” Tooley
TW Marketing Director

The "Dispatches From The Front" section of Twisted Roads considers any and all legitimate letters from readers who are bikers. Please address your letters to "jack.riepe@gmail.com, placing the phrase "Dispatches From The Front" in the subject line. Selected letters will receive "promotional awareness" tokens at our discretion.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2012

Tuition...

2012-01-19T16:35:00.001-05:00

For a special announcement from Jack Riepe regarding his new motorcycle book, click here.

Tuition...

When it comes to riding motorcycles, drinking in strange gin mills, or courting exotic pole dancers, it never hurts to err on the side of caution. But “caution” is an abstract unknown to the average 19-year-old and a characteristic that was deemed unmanly in the average Jersey City alpha dog of 1976. The circumstances of this story were such that I found myself drinking in a strange gin mill and chatting up a pole dancer, with my motorcycle parked at the curb outside — while throwing caution to the winds.

The Jersey City in which I was born and abandoned (no less than six times) was a loose confederation of neighborhoods that each started out as independent communities. Yet over the course of time, these were merged into a loose ethnic slurry that consisted of Irish, Italian, Polish, German, and Dutch territories, with their own main streets, churches, and factories. The most common element were square, attached houses with flat roofs (some with false gambrels in front), with a stoop to the sidewalk. The “stoop” was nothing more than a short flight of stairs upon which immigrant grandparents sat, waiting to die.

Baby Boomers born here in the ‘fifties had no idea their lives had begun on the threshold of hell. But the waterfront docks had fallen into the Hudson River by the mid-sixties; the spectacular Protestant money mansions of Old Bergen and Jersey Avenue had long-since begun to sag; and local factories had the vacant-eyed look of industry gone absent. If dog shit and broken glass could have been considered treasure, we’d have been pirate kings. The city had a Dickensian look to it by the time I was riding a motorcycle. However those of us spawned inside the bell jar thought it was Paris... And from our perspective, neighboring Union City was much worse.

Union City began at 5th Street (otherwise known as Secaucus Road) and Kennedy Boulevard. Crossing this line was like entering an alien nation. While I cannot say that the residents there had both eyes on the same side of their nose (like human flounder), there seemed a perceivable difference. And the very first community you’d wander into was known as the “Transfer Station,” a rabbit warren of diagonal streets that formed concentric triangles of hopelessness, lined with run-down bars, dubbed “clubs,” in the ‘forties. (The neighborhood initially served as the terminus and turnaround of several trolley car lines, hence the name.)

Yet in 1976, the Transfer Station was like a free trade zone for wayward pole dancers, who would flash their tits when the action got slow. My action was slow that week, owing to the fact that the love of my life had temporarily regained consciousness and invited me to take the gas pipe. My pals were nowhere to be found so I made my first mistake that night and cruised the “Transfer Station.”

“The Palm” was a joint with a semi-life-sized neon sign of that tropical foliage hanging above the door. And like most trees that lose their leaves or fronds, this one had shed every last inch of glowing glass tubing. A sign in the window advertised “Exotic Dancers,” featuring “Avancé,” which I believe is fake Italian for “Chrissy.” This bar had seen better days... Like the Roman Colosseum had seen better days. The upholstery of wobbly stools was patched with tape and the place reeked of cigarettes and a beer trough full of stale suds. Cheap track lighting cast a glare on a small stage that was anchored by a brass pole, smudged by fingermarks.

Like any Hudson County rider worth his salt, I scanned the gin mill for threats, and found only one knuckle-walker in the sparse crowd. This was a mutant who could easily touch his forehead with his lower lip. I took a seat as far away from him as possible, and made my second mistake: I put a $20 bill on the bar.

New Jersey has many idiosyncrasies. One of these regards appropriate behavior in a bar, specifically, putting down a tenner or twenty, and then drinking against that dwindling amount. My father, an expert in these matters, once said to me, “Don’t ever go into a bar and order a drink without laying your money down. The bartender will expect it, and no one else will touch it.”

I have had great nights in bars in Chicago, San Francisco, New Orleans, Paris, Berlin, and Dublin. Nowhere is this tradition observed like it is in New Jersey. Placing money on the bar even causes confusion in some places.

I ordered the first of several rum and Cokes, which were about two bucks each in those days. This left me with a ten-spot and four singles on the bar when the entertainment started. “Avancé” shimmied out and started climbing the pole like the floor was on on fire. She was a couple of years older than me and new to her arduous trade. There wasn’t an excess ounce on her lithe frame. She was blonde in the way that you knew the carpet would never match the drapes, and had gone a little too heavy on the eye makeup, but she was a talent far in excess of what this place typically presented. She was wearing a thong made of fishing line and two nipple pasties about the size of dimes. (The dime is one of the most understated of all US coins. It is exactly the right size.)

As was my custom of the day, I decided to marry her, move into a cottage by a lake, and have her children. The courtship started by holding up each of the four singles as soon as she finished a number. “Avancé” took each with a smile or a little giggle, and paused to chat with me. At buck number three, she asked my name. I interpreted this as a sign that we were going to leave together. “Do you want change for that ten dollar bill?” she asked, scarfing up single buck #4. And that was when I made mistake #3.

“Not if I’m just gonna give it all to you,” I replied.

I failed to realize this was her second set of the night, and that the neanderthal had squandered his total life’s worth of $8.50 on lining her “g” string. He concluded that the sudden onset of my patronage would have a dismal impact on his romantic chances later that evening, and decided to cut his losses and my throat.

“Hey Suck Nuts... Leave the dancer alone,” growled the mutant.

My response was mistake #4. I was halfway through the “Fu” part of “Fuck you,” when a fist the size of a canned ham got stuck in my right eye. It was dislodged by a roundhouse punch to the gut that ultimately resulted in my getting an unparalleled view of a floor that hadn’t been washed in 20 years.

I know that many of my Twisted Roads readers are fascinated by nature. One of the most remarkable creatures to be found in the great US west is the lowly armadillo, an animal of limited charm, but one of great discretion. When confronted by conflict, the armadillo simply rolls into a semi-armored ball. I can tell you right now that no armadillo has ever gotten into a bar fight. Rolling into a ball simply induces raging mutants to try their luck at soccer. This human muscle pounded me out into the street, knocked me down one more time, and threw the Kawasaki over on top of me.

For the first time in my life, I understood why most states have laws against the common man owning a flame-thrower. My head began to swell in three of four places, and would eventually assume the shape of a rhombohedron. My right eye was nearly closed, and there was a dent in the bike’s gas tank. It took me ten minutes to get the Kawasaki upright and on it. And yet, I couldn’t let things go. My friend “Cretin,” a real street brawler, would have beaten this guy close to death with anything at hand. And I wanted to come back for a rematch.

I still looked like shit three days later when I gave Cretin the details.

He laughed and said we’d talk later in the week. I met him for lunch in a Union City diner, where he insisted we sit at the counter, and ordered the Garden State specialty, the Cheeseburger Deluxe.

“What do you think of the waitress?” he asked.

She was a skinny thing with a half-inch of black roots showing in her blonde hair. She was cute in the ordinary way, and attempted to conceal a tired look by wearing too much make-up.

“Thanks, Avancé,” said Cretin, leaving a $5 tip.

The waitress shot us a bashful smile, and asked, “You guys see me dance?”

The name tag on her uniform read “Karen.”

Outside, Cretin said, “That’s what got the living shit beaten out of you. Want to give her ten bucks now? She’s the same woman.”

He went on to explain that the guy who beat me was named “Twitch,” and had a reputation for getting the edge through a sucker punch.

“I’d say he had your number,” said Cretin. “You’re enraged because you got the shit kicked out of you in front of a woman, who showed her ass to you and every other guy in a shit bar — for a buck. And you didn’t even get beaten that badly.”

“What would you call this?” I asked, pointed to my blackened right eye.

“Tuition.”

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2012

2012-01-18T12:06:00.008-05:00

To read the current Twisted Roads humor story posted on Tuesday, January 17, 2012, (the first motorcycle ride with the SnowQueen) please click here.

A Message From The Publisher of Twisted Roads

Photo by Leslie Marsh Photography

The 2011 riding season ended late in the year for many, with ice and snow finally arriving with bone-numbing temperatures. Yet for others, notably the guys I ride with in southeastern Pennsylvania and New Jersey, it has been one of the mildest winters on record. Temperatures are still hitting the ’50’s (F) here in Cape May and it is already the middle of January. Technically speaking, we are only ten weeks out from the first really warm days of 2012 and the time when motorcycles return to the roads like the swallows return to Capistrano, like the bluefish to the New Jersey shore, and like lawyers to a complicated divorce.

Once again, Twisted Roads is signing on for the long haul, providing a growing number of readers with stories that cross the double-yellow line for laughs and the kind reading that matches the pavement in your mind. New for this year will be our presence at a number of club events, coverage of rides (including various specialty marques), and reviews of moto-products, books, and films. This is all made possible through the vision and forethought of our sponsors — who fund this blog and my monthly column. Without their contribution, “Twisted Roads” and “Jack The Riepe” would have faded into oblivion long ago.

Chief among these has been Hermy’s BMW and Triumph, of Port Clinton, Pa. They are a great local BMW shop, and they sell great gear (online or on the phone) that can be worn on any marque. Next time you’re in there or have them on the phone, thank them for Twisted Roads.

And yet there are other sponsors, who are not represented by an ad nor a picture. These are the hundreds of “Twisted Roads” readers who have purchased my cigar book, tee shirts, and other products, funding the thousands of hours I have put into writing this stuff. When you buy a book from me, you are pumping your cash directly into the tales of a Kawasaki H2, a BMW K75, seven brunettes, two blonds, one redhead, four motorcycle crashes, and “The Cretin Chronicles.” My personal autograph, and unusual inscription, is my unique way of saying “Thank You,” for a great ride.

I am close to completing my motorcycle book, which goes beyond this blog in both content and style. It is a combination of philosophy, humor, rides I have never shared with the public, moto-romantic conflicts that haunt me still, and the kind of thoughts that nearly every rider has — but has hesitated to express. This book will be out in the spring, with a special edition offered for advance purchase, with discounting for clubs and anyone who bought a cigar book from Twisted Roads. To arrange a club-event book signing for my motorcycle book, please contact me at jack.riepe@gmail.com. Please put “Moto-Book Event” in the subject line. To express your interest in reserving an advance copy of my motorcycle book, simply send your name, address, email address, and phone number to jack.riepe@gmail.com. Please put “Moto-Book Advance Sale Request” in the subject line.

Twisted Roads Never Sells Reader Information To Any Other Source... And Screw Those That Do!

Once again, I look forward to another year of two-wheeled excitement.

Sincerely,
Jack Riepe
Publisher/Twisted Roads

Tomorrow's Twisted Roads' Humor Piece:
"Getting Beaten Up In A Biker Bar..."

Monday, January 23rd's Twisted Roads episode:
"True Letters From Rabid Readers..."

The Kawasaki... The Submarine... And The First Brunette!

2012-01-17T10:52:00.011-05:00

This blog chapter was prompted by the sudden appearance of comments to previous episodes by “SnowQueen,” the very first woman to ever ride pillion on my bike, to kiss the dawn from my eyes, or hand me the soap in the shower. She called me an “asshole” the first time she spoke to me, and maybe the last time too. (It’s a recurrent theme.) I had asked her for feedback to this piece before I published it, but the lady demurely declined. (I haven't seen her in 30 years and she's disappeared again.) This story clearly demonstrates the moto-edge in beating out the tanned, blond guys, who are little more than good looks in a designer wrapper.

It ends with a previous comment by ‘“SnowQueen” verifying the content. I couldn’t make this stuff up.

––– The Author

The shots in life were something that other people called, creating a crossfire which occasionally hit me as an innocent bystander, or so it appeared when I was 17-years-old. I never seemed to have the first inkling of a plan, nor the final page of directions, nor even the basic survival instincts so familiar to other guys my age. I neither understood baseball nor how to open a brassiere (without the assistance of wire cutters). My command of things that were “cool” rivaled my ability to simulate south Pacific bird calls by whistling through my ass. I lived by impulse, which is the most dangerous way to go through life, as a kid.

One of the critical shots that had been called for me was my enrollment in a Jesuit prep school — an all boys academy —which combined the free-thought policies of the Middle Ages with the unstructured agenda of Parris Island (a semi-tropical resort conducted by the US Marine Corps.). Here I was encouraged to write and made to understand the importance of classical communication in the history of western civilization. It was emphasized that the greatest threat to all civilization was the tolerance of stupidity. Stupidity is the one human condition that can be cured through classroom discipline, and by executing those who fail to grasp this concept, apparently.

I detested this school after three days and plotted the murder of a freshman-year Latin teacher. (My plan was to shit in his water glass and have him catch typhus. The glitch in the plan was that I wanted him to see me do it.) By senior year, I mourned leaving this place and formed friendships that have stood the test of forty years. These were some of the best years of my life and directly responsible for an eight-year love affair with one of the most beautiful women I have ever known.

The curse of this damned Jesuit prep school was a minimum of three hours homework every night (for four years). Compared to this place, the liberal arts college that was my final destination was more like a spa, with occasional lectures by mildly annoying professors. I found myself released to “independent study” in the second half of my college freshman year. One course now open to me was an advanced writing class, administered by a professor who was a well-regarded literary professional in his own right. He had in his youth been the assistant to H.L. Mecken, and had been on a first-name basis with Ernest Hemingway and F. Scott Fitzgerald.

This was like winning a small lottery.

The advanced writing class was for college juniors and seniors. Consequently everyone here was at least two years older than me. (I felt like a douchier version of Doogie Howser, MD.) But it didn’t stop me from looking at the nicer asses in blue jeans. Two gorgeous women stood out from the crowd. The first was a devastatingly pretty blond, who sat on the left. She had perfect hair and a laser-like smile that declared she’d brook no nonsense from fools. This pretty much ruled out any conversation from me. She also appeared to be a genuine writer with some awards to her credit. (She was Peggy Noonan, who went on to become Ronald Reagan’s speech writer, and a noted author and columnist. I doubt she would remember me as anything other than a gnat-like buzzing in the room.)

The second was a brunette with near waist-length hair and a flawless Mediterranean complexion that would hold the trace of a Tuscany tan in the dead of winter. She had a voice as soft as a whispered Hail Mary, and the kind of smile that made a man wish he always had something clever to say. On this day, she was wearing a tailored riding blazer, a starched white blouse with a jeweled pin at the neck, and jodhpurs. This was not unusual as she was the captain of the equestrian team and had some event scheduled for that afternoon..

To those unfamiliar with jodhpurs, they are they kind of riding pants that are designed to show off a woman’s ass to its greatest advantage during competitive posting. In equestrian terms, posting occurs when a rider lifts themselves out of the saddle as the horse trots along, ostensibly to minimize the jarring impact of the animal’s gait. This same activity also demonstrates perfect thighs and incredible ass cheeks to the audience. Jodhpurs are one step beyond form-fitting ballistic motorcycle gear as a sexual attractant. This brunette (now known to my readers as SnowQueen) provided my first up-close experience with this sort of riding gear, leaving me with the distinct impression that I wanted to wear her ass as a hat. (To this day I wonder what kind of speeches Peggy Noonan would have written if she had worn jodhpurs too. Reagan probably would have been anointed king.)

Having this brunette in class was like winning a much bigger lottery.

The challenge for me was in getting close to a brunette of this caliber. Naturally, she was running around with the best looking guy on campus, who I suspected was a real asshole. (If that was the case, this obstacle would eventually take care of itself.) My problem was in creating a sustainable image, or the illusion of the same, that would stick in her mind. Prior crash and burn sexual experiences with other women had led me to believe that anything short of a suicide threat from me would barely raise an eyebrow.

We had to read our work aloud in the creative writing class. Though I read for the class, I wrote to this woman. And as I read my material aloud, I sought her expression in my peripheral vision. Others attempted to write about profound experiences they had... I went for the humor. I got involved with the college television station, and staged a funny monthly program. It was my intention to be on screens throughout campus, with my talking head as a kind of animated wanted poster. Finally, the brunette sat in the same place in the cafeteria each day, at the same time. I started holding court three tables away... Then two... And finally, at the far end of hers... Psychologists call this strategy “the glacier approach” as progress tends to be measured in centimeters each decade.

And then something else happened: I got a motorcycle. The Kawasaki H2 was the fastest stock motorcycle of 1975. It had the handling characteristics of a cow on ice, and since it was a two-stroke 750cc street bike, it made a noise like an endless cow fart. Riding this to school on NJ Route 3 every day gave me the confidence of a serial killer, which added a new dimension of realism to the feigned indifference I was attempting to show the brunette. I can’t recall the day she and I started having coffee together, but I think it was when I gave everyone else at the table $25 bucks to buy grass and get lost.

I wanted to spend an afternoon with her away from the campus, but didn’t know how to broach the subject. I didn’t want future efforts tainted by rejection, so I made up a lie about having to scout out a location for my campus TV show, and asked (without making eye-contact) if she’d like to come along, fully expecting her to spit in my coffee.

“On your motorcycle?” she asked, in a voice dripping with anticipation. “Okay. When will we be back? I have to meet my boyfriend, Josh, later on.”

I almost responded “Two weeks from Thursday,” but thought that a trifle flippant. So I went with a more reassuring, “Not long. It isn’t far.”

The brunette weighed all of 118 pounds and had the kind of tiny waist my belt would go around twice. Yet she mounted 900- to 1100-pound horses without a second thought, leading opinionated geldings into complicated maneuvers and jumps. She swung her leg over the Kawasaki like it was a odd-colored green pony, and said, “What do I do now?” (My first pre-crash H2 was green.)

“You can put your arms around me until you get used to the rhythm of the bike,” I said. “But hang on tight if I tap your leg.”

I tapped her leg ten minutes later, just as she got used to the rhythm of the bike. Actually, I faked a swerve to support the drama of the moment. It was a warm, late summer day, and I couldn’t help but notice the shadow flying alongside us. There was I, astride a motorcycle, with the silhouette of a real beauty hanging on behind me. Anybody in the cars around us would see this guy, on a hot bike, with an even hotter woman, riding off to someplace cool. My first thought was to head to Jersey City, and ride past the bar so my friends could see me. Naturally, they’d be drinking inside, so I’d have to stop and blow the horn, which would sort of destroy the effect. (Then she'd see what my friends looked like, which would really kill the moment, and the future.)

“Where are we going,” she asked.

“You’ll see,” I replied. But I didn’t really have a destination as I didn’t expect her to say “yes.” A sign proclaimed a restored WWII submarine — The USS Ling — to be moored and open as a museum on the Hackensack River. I headed there. It was a good choice as SnowQueen was a game soul and climbed up and down ladders, snaked around equipment, and marveled at stacked torpedoes. She allowed me to assist her, bringing up the rear, which showed me the best of what there was on the Ling that day. Yet there were times when we seemed to get jammed in a few places, and I noticed that she smelled great.

Above: The USS Ling, loaded for Japanese bear, in WWII.

We stopped for hotdogs at a roadside stand in Clifton (Rutt's Hut). It is still there. I took the long way back to campus, wobbling over steel-grated bridges (“hold on”), charging along the expressway sections of Route 17 (“hold on”), and slamming to a stop in a park (which caused her to slide into me, putting her arms around my shoulders).

Above: Rutt's Hut, n Clifton, NJ... The best "Rippers" in the world... Best hot dogs anywhere. And Jim Ellenberg can yell all he wants about upstart dogs from Upstate New York. Photo from Wikipedia.

She had never been on a motorcycle before. We threaded our way through ducks on the road in the park, which made her laugh. I got that bike up to 85 mph on the highway, which made her squeal. And I found a twisty stretch that made her cling to me like plastic wrap. For once in its life, the Kawasaki H2 did not cut a techno fart and foul the plugs. Being in perfect tune (which normally lasted 18 seconds), it didn’t smoke excessively. The bike seemed to understand what was at stake here, and was determined not to let me down.

Yet I couldn’t bring myself to just rest my hand on her leg, which was almost wrapped around me. I wanted to squeeze her thigh, and ask, “Having a good time?” But I was afraid some key part of the spell would be broken. Still, it seemed like she was holding onto me in a much nicer way than she had when the ride began.

We roared into the campus parking lot to find “Josh” impatiently waiting by her car. His smile of welcome was tempered by a look of disbelief in his eyes. Josh was 6’1”, blond, tanned, and lean. Pricks like this guy have been pushing me around my whole life. But now I had had enough. And besides, I had a six-foot-long, steel and plastic penis extension that said “Kawasaki” on the gas tank... And his girlfriend was sitting on it, hanging onto me.

“So, you went out for a ride on a motorcycle,” he said, kissing her. Then he looked at me and added, “I’m Josh.”

I smiled and obnoxiously replied, “So I hear.”

What he actually meant to say was, “Get lost, asshole. This girl is mine.”

And what I said in my mind was, “You are so fucking toast, Douche Bag.”

I thanked the brunette for coming and extended my hand. She took it, pressing a slip of cardboard into my palm. Being from Hudson County, NJ, where palm messaging was a popular means of communicating, I shoved it in my pocket. Later, I realized it was a pre-printed tag from some ship-board hardware which she grabbed off the sub. It read, “This is your personal screw.”

My riding buddy, Cretin, was busting my balls as usual in the bar that night, when I pulled out the tag and showed it to him. “A woman gave me this today,” I said. “What do you think she meant?”

“That you have to ask means you’re too stupid to ride even that fucked-up Kawasaki,” said Cretin. “Maybe you’ll get a second chance. But I doubt it.”

I was waiting for her at the regular spot in the cafeteria the next day... But she never showed. Not for the rest of the week. The SnowQueen giveth, and the SnowQueen taketh away.

Readers are requested to take the survey at the top right...

Corroborating statement From “SnowQueen...”

Jack --   The SS Ling, being a submarine, was 'close quarters' and I remember as we manuevered through tight spots we were forced to brush up against each other slightly. It was very sensual. Then I noticed a brown bag colored tag hanging from a piece of equipment. It read THIS IS YOUR OWN PERSONAL SCREW. I thought this was hysterical, so I ripped it off and stuck it in my pocket. As we were leaving the 'Ling', I handed it to you. I wish I could write the look on your face. It was as far from the battered baby seal look as can be imagined. Anyway that's how I remember it.
  It's starting to flurry here.
  
SnowQueen
January 13, 2012 10:21 AM

The BMW Motorcycle Owners Of America (MOA) have graciously placed my monthly column (written expressly for their publication the "Owners News" — ON— ) on their main, public website page. To read this story, "The Devil And Dick Bregstein," simply click here.

©Copyright 2012 Jack Riepe

“What The Hell?” A Reader Asks...

2012-01-12T12:58:00.010-05:00

Dear Twisted Roads:

What the hell is it with you lately? Every time I read this column, which is quite often, you are either riding off to pop some floozie or clinging to your motorcycle after a boudoir toss with a brunette. What happened to the plain, all-guys adventure? Has there ever been a time when you just got on your bike, rode off into the sunset by yourself, and didn’t once think of knocking off a piece? Now I hang with the same BMW riding club that you do and I know that none of those guys ever thought about laying some pipe when they’re on the road, ‘cos none of them would stand a chance of scoring any anyway.

Sincerely,
James “The Chip Man”

Dear Mr. Chips:

If you read a previous blog post of mine, titled “The Throttle Or The Breast,” you would have come across the line, “The motorcycle is a metaphor for life.” Regardless of whether you are a man or a woman, the motorcycle is also a common metaphor for a six-foot-long, throbbing phallus. Guys see it as theirs, and women see it as something they’d love to take through a curve (or enslave), while wearing boots. The average man consciously or unconsciously thinks about getting laid 120 times a minute (approximately once each heartbeat). Consequently, it is almost impossible to ride a motorcycle any distance without having a fantasy about the 36-year-old blond waitress driving the minivan next to you. (Please understand that I don’t make the rules, but only play the game.) And these statistics double if you are a guy between the ages of 19 and 25.

So nearly all of my stories entail some element of “cherchez la femme” as a kind of cause and effect situation. And yet there are those moments when I do rise above my natural instincts to be a male alone in the elements with a motorcycle. One such moment occurred last week, on one of the warmest nights of the year. I have titled the incident:

“A Man, A Motorcycle, And The Moon On The Dunes of North Cape May”

There is an elusive quality about the seashore that has remained outside my grasp. Perhaps because it has been my poor luck to walk the strand at the height of the summer season, when the beach is filled with tanned, lean individuals (both men and women), who seem to sizzle sensuality, while I blister and burn or find the greatest concentration of Jellyfish in the surf. Yet my recent exile to Cape May (following the implosion of the relationship I thought would last a thousand years) has brought out-of-season beaches, jetties, and dunes within easy reach. I can now gauge the mood of the ocean, watch the steady beam of the lighthouse, or see the tide turn angry as the placid Delaware contests the Atlantic — in a bay nearly ten miles wide — within five minutes of my desk.

This is in contrast to the green valleys around Lancaster, Pa., where I used to ride with Dick Bregstein, and others, to get my mind clean. It would take a good 45 minutes to get out to Lancaster, to find the quaint little roads, and to smile when the kindly Amish would spit when my motorcycle whined by. (The beautiful women on the beach would never spit on me... Though they would dress me with their eyes.)

All is far from perfect though... The damp sea air — despite its mildness this winter — is playing hell with my arthritis, which is getting steadily worse. There is no real garage for the motorcycle, other than a rustic shed, with no guarantee that vermin nor the elements (which must eventually come) won’t adversely affect this flawless K75. And so it is with a heavy heart that I concluded this bike must be stored elsewhere, and consigned it to a garage in Pennsylvania, owned by a friend. Sleep was impossible on the night before it was to go. I felt like a cowboy sending his horse off to camp; or a Viking, about to misplace his battle axe.

It was one of those shore nights where switching off the lamp on the bedside table simply exchanged one light for another. Silver moonlight poured in through the windows and I realized I could see everything around me in a muted detail.

“Screw this,” I thought. “Time for one last ride this season.”

This was another of my recent decisions that ran shy of apparent wisdom. I could feel my right knee strain as I jammed that leg into a boot. And that was the easy one. My left hip felt like it was about to pop when I worked the zipper and Velcro tab into place on my footgear. The K75 is a tall bike, and it now takes a grimace and a grunt to get my foot up to the peg on the left side. I sat on the rig in the darkened driveway and thought about the magic metaphor of the motorcycle. Starting the engine tonight seemed like the final movement in an opera where the lovers are killed by middle-management clerks in a paperwork dispute. And yet, one is compelled to pursue some things to the end.

Above) The dunes of North Cape May, on Delaware Bay, on a perfect, mild winter day. Photo by the author.

I hit the two rocker switches on the dash and flooded this quiet shore street with pure light. Then I snicked the bike into gear and headed toward the dunes of North Cape May. This place must be a madhouse in the summer, but I was the only thing moving on this night. Delaware Bay was to my left. An artificial horizon of lights, which were a row of freighters, tankers, and container ships at anchor four or five miles out in the channel, seemed motionless on the gently heaving surface of silver. I moved along in no hurry, with the motor barely whispering at 20 miles per hour. It was long past midnight and the temperature was still close to 50º — in January. Even though the moon was as bright as neon, the sky was laced with stars and the effect was dazzling.

Because my K75 was built by Germans following the letter of the law, there is no way to switch off all of the lights when the engine is running. Otherwise, I’d have ghosted along by the stars and the moonlight. I can’t help but hear music in my head whenever I ride... Music to meet the occasion. Generally, I hear Steppenwolf, the Ramones, Patti Smith, or Blue Oyster Cult... The kind of soothing music that brings out the best in a tachometer. Tonight, however, I could hear Chris Isaak crooning “Wicked Game,” to the rich liquid strains of a steel guitar.

Fifty degrees is certainly warm for the Jersey Shore in January, but any change in temperature can suggest an immediate pull-over for a middle-aged man. I was wearing light leather gloves and my fall gear, without a liner. Stopping to look at the water admitted enough of a chill to my kidneys to warrant an immediate dismount. Now this presents no challenge for a guy with good knees and hips. But that damn sand was all over the pavement and I was faced with getting the bike far enough off the road not to present an obstruction, while not slipping in the grit.

Taking a piss on the dunes in a shore town during the summer will get you strapped into the electric chair faster than you can imagine. But there wasn’t a soul around, and my need could only be described as pressing. I maneuvered over the dunes and into a little depression between the street and the strand. Without a second to spare, I released Thor’s Iguana and gave a mighty sigh of relief.

This was followed a second later by a popping noise, not unlike a cork coming out of a champagne bottle, as my left hip gave up the ghost.

I went down like a sack of concrete... On my back... Describing a steady trajectory that wavered like the Fountains of Wayne in the moonlight. Now the pure entertainment value of this spectacle was only surpassed by the creative nature of the expletives I hissed as I pissed. To this scenario add the one police car that must have been cruising this entire community. He flashed the roof-lights and played a spotlight over the beach for a second or two, before continuing on. The light passed over me, as I lay in the sand, with my fate in my hand.

“This could be a hard one to explain,” I thought.

I counted to 60 before I clawed my way back to the bike. I had sand in my boots and in my pants. It took me ten tries to get my leg over the seat, and then I sat there for a while. The guys came to pick my bike up the next day.

“You’ve got sand on the muffler,” noted one. “Did you ride this on the beach?”

“In my dreams,” I replied.

–––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

So there you go... A story in which a skirt doesn’t figure once.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2012

Addendum:

I am continually surprised by the folks who end up reading Twisted Roads... In the last month, I encountered a woman who was the very first pillion rider on the first motorcycle I ever owned. She was the first to ever kiss the sleep from my eyes at dawn too... And she did it in such a way that colored the rest of the day like the Rose Window in Notre Dame. Since all I can get her to do now is leave intriguing public comments, I have decided to throw my cell phone into the Atlantic Ocean tonight... At 9:30pm EST... Unless of course, she calls me.

Special Valentine's Day Offer From Jack Riepe...

2012-01-11T15:26:00.009-05:00

(To view Monday's TW episode, click here.)

Attention Women Riders...

Tell Your Paramour/Rider/Lover Of Your Passion
— With A Personally Written Valentine —
By Jack Riepe

Free!* Free!* Free!*
(With The Purchase of His Widely Popular Cigar Book)

With less than a month away from the most romantic day of the year, this is your opportunity to make up for that really shitty gift you gave the most important person in your life for Christmas. Do you remember that lackluster look in his eyes when he opened that “As Seen On TV Tool” that doesn’t fit a damn thing on his bike; or the fleeting smile when he saw the designer tie that he has yet to wear on his job as a moose hunting guide; or the raised eyebrows when he received the Vegan Cookbook For Deer Camp?

Well this is you chance to make up for lost ground.

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Is the book written specifically for men who think they know who they are, and for women who intend to tell them otherwise... This book is 30 chapters dedicated to the manly art of cigar smoking, and its impact on romance, nature, politics, social change, sex, deep interpersonal relationships, and escaping from the drudgery that puts the grind in daily life.

Readers who’ve bought this book claim:

1) Having fewer arguments with in-laws (former)*
2) Enjoying the kind of sex lives typically shared by mink on breeding farms*
3) A better understanding of what to expect from elected officials, divorce lawyers, and poisonous spiders*
4) Sharing relationship success in third and fourth marriages*
5) And getting the most out of social climbing with a cigar in hand*

* All claims are unsubstantiated by scientific data but circulated as fact at the Wilmington Institute of Holistic Dry Cleaning.

But Wait!!! There’s More!!!

Male Sensitivity Specialist, Humorist, and Moto-Author Jack Riepe will personally autograph and inscribe each book — numbered to the date of each sale...

“And draft a special, two-paragraph Valentine
to your book recipient!”

You read that right... Each sale (US only) will include a brief interview (or e-mail exchange) resulting in an original 2-paragraph Valentine, written especially for the recipient of your book.

Here's an exciting sample... (From a woman to a man):

Dear Billy Bob —

If there was only one day in the year in which I could express my passion for you, it would have to have a month-full of hours. And even then, time would stand still when the tips of my fingers caressed your arms, tracing the tattoos of the jails that couldn’t hold you, the names of fallen women that came before me, and the coat of arms of the motorcycle club that is sleeping it off on the living room floor right now.

None can tell how long love will last... Yet even if our passion extinguished one star each evening, I know it would be over too soon for me... And I hide that thought behind the gleam of the gold in your smile. Please accept this book as a token of what I really feel for you, along with (or in place of) this evening of physical bliss.

With all my love,
Chrissy

Valentines will vary in intensity with the available information... Each Valentine will come with a certificate of authenticity, as having been written by Jack Riepe, guaranteeing it is one of a kind. All Valentine’s will be printed in script, on high-quality paper (not recycled mummification bandages), and mailed with each book.

Every Valentine comes with a $1 Million Dollar Guarantee... If you don’t like it, send Jack Riepe $1,000,000.00 (USD) and he’ll rewrite it until you do.

To Order Your Special “Valentine’s Collectors Edition” of Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists — accompanied by a one-of-a kind message of passion and romance, simply:

Email your full name, address, and phone number to:
jack.riepe@gmail.com

a) Put: "Book Order" in the subject line.
b) Include the full name of the recipient (i.e. “Bill Jones”)
c) What is the relationship of the recipient to you? (i.e. husband, boyfriend, sperm donor, pleasant “ex”, same-sex partner, etc.)
d) Do they play golf... Ride a motorcycle (What kind?)... Hunts, fish... How do they endear themselves to you? Tell me something
e) Each book is shipped with an invoice and a stamped, pre-addressed payment envelope. Write a check, and slip it in the mailbox when the book arrives.

No data is kept or sold after books are shipped... Not like some vampire-run mailing houses.

Order soon... These take time to process! The last book will be shipped February 7, 2012.

Remember: Books autographed by the author are worth more in the event of his death, which has been predicted by a handful of women to occur any day now. Guarantee you have an "original" signed copy.

The Throttle Or The Breast...

2012-01-09T17:45:00.007-05:00

Two sensations to which I have never grown accustomed are holding a woman’s breast in my hand; and twisting the throttle of a well-tuned motorcycle. While each is about as different as two actions can be, both leave me breathless and utterly euphoric. The breast caress is generally accomplished in seclusion, amid whispers and an exchange of soft looks. The throttle twist is best savored when it puts you out in front of your riding buddies, or just ahead of the mundane thoughts that hold everyone else back.

I refuse to write a word of appreciation for the female breast. To me, it’s like expressing gratitude for oxygen. There are breasts, therefore poetry, sunsets, love letters, moon rises, candle-light, exotic beaches, rare liquors, and art all have a raison d’etre. (Breasts don’t have to be big, nor round, nor pointing upward to be perfect... Just connected to a sigh.) I am always amazed when a majority of men fail to understand that the fastest way to find a woman’s breast in their hand is to never let their eyes leave hers. And when the poetry is right, this sensation occurs again and again with the same woman — ad infinitum.

The motorcycle is a metaphor for life.

It is so easy to think of motorcycles as machines with the utility of painted ponies, with the loyalty of dogs, and with the killer instincts of leopards. Yet nowhere does the pulse of moto-metaphysics beat strongest than at the throttle. You may experience a buzz in the pegs... You might feel the imperfection of the road through the handlebars... And you may see your life pass before your eyes in the skid of the front wheel... But only through the throttle will you touch the soul of the machine, and feel it touch yours in return.

I touch the soul of my motorcycle every time I pull away from the curb, but there are some moments when it grabs me first.

The State of Delaware (US) is about the size of a large tablecloth, and yet it has some of the most beautiful and unique motorcycle runs in the country — albeit short. One of these is Delaware Route 9, running south from New Castle, through beautiful salt marshes and migratory bird refuges. The gateway to this stretch of heaven is the “Reedy Point Bridge” over the Chesapeake and Delaware Canal. Built in 1968 by the US Army Corps. of Engineers, the bridge stands 138 feet tall and has two steep approach ramps that carry a two-lane roadway.

This is one of my favorite places to take the pulse of my motorcycle.

Coming south out of Delaware City, you first cross an archaic, steel-decked bascule bridge, providing a view up the curving ramp to the towering pile of rust that is the Reedy Point crossing. This is where I twist the throttle about three quarters of the way around. The steady hum in my right hand becomes an incessant buzz, as if I was holding a fist-full of bees. Shifting from third to fourth adds dimension to the buzz, as my 17-year-old BMW K75 digs into the ramp like a chain saw going through a crowd of zombies. I shift into fifth, the final gear, at the top, with the tach reading 6 grand.

The effect is amazing.

I feel as if I am being shot out of a howitzer.

The bike and I become one at the top of the Ferris wheel, fourteen stories above the water. For a few brief seconds, I can see three states... I am taller than the ships coming in from sea... I’m above a nuclear power plant on the horizon... I am as close to weightlessness as I will ever get... And then we swoop down into the salt marshes on the other side. I am astride a red Valkyrie, plummeting to the surface of the marsh. The road is barely an inch or two above the water under the best of circumstances, and the cattails tower over me as the bike levels out. The pavement on the barely-maintained bridge can best be described as “ Aspiring Third World,” and first-time riders on this route should expect some debris or flooding everyplace else, depending on the weather and the tide.

My bike is powered by a three-cylinder, 72-horsepower, liquid-cooled engine that sounds like a blender in a power dive. It is contained in a package that carefully replicates the sexy lines found in a bale of hay. And while it is as responsive as a whore aware of her advancing years, she still gets up to pole dance at five grand. (This mill routinely runs at an RPM that would turn the engine in my truck to paste.)

But you don’t need a bridge and a marsh to get the howitzer effect.

On another morning when the mist was glued to the edge of the pavement, I was accompanied by Dickie Burkenstock. and Michael Redcheek. (They are members of a soon-to-be renegade BMW riding club and have requested their last names be concealed... Not from the law but from their respective spouses.) We were headed for a fund-raising, lingerie breakfast and found an utterly deserted slab just begging for a little Houliganism.

The boys were in loose formation behind and I tapped the button for my flashers... Then I twisted the throttle around until I could feel the grip throb in my hand. The whine of the engine changed to a dare and I laughed in my helmet. The bike rode lower on the forks, but otherwise rose to the occasion. Dickie B. knew the drill and responded in kind. He was astride a much younger, bigger BMW “R” bike, that had huge opposing, horizontal jugs, and which had no trouble keeping up — though it would never pass me.

Michael R. came late to the realization that he was being abandoned. It wasn’t until Dickie B.’s tail light diminished to the substance of a rumor that he would put the spurs to his K75 too. Dick and I arrived at our destination, opened our helmets, and said... Nothing. There was nothing to say. We laughed quietly, knowing full well what the other guy was thinking. And then Michael pulled up, grinning like the village idiot.

“I have to get this GPS fixed,” he remarked. “It showed I was going 55 miles per hour over the 65 mile-per-hour limit.” Then he reset it.*

These are not the sort of things riders brag about, nor even admit in mixed company. Certainly not riders who are old enough to have kids in their twenties’ and thirties’. It’s enough that they just know what the soul of a motorcycle feels like set free... Or even just rubbed through the bars of the cage on the way to the Post Office or the hardware store.

I didn’t always know about breasts and throttles.

In fact, there was a time when I thought I was going to die as the direct result of a breast drought (age 19). It seemed as if every woman I looked at had joined a union, which circulated my picture attached to some kind of a warning. Then I met the first of four women who would forever change my life in the most incredible way. She was a Mediterranean beauty with olive skin and brown eyes, with waist-length hair as dark as my romantic prospects the day before I met her. Naturally, she thought I was an asshole... But that was before she got a look at the purple Kawasaki H2. (Once she saw the color of the bike, I think the word “douche” may have occurred to her too.)

Still, the day came when that bike carried us to the rim of the Hudson Valley, where we sipped a cool, herbal gin drink from a Thermos, and watched the sun dissolve into the mountains. It was there she learned that gin unbuttons blouses... And I learned that as exciting as a motorcycle’s throttle is, it doesn’t hold a candle to a woman’s breast.

*This erroneous GPS reading was scored on Route 182, the primary interstate highway in Samoa. Twisted Roads does not advocate irresponsible speeding on motorcycles.

Copyright Jack Riepe 2012

The Gesture Of The Stolen Motorcycle....

2012-01-06T14:41:00.004-05:00

It is no longer acceptable to begin a motorcycle story with a line like, “I admired the purple-ish red paint of my bike, over the head of a perfect beer, poured by Vinnie, the bartender at the ‘Bucket of Guts’.” Current social consciousness precludes even hinting that there was ever a day on which a rider mixed the wind in his hair with the head on a beer, or that such a occurrence could ever happen again. Yet I would be lying to my gentle readers if I suggested that my late adolescence and early 20’s didn’t string dozens of those days together — without the dire consequences that are now so often predicted. It’s hard to say if I was “super cool” or just lucky.

The “Bucket of Guts” (not the bar’s real name) was located in “The Heights” section of Jersey City. While the designation “The Heights” had a certain elitist sound to it, very few of the eastern-facing streets had a commanding view of Manhattan. What was understood, however, was that “shit flowed downhill,” and that living in “The Heights” (and to a degree its subset the “Western Slope”) theoretically raised your head and shoulders above the rest of Jersey City’s effluential neighborhoods.

To my way of thinking, this bar was the pinnacle of local café society. It drew characters with names straight out of a Dickens classic, with all the peculiar physical traits common to the cast of a Fellini movie. Guys were “Possum, Critter, Duke, Fingers, Lefty, Froggy, Joey The Mouse, and Louie The Snake.” In addition to the tattooed men and women, there were the those with the Taras Bulba haircuts, body piercings of 10-penny nails, pet scorpions in matchboxes, street brawlers, and the “specialists” (who could accomplish anything with a little scratch). Into this society, I rode a purple-ish red 1975 Kawasaki H2 and routinely parked it at the curb. I will not deny that I parked at the far end of the line of bikes outside, so as not to upset the riders of the Harleys, the Nortons, and the Triumphs, who all regarded my machine as a cross between a moped and a urinal.

Though no one was ever handed a registration form to join this public house, membership was by tacit recommendation only. I had none of the skills, the unique attributes, nor the street-cred of these guys... But I came with the backing of “Cretin,” one of the most amazing Jersey City personalities who ever lived. He had the physical presence of a legend, the ability to dissolve like a shadow, the wisdom of a diplomat, the survival instincts of a virus, the classic education of a blue blood, the generosity of a Franciscan monk, and the ability to beat someone within an inch of their life.

I was waiting for Cretin as this story slowly unfolded, and I admired the purple-ish red paint of my bike, over the head of a perfect beer, poured by Vinnie, the bartender at the “Bucket of Guts.” There was only window in this bar, strategically placed so that no activity inside could be viewed from the street. But it was possible to see out if you moved a stool over to the glass, and I had yet to tire of looking at my new bike. So I sat on a stool, sipping a beer, taking in the limited view.

The Kawasaki H2 combined the worst of Japanese know-how, which was just getting warmed up in those days, with the vague lines of the typical Brit bike. The chrome was shiny in the beginning, but had a cheap “pressed” look to the mufflers, along with a rakish line to the seat, which made the pillion candy slide into the rider. And the “badge” on the gas tank was the kind of cheap decal found on outboards a decade earlier. It sounded like hell, but flew like a bat out of the same place, as long as you didn’t try anything fancy with it.

I loved it.

It was a dead summer day in the bar. The usual suspects were slow shuffling in and Cretin was nowhere to be seen. Two of the other bikers were surprisingly congenial and engaged me in conversation that would not be typically forthcoming. I switched from beer to something healthier, like gin, and enjoyed being one of these guys, howsoever unlikely that seemed. Late afternoon became early evening and my bike was joined at the curb by ten or twelve others, though “Cretin’s” Norton was not among them. You can get lost in a neighborhood bar and I found myself putting handfuls of quarters in the jukebox, savoring the bite of the gin in a Tom Collins, and getting urge to find something spicier in the jeans of some brunette, when Cretin arrived like one of the plagues from ancient Egypt.

“Reeeep!” he yelled, from the door. “That piece of Japanese shit finally break down on you?”

“It’ll kick the shit out of that Norton any day of the week.”

“I guess not today though,” said Cretin. “You got it in the shop?”

“It’s parked at the curb, you blind asshole.”

“Where?” he snapped.

The Kawasaki was gone. There were 15 other bikes there... But there was only a gap like a missing tooth where the H2 had been parked.

The blood drained from my head and I could feel the cold grip of reality grab my balls.

“Did you park it here or around the corner?” asked Cretin.

“I parked it right here.” My voice was beginning to climb an octave.

“Did you leave the keys in it?”

A fast search through my pockets and a mad dash back to bar revealed my keys were among the missing too.

“Well, we know how they got it. Now we have to get it back,” said Cretin.

My suggestion was to call the police. This comment drew sidelong glances up and down the bar, where the mention of the police was not usually associated with a solution. “He’s kiddin’,” said Cretin to the crowd. “Reep, we’ll find your bike.”

For once, I didn’t share his optimism. At the very least, I expected the bike to get stripped, dropped, or chopped, and I made the mistake of saying as much.

“Who would chop a Jap two-stroke street bike?”asked Cretin. “They have a parts value of eighty cents. The only person stupid enough to buy one was you. And you bought a purple one.”

A handful of guys reputed to know something about hot motorcycles fanned out from the bar. A few of the other guys, all specialists, also left while Cretin started working the pay phone on the wall. Vinnie the bartender started pouring me gin like it was water, and I started drinking it like I was a carp. An hour later, a guy named “Bennie the Glip” came into the bar and handed Cretin a slip of paper.

“Bennie The Glip” found your bike,” said Cretin. “We’ll wait until some muscle shows up and then we’ll go and get it. The muscle was three bikers the size of boxcars, with upper arms sporting life-size tattoos of Visigoths burning villages. Surprisingly, Cretin led us to an alley only two blocks away.

“Isn’t this Spider’s place,” asked one of the huge bikers.

“I never liked Spider,” said Cretin.

I knew Spider, and I liked him fine. I liked his girlfriend even better.

The alley ended in a garage, that had a dim, flickering light showing through the windows.

“Go get it, Reep.... We got your back,” said Cretin.

I wasn’t kidding when I said I wasn’t cut out for this sort of thing. The last fight I’d gotten into was when I was eleven years old, with the neighbor’s kid who was the same age. And that girl beat the shit out of me. Nevertheless, I went toward certain death like a snowball to the sunlamp. I pushed open a side door and looked inside. There was my bike in the center of the garage, surrounded by candles. On the seat was an exotic dancer from one of the seedy topless joints up by Union CIty’s Transfer Station. Her name was “Rani,” and we’d met through a lap dance a week earlier. She was topless then and she was topless now.

Laughter from the guys confirmed I’d been the victim of a hoax.

“Happy Birthday, Reep,” said Cretin.

Led Zeppelin seeped from a boombox and Rani started dancing on “slow simmer.” The guys closed the door on their way out.

I had seen Cretin deliver a gesture with one finger. This was a bit more elaborate.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2012

Riding With Peter Pan...

2011-12-28T13:09:00.003-05:00

My friend “Cretin” was something of anomaly. A street fighter, a barroom plug-ugly, a sidewalk pharmacist, and the kind of guy who’d show up with a runway model on his arm one night and a $10-whore the evening after, he was a graduate of a blue-collar Christian Brothers prep school, who was fluent in Latin, loved Shakespeare, and was passionate about art nouveau. He rode a Triumph (briefly) or a Norton Commando (mostly) in the mid-seventies, when Jersey City was the closest it ever came to being Dodge City. I have written about Cretin before and readers tuning into “Twisted Roads” for the first time can learn more about my role model by clicking here and here.

There were three blue-collar parochial prep schools in Hudson County, NJ back then. They were prep schools in every sense of the curricula, as Latin, (sometimes Greek), algebra, trigonometry, chemistry, “The Classics,” art, and foreign languages were required of everyone. And they were as blue-collar as a denim shirt. While there were those whose dads were doctors, lawyers and insurance company moguls (plus one in my class whose father was the Haitian Ambassador to the UN), the fathers of my peers back then were cops, fireman, plumbers, bus drivers, electricians, pizza-makers, and realtors, who wanted their kids to grow up with the designation of “professional.”

I went to the Jesuit prep school, which was regarded as the most challenging and the least fun. It was also acknowledged to be the biggest collection of douches in Jersey City (and quite possibly the universe). Once on the inside, however, inmates were gradually made to understand the process by which cream rises to the top and learned that the opinion of the 5-cent seats is seldom worth that much. (For the record, I graduated 3rd from the bottom of my class, and introduced the two kids dumber than me to my mother on graduation night.) “Cretin” went to the brand new “Brand X” prep being pushed by the Christian Brothers, as did most of my gutter-spawned friends from grammar school. One of these was “Scratch,” (not his real name, but close enough).

This complex introduction to advanced parochial education in Jersey City, back in 1972, is important in introducing the relationship between the players. I did not know Cretin in grammar school... But “Scratch” and I were in constant trouble together from the fifth grade. He also went to the “Brand X” prep and gravitated toward “Cretin.” (They had similar anarchist tendencies.) It was “Scratch” who introduced me to “Cretin.”

“Scratch” was the nerdy kid who had the brains to do anything and the balls to do whatever he wanted. He was building science projects in the sixth grade that were getting college students credit that same year. He won full scholarships to every private high school to which he applied; and walked away from one of the most respected secondary schools in the country — because he felt like it. He said “Fuck you” to every authority who questioned his motives or principles, and was one of the best guys to hang with.

“Scratch” was one of the leaders of the rebellion at the “Brand X” prep school in Jersey City. They tried to suspend him a dozen times, but could never make the evidence stick. They threatened to revoke his scholarship, to which he replied “(see above comment to authority).” They threatened his National Honor Society standing, to which he said “(see above comment to authority).” And they threatened his graduation, to which he commented “(see above comment to authority),” as he had already won a full scholarship to one of the most prestigious engineering schools in the country. It was at this engineering school that “Scratch” took his first fall... And it was doozy. He fell in love with a woman, had a scorching affair, and woke up like so many of us do, with his pants down around his ankles, bleeding from his ass and soul.

“Scratch” said “(see above comment to authority)” and walked out on a four-year scholarship that may have been worth more than a quarter of a million dollars today. And many would have thought he’d lost his mind, with the new direction he’d taken: “Scratch” decided he wanted to try his luck as a professional in modern dance. Essentially, modern dance is a kind of complex ballet that entails a lot of prancing around. I shook my head at this, while “Cretin” rolled his eyes, suggesting this was some kind of vicious self-penance that we couldn’t fathom.

Most ballet dancers start their careers around six-years-old, by taking four-hour lessons, followed by twelve hours of practice, seven days a week. By the time they are eight-years-old, they are ready to make a serious commitment to ballet. “Scratch” was 18 when he started to pursue this. (It should be noted that he had a physique like coiled copper cable wrapped around titanium, and endurance that was difficult to comprehend.) Within three years, he was dancing in the company of the legendary Charles Weidman (New York City). I failed to understand this level of personal achievement at this time, but it would be as if I had decided to take up climbing and started with the north face of the Eiger.

“Scratch” began a physical transformation that was sometimes hard to comprehend. To see him on stage, in New York City, flying through the air (to land on his toes or fingertips), left me puzzled at times. I once asked him, “Where’s the payoff in all this?” Naturally, the payoff was in the expression of his art, which in many regards was also his soul — that had once been confined to mathematical formulas and conceptual drawings. We were backstage and “Scratch” was about to slip into a dressing room door, which he held open a second. Inside, I could see any number of the most incredibly beautiful women — in various stages of undress. He just smiled, reducing things to my primitive level of understanding. (His commitment greatly exceeded my ability to comprehend it then.)

A month later, “Cretin” and I sat sweating on two shiny motorcycles, attempting to reach another level of understanding.

Jersey City was the dog shit and broken glass capital of the world in the summer of 1975. It is hard to imagine an uglier place. (To my thinking, it still is. And since I was born and raised there, I can say what I want.) The heat that night baked the tedium and desperation out of the concrete sidewalk and flat roofs, converting it to human drippings, and those who to thought to flee, even for just a few hours, moved on their options.

I conned “Cretin” into taking a screaming 78-mile ride up Route 23 to High Point State Park. There we could find someplace in the trees, above the Delaware River, to drink whiskey out of a bottle, eat cold meat sandwiches, and breathe in cooler air bereft of hot car exhaust, fetid bar farts, or the industrial perfume on the kind of women who’d be likely to accompany us at the last minute. (There would be no women on this run as my luck was stone cold and “Cretin” was in one of his “They’re-all-bitches” moods.)

We were headed toward a deli off Journal Square (the epicenter of Jersey City hopelessness) when “Cretin’s” Norton Commando squatted in an imperative stop. I nearly swallowed his bike’s feeble 2-watt taillight.

“Scraaaaaaaaatch,” Cretin yelled across a concourse of skewed traffic, loading busses, and mobbed humans branded with that “God-damned-this-heat” look on their damp faces.

“Scratch” had just exited the PATH (subway) station, on the return trip from Manhattan. He wore glasses as thick as steerage deck porthole covers and glanced around as if his name had been shouted by the buildings or lamp posts around him.

“Cretin” yelled a second time, then whipped the Norton through the lines of taxicabs, bus lanes, and crosswalks of the “old” Journal Square. I followed, enduring the car horns, extended fingers, and shouts from endangered pedestrians that invariably lay in his wake.

The plan was explained to “Scratch,” who donned my spare metallic green helmet and climbed onto the Norton’s pillion. The backpack — or a variation of the rucksack — was already popular in the mid-seventies. But “Scratch” was never one for conventional wisdom, and carried his dance gear in something he found to be more convenient. The nature of this device, which had been invented in the 1890’s, will be discussed later. It should be pointed out that “Scratch” was returning from a “full dress rehearsal,” and was wearing an outfit that would raise nary an eyebrow among his most intimate friends, but one that might have been judged “avant-garde” in the provinces.

“Scratch’s” grip not only proved ideal for carrying his dance gear, but had lots of room for the rum, coke, some beer, three huge deli sandwiches, and other stuff — like a bag of sugar cookies and a can of pineapple juice — all of which we got at the deli.

The ride out of Jersey City and into the countryside was uneventful, but somewhat competitive, as “Cretin” sought to hold the lead and set the pace. In pure speed, the Norton Commando was no match for the Kawasaki H2, the fastest stock motorcycle of its day. (But the Kawasaki had the handling characteristics of a falling tree.) I was content to let the other bike lead, and to take in the scenery, which at the time was bathed in the soft, pre-dusk July light. Route 23 ran through hilly, dairy farm-country, with contented cows in the fields and vapid-eyed horses along rail fences. But “Cretin” got cocky and kept slowing down to laugh over his shoulder at me, before jazzing the Norton ahead once again.

I got tired of this and let him have it on the stretch of highway around the Newark watershed, which is more like a little expressway in the country. The Kawasaki did its thing — albeit with that fruity two-stroke outboard motor growl — and took off like the Millennium Falcon in Star Wars. I passed the Norton like it was nothing more than a good-looking piece of British riding iron running on weak tea. There was a buzziness to the H2 in the pegs and handlebars that matched the sound of the engine, and which added an extra dimension to the texture of the road, filtering through the primitive suspension. I came to associate this sensation with the liberation of my soul, and was celebrating another escape at the expense of “Cretin’s” Norton when the unthinkable occurred.

A whitetail deer stepped off the left lane shoulder and into my destiny, a couple of hundred yards up the road.

I hit the horn, with was like squeezing a chipmunk, and then started downshifting (without the benefit of the clutch), while hitting the brakes. It should be noted that I was doing about 85 miles-per-hour at the time. Like most of its species, the deer had shit for brains and stopped dead center in the road, displaying that look which clearly indicates it was trying to determine the best way to run directly into my bike. And then it reversed course, tap dancing back to the shoulder. And I mean tap dancing. It couldn’t get traction on the pavement with those stupid hooves, and was slipping with every step. I glanced into the mirror to see where “Cretin” was and then swerved to the right, bleeding off speed for a false sense of security. I couldn’t see “Cretin” in the mirror... Because he was six inches off my rear wheel.

I whipped passed the deer, and “Cretin” whipped past me, with his left arm extended, and the middle finger on his left hand pointing upward, in mute testimony to the smoothness of my maneuver. The Norton handled much better than the Kawasaki, and even though “Cretin” had taken it to the shoulder to get around me, the bike followed his line of sight effortlessly, without the wobble that was the H2’s legacy and curse.

And it was in this pose, with the state bird of New Jersey roosting on his hand, that “Cretin” shot passed the police cruiser hidden in the median. Naturally, the cop thought “Cretin” was saluting him, and the roof lights came on with sinister intent.

The Kawasaki was a powerful bike for its fleeting fifteen minutes in history, but 75 horsepower is hardy nuclear muscle. Missing a couple of shifts at a critical moment was almost as good as coming to a full stop as that two-stroke motor sang the loudest at the higher end. In fact, the way I had slowed to avoid the deer could have fouled the plugs. I was going well below the speed limit when the cop pulled out onto the pavement.

“Cretin” went a full mile before surrendering. The cops were officers from the local town, and it may have been harder to find two good old boys of purer country stock — even in the deep south. They ordered the riders from the bike and then the show started. (I pulled over about 50 yards back, and started to fidget with the plugs.) These were the days when cops had real authority and didn’t have to worry about getting shot or sued by every asshole behind the wheel. (And it should be noted, that cops back then were a lot more judicious in how they exercised that authority.)

“Cretin” knew the drill, and went about producing a well-worn license and registration. He was a scofflaw of the highest order, and I knew that one thing or another would be askew about his identification. (He carried papers under the name of “George Claxton” for years, changing them to “Clax” Claxton after getting nailed under the first monicker.) But the cops had no interest in “Cretin’s” identification that night.

“Scratch” stepped off the Norton as if he was incidental to the evening’s events. As I said earlier, he had come from a dress rehearsal, and was wearing reddish-orange tights, under a jet black body suit that adhered to his frame like a tattoo. This outfit was so tight that it outlined every muscle like a mold. This is how “Cretin” and I came to know that “Scratch” was hung like a moose. His hair was nearly waist-length, but was braided in two pig-tails. And he was still wearing his stage make-up, over a hint of five o’clock shadow.

The two “Jack Armstrong, All American” cops were utterly speechless...

“Scratch” slipped the bungee cords that held the container for his gear, the booze and sandwiches to the Norton. It was an oversized, traditional trap-door wicker picnic basket.
He knew “Cretin” better than I did and expected the identification review process to run at least an hour. “Scratch” spread a little cloth on the ground, parked his ass on it, and began dunking the sugar cookies into a cup of pineapple juice.

“What have you got there?” asked one of the cops.

“Sugar cookies and pineapple juice,” said “Scratch.” “They are an unlikely combination but taste surprisingly good. Want one?” His response was cold sober, precise, and succinct.

The cop just shook his head.

After asking ‘Cretin” where he was coming from and where he was going, the other officer grilled him about the extended finger.

“I was coming up behind some asshole who slowed down to 35 miles per hour — in the left lane — and then the guy cut me off when I passed him on the right. The finger was for him. That’s him back there. You should beat the shit out of him with your nightsticks.”

One of the cops took a leisurely walk in my direction and asked, “What’s your story?”

“My plugs fouled and stalled the bike,” I said. “I’m putting in the spare set now. I hope I didn’t scare that other guy and his girlfriend.” (I could barely get these last three words out without choking.)

“It’s not his girlfriend, exactly,” said the cop.

The one cop returned “Cretin’s paperwork (which identified him as Leon Trotsky) and they pulled away without issuing a ticket. “They never looked at my license once ‘Scratch’ got off the bike and removed that stupid helmet,” said “Cretin.”

The three of us were tucked away in the woods overlooking the Delaware river forty-five minutes later, mixing rum with pineapple juice. The stars were just coming out and the night creatures were tuning up. We had laughed ourselves silly over this story... And then the topic turned to women. I was in another dry spell that I thought would leave me celibate for life. “Cretin” was raging about an unreasonably short-tempered girlfriend who’d found him in the arms of another woman, who turned out to be her cousin. Neither one of us realized that “Scratch” had gotten more ass than a Port Authority toilet in the past six months, and that none of it entailed lying, pleading, nor buzzing around on motorcycles.

“Cretin” was somewhat silent when “Scratch” got through with his sexual summary. (Not only was “Scratch” a stickler for the truth, but he was incapable of exaggeration.) For the briefest moment, “Cretin” and I considering adopting his techniques.

“We all have to make the best of our respective abilities,” said ‘Cretin.’ “Besides, do you know how stupid Reep would look in those orange tights and that body suit? He already looks like a total douche on that Kawasaki. The cops should have beaten the shit out of him just for riding around on it.”

©Copyright Jack Riepe “Reep” 2011

'Tis The Season...

2011-12-20T15:33:00.002-05:00

This is my favorite Christmas story. Similar to my “Father’s Day” piece, I run it every year. To those who have read it before, I make no apologies. To those who are reading it for the first time, it’s all true. There is no moto content in this story. But there is at least one really funny time in a man's life when the bike doesn't play a major role — Jack.

'Tis The Season...

Long before my career in public relations included writing things like congressional testimony, state-of-the-industry speeches, and quotes written expressly for people easily mistaken for cardboard cutouts or bodies seeking reanimation, I earned a living doing the marketing for a roller rink in New Jersey. (I was 26-years-old at the time.) Now this wasn't one of your run-of-the-mill skating facilities left over from the 'forties, but a multimillion dollar disco/singles club for the well-heeled and slick-wheeled. From Thursday through Sunday, indescribably heavenly bodies gyrated and swerved through this place to a throbbing beat that percolated raw sexuality.

But on weekend mornings the place was given over to the three- to seven-year-old-crowd. And in the interests of screwing a dollar out of every conceivable opportunity, some genius decided that nothing would delight this particular demographic more than to have Santa Claus arrive on skates.

"Great," I said. "I'll get a release out to the papers and get started on the ads. What chump are you going to get for the role of Santa Claus?"

Public relations is the story of unending service to the client. Yet the measure of that service is subject to constant change. There are days when your clients hang onto your words as if they were directions from a prophet. And then there are the days when your value is measured by how fast you can get them coffee or clean the toilets.

"Well, we thought you'd do it as part of the seasonal promotion," the roller rink owners said.

"Do I look that stupid?" I asked.

They already had the Santa suit custom tailored for me. Made of crushed velvet and lined with real fur, it was rumored to have cost a grand. (This was in the '70's, when a grand was real money.) The leather belt was four inches wide with a silver buckle. There were real leather pullover boots too. But the best part was the wig and beard. They were all one piece and either made of real hair or silk. Even the little square Ben Franklin glasses were real glass. The costume was gorgeous.

I would be lying if I said I didn't make one hell of an official-looking Santa. I looked more stocky than fat in those days, and gave the impression that jolly old Saint Nick could easily split a cord of wood.

"Help me pull on these boots and we'll be all set," I said to one of the staffers, who was dressed like an elf.

"Boots? The boss said you were to wear roller skates."

"Are you out of your mind?" I asked. "I can't skate. I'm not wearing skates!"

"The boss said that you were to wear skates... That we're supposed to help you out to Santa's throne... And that you were to shut up about it."

The skates were strapped to my feet before I could claw my way out of the room. With an elf on each arm, I was wheeled out into the masses of children. For the first and only time in my life, a collective sigh rose throughout the room at my appearance. (It must be pointed out that the sigh wasn't really for me, but for the person I was impostering. Still, it remains a significant highlight for me.)

I was mobbed by hundreds of little kids who simply wanted to touch my hand, wave to me, or say "Hello." I was dressed like the ultimate "yes-man", who always delivered. True to plan, Santa's elves each put a shoulder against mine, and began pushing me across the carpet to the skating floor.

Santa's throne was an elaborate chair in the center of the skating floor, with fake reindeer standing on each side. As I recall, one of the deer had a flashing red nose. The elves meant well, but I was beginning to accrue a bit of mass in those days (though nothing like my present size). The wheels of my skates were digging into the carpet and encountering substantial resistance. The elves later claimed it was like wheeling a howitzer through a swamp. They were really putting their backs into it when my skates hit the hard wooden floor.

My mass went from glacial progress to runaway horse speed in an instant.

I broke free from my moorings and shot across the floor at about 40 miles per hour. Arms flailing, I took out the deer with the flashing nose and smashed into the throne with a loud "wham!"

"You missed the other deer," said an elf, who was laughing so hard he could barely stand up. "You want to try again and see if you can pick up the spare?"

Ten minutes later -- with the deer and the throne back in place -- I started listening to the dreams and hopes of about 1200 kids. I began each interview with the same litany: "Ho... Ho... Ho... What's your name? Have you been good this year? Do you listen to your parents? Do you do your homework? Do you share with your friends?"

The responses were the standard boilerplate lies, followed by the presentation of the Christmas lists with few variations. Most were memorized and delivered as one constant flowing word. "I want a bicycle-football-tape recorder-guitar-racing-cars-and a G.I.Joe." A small percentage of kids came with written lists, complete with their addresses and directions to their respective homes, so there'd be no mistake on the morning of the 25th. Some froze and forgot what they had to say. One or two cried. And I will never forget the little girl who laughingly buried her face in my beard, repeating "Sanna, Sanna" over and over again.

At the peak of this holiday networking, a bigger than average kid climbed into my lap. This one seemed kind of old to be pushing the Santa gimmick, but I figured he wanted to hedge his bets as the zero hour drew near."

We went through the routine with me playing the straight man and kid being the ventriloquist's dummy. He had just finished the gift inventory, when he suddenly said, "But you won't bring any of this stuff to me. You won't come to my house on Christmas."

"My God," I thought. "What horror story does this poor kid have at home?" I imagined a divorce in progress... Sickness... Parents out of work... Perhaps even the death of a parent...

"Why do you say that?" I asked.

"Because I'm Jewish. I don't believe in you. You're just a fat man in a red suit. I'm going to pull your beard off in front of everyone."

"Ho... Ho... Ho," I laughed, positively relieved. This was a job for a true public relations specialist, trained to make folks instantly see the bright side. I leaned over and whispered in his ear, "You touch this beard and I'm going to drop kick your ass halfway across the floor."

I fired off another "Ho... Ho... Ho...," for the benefit of the general public. "You'll get everything I promised," I said out loud to the kid. He scrambled from my lap and backed away, never taking his eyes from Santa's feet.

I figure that kid is about 40-years-old today. I wonder if he gets as many laughs from that story as I do. I wish I knew where he was now. I'd buy him a drink.

Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Happy Chanukah!

© Copyright Jack Riepe 2004
From my book in progress: "Mid-life Crisis: Let The Ordeal Begin"
All rights reserved.

The Motorcycle And The Pushcart Girl At The Mall...

2011-12-13T13:05:00.001-05:00

There are four times during year when I can be consumed by the holiday spirit (and one of these occasions isn’t even a real holiday). What these days have in common with each other is that they can be (and should be associated) with great parties. These holidays are New Year’s Eve, The Fourth of July, Halloween, and Christmas. New Year’s Eve is best celebrated in the company of 25 or 30 close friends, who will have a light dinner, heavy drinks, and welcome another 365 days of friendship when the new year is born. (And New Year’s Day will see the Mac-Pac assemble at a local diner for a traditional pork and sauerkraut lunch, and the first ride of the year for many.)

The Fourth of July (Independence Day in the United States) needs no explanation. Hard, fast riding; swimming in a lake or river; shooting skeet; beef and shrimp sizzling on coals; explosive fireworks at night; and red hot romance (when possible) make this the holiday weekend of choice. It is one time during the year when the party can rage for three days. I remember one such weekend at the country retreat of my friend Ricky Matz. We had been up howling at the moon around a campfire until 4am. Less than three hours later, the walking wounded were crashed around a table in a traditional farmhouse kitchen. The aroma of rum, vodka, and Bourbon hung heavy in the air, as six individuals sat with aching heads in their hands. Then “Stitches” pumped the rock classic “Sedated” (by the Ramones) through speakers that were 6 feet tall (in the house), and Bloody Marys were served for breakfast.

Halloween is no slouch either. Sort of the US equivalent of the Feast of the Dead (Mexico), Halloween parties (with costumes) celebrate the harvest and the wardrobe ingenuity of the average person. I used to throw costume parties at my place in the Adirondacks that attracted stage set designers, artists, singers, musicians and other writers. One year, Rowan Mulvey (one of the most unique women I have ever met) organized a secret cadre, and everybody came to the party as me. I remember another year when set designer and stained glass artist Janice Hoffman had gotten into the house to hang unbelievably realistic ghosts in all the room corners. My daughter, then five-years-old, stepped through the front door and screamed like a banshee.

Christmas, however, remains as my best all time holiday — though some years were better than others. First and foremost, this holiday marks the birth of an individual whose brief life of 33 years changed the course of history in every country and on every continent. The trickle-down effect of that birth is sometimes difficult to grasp when standing in long lines at the mall, or after camping out in parking lot to save 50% off some useless junked marked down the day after Thanksgiving, or when realizing that you are likely to spend 8 week’s salary to get your kids and others on your list the latest electronic gimmick.

In many instances for me, Christmas was a trade-off in which the cost of being with family was hours spent driving between distant cities. For years, my former paramour endured a three-hour ride up to north Jersey, and a three-hour ride back, to spend two hours with my family. We always had a great time... But six hours in the car on Christmas Eve gets a bit wearisome. Still I remember some incredible Christmas experiences: cutting down our tree in the woods; Midnight Mass at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral (New York City); dancing with my former paramour to the holiday orchestra in the lobby of the Metropolitan Museum (New York City); and Christmas parties in the Adirondacks, in which dozens of friends would arrive with ornaments for the tree — some fancy, some homespun; some sensitive and gentle; and others straight out of a New Orleans cathouse. Then there was the first Christmas with my limited-English speaking Russian girlfriend. She met most of my family on Christmas Day, in the emergency room at Saint Claire’s Hospital, where I was being prepped for kidney surgery.

I hav always liked shopping for Christmas presents too.

While there are those who insist on making Christmas shopping a marathon ordeal of ostentatious gift-giving, the real challenge is to find something meaningful, useful, or expressive of the affection and love you have for a person. And this is where originality and forethought pay off big time. I would often start thinking of what would make good Christmas presents for family and friends months before the holiday shopping season started. The thought process also included locating all of these items, knowing precisely where they could be found within a certain store, and how much they cost. And then because I am a professional writer, I would often find myself at the mercy of penurious publishers who would sit on my cash until they could no longer contrive any other reasons not to send it. Sometimes, the money would arrive at 1pm on December 24th.

The last time this happened was three years ago.

According to broadcast media reports, traffic in and around the shopping malls was approaching catastrophic levels. At the mall in King of Prussia (one of the nation’s largest), snarled traffic had spawned mobs of flesh-eating zombies, who were pulling other motorists, paralyzed with fear, loathing, or ennui from their cars. It was a warm day for the season, with temperatures approaching the low 40’s (F). I realized that I possessed the single most efficient vehicle for Christmas shopping ever designed — the motorcycle. Specifically, I possessed a 1995 BMW K75 with enough luggage capacity to carry the gifts I had in mind for everyone.

Some people split lanes when they ride. On that day, I split lanes like Jack The Ripper.

I used the shoulder. When the shoulder petered out, I used the sidewalk. When the sidewalk wasn’t an option, I rode up the grass embankment. I hit five stores in an hour and a half, parking my bike within 20 feet of the front door in each case. At one shop, a custom gallery, the owner met me at the curb with the object already wrapped and bagged, took my credit card inside, and sent me on my way with a receipt in hand. I found myself humming Christmas Carols (“Father Christmas” by the Kinks) as I sliced through stalled traffic with reckless abandon. And yet the day was not without challenge. A mall cop fired 16 warning shots in my direction after I snatched a slice of hot pizza from his hands, and rode my bike through a revolving door to blend in with the crowd.

I had one last stop in this holiday sortie, which entailed walking 200 feet through a mall concourse — when I met her. She was a tinted blonde in a low-cut blouse and jeans that were tighter than the budget to which I was successfully adhering. She was a salesperson, selling hand-creams and cosmetics from a pushcart, and she waved me over like it was a matter of life and death. I hesitated, for about a tenth of a second, and asked, “Yes?”

Noticing I was in riding gear, she wanted to see my hands. I held them up, wondering if she’d realize they were already assuming individual cup-shapes as a kind of reflex action.

“Hands are one of the first things a woman sees on man,” she said to me, taking my right one in both of hers.

“In my case, they are often the first point of contact,” I added in complete agreement.

“Women can tell a lot, not only by the condition of a man’s nails, but by the texture of his palms and fingertips,” she said. And as she was saying this, her own fingertips began to methodically message mine.

“Now you have very strong, decisive, commanding hands,” she said, looking straight into my eyes. “The kind of hands a woman can trust and would welcome in a crisis or in the dark of night.”

“Correct again, Honey...” I thought to myself.

“But riding a motorcycle can stress the skin and cause rough spots, that could give a woman pause to think where these hands may have been...”

She showed me a couple of rough spots which might have been related to a long period of time where I was between wives.

“This cream not only eliminates rough spots but rejuvenates the skin through a warming effect,” she continued. The blonde put a little dab of cream in my palm, and then started rubbing my hand like she was attempting to draw flame. “Do you feel the warmth,” she asked.

And I swear, she no sooner said this then closed my hand into a loose fist, and held it against her rack. This was a woman, about 25-years-old, with a nicely sculpted physique. If she had been a whitetail deer, her rack would have come in around 12 points.

I ended up buying the hand cream, the skin restorer, the neutral men’s nail preserver, and the warming hand message oil. The whole deal cost me about $96.50 just to cop a cheap feel in the mall, on the day before Christmas, in broad daylight. But it was worth it... I had been bested by the ultimate salesperson, who was already stalking another middle-aged dope as I walked away. But the real joy came in watching the expression of my former paramour’s dad as he unwrapped his Christmas gift, and found all of the above. A pragmatic scientist and the kind of gentleman with highly cultivated tastes, he looked at all the hand creams and gratefully asked, “What the hell is this shit?”

“It’ll take the squeak out of any fan belt,” I replied.

––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––

And on the subject of hands, I was sitting next to Peter F. (who rides an MV Agusta Tamborini) at a recent Mac-Pac Holiday dinner, when he held up two digits on his right hand, and confidentially asked, “Do you know why woman love to masturbate with these two fingers?

“No,” I replied. “Why?”

“Because they’re mine,” he replied with a smirk.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

Free Pick-Up And Delivery By Hermy's BMW and Triumph

2011-12-11T12:17:00.002-05:00

Hermy’s BMW and Triumph Now Offers Free Pick-Up Delivery
Of Bikes Coming In For Service...

Port Clinton, Pa — Hermy’s BMW and Triumph, of Port Clinton, PA is offering free pick-up and delivery to bikers throughout southeast Pennsylvania, whose motorcycles are stranded in garages owing to mechanical issues or a sudden change in weather. An extremely mild fall extended the 2011 motorcycle riding season, prompting many riders to squeeze every last mile from tires, brakes, cables, and critical fluids — leaving some bikes mechanically compromised for even a short run. Other riders, convinced summer would last forever, are now facing sudden temperature drops, freezing rain, and even snow as barriers to critical motorcycle service.

“Starting December 6, 2011, we will pick up and deliver — free of charge — any motorcycle coming into this dealership for annual maintenance or repair service,” said Herman Baver, General Manager of Hermy’s BVMW and Triumph, the landmark motorcycle dealership in Port Clinton, Pa. “And we will do it for customers within a 100-mile radius of the shop.”

According to Baver, free pick-up and delivery, in his dealership’s fully enclosed two-rail trailer, eliminates rider anxiety associated with the potential for a mechanical issue en route to the dealership at the end of the riding season. “Some of these guys have squeezed the very last millimeter out the brake shoes or tires. Or for one reason or another, their bikes barely made it back to the garage. These riders aren’t looking forward to the very next run,” he said. “Our pick-up and delivery service eliminates any concerns they may have about getting stuck along the way.”

The free pick-up and delivery by trailer also allows Hermy’s to precisely schedule the ebb and flow of motorcycles through the service department. “We have a tsunami of motorcycles in for service during the first two weeks of April as every rider and his brother wants to get out on the first nice day,” said Baver. “This leads to bottlenecks that can extend throughout the next month. Why not have us pick up your bike now, and get it all tuned up and ready to go. That way, you can be out and on the road in March if we have a soft winter.”

The scope of the 100-mile radius of this free pick-up and delivery service is mind- boggling. Technically speaking, it extends from Harrisburg to Philadelphia. To avoid deadheading over long distances with an empty (or partially empty trailer), Hermy’s reserves the right to schedule multiple pick-ups and deliveries whenever practical. “Service doesn’t begin and end at our bay doors,” said Baver. “A motorcycle is a lifestyle and we want to be part of yours. This means being part of the solution of any rider’s challenges.”

With 18 days left before Christmas, a Hermy’s Gift Certificate in any denomination is a perfect gift for the rider in your life. Good for gear, accessories, or service, A Hermy’s gift certificate can be tailored to match the most extravagant budget, or that of the tightest college student. And they are always the right size, the right color, and the right choice.

For more information, visit or contact:
Hermy’s BMW and Triumph, Route 61, Port Clinton, Pa
(just a minute or so north of I-78 in Hamburg, Pa.)
610-562--7303 or go to: www.hermys.com

The Cleansing Power Of A Spontaneous Night In The Woods...

2011-12-06T12:34:00.004-05:00

Not every ride begins with an inspiring dawn, a desire to see beyond strange horizons, nor the call of the pavement. Sometimes it is spawned by one or two words of criticism offered by a woman whose voice normally conjures up images of delightfully steamy nakedness in a hot shower. Yet nothing has the “Trojan Horse” quality of a woman’s voice. While the sound may be dropping warm honey or melted candle wax, the content can be as cutting as a dumpster of broken glass.

On this day, in early summer of 2005, I was busy comparing candid online photographs taken of Harley-mounted women at various events (held at Sturgis and Daytona). The purpose of this research was to determine whether pierced nipples would whistle at high speeds. (This way, I would know what direction to ride in if I ever heard a persistent whistling sound.) I had complied about 740 pictures, when the former love of my former life said, “So this is your idea of doing research for a possible motorcycle magazine article?”

Surprise lifted me 16 inches off my seat.

Now it would have been different had she made some noise to signal her approach, giving me apple opportunity to click to the word-processing program that would clearly prove the scientific nature of my work... But she crept in noiselessly, like a visiting in-law climbing through the window. She was even perfume-less and thoroughly masked by the aroma of week-old cigar smoke that made my office so appealing.

“How would you like to do a little research entailing how a garage gets cleaned, or perhaps a study on basement reorganization, or even an experiment on herding the dog shit in the yard into a bucket?” she hissed, like steam leaking out of a cobra.

“Would a magazine pay anything for that kind of information?” I fired back.

Her response was to point out that I had been “interrupted” in my research of “tramp stamp” tattoos the day before, and “caught” attempting to secure a sponsorship from “Road Riderette Edible Panties” the day before that. Now I have been accused of many things — and have been proven guilty of most — but I’ll de damned if I am going let anyone belittle my work or suggest I am anything other than a serious moto writer.

“Have it your way,” I spat back vindictively, remembering to bookmark the 20 or 30 insightful sites that had provided me with so much raw material. Then I stormed into the garage to rehearse my defense when whatever pretense I expended in the garage cleanup would come under fire two or three hours later.

The garage had that lived-in look. In fact, it looked as if a 450-pound hamster had lived in the motorcycle bay. Tools, motorcycle gear, and piles of camping, fishing, and canoeing stuff were strewn about like the flea market from hell. I noted that things were so cramped it wasn’t possible to move anything around until I rolled the bike out into the driveway. (That was the first year of the mighty “Blue Balls,” the 1986 BMW K75 with the rare Sprint Fairing.) At that moment, however, moving the motorcycle upset a delicate balance which brought a tower of stacked crap cascading to the floor.

“How did all this shit get around my motorcycle?” I yelled to myself. Then I realized it had been gleaned from other parts of the garage and randomly tossed here as it was “unimportant” man stuff of mine. The first thing I picked up was a rolled and bagged tent I hadn’t used in 15 years. “Wow... The last time I was in this, Christine T. had danced naked around my campfire,” I thought. And instead of putting it away, I tossed it out by the bike. Going through a battered cardboard box, I discovered an old camp stove, a dented mess kit, and a sleeping bag that had seen several doze hunting trips. All that stuff went out by the bike. The last thing I came across was a folded poncho, that had survived camping trips from two wives ago. I took that too.

And then I did the unthinkable... I stowed all of it on the K75, and rode off.

There is something cleansing to be said about taking off without a destination... Without a plan... And without a sense of remorse. Believe me... It is the best feeling in the world... In the beginning. Remember how you used to feel when you were nineteen? My motorcycle was nineteen-years-old in 2005 and I wondered if it felt in its sexual prime... If it was ready to jump the bones of the cute girly bikes we passed... If it would gladly spit in the eye of any contender. (I have since learned that this is standard running behavior for all BMW K75s.)

I headed north, up Route 100 (Pa) and then Route 309 (Pa). These were long before my Mac-Pac days, and I was accustomed to riding alone. (The Mac-Pac is the premier chartered BMW riding club serving southeast Pennsylvania, They are a great collection of riders who were legally unable to deny me membership in 2006.) It had been late in the afternoon when I set out, and I stopped to grab a cooked chicken and a piece of pie at a Boston Market. Then I took a campsite in a state park with minimal facilities. By minimal facilities I mean the big amenity was iron-flavored water from a standpipe, and a stink in the clapboarded shitter that hasn’t been changed since the Civil War.

Unrolling the tent, my thoughts were of the naked beauty who’d wrapped herself around me in it 15 years before. It turned out I was mistaken. The tent had been used more recently by several generations of mice as a combination shelter and nutritional center. While it was still a tent at both ends, the middle had been converted into loose seeds, balls of shredded material, and highly motivational rodent graffiti powered by mouse piss.

This could have been regarded as a setback.

Yet I am a former resident of the Adirondacks, and a man who has fished the AuSable River and hunted the High Peaks region. What Adirondack man hasn’t seen the painting by Winslow Homer (published in 1874), titled “Camping Out In The Adirondacks?” This inspiring artwork depicts a hunter stretched out alongside his canoe, with barely an oilcloth to keep the dew from him. I would simply replicate this touching scene with a motorcycle instead of a canoe.

I cut a couple of holes in the hem on the poncho and used bungee cords to hold it to the bike. (Actually, I had no bungee cords. What I had was a bungee cargo net, which made for a really strange fastening.) I duct-taped the bottom of the poncho to two sticks that I then hammered into the ground. This rudimentary shelter sagged like a political press conference and inspired all the confidence of a 50¢ condom.

The sleeping bag had been spared the fate of the tent but no longer held Christine’s T.’s scent. In fact, it had a certain air of the garage about it, which while not unpleasant was less than inspiring. I got a little fire started and attempted to fuss with the lantern. It was a Gaz light (with propane/butane still in the tank), but without a mantle and therefore useless. But I had my Mini-Maglight from the top case, and didn’t have to drain the bike’s battery by switching on the BMW parking light — which is really useless.

No excursion to the great outdoors would be complete without the opportunity to view wildlife in their natural environs. Foxes have a unique way of pouncing on their prey. I got an “up-close” look at a fox pouncing on the Boston Market chicken (which I’d set out on a stump). Foxes are beautiful creatures when they are not rabid and tatty with mange, and this one easily dodged the rock I launched in his wake. I know that chicken bones are bad for dogs and wondered if the fox might not choke on them too. There was a flash of a smile attached to this thought. My dinner became the ridiculously small piece of pie I’d gotten for dessert. I do some of my best thinking after dinner, and it occurred to me to send Boston Market a note, advising them that each piece of pie they sell as an “individual serving” should weigh a minimum of 4 pounds.

There was little point in sitting up after dinner, and I called it an early night by slithering into the sleeping bag. In less than 15 minutes, I understood that Winslow Homer was a fraud and no man ever slept under the shelter I had contrived. Laying parallel to the bike, I had two feet of sleeping bag sticking out on each side of the poncho. I had better luck stretched out perpendicular to the K75... But this put my head within an inch or two of the oil pan. Just as a woman has a distinctive fragrance of perfume and pheromones, a motorcycle exudes trace aromas of lubricant, coolant, and gasoline. While these can be sexually stimulating at 100 miles per hour, they can adversely color a man’s sleep with dreams of a refinery. So I swung my head the other way, and found it sticking out the low end of the hanging poncho. While this gave me a sensational view of a velvet sky filled with stars, it dramatically altered the nature of the setting, and I knew that no descendant of Winslow Homer was ever going to paint this campsite.

I closed my eyes with the smug satisfaction of a man who was the master of his own destiny and one with nature. Yet the accomplished woodsman is instantly aware of the slightest change in his surroundings, and I snapped to consciousness three hours later, deducing that the jewel-like stars had suddenly become meaty, plum-sized rain drops. This was no problem as I simply reverted to “Plan B,” and pulled my head under poncho.

That last sentence connotes planning and precision, two elements that are generally absent from my life. In my haste to get under the poncho, I caught my chin on the lower edge, converting it into a huge, quivering plastic funnel, channelling a torrent of icy rain into the top of my sleeping bag.

“Great Scott,” I bellowed. (Actually, I said something else that rhymed with “brother trucker.”)

The sensation of cold water pouring into my sleeping bag caused me to sit bolt upright, which separated the poncho/tarp from the two stakes that feebly held it to the ground.It was now nothing more than a rain drape. Not yet dismayed, I sat under it, with my head protruding out through the hood in the center.

“I can sleep like this,” I thought.

It was at that moment I could feel the cold rain seeping through the wadded-up sleeping bag under my butt.

“What hell is left to me now?” I moaned into the darkness.

At that moment, a flash of lightning illuminated the cracked shingles of the ancient outhouse roof.

“No,” I screamed. “I will not sit in there.”

The rain increased in its intensity, falling in sheets as dense as fog. And once again, the flickering of lightning spotlighted the tumble-down structure of the shitter.

Its door swung open on hinges that shrieked with rust. The stench was nearly as heavy as the rain. I flashed my light around inside, finding a huge spider suspended in a web the size of a volleyball net, hanging over the only logical place to sit. I knocked it into the soup from hell, using a handy stick I’d grabbed just for that occasion. “We all have problems, pal,” I said soothingly, watching the large arachnid thrash around before gnawing through its own throat.

It is common knowledge that feeding female mosquitoes can detect one part of expended carbon dioxide (a millionth of a human breath) in a zillion parts of raging thunderstorm. Yet they are unaffected by the aroma of an unattended latrine. In fact, they can thrive in an atmosphere of nearly 100 percent methane and will not hesitate to give it a try, if the door is left open. And believe me, nothing less than flesh-eating zombies could have persuaded me to close that door.

I arrived back at the house barely an hour after dawn.

My former lover was in the kitchen, pouring a cup of decaf. “That was some rain we had last night,” she said. “Did you spend the night in an outhouse or something?”

“What would make you say that?”

“Well, you’re standing here stark naked, wearing just your helmet, and the two dogs are rolling in your wet clothes on the garage floor.”

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

The Story of Kim... (Thursday’s blog more than a day late.)

2011-12-03T16:49:00.003-05:00

A Twisted Roads reader — a woman rider of the Harley Davidson persuasion — recently asked me, “Why do so many of your stories focus on women and how is it you always get the girl in your tales? Has there ever been a time when your “battered baby seal look” left you standing by the side of the road with your tool in your hand? And if so, how is it those occasions are never the subject of your stories?”

These are really good questions which I usually get at parties, rallies, and on runs from biker women I meet for the first time, who are determined to be the exception to the “battered baby seal look” rule. I’m afraid the answers are deceptively simple.

I got my first motorcycle when I was 19-years-old (38 years ago). I had never ridden a bike before and did not have an overwhelming compulsion to charge around on two-wheeled nuclear reactor... But I did have a near-suicidal interest in getting laid and thought the motorcycle mystique might go a long way toward making this happen. And it did, to an extent. The bike I got was a 1975 Kawasaki H2 (in a purple-ish red) which lacked the appeal of the typically black Harley’s, Nortons, and Triumphs of the day — though not every woman knew that. Yet most every time I mounted this machine it was with with the hope of meeting a woman who was as fast as that damn bike. So nearly all of my early bike stories entailed the pursuit of romance.

Now the sad truth is that I did not get the girl as often as my stories imply. Consider the batting averages of the most successful baseball players: they strike out all the time. But it is the sensational hits and resulting plays that make the headlines. Why would I write up the stories where my best attempts at seduction resulted in getting dumped? These use to happen all the time and there was one year when I thought I might as well donate my organ to science, as no one else seemed interested. The following narrative is a classical example of the romantic curse that used to follow me around.

I present: The story of “Kim”

One of my friends was a philosophy major at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey, and found himself in a dorm renown for great parties. (I had no idea why anyone would be a philosophy major, considering philosophers ranked second only to poets in the job market; and this was back in the mid- seventies, when there were two jobs for every American who wanted one. Then again, I was an English major in a country where speaking English was destined to be regarded as the height of unsophistication.)

He’d invited me to this party, where it was alleged there would be a sexually charged atmosphere which could be easily ignited by philosophers and budding writers alike. I began the evening by getting tuned up at the watering hole which had launched so many of my previous “passion” runs. The truth was that I felt uncomfortable crashing parties in which I only knew one other guy, and my pal — Jimmy B. — was the only other loser I knew who was getting laid less than I was that year. So it was my hope I’d find some other action in the saloon which would preclude a 60-mile ride to New Brunswick (NJ).

There were two unattached dollies sipping variations of gin at the bar, and one was a blond knockout. The other was a serious bowser looking to feed on the carcasses on the runner’s-up who got half-bagged buying drinks for the good-looking one. The blond had her pick of the strongest and biggest sperm donors, and I would have to be drinking a solid eight hours before her friend triggered any kind of a primeval response other than flight.

A fast shot of Jamison’s Irish Whiskey and ten minutes later found me getting on the New Jersey Turnpike in Secaucus. Once a community of pig farmers and horse knackers (within 15 minutes of 5th Avenue in Manhattan), Secaucus used to be one of New Jersey’s better known jokes. Now it is recognized for outlet centers and the kind of traffic (on Route 3) that breeds serial killers.

The Kawasaki H2 was the kind of bike that loved the New Jersey Turnpike. The engine wound up for the pitch and unleashed its fast ball as I paralleled the runways of Newark Airport (now called “Liberty International”). Glancing to my right, I found myself racing some commercial jet clawing its way into the air. I didn’t think we were so unlike in our respective flights — just that mine was about three feet off thew ground. The plane was carrying faceless passengers behind each oval window to some destiny... As this motorcycle was hopefully carrying me to the arms of some coed I had yet to meet.

Many have compared the sound of the last great Kawasaki two-stroke street motorcycle to that of a lawnmower on steroids. That is not quite fair nor accurate. While the motorcycle lacked the throaty growl of a Harley or a Norton, it struck the tone of a large outboard motor attempting to carve a rooster tail out of the asphalt. The H2 easily held 90 miles per hour without straining and I made short work of the run to Rutgers.

The party was the college standard, with LED Zeppelin and traces of pot filling the air. Beer hissed and bubbled from kegs covered in ice, while a select few of the cognoscenti sipped cheap wine from plastic cups. As I anticipated, Jimmy B. didn’t know a soul there and we were essentially the ambassadors from Douche-land. He headed off to drain some hose and I retreated into the farthest recesses of the party. Specifically, I was looking for a remote corner that was adjacent to two or three women by themselves. There’s always one spot like this — at least for awhile.

Finding it, I pulled a doobie the size of my forefinger out of my pocket. These were the days when the average joint was thin, skinny, twisted, and about 45 seconds from becoming a roach. I lit the end and puffed on it like it was a cigar, releasing about $10 bucks worth of smoke into the air, and then I let it go out.

“I’ll trade you some of this for a little of that,” said a brunette with a ponytail. She was holding a pint bottle of Bicardi over a cup of Coke.

“There’s barely one drink left in that bottle,” I replied. Then I gave her a smile and a shrug that said “Deal.”

Her name was “Kim.” Dirty blond hair, blue eyes, and a nice build — complete with an accent that suggested a sunset in Georgia — she was a political science major from nearby Douglas College, who’d wandered in with a couple of friends now lost in the party shuffle. We sipped rum... Passed the joint a few times... And spoke for an hour. Kim claimed the party had bottomed out and that she was headed back to her place, an off-campus apartment in the next town.

“Can I give you a ride?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she replied with a smile. “Can you?”

I took her by the hand and led her down to the street. We passed Jimmy B., who was talking football with three other guys. He and I made the kind of split-second eye contact that guys exchange when they need to say, “It was fun, bro. ‘Till next time...” without saying a word.

“You have a motorcycle,” Kim exclaimed.

“Yeah.”

I couldn’t tell If she was thrilled, nervous, or having second thoughts.

She stood still, smiling, as I ran the strap through the “D” rings on her helmet. And then I kissed her. It wasn’t the kiss of the century, but it didn’t have to be either.

The bike fired up on the first kick, as it always did, and she jumped on. I took it easy, never getting beyond third gear as we were on city streets, and she was either yelling directions or pointing the way every few minutes. She seemed comfortable to have her arms around me as I backed the bike into a parking spot in front of her place. The silence is always palpable when you switch off the bike’s engine, and I wondered what her first words would be.

“That was different,” she said.

She fumbled a bit with the dismount, but did so laughing.

I got the side-stand down, dismounted myself, and helped her with the helmet. I followed her up the steps to the front door. She had the key in her hand, then in the lock in one fluid action. She spun around in the door, kissed me on the mouth, bit my ear and whispered, “Wanna get fucked?”

“Yeah,” I said.

She laughed, took a step backward, and closed the door. The last thing I heard was the click of the lock.

I was stunned... I thought it was a joke and pressed the doorbell. The response was to have the porch light go out.

I made it back to the saloon in Jersey City in time for last call. It was a slow night and there were only three people at the bar — one of whom was the bowser, who looked at me with renewed interest.

“What can I get you,” asked Vinnie the bartender.

“A shot... In fact, I want the same shot they gave Kennedy... Behind the ear. And get one for the bowser too.”

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

Interim Twisted Roads Blog Post #214

2011-11-30T18:22:00.003-05:00

Twisted Roads — the biker blog that brings you raw moto--adventure and romance like broken glass — publishes humorous editorial at length on Mondays and Thursdays. Yet life is simply too full of the good stuff to ignore the days in between. So from time to time, TW will publish interim blog posts of general interest, moto industry commentary, and other data, adhering to our uncompromising, yet thoroughly peculiar, editorial standards. Today we present:

The Twisted Road’s Motorcyclist’s Courtesy Test...

Biker’s have a reputation of being social Visigoths with short fuses, narrow perspectives, and appetites craving instant gratification for speed, sex, noise, whiskey (beer), danger and the kind of good times normally frowned upon by society in general and the police in particular. Yet thousands of conversations held with riders at rallies, on runs, and during bail hearings indicate most have a gentler side, not normally associated with hard, fast living.

Most riders defy the conclusions of conventional wisdom when it comes to being sensitive individuals, totally in tune with the world around them. For example, “Mother’s Day” remains the most traveled motorcycle holiday of the year, with many accessory shops reporting chromed gear sales — with mufflers, air filter covers, and even gas tanks — engraved to “Mom.” Likewise, tattoo parlors report skyrocketing sales of skin artwork with the word “Mother” prominent in the design on that day. (In many cases, the next word begins with the letter “F,” however.)

Now we are all familiar of the charity runs and the toy collection rides that are held by some of the gruffest and toughest riders on two wheels. But it’s time the general public got solid factual, inside data on sensitive biker behavior. The following survey was designed by Dr. Albert Hissingaz, of the Wilmington Institute of Hollistic Dry Cleaning, as the the ultimate measure of biker behavior. Readers are encouraged to take the poll, cutting and pasting their responses into the comments section at the end of this blog.

Two lucky respondents, chosen at random, will each receive a package of “Big Jim’s” Premium Chocolate Chip Cookies for their efforts.

Question #1:
You have been following a compact car, with Massachusetts plates, on a winding two-plane road for the last 87 miles. The posted speed limit is 45 miles per hour. On three occasions, when the double-yellow line became dotted, the driver ahead of you sped up just enough to prevent you from getting around him. You can see he is a middle-aged man, with thick glasses, and bushy eyebrows — the kind who is either a lecturing economist at Harvard or an actuary at an insurance company. The road is now straight, but with changes in elevation that warrant an endless double-yellow line. You know you can get around him, but there is no guardrail and the sudden shock of blowing past him might cause the driver to swerve and go off the cliff. You decide:

A) Just wait it out and play by the rules, despite the fact this little prick is exactly the kind of person who likes to impose his will on everyone else.

B) Blip your engine while flashing your lights, in hopes that he will wake up, come right, and wave you on... Otherwise, you will play by the rules.

C) Pull over at a pleasant vista; pour a nice cup of hot coffee from a Thermos; and give this jerk a 45-minute lead so you no longer have to think about him.

D) Use the back of your left hand to wipe the foam from your mouth... Wait until you have the very best view of the road ahead... Then blow past this guy, leaning on your Steble/Nautilus compact air horn (while running the mill to a screaming red line), glancing back in the mirror to see the car disappear into a ravine.

Question #2 (Men only)
You come out of a watering hole to discover that a woman, who happens to be a screamingly hot MILF, has placed her toddler on the seat of your $28,000 semi-custom bike, that is 4 days old. You would say:

A) “Excuse me, M’am. But that bike is very heavy and has hot parts on it. Your child could either be burned or crushed by it. I wouldn’t recommend putting the little guy on unattended motorcycles. Here... Let me get in the saddle and we can start it up for him.”

B) “M’am... I must ask you to consider how you’d respond to coming out of church or a town meeting meeting to find me sitting in your car. Now you wouldn’t like that very much, would you? I must ask you to regard this bike the same way.”

C) “Do you and this little guy have first names and cell phone numbers?”

D) “If that kid pisses himself on my custom leather seat both you and he are going to get a one-way trip to a taxidermist, and I don’t give a shit how hot looking you think you are.”

Question #3 (Women Only)
You have been in a local watering hole for the past two hours, chatting up some studly rider who happens to meet your nearly impossible criteria for a potential sperm donor. You look hot in your leathers and the deal is nearly closed, when in comes one of your closest girlfriends, wearing her tightest form-fitting ballistic gear. She is 5’4” tall, Asian, and oozes sensuality. She smiles at the stud, and your stock starts to drop. She heads toward the bathroom, and you follow (in the herding manner of women, who seem to piss best en masse). Once there, you:

A) Politely ask her to disappear as this guy is yours.

B) Drag her into a stall, make out passionately, and invite her back to the house the next night.

C) Pull the toilet seat off the can and smash her in the back of the head with it. After all, good friends should know when to stop being such good friends.

Question #4
You have parked your bike in a marked spot along the curb, where three other bikes are already parked. Yet you come back an hour later to find the other bikes gone, and a half electric/half goat-shit hybrid parked within an inch of your left side bag. The car is so close to your bike, that you cannot lift it from the side stand without having the bag contact the car’s bumper. You would:

A) Patiently wait for the owner of the car to return, so you could explain why parking like this was a bad idea.

B) Struggle to move the bike on the side stand — a fraction of an inch at a time — to ease it away from the car, so you can ride off. Then you leave a note on the car’s windscreen advising the driver that you now have his plate number, and soon his address, where you will meet him on a dark night.

C) Realizing that someone this stupid will not benefit from confrontation, you rip a page out of your road map, spread instant gasket cement (RTV) on one side, and glue it to the windscreen of the hybrid.

D) If it is dark, you do “C” above, then also urinate on the driver’s door handle.

Question #5
One of your riding friends deserves a special Christmas present... But you’re short on cash, having only $45 to spend. Furthermore, you could use a quick pick-me-up yourself, but have to take it out of that same $45. You would:

A) Buy a bottle of Michter’s American Whiskey and drink most of, saving your friend a shot.

B) Buy one ounce of BMW motorcycle touch-up paint and use it to paint your girlfriend’s toenails (if she’ll cook dinner wearing only that and perfume).

C) You buy two copies of Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists — by Jack Riepe — at the special Christmas price of $45 for two books (plus S&H), and get them signed and autographed, and only pay the shipping and handling for one!

If you are ordering two books, the first is $30...
The second is $15 (the original cover price), with only $5 S&H.
The price of a single book is $30, plus $5 S&H

To Order Your Copy of “Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists:”

Email your full name, address, and phone number to:
jack.riepe@gmail.com

Put: "Book Order" in the subject line.
Each book is shipped with an invoice and a stamped, pre-addressed payment envelope. Write a check, and slip it in the mailbox when the book arrives.

To Order A Gift Book For Someone Else:

Email your full name, address, and phone number to:
jack.riepe@gmail.com

Very Important: Also include the gift book’s recipient’s full name, (First and Last), and tell me something about them. (He or she plays golf... He/she rides a motorcycle... He/she hunts,... He/she smokes cheap cigars... Tell me something.) Your name will be included in the inscription on the book.

Books are shipped 1st class USPS within 24 hours of order, starting Wednesday, November 30th.

These are the last of the author’s authorized signed editions... Order yours today.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

‘

Fate... A Motorcycle... And A Beautiful Woman In Cape May

2011-11-28T17:13:00.006-05:00

My rider’s warning radar was up in a second... A target was moving up to the intersection ahead and bore all the earmarks of a potential collision. I could see a cell phone glued to an ear, the strong morning sun glinting off dark sunglasses, and a kind of preoccupation with life in general that did not include a red, BMW K75 rolling into a near-empty intersection. I could see other things too. The target had long dark hair, a dark sweater (that did not quite meet the tops her jeans, exposing a nicely-tanned navel), and dark jeans that did for her ass what the Louvré does for the Mona Lisa.

She was waiting to cross the street.

“Whoa, Big Red,” I said to the bike, dropping down a gear on the magnificent motorcycle known as “Fire Balls.”

I snicked the machine into a rolling neutral and brought it to a smooth halt 10 feet back from the crosswalk. With a smile that bloomed like an orchid in the tinted greenhouse of my Nolan flip-up Helmet, I gestured for her to cross.

She looked up from the cell phone, gave me a little wave (with a smile), and stepped off the curb without dropping a word in her conversation. She was half-way across before realizing there was no other traffic. There was no traffic, no movement, and no noise for the entire length of the street, which ran for 6 blocks in either direction. This was the last week of October in the seashore town of Cape May, New Jersey, when the ocean turns gray and the white caps ride the waves into the beach. The place was deserted. And now this woman was walking the model’s runway, demonstrating red hot hip action, as she sashayed across the street for an audience of one.

I have pulled this stunt before. It usually draws a bigger smile from appreciative ladies in supermarket parking lots. But this is Cape May... And anyone here in the off season is either a prominent member of the business community or a hotel owner. This woman had the imperious look of someone used to ordering servants to clean the horse manure from the stable floors, with their dinner bowls. (I had originally typed “horse shit” instead of “manure” in that last sentence, but it seemed disrespectful in a story about Cape May, NJ.)

She realized the true purpose of my gallantry and dismissed me with a roll of her eyes that gently rocked the motorcycle under my butt.

The K75 went into gear with the buttery-smooth clunk of steel on steel and I rode east until the Atlantic hove into view. Despite being nearly November, the temperature was in the low 70’s and more than a few tanned lovelies were soaking up the sun on the beach (wearing bikinis that had less substantive material than a report from Congress.) Local New Jersey color oozed from a hot dog wagon parked against the dunes, and I realized it has been years, maybe more than a decade, since I’ve had a real dirty-water Sabrett Hot Dog.

The Sabrett Hot Dog is in the global industry standard for all-beef tube steaks that are to be specifically cooked by being immersed in boiling water for hours, sometimes weeks, at a time. They are a slightly less than perfect hot dog shape, somewhat spicy brown in color, initially linked with string, and delicious. They are best ordered with the works (mustard, chili, sauteed onions, and a hint of relish), on a bun as soft as a debutante’s breast. (I initially typed in “debutante’s tit” for the last two words in the previous sentence, but changed my mind. I think living here in Cape May is beginning to affect me.)

The “dirty-water” dog designation comes from the thousands of pushcarts that sell these things in New York City every day. The word on the streets is that the Sabrett dog gets its unique flavor from being cooked in water that is only changed once or twice a year. (This isn’t true. I’ve have cooked them in perfectly fresh water with the same great results.) The Sabrett company also makes signature red cooked “sauteed onions” which cannot be duplicated. You can sometimes find both in local supermarkets.

The hot dog wagon was a beat-up van with a thatched roof that offered a half-dozen kinds of soft drinks and every conceivable snack. Two proprietors, “Rich” and “Dawn,” ran this concern like it was a cafe on the Boulevard Raspail in Paris. Glancing at the menu, a loaded dog ran $2.50, which is up substantially from the 25¢ I used to pay as a 10-year-old in my native Jersey City. (Then again a lap dance is up considerably from what I used to pay when I was a 10-year-old in Jersey City too.) But a pint-sized serving of Turkey Hill Iced Tea was marked at $3 bucks apiece. The most expensive thing about a pint container of commercially bottled iced tea is the opaque plastic container, which costs about 1.5¢ each.)

“Thank God my bike doesn’t run on Turkey Hill iced tea,” I thought. “It would cost $60 to fill the tank.”

Rich handed me the hot dog, ensconced in a napkin, like it was the Stanley Cup. He was right. Soaked with onions, kraut, chili, and mustard, it weighed about a pound. Yet a hot dog simmered in boiling water has no strength of its own, and it took two hands to get this to my gaping maw.

I had forgotten how good these tasted, and I had another.

In the meantime, I refreshed myself with a pure New Jersey dialect. There are several accents common to the Garden State, and none sound like music. My own, fostered in the ash pits and rendering plants of Jersey City (where they render souls of children into transparent political promises), is a cross between finger-nails dragging across a blackboard and wailing cats. A woman once told me, “It will never work between us because your accent clashes with all of my outfits.” (She now lives in Concord, Ma, where life in New England grinds the audible serifs from every “r”. I hope she reads this and dares to leave a comment.)

The nasal tone of Rick’s voice matched mine, and I felt like we were part of a vocal counter-cultural conspiracy. He spoke of the technical complexity of hot dogs, and the challenges of tube steak marketing in a soft economic environment... And I thought, “God, these folks are so right up my alley.”

Firing up the bike, I headed off to the lighthouse, which is best viewed from the main drag running along the beach. While this lighthouse is not the tallest I’ve ever seen, nor the one in the most dramatic setting, it is the most romantic. You can sit here at dusk, alone in the off-season, and watch the beacon fend off the darkness. The setting is absolutely exquisite when there is a moon, and the point behind the light is bathed in silver. But it was as black as pitch last night, and overcast. The light stood like a sentinel.

Above:) The top of the lighthouse at Cape May, NJ. This lighthouse is 5 minutes from my desk to the east. Photo compliments of Wikipedia.

Cape May is a small town where every other building is either historically significant, or maintained by elves. San Francisco has that famous stretch of Victorian houses standing against the reality of the distant skyline. Cape May created its own reality 100 years ago, and took pains to preserve it. Former US Presidents like Ulysses S. Grant and John Adams (I think) used to come here to fish, drink, and get laid. (Pretty much why anybody would come to the New Jersey shore.) But Cape May resisted the urge to trade character for ferris wheels, and as a result they now have the most priceless gem of a community on the the New Jersey coast.

The lighthouse is less than five minutes from where I’m living. And I had just turned the corner, headed in that direction, when the exquisite beauty introduced in the first paragraph once again readied herself to step in front of my bike. What the hell were the odds of this?

“Hot damn,” I thought. I was moving a little faster this time, and had to squeeze the binders a bit more aggressively as well as drop down a gear. As a result, “Fire Balls” squatted on the front forks with more drama. My stop looked less than spontaneous, and I gestured for her to cross.

Still on the damn phone (giving some poor guy hell, no doubt), she hesitated — and waved me on.

I couldn’t resist. I planted both legs on the pavement, and switched on the K75’s flashers.

The look on her face was priceless. She put one hand (the one without the phone) on her hip and glared. Then she crossed the street slowly, deliberately, and with unabashed contempt.

“This one is really hot for us,” I said to the motorcycle.

Once again, I clunked the bike into first and pulled away, giving the Steeble/Nautilus compact air horn the merest suggestion of a tap. The millisecond of the trilling blast was perfect salute from a bike that makes almost no noise. My next stop was the dunes on Delaware Bay. Better than 14 miles wide at this point, it is barely possible to see the other side of the bay with the naked eye.The Delaware salt marshes are usually shrouded in haze, or cloaked in mist, or hidden behind the curvature of the earth. At night, it is sometimes possible to see bright lights that appear to be just over the horizon. Delaware Bay is the major opening to the port of Philadelphia, and huge ships, as well as million sailboats, can be seen on this waterway. I dismounted the bike, amazed at how calm the water was on these beaches, and wondered why I never became the kind of person who longed to be on the sea. (I stood on this spot after returning from my brother’s place on Thanksgiving night, and stared into a sky that was filled with stars. In the instant I looked up, a shooting star rocketed overhead, falling to earth far to the west, over a state I left barely a month ago. “I hope that didn’t hit Bregstein’s garage,” I thought.)

Above) The dunes overlooking Delaware Bay, five minutes to the west from my desk. Photo by the author.

I was less than two blocks from the house, determined to go back and do some writing on a screenplay that promises to be my best work, when I noticed that same woman (with the astounding ass) going into a little café, with a front painted in Cinco De Mayo colors.

“This is fate,” I thought, pulling up outside. There was no curb. A bit of broken blacktop, punctuated with gravel, sported a bicycle rack outside. The rack supported four highly technical bicycles, of the type ridden by really thin muscular men, in Spandex, who carry spare inner tubes where their genitals would be. (I actually typed the words “micro dicks” for genitals in the last sentence, but decided against it. I really think it is the Cape May effect on me.)

I grabbed my computer bag from the right pannier on the odd shot that this place would have WiFi, and went inside. There were three guys and two women seated around a large table, having a discussion. I picked a table off to the side, made myself comfortable, and ordered coffee from a waitress who had the ugliest shoes I have ever seen outside of paratroop training camp. I noticed two things: none of this crowd were wearing Spandex and the woman I’d encountered three times that day was nowhere to be seen.

Then the ladies room door opened and she stepped out.

She had a body to kill for, and had I been a Visigoth and had this been the Fourth Century, I’d have been reaching for my ax. But she also had the most extraordinary face. It was hot, but not from some angles. It was pretty, sometimes. She reminded me of Franka Potente — the actress in the Bourne Identity. She was a big deal in this circle, as the crowd afforded her some deference.

Above:) Actress Franka Potente. Photo from Wikipedia

I fired up my computer and started to write this story. And I actually got lost in it, which occasionally happens to me. I had started out mildly interested in their dialogue, as each of these people was a writer, apparently. One had written a book about local architecture... One had produced a coloring book for kids, depicting local landmarks... One was a poet... Another wrote songs, but was not a musician. And the last was a reporter. No one in this group had the New Jersey accent I’d been listening to earlier in the day. In fact, they all pretty much sounded like the kind of folks who yell “catch,” and then spit when I’d cup my hands. Each was wearing “fashion” clothes, most with exposed labels — printed on unicorn eyelids. They spoke of the author’s “need to create” and then “forever influence reader discourse.” I was going to raise my hand and ask about the author’s “need to go fast on German motorcycles, to drink, and get laid — right after the check clears,” but I couldn’t think of way to bring it up in conversation.

They concluded their meeting and had begun drifting out. I was answering some correspondence about my monthly column in the BMW magazine, when a voice asked, “So what have you been madly typing away for three hours?”

It was not the voice I was hoping for.

It had been three hours and I had consumed 5 cups of coffee and two whole wheat pastries (that tasted like dessert in the first class lifeboat). The person who asked the question was the “poet,” a soft-spoken gentleman, who seemed genuinely interested in my new face.

“I write a monthly column for a magazine, and I felt so chummy here, I just made myself at home and filed my copy.”

“What magazine?” he asked, really interested now.

“It’s a German transportation monthly,” I said, “dealing with long-distance, low-impact, high-speed approaches to social activities.”

“Aaaaaaaaah,” he said, with a knowing nod that indicated otherwise.

Though I confined my response to his face, my peripheral vision kept searching hers. Being in the company of writers never meant much to me before (unless they had their fucking agents with them); but at this moment, I felt like saying something that would impress this woman. (I had decided that Franka Potete was screamingly hot.)

“I have a book out too,” I murmured.

“A book?”

“Yes...” I stammered, really reaching now. “It’s on men’s sensitivity.”

My former lover once remarked that I’d drag out some reference to my book whenever I got desperate for credibility. “And it cures depression too,” I added with a smirk.

The poet was Alex. He introduced the woman as “Lisa.”

I couldn’t t resist. “Jason Bourne,” I said, extending my hand.

Neither one of them batted an eye.

“Well we like to write and ride our bikes,” said Alex.

“Me too,” I replied. “Mine’s red.” (My helmet and jacket was outside. Neither one heard me pull up on the K75.)

I went back there a couple of days ago. I have since learned that everyone who has breakfast in this place rides a bicycle. I pulled up in a bright red Ford 150 pickup with a nuclear reactor under the hood. The truck has a 40-gallon gas tank that costs as much as the Greek national debt to fill — once. It cost me $11 to drive the 5 blocks from the house.

Once again, I sat down and popped open my laptop.

Lisa was there. “Hi, Jason,” she said without looking up from the local newspaper.

I have been living in Cape May a month, and I am well on the way to getting at least one woman to think of me as Jason Bourne. It won’t last. But it only has to happen once — when my riding buddies are here.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011
Written In Exile From Cape May, NJ

A Thanksgiving Story Of 1989...

2011-11-24T12:27:00.004-05:00

Thanksgiving Day “1989” was wet and miserable, with the cold kind of November drizzle that doesn’t have the decency to become snow, nor the courtesy to yield to the ineffectual warmth of a mid-autumn sun. My hunting jacket was not quite soaked through, but my Austrian Loden pants were damp from the knees down. I carried a Browning A-5 12-gauge shotgun at port arms as I aimlessly moved through the brush, barely conscious of the task at hand. Technically speaking, I was hunting pheasants, without a dog, and without much hope of seeing anything on a day where forest life stays hunkered down against the elements. But the inside of my head was as bleak as my immediate surroundings and I was numb to my circumstances, as I walked aimlessly through fields and woods in the company of a beautiful, Belgian-crafted firearm.

All I could think of was getting the letter in the mail... The one that began: Riepe vs Riepe.

The first round of my first divorce knocked the wind out of me. I returned from a business trip to find the closets in the apartment empty. My wife, a former newspaper reporter and an accomplished writer in her own right, had taken our five-year-old daughter and fled to the sanctuary of her pit-bull of a mother. These were days of my early thirties, when I wrote for politicians and anyone who could guarantee the check would clear. This apparent lack of editorial ethic, coupled with other things (like a hair-trigger temper and the inability to see the other side of a philosophical argument) constituted my growing list of character flaws and genetic defects.

Yet as bad as things had apparently gotten, I didn’t think they were anywhere near the possibility of getting divorced. This was just one result of assuming that everyone on earth really thought like I did... Or that silence from the person closest to you means tacit agreement. But she was gone and there was a whole new set of rules in place for seeing my kid. This was going to be the first Thanksgiving — and the first really big holiday — on which my daughter would be shared between families. In an attempt to be magnanimous, I told Maryann that little Katherine could spent the holiday with her family.

Magnanimity does not come naturally to me, and I was sorry the instant I made the gesture. It felt like I was consigning some part of myself to a void that was to become a new unthinkable norm. My family used to be a lot closer than they are now, but that was when my mother was still the center of the universe. Each of her kids felt that unique gravitational pull that ended in a hot kitchen permeated with the aroma of holiday baking. It was my thought that at least half of many future Thanksgivings would start with Maryann, little Katherine, and myself stepping through the door, and completing the family circle around the table.

But now I would be arriving like a sprocket with missing teeth. Instead of showing up with the first grandchild, I would be the sole representative of domestic failure. And I couldn’t believe just how much I missed my daughter. My first thought was to spend the holiday alone, cooking for myself, in the apartment that held the relics of crashed dreams and the tokens of my inability to hold things together. A call to my mother quashed that.

“Don’t be an ass,” she laughed. “Jackie, you’re going to have to find a bright side to this. Here’s one... You’ll never have to spend another holiday with that desperate pain in the ass, Maureen, and that face she makes, like she’s smelling shit, every time you come into the room.” She was referring to my future former mother-in-law. “Just come down here... The sooner the better.”

My whole family lived in New Jersey then, and distance was relative. My mom’s house was inland from the shore, in Ocean county. (You could smell the Atlantic on most days, but you couldn’t hear it.) This put her 86-miles south of my place (on the Palisades, overlooking the Hudson). The horror of driving to the shore on the Jersey Turnpike (on Thanksgiving Day) was not to be seriously considered, and I left late the night before. The memory of some family traditions linger long after they have ceased to exist. I grew up on instant coffee... Yet on special occasions, my mom would set out an electric, chrome percolator, which brewed Folger’s coffee (just like the commercials). On this Thanksgiving day, the fragrance of hot coffee mingled with the aroma of coffee cake right out of the oven. And this was at 5am.

Yet despite the allure of sitting around sipping coffee in a warm kitchen, I felt I had to get out in the open... To release the doldrums that were nailing me to a cross of mental reality. It was barely first light when I carried my hunting gear out to car and headed off through the pine barrens. New Jersey is odd place. It has some of the ugliest open urban sores that you can imagine, yet harbors some of the most beautiful spots in the United States. These are Cape May, the countryside around Peapack-Gladstone, and some rare wildlife management units down in the pine barrens. It was to one one of these tracts deep in the scrub pine that I headed.

There were five or six other cars in the muddy parking area, and hunters —with the kind of dogs that point at pheasants in a highly accusatory manner — were heading out into fields planted in millet or other bird candy. They were all wearing florescent orange hunting gear that had LL Bean stamped all over it. I was wearing an old army fatigue jacket, under a bright orange New Jersey Department of Transportation vest I’d grabbed at a flea market for $2, and an orange watch cap. I had no dog and the other hunters looked at me like I was a bad joke.

“Fuck all you assholes,” I thought to myself, as I smiled and said, “Good morning.”

I had never been to this place before and just set out across a field that was loaded with knee-high underbrush. My mind was not exactly on the task at hand, and I might have left the shotgun at home for all the hunting I was doing. All I could think of was my first wife, and what my little girl was up to. She had a dog at her grandma’s... A huge golden retriever named “Duke,” who was like the dog world’s goodwill ambassador to humanity. At five-years-old, my daughter had the kind of personality that gave her the character of a circus midget. She could get into really good mischief, then amaze you with an observation that went far beyond her years.

I passed through several stands of hardwoods, wandered around some pines, and ended up in a sticker patch that must have covered three acres. Thorn bushes come in two varieties: the little ones that scratch skin, and the bigger ones, that scratch expensive Browning gunstocks. I had apparently located a thorn bush convention.

Surrounded by a sea of thorns, I sat on a rotting tree stump that was dead center in this maze of sharp edges. The rain started coming down in earnest and I felt as if my entire world was thorns and wet clothes. I must have sat there almost 20 minutes. I had long since ceased to hear the dog whistles of the other hunters, nor the cow bells on the collars of their dogs. I didn’t even know in what direction lay my Surburban, the first of five I would own.

But you can never tell what effect your troubles might have on the world around you, or when things might change. My odd behavior on the tree stump was annoying the living shit out of a huge cock-bird of a Chinese Ring Neck pleasant. He had a tail like a comet and an attention span shorter than mine. With that cackle peculiar to their species, he set off at a 40-mile-per-hour jog.

I was dumbfounded.

Then I started to chase him through the thorns like the late John Candy in one of his hysterical movies. I scratched my face, and my gun, and left my hat on a low-hanging branch. The pheasant was a sport, and cackled a taunt every now and again. He and I broke out into a clearing at the same time, and the bird sailed aloft with a final cackled obscenity. The Browning A5 (the BMW K75 of shotguns) barked once, and the cockbird was mine.

The other hunters were calling it a morning back in the parking lot. All they had to show for three hours of wading through the millet was a half-dozen smelly dogs and unfired firearms that would each require an hour of serious cleaning. I had a cockbird with a tail as long as a moose’s dick. I could feel their penetrating gazes, never congratulatory in New Jersey, as I put my stuff in the trunk.

My mother met me at the door.

“Did you catch anything,?” she asked.

“It’s not like fishing, Ma.”

Then she saw the pheasant.

“You shot a peacock,” she exclaimed. “How could you kill such a beautiful thing?”

“It pulled a knife on me,” I replied.

I cleaned and prepared the bird in the kitchen. My mother watched in fascination. It went into a much smaller roasting pan alongside the turkey in the oven.

“This will be done in less than an hour,” I said. “I’m going to take a nap.”

I awoke three hours later. The house was filled with the mixed aromas of baking, roasting, and pots steaming on the stove. In the kitchen, my mother and sister had just about finished the pheasant, leaving me three ounces of meat.

“That was delicious,” said my mom.

It was the first and only time I’d shot something for Thanksgiving dinner, and almost missed it. But gone were the doldrums... And they didn’t come back for a long time.

I really gave thanks for that pheasant.

I hope all of my Twisted Roads readers who are celebrating Thanksgiving in the US today have a warm and special holiday. I hope their tables are full, and I hope their families are there to share in it.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

Hermy’s BMW and Triumph Announces A Silver Lining to Black Friday and Saturday...

2011-11-23T11:06:00.006-05:00

(Industry announcement...See previous

post for humorous ride report.)

Port Clinton, Pa — Herman Baver, general manager of Hermy’s BMW and Triumph in Port Clinton, Pa is determined to bring the joy and dignity back to holiday moto shopping. In a statement issued today, Baver promised that savvy moto-shoppers looking for bargains as high as 30% off international brands will get their chance at his landmark dealership on Friday and Saturday (November 25th and 26th) — without having to spend the night shivering in the cold, standing on line, or camping under crinkly plastic tarps.

“You are cordially invited to take advantage of our staggering price reductions — 30% off all stock BMW and Triumph apparel and 25% off all stock parts, accessories, and apparel — without fear of crowd stampedes, getting pepper sprayed, or even tear gassed,” said Baver. “Our huge inventory of styles and sizes, with many items below internet pricing (shipping included), guarantees something for everyone.”

He added that the Hermy’s BMW and Triumph team knows the pressures of gift-giving. “Many spouses are hesitant to buy equipment for the riders in their lives. Our sales consultants are experts in helping each customer pick the ideal gift for that special rider,” said Baver. “Whether you’re looking for a pair of gloves or matching K1600GT’s, we’ve got it and can help you find it.”

Above: Herman Baver and Tom Murray of Hermy's BMW and Triumph can barely contain their excitement over the "Return To Holiday Dignity Sale" planned for Black Friday and Saturday (November 25th and 26th). Photo by Leslie Marsh.

While Hermy’s is best known for its BMW and Triumph’ marques, any rider will be delighted by the selection of Arai, Shoei, and Nolan helmets in stock. From fine solid finishes to the boldest designs, this weekend’s price reductions will put premium helmets within most budgets. The same can be said for jackets, gloves, pants and hard-to-find riding gear at unheard-of prices. (Regrettably, Schuberth helmets cannot be included in this promotion.)

Looking for the perfect stocking stuffer for the rider (dad or mom) who fixed your car, paid your tuition, or just doesn’t ever complain about your cell phone bills? Get them a Hermy’s gift certificate — which can be applied to gear, parts or service! (As of December 6th, 2011, Hermy’s will pick up and delivery motorcycles in for service free of charge — up to a 100-mile radius.)

Hermy’s holiday moto-shopping philosophy hinges on the concept that many consumers are men rewarding themselves for restraint expressed at other times throughout the year. In keeping with that idea, these incredibly low prices all but eliminate any aspect of guilt. Furthermore, many families have company at home this weekend. The soothing atmosphere of Hermy’s dealership on this Friday and Saturday may offer a pleasant alternative from the in-laws or penniless children home from college.

Can’t make it to the dealership this weekend?

Hermy’s is offering 15% off — AND FREE SHIPPING — on all online orders now through the end of the year. Click on http://www.hermyscycle.com/catalog.asp to view ten catalogues of gear and accessories that can be delivered right to your door — with the same service and reassurance you’d receive at the dealership. Just remember to type in the code word "Deal" at checkout. (Excludes Gerbings heated gear, regrettably.)

There is a silver lining to the madness of Black Friday and Saturday. Find it at:

Hermy’s BMW

Route 61, Port Clinton, Pa

Tuesday–Friday 9:00am to 6:00pm

Saturday 9:00am to 4:00pm

(610) 562.7303 • (610) 562.5481 (24 hour fax)

sales@hermys.com

My Sudden and Brief Return To The Adirondacks...

2011-11-21T21:49:00.019-05:00

And The Biker Riff-Raff that Greeted Me!

(Humor and Personal Obsservation - Four Stars ****)

The Adirondack Mountains in upstate New York are one of the oldest mountain ranges in the history of the world. And they used to be among the tallest too, but you’d have to predate the dinosaurs by about four million years (rough approximation) to have personal knowledge of this. How did they get worn down to their present height of 4,500 to 5,500 feet? Some say it was the inevitable erosion of time... Others claim it was the economy... And some believe that an ancient civilization of women warriors, poets, and cooks bitched them down to size. Depending on the kind of day I am having, I can easily believe any one of the three.

This past weekend found me in the company of boyhood chum Ihor Sypko, who has a cabin in the Adirondack High Peaks region, not far from where I myself lived for nearly two decades. The drive into this place can seem interminable, nearly 8 hours of fast highway driving (75 mph+) from where we started. We began in Hopewell, NJ, that for all its proximity to Trenton, is one of the most beautiful communities I have ever seen. Our starting point was a 38-acre farm carrying an estimated real estate value of $3 million (USD - actual). The run up I-287 (through Morristown) was almost anti-climatic, but I felt my heart swell when I crossed the border between New Jersey and New York. It was here that Ihor and I had fished the Ramapo River dozens of times in our late 20’s; and it was here that I rode a Kawasaki H2 into the night an equal number of times (camping in Harriman Park with women in my college years); and it was through here that I drove like hell to beat the dawn to spend some of the best days of my life with a woman who no longer feels that way.

“Fuck it,” I thought, stepping down on the accelerator of the shiny, red Ford 150 4x4, the rig that has replaced my Suburban. “Most people have nothing to remember... And I’m just getting warmed up.” The rock classic “Layla” was pouring out of the radio and I crossed into the Empire State imagining I was astride my BMW motorcycle, with the tach needle dancing on the red line. I’d have that daydream often as there were still six hours left to go.

Ihor’s cabin is a historic structure that was saved and transported from land that had jumped from private ownership to a conservancy trust. He has lovingly restored it, and then made a number of artistic and creative improvements to it. These include indoor plumbing, a nuclear reactor of a soapstone wood-burning stove, and a kitchen that encourages men to sit around the table — drinking scotch and smoking cigars.

Above: Three friends on one of their first visits to the Adirondacks in 1971. From left — Ihor Sypko, Jack Riepe (middle), and the late Bill Matz, posing on the Marcy Dam. Bill passed away in his early 30's, the victim of a massive stroke. The Marcy Dam washed away this summer in the wake of Hurricane Irene. Photo by a stranger. The author makes no apology for the patch-pocket pants.

The other two guys sitting around that table were Chris Wolfe and Michael Cantwell. The gentle Twisted Roads reader will recognize those two names from any number of past blog episodes. Chris and Mike are two of my oldest friends in the Adirondacks. Both have accompanied me to BMW rallies. Both have been the catalysts of some incredible rides. And both are savagely dangerous men in that either one is capable of saying, “Hold my beer and watch this.”

Poor Ihor was outgunned and outclassed.

The riding stories came fast and furious, and nearly all were hysterically funny, considering there were no fatalities. It was decided by majority vote that Ihor needed to be exposed to a ride on a BMW “R” bike, the motorcycle having most in common with his personality. (Not only does Ihor not ride, but he has never been on the back of a motorcycle.) Chris thought Ihor would be most at home on a Brough Superior, which was the preferred motorcycle of T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence of Arabia). Ihor then agreed to try it if he could ride Lawrence’s actual bike. (Chris claims to know a guy whose got it in his basement, though it has been disguised as an aging Triumph to discourage theft.)

Above: Ihor Sypko today, after brutally dragging this poor trout out of the AuSable River and clubbing it like it was a baby harp seal (right after he kissed it on the lips as the best fish he's caught in 25 years). Photo by Dave Zmoda.

Ihor Sypko is a professional archeologist (employed in this trade about 25 years) whose entire life is dedicated to the preservation of history, or at least the bits of it that are worth saving. He will hunt and fish (where permissible) in period clothing and has a handlebar mustache that goes two-thirds of the distance around his head. We have been friends for 39 years, having met in a Jesuit prep school, and have taken trout, pheasant, grouse, and deer together in every kind of weather and circumstance.

Above: Chris Wolfe, in what has to be the best photograph ever taken of him, standing next to his piss yellow Honda VFR Interceptor, on the ferry to Shelbourne Vermont. Photo by Mike Cantwell, who must have been on drugs.

Chris Wolfe is a transplant from Britain, whose clipped accent (which I describe as Cockney) has gotten him laid in the U.S. more often than any man deserves. A medical professional and a pillar of the community (I cringe to write those words), he has made any number of house calls to my previous Adirondack address to diagnose various plagues as alcohol poisoning. (Chris once used the power of his accent — and 6 words — to snatch a woman away from me, before marrying her to make the arrangement permanent. He said, “Missy, step back. Jack has clap.”) Chris rides a piss-yellow Honda VFR Interceptor... And he does ride it like T.E. Lawrence.

Above) Michael Cantwell and the pristine K75 known as "Connie." Photo by the author.

Michael Cantwell is a professional environmental specialist (also employed in his trade) and an authority on a thousand aspects of nature. He once introduced me to a variety of gigantic fucking spider that jumps around in its web, causing lesser men to scream like little girls. Mike also took me turkey hunting, where we discovered the rare “Lord Of The Rings” Adirondack Wild Turkey. This is a turkey about the size of a parade float that slips on a ring and becomes invisible (even in an empty field) when a shotgun is raised to ones shoulder. Cantwell rides a pristine BMW K75 and has the most even tempered personality of any individual I have ever met. If lava began to flow out of his septic system, Mike would warm his hands over it and say, “Isn’t this hot shit?”

As Cantwell was heading over for the evening, he said to his wife, Jennifer, “Frodo and Bilbo have invited me over for drinks and cigars tonight.”

And thus was the plot for the evening cast.

The conversation turned to Adirondack camping in the good old days, and we wore a hole in the scotch bottle rehashing battles fought with reluctant SVEA stoves, primitive cross-country skis (bindings), and tents whose waterproofing lasted until the height of the storm. We have all climbed Mount Marcy (an 8-hour uphill jaunt), canoed the backwaters, and camped in snow that was three feet deep. And three of us have leaned through sweeping turns in triple digits — together.

When the cigar smoke cleared, I found myself lying in bed watching silver moonlight working over the tops of distant mountains. My first thought was, “You wouldn’t see those mountains if the leaves were still on the trees.” And then I wondered about the windows themselves. The wavy nature of the 19th century glass panes (reclaimed by Ihor in the original sashes) bent the flight of clouds into an exaggerated line of curves. I wondered about generations of hunters, guides, and their woman guests who looked out at the night through those windows. As if on cue, coyotes began to howl in a dialogue that has haunted these mountains since those in moccasined feet were first here to listen.

I got out of bed, moving through the darkened cabin by the light of the stove’s glowing embers, and opened the front door. The subtle heat of the stove collided with an even more subtle ghost of warm air drifting down from Whiteface Mountain. It was the warmest November on record for these parts, and I sat on the cabin’s steps wrapped in a blanket. The coyotes were moving through the trees along the riverbed... Their howls first sounding nearer, then more distant, as they followed the bends in the AuSable River.

Nothing is spared the stark contrast of moonlight in a bare Adirondack forest. There are two colors: silver and black. The silver serves to punctuate the conspiracy of darkness under the conifers, and it is an unbroken blackness that can extend for miles. And yet, it would have softened to a tapestry of grays, had I wandered into it. The moon mocked me with her light. There is no warmth in moon light, other than the kind you generate with a perfumed nakedness next to you. And then I wondered, “Why am I always alone when I notice moons like this one?” The answer is simple: You don’t give a shit about the moon when you are wrapped in the arms of a perfumed nakedness.

I recalled a viciously cold February evening more than 20 years ago, when I built a raging fire in the wood stove of my own cabin, and took a woman to the bedroom directly upstairs. It was 88º (F) in that bedroom, with a 95º differential in the temperature outside. There was no wind that night, and I opened the bedroom windows wide. The aroma of balsams and woodsmoke drifted in on the penetrating scent of the bitter cold. The woman was amazed and became silly putty under a down comforter. There was a full moon that night too... And I never invited it to the party.

The howling of the coyotes evaporated in the dawn, and I awoke (back in bed) to the unbelievable whine of a K75. Cantwell was outside, revving his beautiful blue “Connie” into operating temperature. After coffee and Advil, Mike tossed me the keys and told me to take it for a run. My fall jacket, Nolan helmet, and gloves were in the truck. I am leery about riding other folks’ motorcycles, as a rule. No matter how identical the same models may appear, riding someone else’s bike is like brushing you teeth with somebody else’s toothbrush... Or a toilet brush, in some cases. Mike’s bike ran flawlessly... Shifted with the same butter-smooth, blacksmith-shop clunk as my bike... And had the same even temperament as “Fire Balls...” But it has a stiffer suspension and the stock seat, which is like sitting on a splitting maul. And if I was going to go careening around the Adirondacks, then I wanted to do it on my machine.

Chris Wolfe dropped by later that afternoon too. He brought a 1970’s vintage Honda dirt bike in the 350cc category, with the intent of giving me the opportunity to run it around the fire roads and the power line right of ways. This was out of the question. At half the K75’s displacement, this electric shaver of a bike would have crumbled under the weight of my ass, despite what I’ve lost.

But Chris had an interesting proposition: He wanted to take this rig on a “seasonal” road running through the Sentinel Range. For “seasonal,” read “primitive” maintenance under the best of circumstances; and none between the middle of November and April. This was a dirt and partially gravel trail, interrupted with occasional washouts, deep ruts, and marshes caught behind beaver dams. He wanted to hot dog this 18-mile stretch and thought I might like to follow in my 4x4 pickup.

It was easy to follow his skinny, weaselly ass — in the beginning. The cracked stone and jutting rocks of the lower road was no challenge for the tough, ballsy suspension of this truck. But the road got narrow, twisty, and less substantive. One of the things I like about this truck is that everything is as tight as a drum, including the brakes and the steering. I am not anxious to start loosening things up, so I slowed to a crawl about five miles after the power lines ran out. The road quickly devolved into a track, and one covered with standing water in more than a few places. I reached a place where a beaver dam made a marsh into an interesting little pond, and decided to cut the engine.

Above: This beaver pond crested the track, and set one of the more dramatic scenes along the "seasonal" road. Not every serene spot has to be a vista. I sat here for over an hour, and felt like I was in church. Photo by the author, taken on a "Droid" Incredible.

The day was as clear as crystal and as warm as hour-old toast. I was very likely the only person in a ten-mile radius and the desolation quietly insinuated itself. At first, it seems as if there was no sound at all, and then there was the wind. The wind starts as a rumor and then becomes a whisper of something you wanted to remember. The trees are small as the earth is shallow and the elements are harsh. Martin, fisher, mink and other vicious rodents haunt the boggy clearings, and bear wander through here with indifference. I’m told the deer have returned, though I’ve seen exactly one in five years. There wasn’t a single bird on a tree limb nor in the sky.

The colors were all wrong for this place at this time of year.

The second week of November should be the beginning of the month-long gray season in the Adirondacks, where the sky, the ground, the forests, the woodsmoke, and the moods all blend together in a suicidal miasma that would delight Ingmar Bergman. There was snow on the ground here just the day before. But now the sky was blue (mostly) and diluted the pond where it leached in the water. The marsh weeds and the undergrowth were complimentary bands of dark green and brown. Though I had crossed a dozen little creeks and forded a few streams, there was no aroma to the water and the air had that clean smell that comes from untainted oxygen at the source. I felt as it the season had halted to give me one more shot at getting in here, before the road became impassable.

Sometimes, I make the mistake of thinking life is best viewed through two sets of eyes, and I had forgotten how savagely beautiful this place is on it’s own.

The sound of the dirt bike began as a gnat-like buzzing in the air. It was so quiet here that I heard the engine a full ten minutes before the bike skirted into view. Chris brought the Honda to a halt and dismounted with the elegance of a rodeo clown. It is missing the kickstand, so he leaned it against a tree.

“I was in a place similar to this one,” he explained, “when I stopped and tried to put the sidestand down. There was a loud ‘twang’ and it flew off into a beaver pond. Just like that.”

I showed my sympathy for the lost 35-year-old sidestand by looking appropriately appalled. “So,” I asked, “there is a beaver lodge someplace around here leaning on a Honda sidestand?”

“You are such a total prick,” Chris observed.

I was sitting on the tailgate, wishing I’d thought to stash a thermos of coffee in the cab, and watched as Chris lit a cigarette. That would have put me off if anyone else had done it, but there isn’t much he, Cantwell, nor Ihor could do that would raise my hackles. I watched as the cigarette smoke spiraled into the scenery. Neither one of us spoke for the next twenty minutes. There was nothing to say.

“Is it supposed to rain or snow tonight,” I finally said.

“Maybe.”

“I saw a flat spot behind the trees back there. I was thinking of going back for my sleeping bag, stove, and light. I thought it might be cool to ease the truck in there, and spend the night out in the open, on the load bed.”

Anyone else would have asked, “Why the load bed?” Chris knew the answer: because it was dry.

“Nothing’s flat and clear up here. You could sink in up to the axels. And if that happens, snowmobilers could be pissing off the tailgate of this truck through April.”

“It was just a thought,” I added.

“Here’s another,” Chris ventured. “Let’s go to a country bar and get half pissed.”

“I’ll follow you.”

The tavern was a cheery spot of North Country hospitality overlooking a valley ringed by sawtooth mountains. Everybody knew Chris, and they pretended they were glad to see me too. The very first drink I ever shared with Chris, back in 1984, was a Negroni. This is equal parts of gin, Compari , and sweet Vermouth. Now seated at this bar, 27 years later, I opted to order another — and to stick him with the tab. In fact, I had four of them, and stuck him like I was the picador at a bullfight.

Three hours later, Ihor’s cabin glowed like something out of a Thomas Kinkade painting.

“Have a good day out in the woods?” asked Ihor, playing a flashlight over the mud-covered running boards on the truck.

“We did everything but donate an organ.”

“Next time,” said Ihor, with a laugh. We returned to New Jersey the next morning.

The next riding episode of Twisted Roads will appear on Friday, November 25th, 2011, delayed by the Thanksgiving Holiday in the United States. It is an endearing story about my first foray into Cape May Café Society, and why the first really pretty woman I had the temerity to talk to felt compelled to spit in my coffee. Two interim pieces will appear on this site between now and then.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

The Sexual Allure Of The Motorcycle: One Up And One Down...

2011-11-18T13:30:00.014-05:00

John F. Kennedy Boulevard is the primary artery running through five of the nine communities that make up Hudson County, New Jersey. It’s 14-mile-long length constitutes one of the densest traffic corridors in the Garden State — with one of the highest pedestrian fatality rates in the US. It is peppered with traffic lights (about one every city block), that occasionally adhere to some synchronistic behavior, with a few bizarre intersections (like the I-495 tunnel cut) thrown into the mix.

Riding a motorcycle along this stretch is the closet thing to experiencing life as a clay pigeon. And while it’s been some time since I leaned into the curves on JFK Boulevard, I doubt things have improved since the near tragic circumstances that occurred on this September night, in 1978.

In those days, I was riding in the company of “Cretin,” an urban desperado whose idea of the perfect romance was a one-night-stand... Whose concept of business was pricing “pot” or “blow” for value... And whose notion of a smokin’ hot sexual/social aid was a jet black Norton Commando. I have written about Cretin before and readers tuning into “Twisted Roads” for the first time can learn more about this representative of Jersey City Café society by clicking here and here.

“Cretin” was one of the toughest guys I ever knew. He hung around with some of the toughest guys I ever met, in the toughest saloons where some of the most outrageously beautiful women I ever saw, routinely opened their shirts for bikers who bit the heads off scorpions. I was like Toulouse Lautrec in a Parisian whorehouse for tall men. I had no business revolving in these social circles, but “Cretin” made it my business. “Cretin” told these guys that I was cool... That I was a writer... And that while I would generally see everything, I’d be damned disinclined to talk about it with strangers. Consequently, I walked through this valley of death and only got my ass kicked once. (This was by a semi-retired pole dancer who offered to open her shirt for me. I had had several Cuba Librés already that evening, and had given this kind soul an appraising glance, before truthfully answering, “No.” She took it hard. Cretin later said, “Next time, just say ‘yes’ like everybody else.”)

The clock was about to strike 1am and I was following Cretin at a ridiculously high speed down Kennedy Boulevard. It must have been the mating season for Norton Commando riders as “Cretin” was exhibiting the classic signs of rut. This included riding from gin mill to gin mill, playing “Werewolves of London” (by Warren Zevon) on the jukebox, and dancing on the bar until his jeans were down around his balls. And throughout this ritual, “Cretin” would be surveying the crowd for any woman, or one particular one, depending on his current degree of infatuation. This night, he was searching for a nicely-sculpted brunette, who’d wandered into “The Bucket of Guts” (not the bar’s real name) a few times prior to his passing out under the pool table. (New talent in these places either got claimed quickly or chased away fast.)

I was riding the tail-gun Charlie position for two reasons: a) there was never a dull moment with “Cretin;” and b) there was always a good shot that if “Cretin” was getting laid, then the one-night-stand-love-of-his-life had a friend and I’d get laid too. With “Cretin,” anything could happen. (I once won $500 on an illegal gambling game in some shithole he dragged me into.) His search had taken us to three bars already and seemed to be setting the theme for the evening. “Cretin’s” mating ritual would keep him occupied for a while, and then he’d call the next bar from a payphone (remember those?), on the odd shot one of his cronies had seen her.

Rumor had it she’d surfaced at a joint down in Greenville (the other side of Jersey City) and we were off like two couriers carrying human organs for transplant.

Our bikes couldn’t have come from more opposite ends of the spectrum. The Norton was the epitome of the Brit bike at its prime. It had a throaty growl, decent chrome, and paint as black as my second mother-in-law’s lungs. (She’d been a quality control inspector at Chernobyl.) I was astride a two-stroke 1975 Kawasaki H2 750, known as the “widow-maker.” This rig came in a lollipop purple, with shitty chrome, highlighted by highly questionable handling characteristics, complete with sound effects to match an outboard motor in a Port Authority toilet. It had damn little to recommend it, except it would blow past the Norton in any gear, leaving the Brit bike choking in a thin blue vapor.

“Cretin” never tired of explaining to me that my bike was the badge of a total douche. Worse... In his estimation, only a “disposable douche” would ride a Kawasaki H2. I always took this admonishment as Gospel, and then I’d reward his candor by smoking him with five miles of two-stroke-scented exhaust.

Kennedy Boulevard is home to 13 million traffic lights. My father once explained to me that they were synchronized to the 35 mile-per-hour limit, and that you could often cover 10 or 12 blocks by adhering to that speed (assuming that traffic was not laden with assholes). “Cretin proved to me that you could cover 20 blocks or more — while scorning death — at 60 mph, which is what my speedometer was reading when he crashed.

The “Boulevard” is 4 lanes wide in theory, but there is almost always someone making a left turn at every other intersection, which stacks up traffic on the right. We’d just entered a section where one set of synchronized lights bordered on another, and “Cretin” split between the right lane of standing traffic and a row of parked cars — to get ahead of everyone momentarily stunned by the signals turning bright green. It was at this point that Cecilia “Cookie” Siciliano, having explained to her boyfriend for the 5th time that night why he was not going to get a blow job in the car, opened her door and started to step out.

For a split second, “Cretin’s” entire world was an open car door — and a hot set of legs — that reduced his forward path to a gap about 18 inches wide.

“Cretin” screamed louder than the standard motorcycle horn of the period. It was forever known as the night that the word “Fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck!.......” reverberated through the asphalt and dog shit canyons of Jersey City. Cecilia squealed, and fell back into the car, pulling the door shut behind her.

“Cretin” simply locked up everything and slammed through the gears. But the die was cast. The Norton began a tight fishtail as he fought to keep it in a straight line. It should be noted here that Kennedy Boulevard has been paved and repaved as an experiment in bad county economics any number of times, resulting in thousands of places where the asphalt is uneven, lumpy, or broken. “Cretin” had picked one of these spots to effect the most “emphatic” stop of his misguided life. For once, the odds were really against him. The back tire jumped around like it was possessed and the Norton low-sided in the intersection.

“Cretin” slid on his ass about 50 feet, before rolling over a number of times, coming to rest against the back tire of a parked car. His non-regulation, “Steve Canyon”-style US Air Force helmet took the shock and remained intact. And because he was “Cretin,” he was up and walking around, though holding his right elbow and manifesting the signs of road-rash where his jeans blew out at the ass. The flawless Norton was a mess.

The first cops to arrive were Jersey City’s finest, who knew “Cretin” by his first name. They called the meat wagon. The second squad car on the scene brought the Hudson County Cops, as the “Boulevard” was technically a county road. “Cretin” was loaded onto a gurney, and taken to the nearest hospital (of which there were three in Jersey City back then — Christ Hospital, Saint Francis Hospital, and the Jersey City Medical Center).

“Stay with my bike,” were the words he yelled at me as the ambulance doors were closed.

The two Jersey City cops had muscled the Norton onto the sidewalk, where it rested up against a tree.

“Nobody’ll bother ‘Cretin’s’ bike,” said one of them.

I fired up the Kawasaki and trailed the ambulance to the emergency room. Technically speaking, you had to be a blood relative to get beyond registration counter, but city emergency rooms tend to be busy places at 1am on Friday nights, as drunks, thugs, and general miscreants all tend to find their beer testicles at this magic hour. The nurse out front was filling out forms and barely looked up as she asked, “What’s your relationship to the patient?”

“He’s my sister,” I replied.

She waved me through without a glance.

“Cretin’s” shiny side really came through in a pinch, like when he was stretched out on a bed in the emergency room. I expected the name bracelet on his wrist to list him as “Fuck F. Fuckerson,” as that was the only thing he seemed to mutter. He wasn’t worried that he didn’t have a valid motorcycle rider’s license. (I didn’t have one either.) He wasn’t worried that he’d been rocketing 25 miles over the speed limit on Kennedy Boulevard. (Everybody did that.) And he wasn’t worried about the wrecked Norton. (He’d get it fixed by some by some chop shop artist in two weeks.)

“Cretin” was genuinely disturbed about not hooking up with the woman of his desire.

“I’m telling ya’... I’m gonna get one shot at this... And I probably blew it already,” was what he said to me as they wheeled him up to x-ray. “I’m never gonna find her.”

“Is he really your sister?” asked the registration nurse.

“Our mother had a strange sense of child-rearing. I’m here in case he needs blood, an organ, or anything else.”

“Like a joint or a personality?” She was a brunette, about 5’6” tall, and nicely sculpted in hospital scrubs. She was the woman “Cretin” had been pursuing all night.

And now that I was face-to-face with her, I was going to pursue her too. The gentle reader may be inclined to raise an eyebrow at this sudden turn of events. Here we have our narrator turning absolutely lupine (which means wolf-like) before the carcass of his closest friend has grown cold. (There is no cool-sounding word that means cockroach-like, otherwise I’d have used it.) But that’s how it was in Jersey City, back in the mid-seventies, when some guys rode Harley’s, and others rode Nortons, and disposable douches rode purple Kawasaki H2’s.

Her name was Karen, and she was a sister of a guy who used to hang out in one of “Cretin’s” preferred bars. Her brother had gone out west (in a hurry) and she turned up a few times in the gin mill to try and collect a small debt, and a set of keys, owed him by a former business associate. She mentioned that she’d seen “Cretin” a couple of times (once on the floor under the pool table), but that she’d seen me holding court as well.

“You seem very out of place in that bar,” Karen observed.

“Like Toulose Lautrek in a Parisian whorehouse for tall men?”

“Something like that,” she said with a smile. “Most guys in the ‘Bucket of Guts’ haven’t been to a Parisian whorehouse.”

Her shift ended three hours later, and she rode to breakfast on the pillion of my Kawasaki. It was the beginning of a romance that lasted six months. “Cretin’s” x-rays revealed another area of concern, and he was held for several days of observation. I dropped in 24-hours after the wreck to cheer him up.

“You worthless bag of shit,” was how he greeted me as I walked in. “Jackie Connolly saw you and my brunette down at the diner before the broken glass and plastic from the crash had been swept from the pavement.”

I said nothing but attempted to hide behind a look of mock surprise.

“She’s a nurse here,” he continued. “You almost had to ask her out over my bloodied corpse.”

I shrugged in a feeble attempt to avoid a smile.

“What happened to my wallet and keys and stuff after I got here?” Cretin asked.

“I took ‘em so they wouldn’t disappear,” I said, pulling them out of my jacket pocket.

“Cretin” grabbed the wallet and flipped it open. “There was $50 in here?”

“I know. Karen wanted steak and eggs for breakfast, and then we went around the corner for bloody Marys.”

“So I had to pay for your first date with my girl too?”

“Something like that,” I said, busting out laughing.

Though “Cretin” was in a private room, our conversation was broken by the sound of a toilet flushing. Several moments later, the bathroom door swung open and out stepped a real honey, in a short skirt, with the kind of eyes that could get men like me to do just about anything.

“This is Cecilia Siciliano,” said ‘Cretin.’ “We met when she opened the car door last night.”

Cecilia felt awful about the wreck, and got the cops to run her over to the hospital so she could see how the “poor biker” was doing. She actually waited until “Cretin” had come out of x-ray, which was more than I had done. She had then thought “Cretin” was “cute,” and hung around to hold his hand and stuff..

“Cecilia, this is ‘Reep.’ He is the worst kind of douche you will ever come across.”

“The disposable kind?” she asked.

“Yup,” said “Cretin,” with the laugh that was his trademark. “Don’t let him smile at you, and whatever you do, don’t talk to him.”

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

The Holiday of the Dead and The Undead

2011-11-01T14:24:00.001-04:00

The weather on Halloween can be tricky. Sometimes damp and blustery and other years as crisp as a Macintosh apple, I find the best combination is a sunny day for the early trick or treaters, with a rising wind at night, to make the moon a ghostly galleon on storm-tossed skies (the perfect backdrop for zombies, witches, and ghosts going door to door). Yet on this Halloween day, the temperature would peak in the high 50’s (F) with conditions perfect to release the beast within my sinister 1995 BMW K75. Wingman Dick Bregstein, astride a pristine 2002 BMW R1150R (with the iconic whale oil-cooled boxer engine), followed me through a series of picturesque loops and Amish-infested back roads in and around Lancaster, Pa, the epicenter of the straw hat and horse-drawn buggy conspiracy.

Our early morning run had taken us through fields picked clean by the harvest, through little towns where buggies were tied up at the local hardware store, and through some forested spots, where the deer peered out from cover with the apprehensive look of rats on stilts. At one point, we paralleled the steam train out of Strasburg, which matched the death whine of my K75 (and the hell-spawned sewing machine sound of Dick’s “R” bike) with the angry chuffing of spent steam and coal soot from the stack. Yet the time had come for the solace of coffee, and eggs (sunny-side up) on slabs of toast carved from bread that had been baked fresh that morning, and we headed off for a diner on US-30, before that route is corrupted by rank Amish huckstering in the tourist void of “Paradise.”

That last line sounds good, but there are damn few decent diners in Pennsylvania. As I have written before, New Jersey is the diner capital of the world, with the greatest number of stainless-steel beaneries, staffed by armies of buxom blonds with great asses, serving the fastest and best coffee in the world. There are maybe two “very good diners” in the 2000-square miles in and around Philly... But “very good” doesn’t quite cut it by New Jersey standards. There were three diners within our easy range on this Halloween day, and one was in the rare “excellent” category, but Dick and I were not in a mood to backtrack, nor to wait in line until a couple of seats popped up at the counter of “Jennies.”

So we headed off to the least objectionable of the other two.

Dick and I pulled up like two World War I aces fresh from a Jagstaffel sortee and dropped our kickstands with unintended precision. It was after 10:30am and this place was doing a thriving business in mothers and children headed off to various Halloween functions. Bregstein removed his helmet to reveal a smirk that translated to, “Swell, breakfast with screaming, squirming pint-sized versions of Spiderman, Sponge Bob Square Pants, and Bart Simpson.”

But I saw something else. Standing in the diner’s doorway was a kid about five years old, dressed like a biker. Not exactly a BMW rider in full ATTGATT (All The Gear, All The Time), but a young, aspiring Harley jockey in a little leather jacket with studs and chains, topped by a skull and crossbones “do” rag. And behind him was “Mom,” a cougar if I ever saw one, dressed like Pippi Longstocking. But Pippi Longstocking never looked this hot.

The kid was staring at my K75 like it was the Holy Grail. (It is.)

“He just loves motorcycles,” said his mom, impaling me with the kind of smile that Nordic goddesses traditionally used to harpoon elephant walrus.

“You like motorcycles,” I said to the boy.

He just nodded and smiled.

“C’mere,” I said.

He looked at his mom. who nodded, and before running over.

I picked him up and sat him on the bow of the Russell Day-Long Saddle.

“What’s your name,” I asked.

“Carl,” answered his mom.

“Did you ever sit on a motorcycle before, Carl?”

Carl shook his head “No.”

“This motorcycle is sleeping,” I said. “Should we wake him up?”

I turned the key in the ignition, which fired up the little LED Christmas Tree that is the aftermarket voltmeter, and said “Press that button,” indicating the one with the little horn on it.

Carl pressed the button with the enthusiasm of a five-year-old who understands that another chance like this is not likely to come along anytime soon.

The Steble/Nautilus compact air horn sent shock waves rolling through the parking lot, Carl wore the satisfied look of an anarchist who had just blown up the Czar’s train.

Checking to see that the little number “0” was in the gear shift indicator window, I then told Carl to press the starter. No one was more surprised than this kid, unless it was his mother, when the K75 snarled into life with a very satisfying “thrum” (different than errant vibration) that swept through the bike. I could see this kid’s face clearly in one of the mirrors, which remain rock steady as the bike idled at 1200 rpm.

“Now put your hand here,” I said, steading the kid with my left arm, while placing his pudgy little digits on the throttle. Then we twisted old Fireballs by the tail. The tach shot up to 5 grand with a whine of pistons in perfect Teutonic agreement. The kid busted out laughing... And twisted the throttle again on his own.

I shut the engine down and pointed to the roundel on the gas tank. “Do you know your ABC’s?” I asked Carl? “Because the three most important letters in the alphabet are “B...M...W.”

I handed Carl back to his mom, flashing her a famous look of my own, and asked, “Have you ever been on a motorcycle?”

“Once or twice,” she said, with a different kind of smile.

“Aaaaaaahhh, well,” I replied.

She loaded the kid into a mini-van and drove off with a perfunctory wave.

“I was waiting for that kid to kick the bike in gear while it was revving up,” said Bregstein. “It would have rolled right over his mom and gone through the diner’s plate glass window.”

“You’re just pissed that the kid wouldn’t look at your ‘R’ bike.”

“I wouldn’t let a kid near my “R” bike,” hissed Bregstein.

The ride home was fast and furious, as many of these runs with Bregstein tend to conclude.

Dealing with the trick or treaters at the door used to be my responsibility in my last relationship, as the love of my life didn’t share my enthusiasm for the holiday of the dead and undead. My routine was simple. I rigged my computer stereo to blast scary wolf howls on demand, and taped a sign to the front door that read: “Do Not Ring Bell For Candy. Scream!”

This guaranteed that our normally sedate, boring cul de sac d’ordinaire would be punctuated by blood-curdling screams up until 10pm. But that was only half the fun. No one got a single chocolate bar without a “trick.” This meant that kids had to scream louder, in a kind of contest, or sing a song, or dance, to get access to the candy basket. I can assure the gentle reader that it used to be mayhem at my former residence — when I ran the Halloween festivities.

The first screams came in around early dusk, and the feeble nature of the staged terror told me these were little kids. I pulled open the door with a exaggerated stage presence, and startled a flock of ghosts, goblins, pumpkins, princesses, super-heroes, and the ever popular flesh-eating zombies. And in front, was one tough looking little Harley rider, with his little leather jacket, complete with chains and studs, and his skull and crossbones do-rag.

I raised my eyes and scanned the crowd of parents in the background, and found Pippi Longstocking — standing next to Mr. Longstocking, I presumed.

“These kids are so cute,” squealed my former significant other. “Let me take their picture.”

“Get one of the parents too,” I suggested. “Some of them dressed for the occasion as well.”

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

My Recent Crash and Burn... And Regaining Consciousness In New Jersey

2011-10-27T13:02:00.006-04:00

The recent crash and burn of the longest-running relationship of my life has brought me to a new address. Contrary to published reports that I was headed to Upstate New York, I am now living in a battered, empty appliance carton, under the ramp for Exit 6, on the New Jersey Turnpike. Altered jumping cables connect this computer with the battery on my 1995, BMW K75, whose red-hot exhaust is currently frying a couple of eggs. (Here’s a tip: crack the eggs in a discarded bean can or something metal before applying them to the heat of muffler. Attempting to fry eggs on the bare muffler will not yield the expected results, especially if the unit is equipped with a heat shield. Be advised the muffler has one heat setting at idle: 1200º.)

The truth is that I am composing this blog from the sun porch of a restored 1920's cottage, less than 5 minutes from the beach at Cape May, New Jersey’s last great seaside resort. The house is furnished with period pieces in the impeccable taste of Helen C., it’s owner, a friend of mine for over 33 years. Helen is the cherished significant other of Ihor S., who occasionally comments on this blog. (The only thing that prevents Helen from commenting on this blog is that she wouldn’t read it under threat of the Inquisition.) The house reflects Ihor’s mastery of woodworking and Helen’s flare for a decor that is both soothing and dramatic. The corner of the sun porch where my desk has been relocated is shaded by Norwegian spruce trees, so it is both bright and secluded — just like my soul.

Before she tossed me the keys, Helen (who is a statuesque redhead with penetrating green eyes) said to me, “Jack, no one is going to bother you here. Write two of the best books to ever make the world laugh from this house. But I want you to know that if any of the characters in your stories are statuesque redheads with penetrating green eyes, I’ll kill you... With my bare hands.”

Ihor was standing behind her at this moment, and silently drew his forefinger across his throat in mutual emphasis. While Helen secretly admires me, she regards my personality as something between the wheat blight and athlete’s foot.

Helen turned to go, then paused and asked the fateful question: “You’re not going to traipse topless, tattooed biker dollies through here, are you?”

“When would I have the time for that?” I replied, glancing up at the clock, as I began to sketch out this blog.

While Upstate New York is savagely beautiful, working from South Jersey offers a greater number of short-term logistical advantages for existing and new business contacts. I was born and raised in New Jersey, and I never thought I’d be returning. Well, “never” is seldom the last word. And that goes for a lot of things. Word of my changing circumstances also filtered into “FaceBook,” which I regard as the “devil’s media.” I began to receive a significant number of encouraging letters from folks all over — many of whom I hadn’t heard from in years.

One was from a woman who stole my soul when I was 17-years-old. She is also one of a handful of women who rode pillion on my 1975 Kawasaki H2, and lived to tell about it. I always thought it would be cool to hear from one of those women.

“Dear Man of Steel,” she wrote:

“A casual FaceBook search caught your name in the short net. A number of links led me to ‘Twisted Roads,’ where I was surprised to discover you are still riding a motorcycle, and not so surprised to read you are still peddling an elegant line of bullshit. It appears that you and Peter Pan have found a way to avoid growing up.

“It seems another woman in your life has recently yanked your ejection handle. While you’re at the age where wounds like these take a long time to heal, and heal badly, I suspect you will land on your feet. If not, I’m confident you’ll find a way to the nearest paved road, and the shortest distance to a sympathetic barmaid. (Only this time, the barmaid will be 52 and not 27.)

“I have been reading a lot of nonsense on your blog about this “battered baby seal look.” I remember that look before it had a name. I even found a number of pictures of you, in old scrapbooks, where you are sporting that look as “casual wear.” Either that, or you were just firing into the crowd. It is hard to think of you as an adult, in your 50’s, shamelessly striking killer facial poses, alleged to give you power over women. When I first read of the ‘battered baby seal look,’ I busted out laughing, as the only image in my mind was the totally malicious expression on the face of Malcolm McDowell in ‘A Clockwork Orange.’ I have no difficulty imagining you tossing that look around.

Above) This is how "Maizy" envisions my "battered baby seal look," as demonstrated by Malcolm
McDowell, in the movie classic, "A Clockwork Orange." Photo from the internet.

“I remember riding on the back of your Kawasaki in 1975.

“We started out on a summer night, just outside of Journal Square. You were leaning against the bike, with long hair not quite to your shoulders. There was no ‘battered baby seal look’ that night. You had an easy smile and looked like you were kicking life.

“I had never been on a bike before. You told me I could lean against the seat rest, but that I should hang onto you if you tapped my leg. We hadn’t gone 30 feet when you tapped it and started slicing through traffic. You took us to China Town, in Manhattan, where I taught you how to use chopsticks. Art Garfunkel, of Simon and Garfunkel was sitting at the next table. I told you not to stare at him. So you stared at me instead.

“Then you wrapped your napkin around your fist, and stuck both chopstricks behind your thumb, adding legs to what was in effect a talking hand puppet. You told me this was Kabuki’s finest hour, and that your hand was about to sing ‘The Sounds Of Silence,’ but with muddled “r’s” to suit the location.

“I was mortified at the time, but the folks in the restaurant seemed to know you well, as you’d given similar performances there before.

“Then you took me up to the George Washington Bridge, cutting through Friday night traffic in Nw York City. It was dark by then, and we left the bike at the beginning of a bridge walkway in Fort Lee. We walked out to the balcony on the New Jersey tower, facing lower Manhattan. The Hudson River was mirror of diamonds, reflecting millions of lights from New York City. The view was absolutely beautiful.

“That’s when you told me about how you’d climbed into the bridgework as a kid, eight years earlier, to write your name on a girder, and that it was still there the last time you checked.

“I laughed.

“You sprang onto the balcony’s rail and pulled yourself into the girders, balancing on a thin bar, 50-stories above the Hudson River.

“I found it,” I heard you say. And then you were there a minute or two, adding something to it.

“You climbed back to the balcony, and wiped the dry bridge grime on your jeans.

“What did you write tonight,” I asked, amazed at what had just transpired.

“Your name,” you replied. But I knew there was more to it.

“I felt like I was Becky Thatcher out with Tom Sawyer. But Tom Sawyer got kissed by Becky Thatcher. And I think you would rather have jumped from the bridge than have tried to kiss me just then. And that had incredible appeal too. Playing hard to get never works. Being hard to get works well.

“The rest of that night was a mad motorcycle run along the cliffs of the Palisades Interstate Parkway. You showed me something of yourself that not many ever got to see. I’d have ridden with you anywhere.

“I regret the motorcycle was incidental to the evening. Isn’t that the way it’s supposed to work though?”

Love,
Maizy

Not all of my fan mail is peculiar.

My memory of that night is a little different, however. I’d met “Maizy” four years earlier.

My family committed me as an inmate to a Jesuit prep school when I graduated from the 8th grade (in a local parish Catholic School). Now well over a century old, Saint Peter’s College Preparatory in Jersey City always had the reputation of being a cross between Parris Island and Devil’s Island. The Jesuits would briefly tolerate stupidity, but undisciplined independence, without the background of a thorough education and an appreciation for the arts, was mercilessly crushed. Despite learning this the hard way, I came to love Saint Peter’s and friendships forged there have lasted forever. I do not have one friend from college (which was where I went to get laid). I have 15 or 20 high school friendships that endure to this day. Ihor S. is one of them.

Saint Peter’s was a prep school for boys. (That was the primary reason I didn’t get laid there.) We were supposed to be a cut above the Jersey City gutter (never far from my fate) and expected to associate with girls from the local “all girls” academies. There were three of these in Hudson County: Saint Aloysius, Saint Dominic’s, and Holy Family. Of these, my favorite was the place with the brown uniforms: St. Dom’s. Some of the prettiest girls in the world went here. Beside, Holy Family was in friggin’ Bayonne (NJ) and the girls at St. Al’s (where my sister went) had formed a union, and passed my picture around, labeling me a hopeless douche.

“Maizy” was one of the girls in the “brown” uniforms. She was one of the most erudite, well-read, artistic, sophisticated and fashionable women I have ever met. She was (and is, I suspect) breathtakingly pretty. She was always surrounded by the really cool assholes (rock band members, guys with hot cars, and intellectual artist types), and I could never get close. Then there was this party, and I held court. (There are times when “really cool” gets its ass kicked, and kicked good, by “really funny.”) I would have a handful of interesting dates with “Maizy”, but the Kawasaki gave me an edge just once in my life. (She didn’t know the H2 “Widow-Maker” was hated by real bikers.) This was the night I could take her out without taking Alka Seltzer for two days in advance.

Maizy may be surprised to read that I already knew how to use chopsticks... I just liked having her manipulate them in my hand. The owner of the restaurant, a guy named Wing Po Ping (who went by ‘Kevin’), said to me, “This woman numba 4 who teach you chopsticks. Ha-Ha.”

The Kawasaki ran like total shit that night.

I swear the fucking thing knew when I had a woman on the back. I revved it up at stop lights to keep the plugs from fouling. I kept tapping Maizy’s leg to make her lean into me so I could smell her perfume, or her hair. All I got was hot two-stroke oil fresh off the grill instead. Still the look in her eyes when I climbed into the girders on the George Washington Bridge was worth the threat of falling 50 stories. (I routinely fall that far for women.)

But I am not ready to tell Maizy what I wrote under her name on the bridge that night.

The gentle ‘Twisted Roads’ reader is invited to guess, however.

Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

Would A Beautiful European Woman Do Something Peculiar For A Rider On The First Date?

2011-10-19T18:00:00.007-04:00

I found myself in Ireland a number of years ago, headed for the single pub on the outskirts of a small town. Most people think of rural Ireland as a land of compact, peat-smoked, white-washed stone buildings with thatched roofs. And in truth, you can find more than a few of these around; yet their price — in excess of $750,000.00 (USD) — leaves the inquiring tourist with sticker shock. This pub was a modest wooden beam and stone building, the foundations of which probably predated the first trans-Atlantic cruise of Christopher Columbus. It was on the edge of a field, where the meadow (filled with cows) was bordered by something of a tree-line (also a rarity in Ireland).

I remember thinking the building had a distinct “New England-ish” look about it, for the exception of the sign, which hung above the door, and which may have swung in the early autumn breeze, had there been one. The sign had a distinctly Irish look about about it, suggestive of hospitality, benign neglect, and good stuff to drink. But what really caught my eye was a line of late model Triumph motorcycles parked outside, with a couple of vintage beauties dating back to the ‘70s. “Aaaahhh,” I thought to myself, “The local boys are riding the British stuff.” As a 1995 BMW K75 rider, which has virtually nothing in common with any British bike, I thought I’d join the two-wheeled brotherhood at the bar...

While there is nothing as cozy as an Irish pub, these neighborhood gin mills are like saloons the world over. They’ll welcome you at the bar, but hesitate to roll out the red carpet until they determine whether you’re a sport or a douche. And believe me, it can be a fine distinction in some of these places. I decided to delay the verdict by keeping my mouth shut as long as possible.

The barmaid was about 30-years-old and one of the most beautiful women I have ever seen. She had shoulder-length red hair, a peaches and cream complexion, full lips, and a svelte body cleverly detailed by a charcoal gray sweater that disappeared into jeans just made for her perfect ass. Though she had no rings on her hand, I found it hard to believe this incredible beauty wasn’t the wearing the favor of some local stud.

The bar was “L” shaped and I was on the short edge of the mahogany counter, closest to smoldering peat in a smokey fireplace. Seven guys, all wearing leather or ballistic riding pants, coagulated on the long arm, and politely halted their conversation to look at me like I was about to steal something. I looked back with a slight smile that any other K75 rider would have instantly interpreted as “Kiss my ass.”

“What can I get for you?” asked the barmaid, through the tops of Emerald green eyes that could have acquired my soul for half price.

“A double shot of Jameson’s,” I said, with a Jersey City accent that has caused hundreds of beautiful women to wince, the moment I speak.

“You’re not from around here,” she said, pouring the amber fluid into a rocks glass, sans the ice.

“I was born and raised in the next village,” I said, looking her right in the eye, fighting to keep a straight face.

“In Drom?”

“The very same.”

“You were born and raised in Drom, County Tipperary?

“Yup.”

“There aren’t 99 people in Drom and I think I know all of them.”

“Well, there’s a hundred,” I said, extending my hand. “My name is Jack.”

“And how is it I’ve never seen you before, Jack?” asked the prettiest barmaid I have ever seen in my life, whose name was Chavonne.

“My mother raised me in a barrel in the attic.”

“And why would she do that?”

“To keep the women off me,” I replied.

“Well I bet she was successful,” chimed in one of the riders, to laughter of his friends.

I simply looked at him, raised my glass, and smiled the genuine Riepe article.

“My mother taught many useful things,” I said, sipping my whiskey.

“And what would they be,” said the rider in the black leather pants.

“Well for one thing, she taught me how to thoroughly intrigue a pretty red-headed woman to the exclusion of everyone else in a bar.”

Now it was the barmaid who laughed, as she topped off my glass.

It was no secret I was an American... And Chavonne plied me with a hundred questions. Where did I live? What was I doing in Ireland? Where was I staying? Who did I know locally? What was I writing? Plus dozens more.

I didn’t care. I love talking with pretty women. But then it was my turn... And I said:

“Chavonne, you now know everything there is to know about me. And I know nothing about you. May I ask you four questions?”

“Four questions?” she asked back.

“Just four.”

“Ask away,” she said.

“What’s your favorite color?”

The simplicity of this question threw her for a bit, and she hesitated in telling me, “Blue.” (I think she suspected some sort of trick.)

“What’s your favorite book?’

She blinked on this one... But said, “Ulysses, by James Joyce.”

“What’s your favorite perfume?”

“L’Aire du Temps...”

“By Nina Ricci,” I added.

“No Irish man has ever asked me questions like this,” said Chavonne.

“There’s only one more,” I said. “But... It’s personel.”

“Personel, as in ‘sexual’,” she asked.

I shrugged.

“Go ahead,” she dared.

I took a long sip of my drink, nearly draining the glass. Then I said:

“If you were out with a biker for the first time, and you really liked him, and he asked you to do something peculiar, would you do it?”

It got so quiet in that damn bar, you could hear the grass growing outside. Half of the other riders were staring at me in amazement; the other half were staring at her, mute with anticipation.

I watched as a hint of color tinted her cheeks, and our eyes locked on each other.

“If he asked me to do something peculiar,” she repeated. “How peculiar?”

I took another sip of the whiskey, and did drain the glass, before asking:

“Well, if you were out with a biker for the first time, and you really liked him, and he asked you to tune-up his 1995, BMW K75, would you do it?”

The silence lasted another 5 seconds before the riders at the bar exploded in laughter from their souls.

“I can’t tune up a motorcycle,” said Chavonne, with the most incredible smile I have seen on two continents.

“Ooooooooooh,” I exclaimed, clutching my heart. Then I held up my thumb and forefinger about an inch apart and said, “I was this close to meeting the perfect woman." Then to the bar:"What did you people think I was talking about?”

Seven guys bought me drinks that afternoon. And Chavonne bought me two. I have had very good times in France... I have riotous good times in Germany... I have had extraordinary times in Great Britain... But I do recommend Ireland for beautiful women and legendary good times. It is the nation that invented laughter.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

Motorcycle “Cool” And Naked Women...

2011-10-10T12:17:00.008-04:00

The element of “motorcycle cool” is something that most riders (and non-riders) take for granted. It is assumed that a motorcycle will impart to the average individual some super-human dimension of coolness that can easily be parlayed into street “cred” (credibility), or more specifically, sexual desirability. This assumption was foremost in my mind when I purchased my first bike, a 1975 Kawasaki H2. While it cannot be denied that the average biker enjoys highly aggressive sexual activity with a frequency that would tire a male mink on a fur breeding farm, it can be argued that the motorcycle may only be channeling existing character traits.

Yet at age 19, at the alleged peak of my potential as a casual and willing sperm donor, I was fairly convinced that I didn’t have any existing character traits that identified me as preferred breeding stock. The painful truth was that most women I met back then seemed to instantly know that they were never going to have sex with me — throughout their entire lives. Reversing these conclusions became a painful preoccupation with me.

A careful study of other men, who routinely got their horn honked by blonde bar hotties, revealed they:
a) wore animal hides;
b) had a body mass that was 120% muscle
c) had 98% of that body mass covered by tattoos
d) largely communicated by grunting and eye contact
e) bought their footwear in a shop that once supplied Storm Troopers
f) rode motorcycles

After a brief consultation with an unscrupulous Japanese motorcycle dealer (who may have been the King of the Gypsies), I came away secure in the knowledge that if you took care of the last point, all of the others would come gradually. So I put my faith in Japanese cutting-edge technology of the time and bought a green two-wheeled powerhouse with a two-stroke engine modeled after a three-cylinder nuclear reactor. To put a real curse on things, I also bought two candy-apple green metallic helmets too.

Now I did this in an era when the preferred color of a motorcycle was “black;” when the preferred color of a motorcycle helmet was “black;” and when the preferred sound of a motorcycle was distant thunder (but if sound had a color, it would have been black too). I left the dealer’s like a cheap Las Vegas act called “The Flying Unfuckable Douche.” Some men can go through life secure in the knowledge that they are setting trends. I just made impulsively questionable decisions.

But a motorcycle is a motorcycle... And nearly all can function as talismans. Despite its stupid color, its wretched sound, and marginal handling (read “dangerous”), the Kawasaki was fast, somewhat loud, and to the point — it always started. This was not something riders of more popular two-wheeled sex generators could always say. In fact, many were the occasions when their pillion candy sat at curbside, smoking a Marlboro, while these clowns jumped up and down on kick starters that barely produced a series of dull thuds.

Every man has something to help guarantee the propagation of the species. Some guys have muscles... Other guys have great tans... I have the “Battered Baby Seal” look, and a line of bullshit like the extended runway at Newark Airport. My motorcycle, the Kawasaki, gave me enough of a sense of identity to sit at some dangerous thug bars in Jersey City, and peddle my shit with confidence.

Since I couldn’t really grunt with authority... And since my riding leathers were nothing more than a WWII army fatigue jacket... And since my footwear came from the boot department at Sears... And since I drank Irish whiskey straight (the drinking age in New Jersey then was 18)... And since I smoked a cigar (really odd for a kid my age)... I emerged as that rare individual — the “original.” And as an “original,” I told stories. And when “Angie” turned up at the bar one night, I watched her from the corner of my eye, and told a story or two an octave or so higher, and got everyone around me laughing. And I did this keeping a straight face, without cracking a smile myself, carefully watching her reaction.

I did this three of four times over a two week interval, until the evening came when she was suddenly standing next to me. I had just peeled off a pretty good story about something that had happened to my pal “Cretin” (a personality well-known to the inmates of this saloon and to my dedicated readers), when she looked me right in the eye and asked, “Want to buy me a drink?”

“Is this a trick question?” I asked in reply, gesturing to Vinnie the bartender to refill her glass.

“You’re really a funny guy,” she said. “Can you say something funny now?”

Naturally, I couldn’t.

So I tried grunting with purpose and gave her a point blank blast of the “Battered Baby Seal” look for good measure. For those just tuning in to Twisted Roads for the first time, I have discovered that by manipulating my smile to the side a bit, while maneuvering my eyes downward, I can assume the facial properties of a battered baby seal. These are harp seal pups that are mercilessly beaten into mittens, hats, and fur collars for coats by highly-sophisticated Canadians, who never miss an opportunity to criticize their gun-toting neighbors to the south. The sympathy element this gets from women is unbelievable.

Angie touched my cheek and squealed with delight. “I love it when you make that face,” she said. “You’ve been making it at me all week.”

I clutched my helmet under my arm and played my trump card. Smiling, I told her it had been a real pleasure but that I had to go... Something about an early fall ride I did every year... Up the Palisades Interstate Parkway in the dark... To the Bear Mountain Inn, where I’d spend the weekend. I explained how I would ride around the upper Hudson Valley, over the next day or so, taking in the last warm weekend of the season.

“You’re leaving now?” she asked.

“Yup...”

“Can I come?” she asked.

I said nothing for a full four or five seconds, but looked into her eyes, commanding every muscle in my face and groin to remain frozen.

“Okay,” I said.

Angie slipped into that other stupid, metallic-green helmet I had, and climbed on the back of the H2. Our first stop was her place. Her neighborhood was in one of Jersey City’s seedier parts of the “Heights,” where some of the streets still ended in cobblestones and abandoned factories. She was in and out in 5 minutes, without having gained anything in apparent baggage. (Angie’d grabbed a couple of changes of panties and her toothbrush; all of which were jammed into her purse.)

I kicked the Kawasaki into a growl and we headed north.

The first 15 or 20 miles were the northern end of Hudson County and the eastern end of Bergen County, NJ. I skirted a half-dozen communities that were simply a continuation of city streets (the primary difference being the flat roofs of the blue-collar middle class gradually yielding to the peaked roofs of the more affluent Bergen County residents) by taking Kennedy Boulevard to US-1. The Palisades Interstate Parkway starts (or ends) at the George Washington Bridge, and runs along the cliff tops on the west side of the Hudson River. The road is recessed from the cliff tops so the spectacular views cannot be seen from the highway. This is just as well as the PIP was engineered and built in the ‘30s, when the average speed of a car was 45 miles per hour. The entrances and exits for this major artery are still about 25-feet long... But traffic routinely rockets around at 70 mph now. The fatalities would be staggering if motorists could be distracted by the view.

The Kawasaki ran as well as it ever did that night, with the speedo pegged around 75 mph. It was past 10 o’clock and the night air was cool for the denim jacket and jeans she was wearing. I could feel her tits on my back as she inched herself into me for warmth. I pulled over to get her a sweatshirt from the pack I had on my sissy bar, as soon as I could see a gravel-free spot on the shoulder. (The shoulder used to be grass on the Palisades Interstate Parkway and I’d be damned if I’d pull onto that in the dark.)

“I have to pee,” she said, skipping outside the headlamp’s cone of illumination. “Don’t look.”

For once, I didn’t. What was the point? I’d be seeing her sugar scoop up close in less than an hour.

The focal point of Bear Mountain State Park (in the town of the same name), the Bear Mountain Inn, was 65-miles to the north. This imposing log and fieldstone structure is six stories tall, and was built of native materials as a works project in the height of The Great Depression. (I mean the Great Depression of the 1930’s... Not the current one.) The place housed three mediocre restaurants, a really mediocre state park-administered hotel, and the coolest bar in the Hudson Valley. “The Cub Room” was centered around a stone fireplace that could accommodate logs 18 inches in diameter and six feet long. The andirons were cast iron cub bears four feet tall. Above the fireplace was a four-foot by eight-foot oil painting that depicted an old man with a beard waking up in a field... And in blending in with the borders of the artwork were scenes depicting the entire story of Rip Va Winkle, by Washington Irving.

It was a Saturday night, and only the locals were drinking in the Cub Room that night. We’d pulled in, checked in, and still made last call. Checking in had been a trip. I was nineteen, and assumed she was about the same. The desk clerk looked at me like I was stealing something... But in the end the guy flipped me the key with a fast look at my driver’s license.

We had a couple of snorts at the bar (18 was the age for drinking in New York that year too), then called it a night. The Bear Mountain Inn was alleged to have been renovated a few times, but the designer must have trained at the Turkish Penal system. The rooms were small, spartan, and fully reminiscent of the Depression. But they were clean and warm. In fact, the first thing I did was to turn up the thermostat. (This can assist in making a blanket superfluous.)

I tossed my gear on the floor, unlaced my boots, and stretched out on the bed. There is something about watching a woman take off her clothes for the first time that still utterly fascinates me. I was certainly mesmerized that night. She took off her earrings, washed her face, and brushed her teeth. She took off her blouse and undid her bra with a single hook in the front.

Her breasts were the size of grapefruit with dark brown nipples... And like all nineteen year old breasts (that I can remember) were perfect, especially as they were aimed at me. She stepped out of thong panties, revealing a dark swirl of pubic hair, and laid down alongside me, with her head on my shoulder.

She put her fingertips under the tops of my jeans and said, “Don’t I get a peek?”

Once again, I grunted. (I had no choice at this point in time as I had swallowed my own tongue.)

And so began one of the most incredible nights — and there would be two of them this weekend — that I ever had on a motorcycle. Yet nothing is ever really perfect. Ninety minutes later, I felt like a spent shell fired by distant artillery, when this naked beauty nuzzled my neck and said, “Say something funny.”

The god of Motorcycle Cool giveth... And the god of Motorcycle Cool taketh away.

Twisted Roads Readers — How would you like to see the final version of Jack Riepe's new motorcycle book? As a traditional paperback? Or as an e-book? Please take the poll on the upper right hand column of this blog page. The book, The Biker's Guide To Eternal Youth and Jackhammer Sex, will be out next year.

Jack Riepe's Farewell To Pennsylvania Ride...
Saturday, October 15th, 8am
The Frazer Diner
US-30 (Westbound) Frazer, PA
Just west of RT. 401 and US-30

• Plans for Jack Riepe's "Farewell To Pennsylvania" Ride are in the final stage. The 6-day advance weather forecast is slated to be "partly sunny" with temperatures an ideal 66º (F).
• The ride is slated to begin at the Frazer Diner, on US-30, in Frazer, Pa (Westbound), with breakfast at 8am. It's "Kickstands Up" at 9am, with a 60-mile ride through rural Pennsylvania, To Port Clinton, Pa, where a hot German, Oktoberfest, lunch will be served to all who participate.

• Ride your own ride, or stick with one or two other riders...

• The Oktoberfest Lunch — with door prizes — will be provided by Hermy's BMW and Triumph.
• Riepe is leaving Pennsylvania as part of a strategic retreat, following the equivalent of his third divorce. (The man is a tower of strength, or something.)

If you are planning to attend: Please drop us a line so we know to look or wait for you. Send an email to jack.riepe@gmail.com

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

“Toto” Introduces Butt-Powered Trike With Strong Implications For US Market

2011-10-03T03:33:00.012-04:00

Japan is a nation known for industrial innovation and bold design leadership, often creating the product first and then developing the market afterwards. Toto — the leading Japanese manufacturer of commodes — recently entered the moto industry with the development and release of a trike powered by biogas, that is collected from the rider via an onboard toilet. Billed as “Toilet Bike Neo,” the machine will soon depart on a month-long tour of Japan, to highlight the green initiatives of the Toto corporation.

The implications for the US moto market are staggering.

For example, competitive long-distance riders (like those who run against the clock and each other in Iron Butt events) would find a certain advantage in never having to stop for fuel, other than grabbing a quick burger and fries at the drive-in windows of popular fast-food restaurants. While details of the machine are sketchy at the moment, it does seem that the rider would have his, or her, ass hanging in the breeze (quite literally) at least once each day.

Then there is the question of “regular” versus “high test.”

Will riders who routinely fill up on Indian cuisine or Mexican food become more prolific sources of combustible gas, or gas of a more explosive nature, converting the simple machinery of this trike into a rocket-powered dyno sled? While biogas motors are not new, the collection and conversion processes of this trike appear to transcend innovative. And if morphed into a typical US conversion, with sound being a critical factor in the machine’s selling point, can we expect to hear, “Loud farts save lives” from the leather and chrome segment?

“Farkle” (expensive motorcycle accessories) is not only a big part of a rider’s self-expression, but represents billions of dollars in annual expenditures in the moto industry, which has stalled in the sales of super-bikes owing to a global economy that has found a toilet of its own. Yet Toto’s machine for the discerningly effluent comes equipped with LEDs that write messages in Japanese, as well as a sound system that plays music. (Toto currently manufactures deluxe commodes that provide stock quotes, tell stories, or otherwise chat with system users, during anal transactions. They are easily converted to transmit campaign debates as well, which some users find inspiring.)

Above) Toto's Neo Bike uses an on-board commode to generate biogas for the engine. Social engineers claim this adds a new dimension to "hanging your ass in the breeze." Photo from internet press release.

Yet the real impact for US motorists concerns other vehicles that might incorporate similar biogas applications. There is talk that municipal buses might have seats replaced by toilets, enabling commuters to save 15 or 20 minutes each day by incorporating a morning ritual into a process that is not only easy on the environment, but which could also lower weekly transportation costs. There might also be a advantage to seeing the asses of hot-looking commuters (both male and female), removing the suspense that can build up over the course of a ride to work. (This, of course, is a double-edged sword as the US populace has a growing reputation for huge, ugly, fat asses too.)

There would be no limit to the size of the machines that could be powered by similar applications. Airliners and cruise ships could become self-propelled. Secretive bathroom rituals would then become a source of social celebration, with many travelers competing in generating both sound effects and volume of content — especially in exchange for lower fares. Established stationary institutions could also become “fueling” stations. The US Capitol Building — the home of Congress — is one of the largest sources of shit in the country. Replacing the desks of Congressmen and Senators with commodes, wired to also recycle speeches and public positions, could provide endless free power for generations of Americans.

So none of us should be too quick to dismiss this trike as a typical Japanese prototype announcement.

Twisted Roads Exclusive:
• Jack Riepe's "Farewell To Pennsylvania Ride" will meet at the Frazer Diner (Westbound US-30, Frazer, Pa, about a quarter mile west of Rt. 4o1 and US-30) at 8am, for breakfast, on Saturday, October 15th, 2011.
• It's kickstands up at 9am, for an exhilerating ride through parts of Pennsylvania settled by Hessian deserters, to an authentic German Oktoberfest celebration at Hermy's BMW and Triumph, in Port Clinton, Pa.
• German Sausages and Bavarian Specialties For All Who Make The Ride!
• Door Prizes
• Ride is open to any Twisted Roads Reader • Any Marque
• While Jack Riepe is relocating, there will be no changes to his blog nor to his hardcopy monthly column.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

BAVARIA IN PENNSYLVANIA — OKTOBERFEST AT HERMY'S BMW AND TRIUMPH...

2011-09-30T09:56:00.009-04:00

The greatest holiday on the German Calendar — Oktoberfest — has found its way from Munich to Port Clinton, Pa. On Saturday, October 15, 2011, Herman Baver, of Hermy’s BMW and Triumph will symbolically slice into a knockwurst, officially welcoming this great German tradition to one of the oldest, and most respected, BMW and Triumph motorcycle dealerships in the state (since 1963).

“When one German sausage is sliced, they all go,” said Baver. “The team at Hermy’s BMW and Triumph is celebrating the arrival of crisp riding days, color in the trees, and kind of good company you can only find among your riding buddies. And the celebration will start with a hot German lunch right here.”

Above) Herman Baver will be slicing sausages and cutting prices during the Oktoberfest Celebration, At Hermy's BMW and Triumph, on October 15, 2011. Photo by Leslie Marsh

A broad selection of traditional German sausages and other Bavarian specialties will greet riders coming in to mark the change of season. Soft drinks will also be provided, although there are two fine public houses (where dinner can also be had at the end of the day) close at hand.

“Sausages won’t be the only thing being sliced,” said Baver. “We are cutting prices on hard-to-find fall riding gear and accessories that will often beat online sales, even without taking the shipping charges into consideration.” He added that there is no greater satisfaction than spending an afternoon in a bike shop, being able to personally inspect the gear you want, and then to ride home with it. A more complete listing of the sales item will be available here (and on Twisted Roads) early next week. “We intent to make this a great day for anyone riding in from New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland too.”

Above) Hermy's BMW and Triumph has been serving eastern Pennsylvania on Route 61, in Port Clinton, since 1963. Photo by Leslie Marsh.

Dozens of door prizes — ranging from the sublime to the usual — will be awarded throughout the day. More than a few surprises are planned for those who hang around towards the end of the event, with some on-the-spot price reductions good for 15- or 20-minute intervals.

Hermy’s Oktoberfest will commence on 9am, on October 15, 2011, and run through 4pm. “I can’t think of a better way to mark the beginning of the fall,” said Baver, “then by starting the day with a glorious fall ride under your belt, and then downing a few sausages before winning a prize.”

Above) The Hermy's line-up includes the new K1600, the S1000RR, the F800, and a full compliment of "R" bikes — all price to go. Photo by Leslie Marsh.

Guests of honor at this event will include some of the most sophisticated motorcycles and retro bikes on the planet, each at a price to entice.

Hermy’s BMW and Triumph is located at Route 61 (Southbound), Port Clinton, PA 19549-0065 (less than two miles north of the intersection of Rt. 61 and I-78, in Hamburg, Pa.) For more information about the Oktoberfest at Hermy’s BMW and Triumph, call 610-562--7303; or go to: www.hermys.com.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

Motorcycle Batteries and Nipple Connections...

2011-09-27T15:27:00.024-04:00

My self-imposed writer’s exile in a “rustic” cabin at Elk Neck State Park was in it’s fourth day, when the Saturday morning calm was shattered by the roar of BMW “R” bikes. (An opening sentence should be crafted to introduce intrigue and to set a story’s action, as well as to pique the reader’s interest. And some license may be taken by literary experts, such as myself. But anyone familiar with the “washing machine sounds” made by BMW “R” bikes has already had difficulty swallowing the word “roar.” I beg the reader’s pardon.)

Perhaps I should begin again.

My self-imposed writer’s exile in a “rustic” cabin at Elk Neck State Park was in it’s fourth day, when the Saturday morning calm was shattered by the fart-like growl of approaching German motorcycles. Few machines make a noise like they’re running on pumpernickel and limburger cheese, and had I been rustling a newspaper, or frying bacon, I never would have heard them.

“Hmmmmmmmm... That sounds like BMW ‘R’ bikes,” I thought.

The heavy morning mist divided to reveal three classic examples of BMW engineering, riding in a tight formation — according to rank. (Remember the German thing.) In the lead was one of the premier cardiologists and heart specialists of the Philadelphia area, Dr. Peter Frechie, mounted on a classic 1976 BMW R90 S. He was followed by Gerry Cavanaugh, a retired Nixon-era CIA operative, mounted on a fire-engine red 2004 BMW GS 1150. Bringing up the rear was Dick Bregstein, a retired historian dedicated to the preservation of Coney Island hot dogs, on a silver-gray 2000 BMW “R1150R.”

Above) Dick Bregstein, "just another day at work." Photo by Mike Cantwell.

They pulled up to the cabin, swung the bikes around in unison, and chased the spiders off the front of the historic hovel with a blast (such as it was) of “R” Bike exhaust. Then the leader, Frechie, barked the order, “Unmount!” They did so like leather and ballistic-clad chorus line dancers from hell. The cabin, built by Maryland’s Declaration of Independence signer Charles Carroll, and modernized four score and seven years afterward by Lincoln, failed to impress “The Cadre,” as they now refer to themselves.

Above) Not only are the cabins at Elk Neck State Park "Rustic," but the one I stayed in was a kind of petting zoo as well. Rare "Chesapeake Jumping Mice" (capable of leaping six feet at a shot) were breeding in the kitchen, while a huge spider named "Duane," would wake me by dragging my Harley Davidson chain wallet across the floor — still attached to my Kevlar riding pants. Photo by Pete Buchheit.

They refused to come in, and demanded that I come out immediately. Later, Peter Frechie would say the cabin was only suited for squaters and mice. (It was actually loaded with mice that I was training to type and take dictation for crumbs, the current wage of the moto writer.) Bregstein picked up a stick and began poking spider webs by the door, until he succeeded in aggravating a specimen that hissed and arched its back like a feral cat.

“What literature of significance have you written living in this pile of firewood and shingles?” queried Frechie, in a manner that may have intimidated lesser men.

I began to read from my laptop: “I’m having a problem getting this spark plug out of my Sportster,” said the tanned, blond co-ed in the tight halter top, biting her lower lip. “Do you have the tool for the job?” The BMW “K” bike rider answered her question by pointing to a huge, throbbing mass in the center of his jeans. “I have the perfect tool for any job,” he replied.

“You’ve been here four days and all you’ve written is moto-porn in which you have the staring role?” asked Frechie.

I nodded once in sullen defiance.

“We got here just in time,” said Cavanaugh.

“I want to hear the rest of the story,” said Bregstein. “And I hope the details are accurate. For example, is the tool metric or SAE? How could a “K” bike rider have a tool to fit a Harley Sportster?”

Cavanaugh smacked Bregstein in the back of the head, and “The Cadre” ordered me to join them for breakfast, seven miles away in the town of “North East,” Maryland. The boys mounted up again, and then the hand of God came down to smite the proud and the sinful.

Above) "Cadre" members Peter Frechie (left) and Gerry Cavanaugh demonstrate their group's new "salute." Photo by the author.

Frechie’s flawless “R90S,” which is lovingly maintained by the same folks who take care of the Mona Lisa, barked once like a gecko (lizard), and fizzled like a damp fuse, when he pressed the starter button. To a group of BMW riders, there is nothing like having one in their number get the raspberries when the starter is pressed, as it implies either stupidity or having a small dick. Cavanaugh and Bregstein exchanged a look of bemusement which spoke volumes.

The source of many such looks for others, Frechie simply grunted, rolled the bike a few feet, and hit the starter again. The bike hesitated and caught, as if the starter were its testicles and the doctor had taken them in hand and demanded it to cough.

The seven miles from Elk Neck State Park to the cute little town of North East, Maryland is a delightfully fast run through some forested spots, some fields, and some tiny communities with churches that would seem comforting to author H.P. Lovecraft. Frechie was behind me, and I thought his headlight looked as dim as the latest economic news out of Washington. I led “The Cadre” to a great little diner in the heart of town, where there is always ample parking for bikes, in the odd little corners where a car will not fit.

The 1976 “R90 S” is the iconic BMW motorcycle. Years ahead of its time, it came with a powerful boxer engine, full instrumentation (including a voltmeter), electric starter and amenities like a hand-operated air pump (with a full tool kit) under the seat. Frechie, whose other bike is an MV Augusta, does not treat this machine like it was a museum piece. He routinely rockets around between 85 and 90 miles per hour.

“This machine is in every respect a modern motorcycle,” said Frechie, “not withstanding it is 35 years old. It gives a much better and more comfortable ride than the Augusta, which is really geared for the track.”

Yet on this day, Frechie’s brow was furrowed.

“The voltmeter is reading 3 volts,” he said. “Do you think this bike could have a three-volt system?”

“A can of peaches has higher voltage than that,” said Cavanaugh. “Let’s deal with it after breakfast.”

The waitress, who’d been married to the same man for 22 years and who’s been trying to kill him for at least 15 of those, gave us a great window table, where we could see a dark cloud forming over Frechie’s bike.

“That can’t be good,” said Bregstein.

“I don’t believe in omens,” said Frechie.

At that moment, a low-flying crow dropped a lifeless, black kitten on the seat of the R90S.

We all had the breakfast special, which included a meat by-product, called “scrapple,” from neighboring Pennsylvania. Scrapple is a fried slab of pork snouts, ears, tails, and eye-lids, flavored with a mild sausage spice, bound together with less appetizing fillers, and served in a dog’s bowl. It is a rite of manhood to eat it, and then smack your lips (with an old fly swatter).

A man and a woman at the next table joined in our conversation. They looked like a sailing couple, wearing Docksiders, and caps with a maritime air about them. The old guy was deaf, and he appeared to be reading Frechie’s lips. Peter had just said, “I guess I am going to be late getting home.” And the “captain,” (as I called him) started to jump up and down in his seat, laughing. His wife leaned over and shouted, “He said ‘late,’ not ‘laid.’”

Twenty-five minutes later, the cadre bent over the exposed battery of the R90S.

My first thought was the obvious one, that the battery had crapped out. In response to my question as to the age of the battery, Frechie shrugged, and stated it was almost new. He had bought it the year NASA launched the Hubble Telescope.

Cavanaugh got the battery out, and noticed it had vacuum tubes in it, and was stamped, “Experimental: Edison Labs/Menlo Park, NJ.”

The boys tried jumping the R90S from the GS 1150. If any current model BMW has a fault, it’s that the bikes are built around the batteries and you need Gandalf’s staff to get to the terminals. But Gerry Cavanaugh’s GS is different. He knew he might be riding over gravel stretches as long as 60 feet, and installed auxiliary terminals, accessible without pulling off the body work, to accommodate contingencies such as these.

He made the connections to the GS and handed the cable ends to Frechie, not realizing the doctor has extremely limited mechanical experience, and thought they worked like a defibrillator. Frechie attached them to his nipples, held the battery with his fingers, and yelled, “Clear.”

Above) Thinking a "jump start" was similar to using a defibrilllator, Frechie hooked the cable grips up to his nipples... Photo by the author.

Gerry cranked the bike and Frechie learned something about the more effective interrogation means of South American police institutions. Another attempt, with the cables connected directly connected to the posts, indicated a new battery was in order.

Above) After yelling "Clear," Frechie understood the success of police interrogations in select areas of South America. Photo by the author's Droid Incredible.

“Where the hell are we going to find a battery that will fit a 35-year-old BMW in a place like this,” said Frechie.

North East, Maryland, at the head of Chesapeake Bay, has more than it’s fair share of wealthy boating enthusiasts. “The Cadre” found a marina catering to the maintenance of 1932 Chris Craft boats, one model of which requires a battery that perfectly matches the one in the R90S. Peter bought the boat, pulled the battery out of it, and gave the 23-foot, mahogany speedster to some kid on the street.

“Here, take this and get the fuck out of here,” he told the kid.

The R90S started right up, and “The Cadre” set off for home. Frechie would be an hour into the trip before noticing that the voltmeter was again reading low. Suspect next was the alternator, though the real culprit would be another link in the electrical chain. Some printed circuit, or something, had given up the ghost, and another could be hand-crafted — but only using one of the jewels from the Pope’s tiara.

Frechie bought the tiara, removed the jewel, and tossed the rest of it to some kid on the street. He said... Well, you guessed it.

Twisted Roads Exclusive:
• Jack Riepe's "Farewell To Pennsylvania Ride" will meet at the Frazer Diner (Westbound US-30, Frazer, Pa, about a quarter mile west of Rt. 4o1 and US-30) at 8am, for breakfast, on Saturday, October 15th, 2011.
• It's kickstands up at 9am, for an exilerating ride through parts of Pennsylvania settled by Hessian deserters, to an authentic German Oktoberfest celebration at Hermy's BMW and Triumph, in Port Clinton, Pa.
• German Sausages an Bavarian Specialties For All Who Make The Ride!

* Riepe's departure signifies yet another woman coming to her senses...

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

Dispatches From The Front...

2011-09-22T11:36:00.009-04:00

The “Dispatches From The Front” episodes of “Twisted Roads” deal with open correspondence to the author, bits and pieces of stories not yet published, real endings to stories that were published in sanitized hardcopy venues, interesting pictures that haven’t yet made it into print, and ride announcements. Deeply personal questions regarding relationships or those of a sexual nature are handled by our experts in a manner which you would expect.

Previously Unanswered Correspondence From Readers

Dear Twisted Roads:

So there I was, recently attending one of those huge motorcycle rallies that spring up like horse-shit mushrooms in the summer. My goal was to find a sizzling piece of pillion candy to make this rally experience the perfect ride. I cruised the vendor tents first. A lot of these vendors have red hot moto-chickistas pushing their stuff at the counter. There was one or two... But you could tell they were with the big guy, opening boxes in the back. Then I attended a few seminars on really important issues, like All The Beer All The Time; Using Old Motorcycle Oil To Seal The Neighbor’s Driveway for $200; and Soap And Water: The Ultimate Foreplay Advantage. Sometimes these seminars are conducted by smokin’ hot women who are looking to find the real alpha male... The guy who asks the most challenging questions. There was a babe with a pointer and some charts in the Soap and Water class, but she was the original model for the army’s clap movie in the Civil War.

I was about to give up, and point my Sportster to another distant glowing spot on the horizon, when I passed a tent in which one of the hottest ladies I have ever seen, stood before the crowd. She was about 35, had long blond hair, and a rack I could have hung my helmet on. Every time she turned, she wagged a red hot ass in my direction, that was starting to percolate my DNA. I was in love... Not the cheap kind of biker love that results in a fast ride to the nearest beach and some naked off-shore drilling. Not this time. I wanted to take her to someplace fancy... A hotel with the little bars of soap on the sink and cups wrapped in plastic.

She was teaching CPR. From outside, I watched her bend over a dummy and blow into a tube. The tube disappeared between her lips, which were as full and pouty as little facial love pillows. I watched her cheeks fill and empty with each deep breath. And then the dummy’s eyes lit up and rang a bell. All I could think of was, I got something that works just like that... Except it is more like a washing machine hose, filled with scrap iron. I was gonna walk in a volunteer for the next class, when I heard her say, “If you see a person collapse on the street, confirm they are breathing and get started. You have only seconds to act.”

That was all I needed to hear. I gave out a large gasp, clutched my chest, and did a swan dive to the dirt, right outside the tent.

She was standing over me in a pinch. The scent of her was amazing. (She may have attended the Soap and Water seminar too.) I had my eyes closed, which I thought was a nice touch, and I heard her say, “Everybody get back. I am a trained professional.” I sensed her making a judgement call, and she added, “I need to see if this man is breathing.” And with that, she kicked me in the balls like she need to score a field goal by knocking my nuts over the Washington Monument.

I started breathing just fine. I breathed through my nose, my mouth, and my ears. I am writing to tell you guys that if you get a chest pain, it’s probably nothing compared to getting revived through CPR.

Sincerely,
Moose
Fallen Arches, New Mexico

Dear Moose:
Thank you for reading Twisted Roads and for participating in this forum. We felt your comment was especially pertinent to a growing segment of our readers who no longer pass out at biker events without covering their testicles with both hands.

The Editor

Dear Twisted Roads:

I am tired of reading how one out of every three BMW riders is a raging douche. And I am tired of reading that statement here. To prove these statistics false, I have ridden to BMW clubs across the country, collected riders in groups of three, and asked, “So who’s the douche?”

In most cases, these “K” bike riders would simply roll their eyes at each other, and bust out laughing.

I consider myself the typical BMW “R’ bike rider. I have a $70 haircut; wear a one-piece, whale-foreskin “Hindenburg” armored riding suit; have a “Von Cheese Meister” yogurt maker on my handlebars; and head up the “Living Bylaws Committee” for my local club. I am delighted to tell you that your “BMW Rider Douche” statistics are skewed... So are your stories about BMW riders getting laid in parking lots, on the shoulders of the road, and in interstate highway rest areas. That’s another thing that has never happened to me neither.

Sincerely,
Jerome Terdly, Jr.
“R” Bike Rider
Chairman Living ByLaws Committee
The New Jersey “R” Bikers Perfection Team — Finderne, NJ

Dear Jerome Terdly:
Thank you for reading Twisted Roads and for participating in this forum. I forwarded your comment to our statistical analysis department for clarification. I am pleased to report that the “BMW Rider Douche Statistics” have now dropped considerably. The new numbers reflect that only one 1 in 4 BMW riders is a raging douche. While this is good news for BMW clubs across the country, it may hold a different significance for you.

Sincerely,
The Editor

Dear Twisted Roads:

I wrote to you guys last year, begging for some relationship advice, as my old lady was on the verge of stepping out with some asshole who rode a Yamaha. You said I should attempt to be “more communicative, more understanding, and more willing to give from myself,” which apparently meant taking a lot of shit and waiting for her to come first, which would mean pissing away a whole weekend of riding.

I am writing to tell you I resolved the problem myself.

First of all, there are few arguments that cannot be concluded by simply saying, “Shut the fuck up.” These three words convey a mood... Suggest a course of action... And generate peace in the household. Secondly, despite your bullshit, most woman really do want a high-pressure air compressor for Christmas, with a case of extra oil for it on Valentine’s Day. (I proved that.) And finally, you set a dangerous precedence by letting a woman orgasm first, or at all. My experience is that she’ll never put a second spit shine on the narwhal after that, if you catch my drift.

So I did it my way. Last night, my wife got me raging blasted, humped the hell out of me, and had me tattooed while I was passed out — all for my birthday. She wants me so badly — and all to herself — that she had her initials tattooed on my forehead: Denise Nancy Rugeriota. (I never even knew her middle name was “Nancy.”) Right now, she’s outside doing a brake job on my Harley. (I didn’t know she knew how to do that either.)

You assholes at Twisted Roads aren’t always right.

All my love,
Vinnie Rugeriota
Amish Curse, Pa

Dear Vinnie Rugeriota:
Thank you for reading Twisted Roads and for participating in this forum. Enjoy your next ride. Go fast into all the curves.

Sincerely,
The Editor

Dear Twisted Roads:

Something very odd happened here the other night. My girlfriend and I were sitting around the living room, which we often do after going for a rousing Sunday Goldwing ride to the diabetes clinic with our club. She was knitting another coat for the cat, and I was reading a new book I’d purchased. On a whim, I started to read an interesting part of it aloud... It was about a biker, who had just smoked a cigar and who was having the most incredible things happen to him as a consequence.

My girlfriend stopped knitting, and began to wipe my face with the little garment.

“What are you doing?” I asked.

“Wiping off a more comfortable place for me to sit,” she replied.

This has happened on three occasions now. In fact, it has happened every time I have read aloud from Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists, by Jack Riepe. Have you ever heard of things like this happening before with regard to this book?

Yours Very Truly,
Shandy Gaffer
Tuttlesville, MN — Home of the Lutefisk Martini

Dear Shandy Gaffer:
Thank you for reading Twisted Roads and for participating in this forum. We’ve heard these rumors for years. But here in the bunker, it’s hard to tell what is fact and what is really good fact.

Sincerely,
The Editor

For more information on this book, including "How To Order And Save A Fortune In The Process" click here.

Please Take Today's Poll:
Knowing what you do about the riding habits of different marques, what brand of riders would be most likely to pull over and have scorching sex in the bushes?
The poll is on the upper right.

When You Find A Naked Biker Chick In The Living Room...

2011-09-19T23:33:00.013-04:00

The ringing phone woke both of us — me, and my hangover. This was one of the two years I had the townhouse on Boulevard East (1975-1976), in Guttenburg, NJ, with a view of midtown Manhattan that could have gotten a cigar store Indian laid. Too bad I wasn’t a cigar store Indian. But if reading the alarm clock had been a test for the right to mate, I’d have failed anyway. I’d consumed my weight in rum earlier that night, and now had eyes that rolled around independently of each other, like those stupid lizards that turn up in the lobbies of first class hotels on the Amazon River.

It took me three attempts to determine it was past one a.m., and by that time the phone had stopped ringing. But the ringing in my head took up where the instrument had left off. I had just resolved to sleep through the cranial carillon, when the phone started again. Only two people would call me at that hour, and both of them was “Cretin.” One was the happy Cretin, who may have found himself with two women hot to trot, but not necessarily in a threesome.

Above) The view of Manhattan from Boulevard East in Weehawken, NJ. This is easily one of the most scenic streets in the world. Photo from Wikipedia.

Cretin’s apartment usually had some great architectural elements, or a view to rival mine. Invariably, however, it was a total shit house, like a flea market in hell that had been targeted by a car-bomb. He’d call me whenever he had dual action he didn’t think could handle the crime scene that was his place. He once brought a hooker back to his house who asked, “Did you bring me here to give you head, or to wash the dishes?” On occasions like these, having a tidy apartment and a toilet that didn’t match the decor of a Turkish prison offered an advantage.

I would have been delighted if it had been the “happy” Cretin.

It was the “disturbed” one though, who was working through the process of a really bad idea by the time he called me. With Cretin, you took the bad ideas with the good ones as the average usually worked out to a damn fine time. Dark forces were already at work, however.

“Reep, do you recognized my voice?” asked the broken glass and dog shit Hudson County accent that could only belong to one person.

“Christine,” I asked. “Is that you?”

“Listen Shit-For-Brains, I’m in a jam and I need help. Are you sober enough to find your dick and put a sock on it?”

The last time I’d heard this line, he’d run up a $800 tab for lap dances in a totally nude juice bar someplace outside of Paterson, NJ.

“You know that corner bar down on Gibbet Street? I need you to ride down here right now on that piece of shit you call a motorcycle, and park around back, behind that saloon. Bring that other stoopid-lookin’ helmet you’ve got too,” said the slightly disturbed Cretin. “And make sure you come up from the side street, and park in the back.”

“I don’t like that place,” I said. “A big ugly guy on a red Harley gave me a hard time there once.”

“That guy is ‘Ass Face’ O’Hanlon,” said Cretin. “And he’s still here here.” This guy was so ugly that a bar floozie once told him he’d look perfectly natural with toilet paper sticking out of his mouth. From that moment on, he was known as “Ass Face.” It was my understanding that everyone — including his mother — called him that.

“I’ll meet you on the corner.”

“Listen Suck-Nuts... I need you to give me a ride... That’s why you have to bring the second helmet... And I need you to pick me up in the alley, behind the bar, with your headlight off. And I need you to get here in 15 minutes, before this shit hole closes.”

“You’re going to ride pillion on my piece-of-shit Kawasaki H2,” I asked? But there was no reply. He was already moving on to “phase two” of what already sounded like a bad idea to me, and I hadn’t left the house yet.

Though cryptic, my instructions seemed simple enough. Cretin wanted me to get dressed, get on my bike, and ride down to a gin mill in Jersey City, where I was to come up on the dark side street, and park around back. (He didn’t really expect me to hang a sock on my dick. That had been a rhetorical question for me to determine if I was conscious enough to handle the bike. This was a favorite expression of his that I did not understand the first time he used it in conversation. So he was not expecting me to answer the door on that occasion, stark naked with a gym sock on my Johnson. Nor was I expecting to see him in the hall with two women. It was to their credit that they stepped in and stayed like this was all perfectly normal — Author’s note.)

The little town of Guttenberg is perched atop the Palisades (cliffs towering 40-stories high, lining the New York City waterfront). I decided the fastest way to get to Jersey City across the checkerboard of towns that make up North Hudson County was to take Boulevard East south, through West New York, Weehawken, Union City, and Hoboken. There was a good deal of traffic on the Boulevard at 1 a.m., as it is a great place to walk and make-out with someone if you are between the ages of 15 and 25. Following the contours of the cliffs, Boulevard East is one curve after another, on perfect pavement, on a tree-lined artery that could be in Paris. Gentle input to the handlebars brought the Kawasaki effortlessly through each curve. Though the speed limit was officially 25 miles per hour, 40 was normal in most places and I hit it.

New York City was spread out on my left... Like Oz, if that mythical place were jeweled towers and glittering canyons. If you got stopped at a light, you could occasionally glance straight up a cross street — like 42nd Street — a mile and a half across the Hudson River. It was late spring, and the cruise ships were in too. I found myself shooting down the hill into Hoboken ten minutes later, where the elegant street dissolved into potholes and was lined by factories (including the old Maxwell House Coffee Roasting Facility and old fruit warehouses). I charged up the 14th Street viaduct (which was falling down then and has hardly improved more than 25 years later), and rolled into Jersey City like a bad rumor. I didn’t frequent the section where I was headed, and never really like the look of it. It was a maze of streets with two and three-story houses, with false peaks and flat roofs, and gray windows that aspired to cheap decorations at Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

I worked my way around to the darkened side-street, killed my headlight, and coasted into the alley behind the bar. It was as black as pitch in there, and I ran into two garbage cans that were hosting a convention of cats. “Shit,” I muttered under my breath. “That fuck, Cretin.”

There was a steel door out back that was partially open, leaking a wedge of light. The wedge expanded, revealing Cretin’s face.

“There’s one more can out there... Want to try again and see if you can pick up the spare?”

I don’t like going into strange neighborhood taverns. I like sneaking into them even less. It’s like brushing your teeth with someone elses toilet brush. I had always considered this joint an “old man’s bar,” though I could see that wasn’t exactly the case. There was the standard human wreckage clinging to the stools, and a handful of humanoid shapes at a half-dozen tables concealed by a cigarette smoke screen. “Ass Face” O’Hanlon was sitting at the bar with a woman whose features were primarily canine. All I could think of was, “A dog sniffing another ass.” His right hand was in her jeans.

“Ass Face” was the only living human who'd ever kicked me in the balls. My balls screamed out for vengeance.

There was a smiling Cretin, in the company of a startling pretty woman. This one had a a seductive face, short hair, and a dynamic ass. Her shirt was tightly tucked into her jeans, creating a series of seamless curves from a well-defined rack to a waist I could have encircled with both hands.

“This is Linda,” said Cretin. “Linda Aces High.”

She apparently was.

Under different circumstances, I would have been jealous. But Cretin’s women usually came with baggage, The prettier they were, the greater the baggage. This one looked like she came with a barge-full of steamer trunks. Why would I say that? Because all the really pretty ones get taken first, and get their baggage early. Especially women who looked like this one, and who met guys like Cretin in places like this.

“This is Reep,” said Cretin. “Don’t talk to him or we’ll never get out of here.”

This woman looked vaguely familiar. This was because she tended bar in a place where Cretin had asked me to meet him once or twice before. It was her husband’s bar. And she had been giving Cretin a guided tour of her panties three nights a week for the last six months... Sometimes on the bar after she’d closed it.

Her husband had gotten wise and was currently sitting in a parked car at the curb, with several of his cronies, staking out Cretin’s Norton, which was on the side stand, under the streetlight. The woman had gotten a ride here. Cretin rode up on the bike. The plan was to have a few drinks... Get all kinds of warm in the cozy, hellish club-like atmosphere... And ride to Cretin’s place. It was obvious he still hoped to salvage the night while ducking a beating.

“I thought you wanted me to give you a ride,” I asked.

“Yeah,” Cretin replied... “Can I have your ride?”

I busted out laughing. I had been taking endless shit from him over my two-stroke, piece of shit, lollipop-colored, Kawasaki H2 for nearly a year. And now he wanted to ride it. “How do I get back from here,” I asked.

“On the Norton.”

Cretin’s plans generally entailed some measure of personal risk. This was the first time my role as a “beard” would also include being the designated decoy.

“There’s nothin’ to this,” said Cretin. “You swagger outside, get on the bike, and pull away at about 10,000 miles per hour. How hard can this be? You ride like an animal anyway. And for once, you’ve got a real motorcycle.”

This would be a night of realization. I realized that I was being tossed to the wolves for a piece of ass. And the more I saw that ass through sidelong glances, the more I realized there was no higher aspiration in life. (I would have walked in a mile of her shit to see where it came from.) The bartender yelled, “Last call, folks,” and I ordered a rum and coke. If I couldn’t go down with the taste of this woman on my lips, or any woman on this night, then I wanted the next best thing. We switched keys, and I realized my house key was on the same ring.

“Don’t worry about it,” said Cretin. “We’re going to your place anyway. But you should feel free to ride until dawn... Stop at an after-hours place. Watch how the Norton lures the pillion candy.”

I busted out laughing. The swindle was complete.

And then we switched helmets. Cretin had my two stupid-looking metallic green helmets, with the snap-on plastic shields. (Crap like this was popular in the '70s.) He gave me an open-face black job, and a pair of goggles that looked as if a WWI gas mask should have been attached to them.

“I’m countin’ on ya,” said Cretin. “And whatever happens, don’t stop within two blocks of this place.”

I walked out to the Norton Commando, threw my leg over the saddle, neither looking to the right nor the left. I switched on the ignition, triggered the handlebar-mounted choke lever, and kicked down on the starter. (This bike had an electric starter, but it was purely ornamental.) With the throttle liberally cracked, the Norton roared into life. I pulled on that clown-suit of a helmet, snicked the bike into gear, and left.

I thought I heard yelling in the street, but just kept going. My departure raised doubt among the lurkers as I did not leave with a woman... And I did not look like I hadn’t eaten in two months... (Cretin was skinny.) And I pulled away from the curb like an old lady. The 1975 Norton Commando was not the 1975 Kawasaki H2. If I was ever going to rob a bank, the Norton would not have been my choice of a getaway vehicle. It had four gears to the Kawasaki’s 5, and two/thirds of the horsepower. In truth, I developed a much healthier respect for Cretin’s aggressive riding on this machine. But it did sound as good as it looked.

I got two blocks away before a car came up from behind, pulled around me at a corner, and dumped a bunch of vicious guys in my face. One of these assholes tried to shove me out of the saddle, but I held on, and grabbed the keys from the ignition.

“You fucks are not getting my fucking bike,” I yelled. And with that, they realized I was not Cretin.

“Dis is Cretin’s bike,” yelled one of the plug-ugly bastards, who was foaming at the mouth. (I assumed he was the husband.)

“Not since last week,” I said. “He owes me for 10 grams of blow and I took this bike. After Friday, this is Joey Dee’s bike. You wanna take it up wid Joey Dee, be my guest.” I had never seen 10 grams of anything, and I made up the invisible Joey Dee. In a city full of tough Italians, I figured there had to be at least one Joey Dee, who routinely kicked the shit out of somebody. (Joey "Dee" was short for Joey DiTuna, or something like that.)

The plug-ugly husband was not so easily mollified. He started to yell about how Cretin was sniffing up his wife’s skirt, and how he was gonna kill him. I felt sorry for the guy, because I’d have been sniffing up his wife’s skirt too (in the day’s when I was 20-years-old). But I had that cold feeling in my balls, and my mouth was already moving.

“What does your wife look like?” I asked.

And in that split second, before he could tell me, I heard the scream of triple pistons in anguish, as a Kawasaki H2 tore up the pavement on US-1/9, barely two blocks away. The unholy two were already escaping into the stratosphere.

The plug-ugly described his wife to a tee, and I said, “I saw a woman who looked like that tonight... She was with a guy who owns a red Harley... In that saloon I just left. I don’t know if that was your wife, but that guy had his hand in her pants right there at the bar.”

The plug-ugly re-devolved into a cross between the Incredible Hulk and Godzilla. He and his droogies piled into the car and headed back to the bar. Unless I was very much mistaken, Ass Face O’Hanlon was about to get one solid beating. And it couldn’t have happened to a nicer, uglier guy. My balls felt better already.

It was now just after 2am. My headache was gone, and I had this classic Brit bike to play with. It gave a steadier, more sedate ride than the H2... But who the hell wants steady and sedate on a Friday night? I wanted danger, speed, and some hot patootie like Cretin’s. The Norton’s engine was throaty, but so what? Where was the push? I rode to an after-hours club in Union City, to try my luck with the Cuban girls. It took an hour, but I conned one into coming for a ride to my place on “The Boulevard.” She took one look at the Norton and said, “That’s Cretin’s bike,” and went back into the bar.

Above) 1975 Norton Commando. Photo from Wikipedia.

Above) 1975 Kawasaki H2. Photo from Wikipedia.

Cretin’s Norton was jet black with gold lettering, but had a red-tinted spider, about the size of my palm, painted on the tank. It was like the kiss of death. There wasn’t a place I could go where that bike wouldn’t be recognized. And sooner or later, somebody would think I’d stolen it, and be happy to do Cretin a favor by clocking me in the back of the head.

I couldn’t get “Linda Aces High” out of my mind and rode back to my place. I parked the Norton next to the Kawasaki on the sidewalk. Side-by-side, the H2 had many of the design elements of Brit bike: such as an upright position, a similar instrument cluster, and the choke on the handlebars. The chrome and fit was much better on the Norton. Yet the one machine was an exhausted design from a tired company, and other was a super-powered dinosaur. Both were headed for extinction. And in a way, so were the lifestyles that Cretin and I were living.

Above) One of the little parks that line Boulevard East, making it one of the most cosmopolitan avenues to be found anywhere. Photo from Wikipedia.

There was the tip of a bandana barely visible in the mailbox, and I found the house keys tied to it. Cretin and the woman were on the floor upstairs. They had dragged my mattress out of the bedroom into the living room so they could hump in view of the city, from the glass doors on the terrace. Spent, they were sleeping naked in each others arms, amidst the wreckage of a real bacchanalia. Cretin had stopped someplace for Chinese food, and there were open, half eaten containers of dim sum, shoo mai, and fong wong gai all over the place, among glasses of sangria, which he had mixed in the kitchen sink. There was about three inches of the fruity stuff left in the bottom of the pitcher. I drank straight from the vessel, with apple slices and cut up oranges sloshing against my face. My mouth was red as if I’d been sucking blood.

I looked down at the two sleeping figures, never realizing I’d have a chance to see most of this woman naked before this night would be through. Let the record show there is no romance in seeing a naked woman by default. It is only special if the candle-light is filtering through the pitcher of sangria, and she is undressing for you with purpose. I covered them with a quilt. Then I grabbed the keys to my own bike, went down to the street and took off. I had 90 minutes before dawn, and I wanted the sun to find me eating breakfast on the slopes of High Point, NJ, in a diner on Route 23, that catered to WASP woman who rode horses. There is something about elegant asses in jodhpurs that starts a day off right.

Author’s note: Please read the first two paragraphs of my last Twisted Roads episode for more definitive information regarding my friend Cretin.

Do you have questions regarding anything moto, relationship-building, women, science or nature, please send them to jack.riepe@gmail.com. Please mark the subject line (Questions For The Dispatches Column). Questions from readers will be used for this Thursday's Twisted Roads Blog episode. All questions will be answered by Doctor Albert Hissingaz, a licensed dry cleaner (in Serbia).

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

The Motorcycle As The Vehicle For Romance... Cretin's Approach and Mine

2011-09-15T14:09:00.017-04:00

4 Stars - **** For Humor Content

My friend “Cretin” was an anomaly even for Jersey City, where such things were common in the late ‘70s. A graduate from a parochial prep school, he was fluent in Latin and had mastered the mysteries of physics. He could quote Shakespeare and the latest street price for cocaine. In a pinch, Cretin could and would snap the antenna off a parked car and beat someone half to death with it. He had a thing for rough bars and rough-running Brit bikes that ultimately ended up in pieces on the floor of whatever apartment he was infesting at the moment.

Cretin was an anomaly in another way too. He was at the back of the line when they handed out good looks, but this did not stop him from getting drop-dead gorgeous women, who apparently did the kind of things that would have embarrassed a farm animal. Ravaged by acne, swathed in shoulder-length hair, he weighed all of 165 pounds at 6 feet tall and dressed like he shopped at a second-hand store for Tartars, Huns, Mongols and Barbary Coast pirates.

One of his women was a stunning blond he picked up in a west coast commune. She was panhandling on a street corner, wearing a combination bed sheet and toga, when Cretin followed her back to the cult — and joined. Five days later, they returned to New Jersey, after he impressed her guru with the depth of his sincerity. That was the year Glow Sticks were big with kids, and Cretin bought a hundred glow-in-the-dark necklaces and bracelets.

“All she wore last night were these red and green glowing latex tubes, and I did her doggie-style on the back of the Norton,” said Cretin. “That’s what I call a tank slapper.”

“But your bike is parked on the street,” I noted.

“I had Hot Rod and Critter help me push it up two flights to get it into the apartment,” replied Cretin, in that matter-of-fact tone that made this episode seem perfectly routine, which for him it was. (The story actually got better... Even though it was a cool October night, he had all the windows open as the Norton was running. "I wanted the full effect of the sound and the fury," said Cretin.)

By contrast, I couldn’t get laid in Times Square (a notorious hooker exchange that year), even though I was thin and had huge blue eyes that would have done justice to an Irish lemur. And I could quote Shakespeare much better than Cretin, having memorized Shylock’s soliloquy for kicks. (Cretin claimed that only an idiot would memorize Shylock, from the Merchant of Venice, when a woman would readilly appreciate the Moor from Othello.)

“Women like the bad boys, at least once or twice in their lives,” said Cretin. “Eve had been with Adam for what? A week? Ten days? Before she got sweet-talked by a snake. You come across as talking white-bread toast that was left out in the rain. Get yourself a motorcycle and learn the social aspects of applied contempt. Women will be writing their phone numbers on their panties and jamming them into your pocket.”

So I went out and bought a green Kawasaki 750 H2 in 1975, my first bike, and started walking around neither looking to the right or the left, apparently indifferent to women. “How am I doing?” I asked Cretin, pulling up my new bike.

“Does this piece of two-stroke shit sound like a motorcycle to you,” asked Cretin in response? “And this writer’s trance you’re walking around in has people thinking you’re a Night-of-the-Living-Dead douche.”

And it was then I noticed that none of the other biker barflies had motorcycles colored like a popsicle; nor ones that made a noise like a tyrannosaurus weed-whacker. Plus they didn’t feign contempt... They seemed to sweat it. So I did what I do best: I said “Fuck it,” and limped along trying to get a feel for the game. I had a few successes, but nothing that really constituted a romantic bull’s-eye. I practiced riding the motorcycle, instead of just leaning up against it outside the bar; and my batting average improved slightly when I was able to pull up without wobbling to an uncertain stop.

Yet it wasn’t until I had the bike a few years, and had long since abandoned the idea that I could ever be really cool, when fate pulled my number. I had my first serious writing job by then, working for a small business publisher, and was beginning to make a name for myself with copy that struck a chord with advertisers. I had a truck too, but rode my bike to the office a couple of days each week, as it aggravated the shit out of my boss. (I eventually aggravate the shit out of everybody.) This attitude, coupled with the fact that my boss felt I would be killed on the highway any day, compelled him to hire an associate editor for my publication.

She had more degrees than an thermometer and struck me as a pain in the ass.

Flat-chested, full lips, and a svelte little ass, she was a WASP (White Anglo Saxon Protestant) princess who came across as the kind of writer who understood the words but couldn’t get a reader’s blood pumping. On her second day, she handed me a rewrite of a feature I had just completed. I told her to leave it on the edge of my desk. It remained there untouched for a week, where she could plainly see it through my open office door.

She finally asked me about it, and I told her I preferred my work the way I wrote it. She played her trump card, claiming the publisher really liked what she had done with it. I explained that the publisher was a total asshole, who never read his own publication and who relied on me to write his speeches for everything — including the Rotary lunches where he stood up and recited his name by reading it off a card. (Apparently, I had mastered the kind of contempt advocated by Cretin, but it had nothing to do with a motorcycle. It came from unabashed arrogance and total confidence in my work.)

She audibly sniffed, and started to sob. Then the “You’re-A-Real- Douche” warning light flashed in my office. Unbeknown to me, she was married (at 25-years-old) to her college sweetheart who’d been having a affair with a bottle of bourbon since graduation. His greatest asset was an ability to dish out boozy abuse, and she’d already had it for dinner the night before and for breakfast that morning. (I would learn this six months later).

“This isn’t about you,” I said, handing her a clean Harley Davidson bandana. (That I had one and that it hadn’t been used to wipe oily spark plugs was miraculous in itself.) “This is between me and the publisher. I prefer to be asked about my copy before it’s changed. And as far as him being an illiterate asshole, it’s true. I’ll read this right away and get back to you.”

The article was about as important to me as the color of the toilet paper in the executive can. I stamped her revised piece “approved” two seconds after she left and wrote, “This is great!” across the top, without so much as giving it a glance. I gave a lot more thought to the faint scent of her perfume that lingered on the bandana, and put it in a drawer instead of back in my pocket. Things might have died right there if the testosterone donors in the office hadn’t started fawning and pandering over her; because then I started to notice the things they were noticing.

But I felt the need for an edge.

The green Kawasaki H2 had been replaced by the insurance company of an old bastard who never saw the “stop” sign nor me neither. Some biker trash in a bar told me that green motorcycles were unlucky, so my second H2 was purple. (It never occurred to me to question motorcycle advice garnered in a bar.) Since this woman was a WASP, educated in private schools and colleges covered with ivy, I gambled she had never been on a motorcycle and wouldn’t know one bike from another.

I was right on both counts.

I told her it might be easier to do working lunches on Fridays, to clear up any doubts regarding assignments for the following week. It was the third of those working lunches that she pulled on a helmet and rode off to a little restaurant on the back of my bike. She never questioned the fact that the restaurant was 20 miles away. It was her first motorcycle ride, and she had no idea that the H2 was despised by traditional riders. I was careful with her on the pillion, taking turns gently, requiring a minimum of lean, until I knew this was the second-most fun thing she’d ever done. And by that time, I was determined that I wanted to be in on the first-most fun thing too.

There was talk in the office that was ridiculously easy to quell.

My arguments were, “She’s married... And if she wanted to fool around, she could have any guy she wanted. You think she’d pick me over any of you guys?” There was no answer to that question, other than “No.”

I wasn’t the best looking, nor was I the smoothest. I was closer to being the most aggravating. And no one was willing to take the odds at 50 to 1 that were coming out of the secretarial pool. There was another editor in the office named"Tommy," (his real name, and I hope he's reading this). He started to move in on my game. So I told the nice WASP princess how Tommy had gotten his former secretary pregnant, and how he told everyone it was a group sex thing. (This was totally untrue. For one thing, he never rated a secretary. But the story served my purpose well.)

So I took her to lunch every Friday for nearly a year. In that same amount of time, the Panama Canal had been installed... Polio had been cured... And Cretin got laid 72 times by 43 different women, or so he said. This was the slowest seduction in the history of mankind.

Yet her home life was getting progressively worse and I was getting progressively better at listening, at acknowledging the things she did really well (like organizing things and attending to a million odd details), and at anticipating when she was having a really bad day. Then there were those great motorcycle rides. The Kawasaki had become our private amusement park. Yet there comes a time when you must put your cards on the table and call a spade a spade. We were enjoying the social aspects of an affair, without the complexity of seeing each other naked.

There are times when complexity is the spice of life.

It was the last warm weekend in September, and the leaves were turning on the trees. I suggested a picnic on the Pequest River for our working lunch... I knew a spot away from prying eyes, and just barely accessible by this bike. (The H2 was challenged to stay upright on the smoothest of pavement, let alone a little dirt or gravel.) I packed a gourmet lunch — full of Italian specialties — from Lisa’s Deli, in Hoboken, NJ. I had a bottle of wine, two plastic wine flutes, china plates, silverware and a tablecloth in a pack lashed to the bike’s sissy bar.

This was a job for Mr. Smooth.

Five miles from my special picnic spot, that three-cylinder free-for-all the Kawasaki called an engine shit the bed. Clouds of evil-smelling smoke came out of one pipe, then two. The bike started to conga down US-46 as the power strokes became somewhat random. It was virtually firing on one cylinder by the time I got to the "secluded" spot. There were three old guys fishing on the opposite bank of the river. One came over to look at the motorcycle. He’d ridden a motorcycle in Custer’s 7th Cavalry (or something like that), 115-years earlier, and he wanted to tell me about every oil-change he ever conducted. His name was Ted, and he was a retired glassblower who had taken up bee-keeping.

Then the WASP princess invited Ted to join us for lunch.

I pulled the bottle of wine from the pack, and briefly considered smashing in his skull with it, but thought, “What the fuck. Plan ‘A’ is toast. At least it isn’t raining.”

The rain started 10 minutes later.

I did have a large poncho in the bottom of that pack to use as a groundcloth, if the riverbank was a bit spongey, considering I had planned on using the tablecloth as a bed sheet. Ted and the beautiful WASP woman held the poncho over their heads, while I used a lull in the drizzle to switch out the spark plugs. The ones in the engine were pretty smeared and I got sooty splooge all over my hands.

"Well she's not going home with my oily fingerprints on her ass today," I thought. And I wiped my hands on the bandana I had preserved, untouched, from our first meeting.

The cursed purple H2 started on the first kick. The ride back to the office was fairly uneventful. We’d dodged the rain, but some of the roads were wet. She gave me a fast hug, like you’d give a casual friend at a wake for someone you don’t really mind had died, and went into her cubicle. I felt like an America’s Cup contender, who’d taken a shotgun blast through the sails just short of the finish line. I went back to writing a story on travel taxes and would have hung myself had there been any rope in the office.

I worked late, with the intention of being the last one to leave that Friday. I didn’t care to face my secretary, a dazzling blond, who was putting two and two together and coming up with a damn good interpretation of my motives. Yet just before 6pm, with the lights out and the workplace quiet, the WASP woman came into my office and said:

“I fully expected you to hit on me today like those clowns in advertising do all week. But then you never flinched when the bike broke down and I invited that old geezer to join us for lunch. I realized my mistake when you and he talked about engines for an hour. And then you went to the trouble to get that beautiful lunch, and didn't eat any of it.” She paused and looked into the saucer-sized eyes of an Irish lemur. “Your secretary told me you did that for her and Rachel in production too.”

I hadn’t, but my secretary’s stock had just gone up 20 points... Rest assured, I would gladly pay for it in giving her days off.

“You really are just a nice, thoughtful, romantic kind of guy, who wants everybody to be happy.”

Then the beautiful WASP lady kissed me like she was out to win a prize, and nailed me right there, on my own desk. There is nothing that compares with getting jumped at work by a prim and proper office beauty who has the reflexes of a jaguar.

This was a trend that would last nearly two years, leaving cinders where I once had a soul. I wanted to write about it that weekend, but let it go. I thought putting the events to paper would jinx them. And then when the affair ended, I never wanted to think about it, let alone put it to words. But I did go straight to the bar that night to tell Cretin. He and the cult queen been tossed out of the apartment. Apparently, the Norton went into gear when he and the blond went back for a repeat performance. The bike almost went through the kitchen window.

Addendum To The Current Blog Episode

2011-09-14T10:41:00.017-04:00

Factual Content: 100%

• To read this week's humorous story regarding the betrayal of a close friend through a sexual liaison with a woman, please read my blog for Tuesday, September 12, 2011.

• To discover the conclusion of the poll regarding the question "Does having a dog ride around on a motorcycle gas tank constitute animal cruelty," please continue reading below.

• To order cpoies of Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists, please go to the end of this blog episode.

The Final Consensus Regarding The Dog On The Gas Tank Issue...

Only two votes supported the notion that riding around with a dog on the gas tank constituted cruelty to animals, from the perspective that any dog perched in that spot would be exposed to increased risk in an critical or emergency maneuver. One of these two voters clarified his position (in a private e-mail to me), stating that rider distraction from having a dog on the gas tank should constitute a major concern for any motorist or rider sharing the roads.

In the first few days following the introduction of the poll, conventional wisdom supported the position that having a dog on a motorcycle did not constitute animal cruelty, but that the dog’s riding position should be restricted to crate or special seat (with a restraint). Forty-six out of 100 riders voted for this position fairly early.

It was a position I myself supported. If I loved a dog, I wouldn’t place it where the animal could be easily knocked of into traffic or harm’s way.

Yet within a week, 48 voters not only supported the position that a dog could easily handle himself on the gas tank, but documented stories of riders they knew whose dogs were allegedly tank-trained. Ninety-eight percent of poll participants clearly stated that in no way did allowing a dog to ride on a motorcycle constitute cruelty to animals. Statistically speaking, the position of whether to allow a dog to ride o the tank or in a crate on the pillion was a dead heat. Once again, some of the most experienced riders I know (many with well over 100,000 miles under their saddle) are divided on a key point — like helmets and oil.

I got the final comment from Twisted Roads reader John Langsford II, who wrote:

Jack — You have probably received 50,000 dog pictures since posting your latest blog, but email is cheap so here's a few more. One is the dog mentioned in the blog, the picture of the rear crate was taken a Morten"s BMW Fall Open House 2008. A fellow BMW rider that goes to New Hope and Van Zant rides with a small white dog in a baby chest carrier. At Ephrata I saw a fellow with a small dog in his tank bag (homemade) complete with heating pad for winter riding. At the Vermont RA Rally met a couple with a dog in a tank bag they ordered from England with windows and a Sun Roof for the dog to stick his head out to catch the breeze. Todd and Laura's dog always looks great in the sidecar

Above: Dave Thomas and his dog, who rides around in a pillion mounted open-case. Photo submitted by John Langsford II.

Above: Larry Bowa (dog), Laura Hirth, and Todd Trumbore. Photo submitted by John Langsford II.

Above: Special luggage rack-mounted pet crate seen at Morten’s BMW in 2008. Photo submitted by John Langsford II.

Regarding Reports of 4-Hour Erections And Other Marvels Atributed To Reading Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists...

On March 4, 2001, Chester Heaver, age 65, ordered a copy of Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists, and read three chapters before retiring for the evening in the company of Evangeline Heaver, his wife of 35 years. Though he and Evangeline were close, they hadn’t been sexually active since Chester fell off the high row in the stands during the tractor pull at the Harumph County Fair, ten years earlier. Chester’s power piston had simply given up the ghost. Yet after reading these chapters, “A First Time for Everything, The smoking Dog of Schiller’s Corners,” and “The 200th Cigar,” Chester’s weed whacker rose to the occasion and went right after the bush. It was still plowing the “lower 40” four hours later, when Evangeline shot him at point blank range. In fact, it was still thumping the casket cover in the funeral home three days later.

In the sleepy hamlet of Fenny’s Notch, West Virginia, Mucca Fignotti, an immigrant stone cutter from Croatia, learned that his romantic suit with Emma “Teasy” Smigget was going south. He had captivated her with his “Gypsy eyes,” but failed to nail her enduring attention with an average performance in the sack. Dejected and in the throes of despair, he found a discarded copy of Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists along the tracks where he had planned to get run over by a train. (The book had been autographed to Chester Heaver.) Fignotti read three well-earmarked chapters and discovered his manhood preceded him by a good foot (measured in dog years). He arrived at Teasy’s trailer with a spackle bucket of rocks dangling from the far end of Thor’s Hammer. She was finally impressed.

And in the crossroads of Knowleton, NJ, Chrissy Wilcox-Flumen, the much abused wife of a local cheesewright, found solace from a household full of marital demons in a second-hand book store. There she found a copy of Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists, with a smudged-autograph to a farmer out in Harumph County, and handwritten notes (in a Croatian dialect) across the bottoms of several pages. She bought this used book, for $187.00, read three chapters, and grew a set of balls! Chrissy went home, made a special chicken pot pie, and shoved it right up her husband’s ass — hot out of the oven. Then she bought a fire-engine red motorcycle and set out across the country, reading this book aloud to other women in similar circumstances.

These results are not typical.

In fact, they are purely anecdotal and cannot be proven. Author Jack Riepe even denys them and refuses to discuss his own romantic successes, which are significant, likely attributed to the book. But he has taken possession of the original book autographed to Chester Heaver, and is selling if for $50. In the meantime, he is offering new (not used copies) of Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists (with bindings as tight as young clams) for the final...

End Of The Summer Price of $25
plus $5 Shipping & Handling

This is the last time this book will be offered, individually autographed and personally inscribed by the author, for this price. The Christmas Sale price of this book will be $35 in November, as the final paperbound copies of this book are distributed.

In Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists, Riepe puts cigar-smoking in perspective, and relates it to love (getting laid), making romance last (how to pretend to listen), and the manly arts (hunting, fishing, spitting, and public speaking). Critically acclaimed, this book improves the quality of at least one life with every sale.*

Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists is more than just the funniest damn book ever written about cigars. It's a unique perspective on romance, politics, economics, science and America's hottest new trend -- cigar smoking. Winner of the Wilmington Institute of Holistic Dry Cleaning's prestigious “Golden Hand Grenade Award” (for advice on relationship building in third and fourth marriages), this book offers a rare insight into subhuman nature. Author and humorist Jack Riepe spared neither himself, nor anyone else, in a desperate bid to tell his side of 30 outrageous stories.

*Riepe's life

To Order Your Copy of
Politically Correct Cigar Smoking For Social Terrorists:

Email your full name, address, and phone number to:
jack.riepe@gmail.com
Indicate the book is for yourself.

Put: "Book Order" in the subject line. Each book is shipped with an invoice and a stamped, pre-addressed payment envelope. Write a check, and slip it in the mailbox.

To Order A Gift Book For A Friend:

Email your full name, address, and phone number to:
jack.riepe@gmail.com
Put "Book Order" In the Subject Line

Very Important:
Also include the gift book’s recipient’s full name, (First and Last), and tell me something about him. (i.e. he plays golf, he rides a motorcycle, he hunts, he smokes cheap cigars, tell me something.) Your name will be included in the inscription on the book.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2011

Betrayal Of A Biker Friend With A Naked Woman...

2011-09-13T11:33:00.009-04:00

3.5 Stars For Humorous Content *** 1/2

It had been a rough day, in a rough week, in a rough month, where the events of daylight permeated night making sleep impossible. The typical outlets of release — raging weekends with the guys, eying the nipples on the topless dancers, and twisting the throttle on a motorcycle — weren’t putting a dent in life’s real challenges. In fact, the challenges had trivialized the diversions to the point where each seemed to be robbing me of potential solutions. Cracking a bottle of rum only obscured my perception of the obvious... Slipping a dollar into the g-string of a red-hot dancer only emphasized the shallow connection between my hand and her supple flesh... And the motorcycle that had become my church for the past five years revealed itself to be an extension of my current mood.

The bikers I noticed on the street were younger, tougher, and more inclined to spit in the eye of reality — and these were just the women. I am talking about the real riders, the guys on Harley’s, Moto Guzzis, Beemers, Old Brit bikes, and Jap cruisers that bear the practical customization of preference; with gear lashed to the frame through the systematic practice of thousands of hard miles; and tool kits whose cracked, rolled sleeves have tasted the ground alongside roads whose numbers are forgotten by even the local residents. I was losing the vision of myself as a member in this club, having become more of a tolerated observer. And observers in this club are only tolerated just so long.

As I said, it had been a rough day, culminating in the kind of unspoken conversation in which a woman’s look explains that she has reached the point where she can barely tolerate the way a man is breathing — in and out. In the absence of a good solution, a bad one is better than nothing, and I staged a tactical retreat to a lawn chair left in the garage, where I lit up a maduro the size of a Ducati muffler, and poured myself a glass of Irish fire nearly as big as my ass. I listened to the soothing strains of Steppenwolf and sucked on that cigar like it was the tit of truth, flicking the smoldering, thumb-sized stump at the slinking form of the cat next door. (The pet of my aged neighbor, old Biddy Bitchwell, this cat does not miss an opportunity to slink into this garage and piss on my shop rags, gloves, or anything else it can find within range.)

The humidity was up, even though evening temperatures were dropping into the ‘60s, and the cigar smoke and whiskey lulled me into a passable excuse for sleep. And it was in this trance that I had my out-of-body experience. I found myself on my bike, casually taking the twisties of an unmarked country road. The perfect pavement followed the contours of a creek on the right, passing through deeply forested stretches, occasionally bracketed by rock embankments. I was trailing the tail light of my riding partner, Dick Bregstein, lazily choosing whatever line he picked through the curves, matching his speed, which was slowly increasing.

Bregstein rides a BMW “R” bike, which combines mechanical perfection with the romance of a steam engine, as it’s design predates the Egyptian Pharaoh Kahmet Rah. Yet in this dream it growled like a Harley, with each twist of the throttle. I slowly realized that each growl had lyrics like a song, which is what the exhaust note of a motorcycle really is. And the refrain of Dick’s bike was:

“Though we’ve ridden thousands of miles,
“And burned thousands of gallons of gas,
“Accept this run for what it is,
“And shove that K75 far up your ass.”

“That’s unlike Dick,” I thought to myself. And then I realized maybe it wasn’t. There was the time that Dick “Armor All-ed” my seat... And pulled a panic stop that cause me to rap my balls with the gas tank. Then again, there was the time he offered to tie my boot (sparing my arthritic knees one extra dismount from a bike that is as tall as the Chrysler building, after 8 hours on the Blue Ridge Parkway), and he lashed it to the brake pedal.

We pulled over beside the most perfect lake, barely visible from the road, shrouded in low trees and a mountain mist. A faded wooden sign read, “Decision Lake, Essex County, NY.”

“I gotta squeeze my lemon,” yelled Dick, before heading off into the brush. (For those from Nebraska, this meant he had to take a leak.)

I swung my leg over the saddle, hanging in the balance for a second, then dropped to the ground eleven feet below the saddle of my 1995 BMW K75. Taking a piss is always a good idea whenever you stop (if you’re older than 50 and have kidneys tenderized by motorcycle shocks), and I stepped into the brush before unzipping and uncoiling “The Dragon.” (By the way, this lends an entirely new significance to bikes owned by hot babes bearing the sticker “I rode The Dragon.”)

“Wow,” said a woman’s voice.

“I beg your pardon,” I replied, feigning a really good James Bond accent. (I once took 23 online courses in ventriloquism, and made the voice emanate from the task at hand.)

“That’s clever,” said the woman’s voice, which was like warm honey pouring over my soul. “Does it do tricks too?”

“It has a mind of its own, and occasionally gets me into a tight spot.”

“I bet,” said the voice, which now appeared to come from below, from a woman swimming in the lake. But this wasn’t just any woman. This dream was the character of Diane Lane, the naked Diane Lane from the 1999 movie Walk On The Moon.

“You look hot,” she said. “Come on in. The water is great.”

I shed my riding gear in a second, and stepped into water that took my breath away with a flash chill, but which soon enveloped my body like a balm. She took me in her arms and kissed me, like the character of the Diane Lane who kissed the “blouse man” in the better scenes of the 1999 movie Walk On The Moon. And I realized in that second, that I have been “the blouse man” at various times in my life, and would likely be again.

“I am never going to leave this lake,” I said, directly into the lips of the character of the naked Diane Lane from the movie Walk On The Moon.

“You can have whatever you want... I only ask one thing in return.”

“Anything,” I whispered, pulling her around me.

“I want you to kill Bregstein,” she said, looking into my eyes.

I was stunned. And she repeated it.

“I want you to kill Bregstein, by hitting him on the head with a heavy rock.”

“But why...” I stuttered.

“There comes a time when the love of every beautiful woman requires a man to smash the Dick closest to him,” said the character of the naked Diane Lane, in the lake, from the movie Walk On The Moon.

“I think you’re carrying an element of symbolism to an extreme.”

She shrugged, and started to swim way.

“I’ll do it,” I said, picking up a heavy rock from the lake’s bottom.

At that moment, the ringing of my cell phone jarred me to consciousness. The voice of a shaken Dick Bregstein spilled out of the tiny speaker into the cigar-smoke tinged dawn of the garage.

“Jack,” said Dick. “I just had the most incredible dream. We were on a ride through the country someplace, and stopped to piss at a lake. A naked woman invited me into the water. I jumped in. She was going to take me to a hedonistic heaven, provided I could do one thing for her...” And here, Dick hesitated. “She asked me to ‘Off Jack.’”

“What happened next,” I asked.

“I complied, but must have misunderstood because she disappeared.”

“Who was the woman,” I asked.

Dick hesitated again... “She’s famous. I’ve had a thing for her for years. I watch her all the time...”

“Dick, who was it?”

“Joan Rivers,” said Bregstein.

“Dick, any man would have done the same had they found themselves in your circumstance,” I said. “Wanna ride today?”

“See you in an hour,” said Bregstein.

Note To Brady: I still cannot leave any kind of a response to your blog either, regardless of how I sign in or the browser I use. I will respond to your personal e-mail as well. Sorry.

Note To Johm McClane: Your blog is telling me I have to be invited to leave a comment. Should I feel offended?