I Succumb To Another Spasm And Call For Help

Last Sunday started out normally enough. I had a light breakfast, four cups of strong coffee, and a blonde cigar from Sumatra, which I smoked while reading the New York Times sitting astride the free-weight bench in the basement. I remembered to kick a weight around every few minutes to punctuate the atmosphere with the muted clack of “metal on metal,” to indicate that the purpose of this expensive and sophisticated equipment had not escaped me. Yet the room started to spin the minute the minute I stood to dissipate the cigar smoke by waving the newspaper. A dull pain shot down my back and settled in my ass. I tried to cry out -- to attract the attention of my girlfriend -- and found my speech muddled. My mouth wouldn’t form words, but could only mimic the noise of a running BMW K75.

This is not the way to call out for help in the house where I live. In fact, these sounds are more closely linked to foreplay, the threat of which can send my hot squeeze into the witness protection program. Beads of sweat dripped from my forehead as my body thrashed in a kind of spasm. In a burst of inspiration, I made the sound of a K75 missing on one cylinder -- something I once heard on the science fiction channel. My girlfriend responded instantly.

“Are you okay,” she yelled down the stairs.

It was apparent I was not. The symptoms were classic: a growing sense of detachment, a lack of enthusiasm for life, and a reluctance to converse with in-laws beyond a polite exchange of profanity. The illness, a combination of psychological and physiological breakdowns, is widely known as parked motorcycle syndrome (PMS). It affects more than 4 million riders in the US each year and is recognized as the number one reason why standard-sized houses appear to shrink to the dimensions of matchboxes during the winter. Some women claim they are unable to get a decent night’s sleep with husbands and significant others who have PMS, as they are constantly awakened when their guy starts the chainsaw in the middle of the night.

Nothing says "I've been thinking about us" to a woman louder 

than starting a chainsaw in the middle of the night.

(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia -- Click to enlarge)

Medical experts acknowledge that cabin fever and the Wendigo psychosis were the forerunner of parked motorcycle syndrome. Yet the true nature of the disease, and its cure, were not understood until the invention of the motorcycle. “In the history of mankind, the motorcycle is a recent development,” said Dr. Albert Hissingaz, PhD; of the Wilmington Institute of Holistic Dry Cleaning. “There was a time when men and women were unable to release their souls in an expression of speed, freedom, and reckless abandon. This was not so important in the summer months, when women would devote their lives to raising crops and children, and men could drink. But in the winter, they often found themselves snowed in, trapped in a small dark structure, staring at each other across a table, illuminated only by a dim grease lamp for months at a time. These were the circumstances in which someone would invariably find themselves being eaten, and not in the good way.”

Hissingaz contends that the invention of the motorcycle provided an emotional “steam valve” to successfully vent pent up passion best released on perfect stretches of pavement in distant mountains or along the endless strand of a Pacific coast beach. “This enables motorcycle riders to achieve a higher sense of balance between the id and the ego,” said Hissingaz. “This is why bikers make better lovers, writers, artists, musicians, and confidents than other people -- albeit in the summer months. In the winter, they can revert to a far more insidious and primal nature. A long and arduous winter season devoid of motorcycling can turn the most sophisticated of Renaissance riders into total pricks.”

Leslie, my girlfriend, is a certified “Writer-Life-Partner” and is thoroughly versed in procedures to halt runaway irrational logic, offset professional angst, and slow Monday-through-Saturday binge drinking events common to my profession. She has also pioneered a course of PMS treatment that has brought me back from the edge many times. On this occasion, my angel of mercy slipped a Steppenwolf CD into the sound system and began gyrating her hips to “Magic Carpet Ride,” the theme song of K75 riders everywhere. She continue to dance until the color slowly returned to my face. And when it seemed as if I would slip off again, she opened her shirt and showed me how a touch of lace can really accent perfection.

I collapsed back on the free-weight bench with a loud gasp and started breathing heavily. Leslie grabbed her cell phone and dialed the secret three-digit number that mobilized the Mac-Pac PMS Support Team. As most of you are aware, the Mac-Pac is the BMW group that I ride with. Her call activated an automated “Code Blue” alert, which had Dick Bregstein speeding in his car toward the house in less than 2 minutes. He detoured through an obscure driveway, pausing just long enough for team member Clyde Jacobs to jump into the back seat. Clyde carried with him a briefcase loaded with maps of West Virginia, rental properties throughout the state, and points of interest that could constitute a decent ride.

Clyde Jacobs -- Member By Default of Last West Virgina Ride Conspiracy

(Photo by Dick Bregstein on his $10 phone -- Click to enlarge)

Ninety miles away, Peter Buchheit jumped into his car and headed toward Jimmy’s Jumbo Crabs, a bar known for its hospitality, live music, and bikini contests, in Port Deposit, Maryland. It would be Buchheit’s job to make sure the arrangements were made at the bar, so that my symptoms could be properly treated by planning a great spring ride to West Virginia. These professionals moved with such practiced precision that we all arrived at the same time. The bartender, briefed while we were enroute, met us with a platter of steamed shrimp, reanimated with just the right touch of Old Bay seasoning.

Nothing beats winter doldrums and the demons of PMS like planning a great spring ride with your pals.

We commandeered about ten feet of the bar with a laptop, a Garmin, maps, brochures, and various samples of the distiller’s art. This would be our third annual ride to West Virginia and we wanted to incorporate the more successful elements of previous ride formulas with new opportunities for adventure. Prior trips included a ride which brought us to a different motel and restaurant each night, and a run in which we rented a deluxe cabin (complete with a hot tub, fireplace, and deck on the Potomac River), and cooked steaks and corn on the grill. With the economy being a factor this year, it was agreed that the cabin was the way to go, as we could eat and drink in-house, and enjoy better accommodations for less cash. We selected a four-bedroom vacation home on a river, complete with a screened-in porch, and a jacuzzi. The cost of the rental was cheaper per night, per person than staying in a decent motel (about $79). Each rider would have his own room and there are plenty of bathrooms in the house so no one has to feel like they’re standing in line.

Pete Buchheit -- Veteran West Virginia Ride Conspiracy Member

(Photo courtesy of Dick Bregstein -- Click to enlarge)

Finding a nice cabin-like house with four bedrooms was a bit of a challenge. Most rental properties have three bedrooms. None of us are kids anymore and there is nothing like a nice bed in your own room at the end of the day. A locking door guarantees you will not wake up with your hand in a bucket of warm water or out in the driveway with your pants gone and your ass painted blue. It is unacceptable that anyone should have to spend a night on a sofa after spending the day in the saddle.

Jack Riepe -- The author fills up the interior horizon

(Unflattering photo by Dick Bregstein -- Click to enlarege, then stand back)

The next consideration was the discussion of a menu and the kind of meals we wanted each night. This is normally not a big deal. In fact, it got zero consideration on our last trip. Our day rides typically spanned 225 miles and we’d hit a supermarket on the way back, stopping to pick up beer, steaks, vegetables and other stuff. Yet Pete mentioned that we were always looking for something we wished we had on that last ride. Stuff like a roll of paper towels, dish detergent, coffee filters or orange juice to temper the vodka.

“I am going to ask the rental agent about having a person pick up everything we want, according to a list, and deliver it to the house so it is there when we arrive,” said Buchheit. “We’ll pay the guy a fee and know that everything we need is waiting for us.”

I regarded this idea as nothing short of brilliant. This is also why we let Pete boss us around to some degree. If it was up to me, I’d have a bartender, cook, and valet on the premises as well. After all, this is a therapeutic vacation. Yet Clyde Jacobs raised the point that steak and lobster are items of intense personal preference, and he did not feel comfortable delegating the purchase of these commodities to a total stranger.

“You tell someone to go out and get a couple of steaks, and they might come back with a piece of meat barely three quarters of an inch thick,” said Clyde. “That might work if we were in prison but on a ride of this emotional significance you want everything to be perfect.”

Once again Buchheit rose to the occasion. “We could arrange to have the meat cut to order and delivered by Omaha Steaks,” he said. “They could also include other items from their catalogue which would pretty much guarantee a varied and slightly exotic flair to the menu.”

“But why stop there,” said Bregstein. “I personally recommend live lobsters and steamer clams from the ‘Lobster Trap.’ Wouldn’t it be great to come in from a day of riding and sit down to a New England lobster bake? Furthermore, we could order key lime pie from Harry and David.”

And suddenly, it was all there on the table. We’d ride like pirates and dine like Sultans. We’d drink like swells and smoke cigars like robber barons. At the day’s end, we’d sit on our screened-in porch and laugh over the silly things that contributed to the legend of the ride. In the ride report that followed, nothing would compare with the preposterous arrangements we’d have made for dinner.

Dick Bregstein -- Founding Member of the Mac-Pac PMS Code Blue Response Team

Dick has recently claimed being a Native American. He will not say what tribe but

plants a clue in every photograph that is taken of him.

(Photo coutesy of Patti Jacobs -- Click to enlarge)

This cold, winter day spent in a bar in Maryland would be the beginning of a legendary four-day ride in West Virginia. There are still a lot of details to be worked out. Our agenda for the next meeting will include a list of things we’d like to see on this trip, outstanding points of local interest, natural wonders, and historical sites. We’ll find the battlefields, the museums, the steam trains and the strip joints. We’ll find everything.

Just as we were congratulating ourselves on the beginning of another great ride, the band in the bar -- about six guys with banjos -- started warming up.”This has to be an omen,” said Buchheit.”

A number of folks have asked me about joining us on one of these runs and we’d be delighted. But the accommodations define the group at the end of the day and it would be up to another group of three or four riders to secure another house in the vicinity. (They are all over the place, either as single units or as vacation clusters.) We do not do a group ride per se either, even among ourselves. I have always maintained that riding with Dick and Pete is a lot like riding by yourself. (Still it is a comfort to know that help is only 40 or 50 miles ahead of you.) We ride in a lose group of two or three, knowing when and where we are all headed, and when and where we are all expected to end up. Dick and Pete like to switch off screaming through turns. Clyde has different moods. I like to amble along at my own pace, stopping to take pictures, relax, or donate an organ.

Sunday’s meeting ended all too soon... And it was the general consensus among all of us that we were ready for this ride the next day.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2009
AKA The Lindbergh Baby (Mac-Pac)
AKA Vindak8r (Motorcycle Views)
AKA The Chamberlain -- PS (With A Shrug)

Big Things Come In Small Packages

The Christmas gift was diminutive even by the new fiscally conservative parameters set by mutual agreement two months before the holiday. While I had been steeling myself to expect a small box, I wasn’t quite ready to receive an even smaller envelope.

Leslie (Stiffie), my hot squeeze, had eliminated the guess work out of Christmas years before, by insisting everyone create a small list that could be distributed among family and friends. The purpose of this list was to streamline the shopping process and to help establish realistic cost guidelines, depending on family status. The same procedure was alleged to be in effect this past Christmas, albeit under tighter economic control.

This is my hot squeeze, Stiffie (Leslie)

(Photo by some magazine photographer -- Click To enlarge)

Though I would be the first to say that I had not cooperated with any of the requests to enlighten the world’s smartest woman as to what I would have really appreciated in the way of a gift, I did not do so maliciously or through sloth. The reason why I didn’t suggest anything is because I already have everything I need. And before the hard-boiled among you roll your eyes in anticipation of some greeting card-quality platitude about “How Jack Riepe Discovered The True Meaning of Christmas,” rest assured that if I did, I’d sell it as a 12-step program to your wives and girlfriends first. That way, I’d be your next Christmas present.

The truth is that I like presents that set my imagination free. My imagination was at its nuclear best when I was eight years old. I’d tell stories about anything that came into my mind without rhyme nor reason. My second grade teacher was a wonderful Catholic nun, Sister Theresa De Lourdes, who liked me in general, but who had a great deal of difficulty dealing with falsehood. She regarded lies as the currency of the devil and would bless herself when confronted with one. Well I’d get wound up in the details of some story I swore I was a witness to and she’d start blessing herself so fast that she’d begin to hover like a human helicopter. I personally saw this happen two hundred times.

At age eight, nothing set my mind free like trains. I loved everything about them. A ride on one was the equivalent of space travel. And the Lackawanna Railroad was the most incredible of them all. My Grandfather, Pat, used to walk me down to the Lackawanna tracks in Denville, NJ, where we could wave to the engineer of the Phoebe Snow as it roared by (at an outrageous 60 miles per hour) on the way to Chicago. I can still remember the whine of the cars as they went past, and the little wisp of steam as it exited a hose at the last one.

This is the view of Main Street, at "Stillers Junction," my train layout.

(Photo by Ray Bucko, S.J. -- Click to enlarge)

I have built a scale Lackawanna layout (“O” Gauge) in the basement, with a scale model of the very train my Granddad and I used to wave at. I can wave at it any time I like now. And there is nothing like putting your head down next to the track and having one of these models pass you up close.

The Phoebe Snow (MTH F9's w/Proto2) rolls into town, right on time.

This is the train my Grandfather and I used to wave at, when I was 8 years old.

(Photo by Ray Bucko, S.J. -- Click to enlarge)

Today, one would question the sanity of an old Irish ward-heeler who would take an eight-year-old down to a stretch of tracks where one of the last of the 1950’s streamliners would streak past less than ten feet away. But Pat was a man who understood the power of conspiracy. He’d fold my hand in his and say, “See the train down in the turn... Get ready to wave... It’s coming. And not a word of this to your mother now. She doesn’t like trains, nor strong drink, nor the smell of horses at the track.”

A stickler for realism, hookers ply their trade in the park opposite the station on my layout.

(Photo by Ray Bucko, S.J., who was laughing his ass off as he took the picture --  Click to enlarge)

I could think of fifty things I would have liked for my layout this Christmas, but not to point of telling people about them. I have exactly the right amount of trains to set my imagination free. Perhaps too free. I had it in my head to get a story published about my layout in a model train magazine known for emphasizing realism. On my tracks, there is a factory siding not far from a seedy little park opposite the station. I have hookers working the streets there. At least one is providing a valuable service in a parked car. The editors of the train magazine were not amused.

Here a local maestro conducts a flute solo. 

The editors of the train magazine were not amused. 

(Phoro by Ray Bucko, S.J. -- Click to enlarge)

Well the same was true for my other pursuits. I like books, but couldn’t think of one I wanted. Apple came out with a great new computer that I wanted... But I didn’t need it, and this one was far beyond the greatly reduced amount of money to which we were supposed to limit ourselves. In the end, I asked for some of that $20 stuff I saw in those silly commercials on television... The little electric shaver (that sucks)... The Sham Wow shop rags (that work)... And The Girls Gone Wild Sterno Beach Spring Break Video Collection (which I did not get)... Leslie did surprise me with a great book: A Historical Compilation of Color Schemes Used By The Erie Lackawanna Railroad. (This is the equivalent of train porn.) I spent all of Christmas morning reading aloud from it.

Yet her main gift to me was an envelope. I prepared myself to act surprised and overwhelmed with appreciation. (And for the record, I would have been thrilled with a naked picture of her from high school... Even more so if it had been taken by the girls’ field hockey coach.)

It was a completed order form for a new, heated, custom-built motorcycle seat from Russell Cycle Products. The Russell Day-Long Saddle is legendary among those who ride long-distance, especially if they have really fat, misshapen asses. My ass is so fat that it is defined by the shape containing it. When I step out of the shower, that shape is Chester County, Pa. New for this year, the saddle is now offered in a heated model, activated by a rocker switch on the seat’s shoulder.

I was flabbergasted. This was far in excess of the $75-$100 bucks we had agreed to spend. And it is something that I was so utterly delighted to get! I have a 1995 BMW with a low seat. It is an unusual configuration. I Like being able to flat-foot the bike at stop lights and corners, but the lower seat makes for a much tighter bend in the knee owing to the more pronounced peg height. This is hell on my arthritis. (And by the way, the far-forward peg position of the standard cruiser is much worse for my knees.)

The measurements of the Russell Day-Long saddle being built to fit me are impressive. While the basic design matches the shape of a traditional John Deere tractor seat, the scope is much larger. In fact, I suspect the finished product will look like the upholstered top of a Steinway Baby Grand piano. The Russell Day-Long saddle comes with “wings,” designed to support the extreme ends of the buttocks, which in my case, hang down into the spokes of the back wheel. Not only does this “droop-ass” increase resistance and fuel consumption, but it makes my exhaust system sound so much louder. It is my understanding that the wings for my saddle may say “Cessna” on them, but they are expected to be substantial enough to float my ass cheeks up around my shoulders.

This Baby Grand Piano will give the reader the size of the seat it will take to cradle my ass.

(Photo courtesy of Wikipedia -- Click to enlarge)

I got so excited about this that I sold my existing saddle to a blacksmith. He’s now using it as an anvil over at his forge. The last I saw of it, he was shaping horseshoes against it with a sledge hammer. The only downside is that Russell Cycle Products are so busy that it will be the end of March before I get to sit on this thing. Riding partner Dick Bregstein said to me, “Suppose we get a couple of nice days in the meantime? How will you ride Fireballs without a saddle?”

“Dick, sitting on it feels exactly the same with or without the existing seat,” I replied.

Now I know that some you, primarily women, are undoubtedly wondering what I gave Stiffie for $75-$100 that would not leave me feeling a little sheepish. Well here’s the deal, I never do what she says anyway. I bought her Christmas gift long before we agreed to this stupid plan. She is interested in the works of Nina Bagley, an artist with a flair for making exquisite jewelry out of elements of nature. Leslie was bemoaning the fact that Nina did not accept commissioned work, and would certainly never agree to anything like a Christmas timeline.

“This is a job for the battered baby harp seal look***,” I said to myself. Or more correctly, the voice that goes with it as I’d be gambling on using the phone. It took me a few attempts to contact the artist by e-mail, and then I got her on the wire. I told her the “truth,” that I was dying and didn’t have long to go... That I wanted my girl to a have timeless memory of me... A memory that could only be expressed by a Nina Bagley necklace. I told her that cost was no object as I was selling my few good organs on e-Bay... That I had one huge organ that was generating some interest... And that I’d send her an autographed picture of it with advance payment if she’d see her way clear to accepting a commissioned piece and getting it to me by Christmas.

And that’s how I managed to be done with Stiffie’s (Lesslie’s) Christmas shopping by November 6, 2008, and why she continues to look at me like I am the god of romance.

*** The patented Battered Baby Harp Seal Look is what I use on women when I need them to do something for me, or when sexual attention is desperately needed and otherwise highly unlikely. Through years of practice, I can muster the same look most commonly found on the faces of baby harp seals, battered on the ice by ruthless canadian hunters. Women melt in the sight of this highly emotional expression.

Copyright© Jack Riepe 2009
AKA The Lindbergh Baby (Mac-Pac)
AKA The Vindak8r (Motorcycle Views)
AKA The Chamberlain -- Perditions Socks (With A Shrug)

Expanding My Riding and Editorial Horizon's For 2009

Some readers voiced criticism of this blog yesterday by breaking windows, overturning cars, and savagely beating homeless people on the street, who were mistakenly identified as my supporters when they were nothing more than former in-laws. This occurred mere feet and a thin pane of bomb-proof glass away from the desk where I was writing. Yet so strong was my conviction in the truth that I was compelled to compose even as my former mother-in-law — Kathleen Whats-Her-Name — was held face-down over a live steam grate outside. Her screams will haunt me forever... Not the ones I heard yesterday, but those she shrieked in the church as her daughter became my future former wife, 25 years ago.

Order was restored later in the evening under clouds of tear gas fired by SWAT teams from six communities.

According to a statement delivered to a local newspaper by a carload of ski-masked individuals, the riot was the desperate action of thousands of cruiser and scooter riders who believe my blog content is too BMW-centric. While I emphatically deny snorting wiener schnitzel speed balls first thing in the morning, I do admit that the Beemer marque gets more than its fair share of the ink here. There are two simple reasons for this: I own a BMW and I ride with a very active BMW club. Their leadership believes that every day I spend on the road, learning German phrases like, “Vas is losse“ (How’s it hanging?), is one less day I will not waste pursuing fast women, slow hangovers, and the kind of low entertainment that passes for historical fact in this blog.

The truth is that I became a BMW rider the same way that Davy Jones became the lead singer of the Monkees: I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. My hot squeeze was coming back from a spiritual retreat on the west coast, when she got stranded in Sturgis, South Dakota during the rally. “Sizzling Cheesecake” (not her real name) called me to say that she had never seen anything as cool and provocative as these women on cruisers and that we were getting motorcycles as soon as she got home. She also asked me to go online and check on some of the events that these women might be staging during the Sturgis rally. I readily found the “Chicken Choking Contest” and “Pickle Sucking Event.” It must have been hot in Sturgis as many women sought to cool off by having cold water poured on their tee shirts.

“Steaming Cheesecake” arrived home with a new Honda Aero Shadow, fully tricked out in the cruiser style. The implications of her actions were clear to me... I’d either get a bike and learn to ride, or get the hell out. Let the record show that I know a threat when I see one. Writers are required by law to support the alcohol, tobacco, and naked performance artist industries to an extent where very little cash remains for necessities like new motorcycles. While my squeeze could walk into a showroom and buy any new motorcycle she wanted on an American Express Card (which is what she did), I had to resort to a combination of Ponzi schemes, shell games, and petty theft to raise the required capital for a bike.

My girl's 2005 Honda Aero Shadow with seasonal luggage rack option

(Photo courtesy Leslie Marsh -- Click to enlarge)

In typical Riepe fashion, I conducted a bike-to-bike purchasing search with absolutely no research. My first choice was a cruiser. Yet the machines in the $3000 category had a decidedly used look about them. I broadened my search to include hundreds of bikes on lawns throughout the area, finding nothing that piqued my soul. These too had a noticeable forlorn, abandoned air about them.

The 1986 BMW K75 And the 2005 Honda Aero Shadow: opposite ends of the spectrum.

(Photo courtesy of Leslie Marsh -- Click to enlarge)

It was at this time that a couple of business associates of mine revealed themselves as “boys in the BMW bund.” I was shocked. They recommended a more Teutonic approach. I was told I’d be a dope if I let a particular machine -- called a K75 -- with an unusual fairing slip away. The motorcycle was 18-years-old and more than twice as much as I wanted to spend for a three-year-old bike. There is one word to sum up deals like this.

“Bullshit,” was my cleverly worded response.

I went through the motions of looking at the K75, prior to dismissing my friends. It was the most peculiar bike I had ever seen. With the classic lines of a bowling shoe, it had all the appeal of a barium enema. Sitting on it was like have having an iron wedge shoved up my ass, leaving me perched about 40 feet above the pavement.

“What a hunk of shit,” I said to myself.

The bike’s owner pulled a Luger on me. I was stunned. With the gun cocked, he made me drink a cup of red Kool Aid. My limbs became lifeless. I watched helplessly as he placed a huge pod, like a big seed, next to me. It was the last thing I saw before passing out.

Consciousness arrived to the strains of Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyrie.” Somehow, I woke to find myself the owner of an ugly bike, that made a whining, fartish noise when the starter button was pushed. I don’t know why I bought it. I could barely sit on it. I was afraid to ride it out of the driveway.

My girl let me ride her Shadow often enough to enable me to make a comparison. In fact, I did my first two group rides on the Honda. The tires on her machine were much fatter that the Metzlers on mine, hence they didn’t dance over every imperfection in the road. Her custom Mustang seat kissed my ass like a politician running for office. Her bike started like one expects a Honda to start and it would get up to and hold 80 miles per hour -- eventually.

One of my favorite pictues, astride my girl's Honda Aero Shadow, a very nice bike.

(Photo courtesy of Dick Bregstein -- Click to enlarge)

The BMW K75 was top-heavy in the driveway. It was a pain in the ass to move around in the garage. The seat was designed by the North Korean secret police and would make you sign anything in two hours. It felt like I was attempting to get comfortable on a strange toilet. Furthermore, I had just read a book called “Motorcycling For Morons,” where it clearly stated that the BMW K75 was a poor choice for re-entry riders.

Steve Assan enroute to meeting me in North Carolina -- From Oregon

(Photo courtesy of Steve Assan -- Click to enlarge)

My girlfriend is one of life’s true saints. “Maybe you made a mistake,” she said. “No one else would be that stupid to pay what you did for it. Maybe you can sell it for less and still get something?”

It was then that Lee Kozanas, an old friend and BMW rider from the Adirondacks, arrived in my driveway on a BMW “R” bike. This was the machine built by the Germans but designed by the Incas.  He’d ridden 400 miles straight in less than 90 minutes and appeared in a mist of Valhalic mysticism. Kozanas was wearing black armored textiles, matching gloves, and a flip-up helmet. He looked seamless, except for the blue and white roundel on his left shoulder.

“Do you ride the BMW like the Honda,” asked Lee.

I nodded in the affirmative.

“Are you in 5th gear by 40 miles per hour?”

I nodded again with my eyes closed.

Are you changing gears at 1500 RPM?

All I could do was look at the floor in silence. This was a trick question. The Honda had no tach. In fact, you couldn’t get an aftermarket one for it either that year.

“Are you a pussy boy,” he asked, whispering in German. "Do you scream like a little girl when you ride the K75?"

I said nothing. He shamed me into getting on the Beemer and told me that I would do this bike justice once, or that he would watch while the bike mauled me like a tiger.

“Do not change the gears on this K75 until the tach needle is a tenth of an inch away from the red line,” said Lee.

I swung out onto a thorofare with Kozanas close behind me, and settled into a straight stretch. In second gear, I ran the bike up to 7 grand and snicked it into 3rd. An enraged snarl escaped from the soul of all Germania and the bike fired itself from a Krupp cannon. I snicked into fourth and fifth without the needle losing any distance against the tach. The engine noise became Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony. I could feel a pulse in the grips, but no vibration. The K75 turned like it had power steering. It stopped like it had power brakes. And it lied to me like it loved me.

That was when I noticed one of life’s most amazing truths: the K75 is absolutely beautiful, from the soul out.

The Honda was one of the politest bikes I ever rode, but the Beemer handled like the kind of paragraphs I like to write. And that was that. Some man like brunettes, others like redheads. Some women like roofers. Others like middle-aged, pudding-faced writers. It is the same when it comes to bikes.  If this K75 had an ass, I’d have my hand on it every time I went out to the garage. 

That was two years before I joined the Mac-Pac (southeast Pennsylvania's premier chartered BMW club). That was two years before I even knew anyone who rode a BMW in this neighborhood. It was Steve Assan who challenged me to meet him on my first really long ride. He rode a cruiser. It was Wayne Whitlock who accompanied me on the first part of that ride. He and his wife Lucy rode a cruiser. Tony Luna was the first to turn up at my second group ride. He rode a cruiser. The first person who ever invited me on a group ride with his friends, Grandpa43 (Dave), also rode a cruiser. The ride captain who saved my reputation in the funniest (and oddest) story story I ever published for a BMW magazine, Chris Jaccarino, rode a Honda Goldwing, which is like the Hindenberg of cruisers.

Jack Riepe, Wayne Whitlock, and Tony Luna on the Second Annual Horse Pile Swerve Ride

(Photo courtest of Pete Buchheit -- Click to enlarge)

I don't care what anybody rides... But I don't want you folks thinking I'm blind to the chrome.

So I am resolved to get myself invited to ride with a cruiser group on a monthly basis if one will have me. (This is a hint for Grandpa43 to step up to the plate.) I'm open to suggestion. And I am determined to ride out to meet Steve Assan some place in the middle of the country this summer. This should give me a few good cruiser stories in 2009.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2009
AKA The Lindbergh Baby (Mac-Pac)
AKA The Vindak8r (Motorcycle Views)
AKA The Chamberlain -- Perditions Socks (With A Shrug)

“I’ll speak to this Humongous. He’s a reasonable fellow.” -- The Road Warrior