Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Forbidden To Discuss... What All Bikers do!

There is a great little Mexican joint just off the corner of Downingtown Pike and East Lancaster Avenue, in Downingtown, PA. It takes 25 minutes to get anything on the menu because the folks who run the place make everything from scratch. And while there are two or three things listed that anyone would recognize from a Mexican chain restaurant, there is no comparison with the bill of fare here. “Rincon Tarasco” has the best Mexican food I have tasted north of Acapulco. You could almost make a meal of their Guacamole and fresh corn chips.

The kitchen is an open book. You can look over the counter and watch your entree crafted from the freshest ingredients in the most authentic way. If I had a complaint,  it is that this place is “dry” and you cannot get a great Mexican beer — like Negra Modelo. They serve those fruity Mexican sodas and I am partial to  the pineapple and lime flavors. 

The restaurant is intimate (small) but biker casual. The bikers that had just casually left this place  were Breg Dickstein (not his real name), Clyde Trotsky (not his real name), Gerry Cavanaugh (his real name), and me. The bikes were strung out in a line as we headed north to Strasburg. I was in the lead with Dickstein not more than 3 seconds behind me. It was a warm spring day and paving cutbacks gave the run a bumpy aspect. The gentle up and down motion of the bikes, coupled with the afternoon heat, set the Mexican meal to percolating.

Riding a motorcycle is the ultimate freedom. You can talk to yourself or even sing as the thrum of the road and snarl of the engine drown out everything else. All incriminating sound evaporates in the celebration of forward motion. I raised myself in the saddle and let fly with a mighty anal bellow. Had we been in a closed environment, like a zeppelin hanger, the resulting noise would have been the equivalent of material ripping. And not ordinary material, like a bed sheet... but something far more substantial, such as the tarp used to cover the outfield at a ball park.

I counted “One second... two seconds...” and glanced in the mirror.

Dickstein has the personality and reflexes of a cobra. He’d seen me rise up in the saddle and guessed what was coming. Before I could reach “three seconds” in the count, he swerved to avoid an invisible obstacle. Unfortunately, the subtlety of the moment was lost on Clyde, who rode into the vapor barrier with total oblivion. The humor of the moment was almost lost in the horror of his expression. Trapped in the confines of a full-face helmet, his eyeballs popped out and pounded against the face shield like two little fists.

Dickstein and I kept going. What else could we have done?

Seasoned rider Gerry Cavanaugh claims to be above these puerile antics. Getting the bloated feeling common to politicians about to give a campaign speech, he dismounted by a lake, bent slightly, and brought down a flock of low-flying Canada geese. “Once you get the range and windage right, the rest is easy,” said Cavanaugh.

While accredited studies of biker flatulence are rare, many anecdotal observations are attributed to “meat loaf night,” hosted by various riding clubs. There are always one or two stories of “R” bike seats bursting into flames or Harley’s accelerating to the speed of light, leaving comet-like trails behind them. Yet there is very little statistical analysis or scientific data to support these claims. Consensus acknowledges that biker flatulence increases in potency and frequency as age advances. According to one medical expert, it takes less than 15 minutes for a 58-year-old man to convert the mass of two chili dogs into 200 cubic yards of nerve gas. A 68-year-old man can convert a dish of apple sauce (or anything else on a diner’s “early bird special” salad bar) into an explosive vapor capable of causing a mine disaster. Worse in both cases is the sudden change of atmosphere which can make a feed lot seem positively aromatic.

Nor is this condition restricted to men. Women are not only capable of breaking the vapor barrier but many do so without suspicion, relying on their feminine guile to shed guilt. One flawlessly beautiful woman I know stepped into the shower with a hulking Harley pilot who rode under the name of “Kevlar.” The shower stall simmered with the steam of the hot water obscuring this woman’s toxic release. She bolted, then applied her dainty bulk to holding the shower stall door shut.

“Kevlar” trumpeted like a mastodon caught in the tar pits. His screams became hollow gasps, followed by a thud seconds later. “That gnarly son of a bitch has been doing this to me for years,” said his wife. “See how he likes it.”

A dainty morsel of a rider I adore buzzes through the Pennsylvania countryside on a bike painted a distinctly feminine color. She seeks out a German Frau Brau Haus, where she can get a Limburger cheese sandwich, with sliced Bermuda onion, on pumpernickel. Within minutes this lethal combination is whipped into the equivalent of diazinon. She does Pilates and has developed the kind of muscle control which will sustain a build-up of 168 psi. On one ride, a cager got too close to her bike and she let fly with a backdoor thunderclap, blowing the windshield out of his car.

Moto gear manufacturers have been aware of this problem for years. It has been said that attempts to mask the discharge of personal methane led to the development of mesh pants. Yet you cannot wear mesh in autumn. Solid ballistic pants would generally blow out on the third or fourth release. Special valves, once common to steam locomotives in the 19th century, were bulky and took up pocket room. A company in Minnesota developed an airtight product line called “Gastro Bloomers,” which were airtight ballistic pants guaranteed to sustain a shotgun blast at close range. The company dissolved in lawsuits. It seems riders would tuck the pants into their footgear. The integrity of the pants actually magnified the effect of the release and the soles would blow clean off the rider’s boots.

This unique aspect of rider behavior has changed the way some bikers travel. When my shrinking circle of riding buddies rents a cabin for a long trip, we now look for a place with a ventilation system that would do justice to the Lincoln Tunnel. This wasn’t possible on one trip. An engineer in the crowd suggested we all buy little wooden toy train whistles and insert them to the point where they could issue adequate warning, like a kind of air raid system. This proved impractical as the sounds coming out of Dickstein’s room at 5am were reminiscent of Union Station in 1865.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2013
All rights reserved

Who Reads Twisted Roads? 
             On The Road To Yellow Knife...

 Above: On the road to Yellow Knife, Gary Christman explains to a local Harley rider that the BMW GS is supposed to look like that and that he hadn't crashed earlier in the day. Photo by Gary Christman.


 Above: On the road to Yellow Knife, a waitress asks Jim Robinson to recite the alphabet. He can do it, but only if he can sing the alphabet song he learned in kindergarten. Photo by Gary Christman. 


 Above: On the road to Yellow Knife, Ken Bruce laughs, not realizing a Ural and three wheels are in his immediate future. Photo by Gary Christman.


        From The Days When BMW Was Into Chrome...


 Above: Rick Prell on his 2003 BMW "R1200C Phoenix." He named the bike "Mandy" after one of his favorite Barry Manilow songs. Photo submitted by Demise Prell
Above: Rick Prell's 2003 R1200 C Phoenix "Chrome Head." BMW's short term experiment with chrome resulted in one of the most distinctive applications for the "R" bike. Rick is posing here with a helmet he got from the Star Wars back lot. Photo submitted by Denise Prell. 


        From The Sunny State Of Washington...


Above: Doug Vavrick (Washngton), on "Helga," his expensive German mistress, a 2002 R1150RT-P. While the photo gives the impression of snow, Vavrick has just been tarred and feathered by "K" bike extremists. 

Got a picture of you and your ride? Send it in!  We love to hear from readers!  Send it to: jack.riepe@gmail.com.  Mark it "Reader's Photo" in the subject line.

24 comments:

Anonymous said...

Jack,

My colleagues are wondering what I'm up to, laughing out loud in my office.

Thanks for the laughs!

Will

redlegsrides said...

I also laughed out loud though I was alone....thanks for that. Been doing pre-trip preparations and chores and was feeling a bit tired.

As to Ken Bruce, I am sure he's got a big old smile on his face while astride his URAL rig.

dom

Redleg's Rides

Unknown said...

Jack:

thank you for your internal visualizations. I can almost feel it happening whilst riding. Not that this hasn't happened to many of us . . .

bob
Riding the Wet Coast

ps: when you mentioned "dainty morsel of a rider . . ." I immediately thought of KIM

Dan Mckenzie said...

Hey, I like Manilow too!!!

Sitting in the showroom, waiting for the peperwork to be done on my new Suzuki V-Strom 650 ABS Adventure. Yup, I went and did it...

BMW-Dick said...

Dear Jack:
This is epitome of sophomoric flatulence humor -- the kind of stuff we giggled over at PS 127 during recess. I had to stop reading about half way through, because my eyes were filled with tears of laughter. I remember that ride; it was like so many others on which we've gassed up. What is it about guys and farting that's so amusing?

PaulS said...

Jack, I've often thought it would be fun to take a ride with you and your friends and spend some time together someday. After reading this my calendar seems to be filling up quickly - for the next several years . . .

Wayne said...

Dear Sir,

Thank you for bringing this topic into the mainstream, it was long overdue. There's nothing like farting in the shower because the air currents constantly recirculate the fumes. DAMHIK

Jack Riepe said...

Dear Will:

Don't you just miss those great pork and beans rides with the Mac-Pac? Remember when Breg Dickstein could levitate himself eighteen inches out of the saddle?

Those were the days. Breg called me today and got the drop on me as we were discussing our last ride. Now you know the motivation for this blog.

Fondest regards,
Jack/reep

Jack Riepe said...

Charlie6 (Dom):

Thank you for writing in. I'm glad I could make a serious rider laugh once or twice.

Making readers laugh through the judicious use of fact is my mission in life. Notice while everyone seems to be having a good time, no one challenged my conclusions.

Have a great ride, Dom. God, I m so jealous. Thanks for reading and for writing in.

Fondest regards,
Jack/Reep

Nikos said...

Jack

This highlights the dangers of zip together combination suits - it's all to easy to blow ones's boots off.

Keep it up, all the evry best to you from all of us over here in Siberia (Wiesbaden)

N

BeemerGirl said...

Oilburner resembles that remark. And like the dainty little morsel, I enjoy exacting my revenge.

Too funny that the New York New Jersey Metroplex is focused on this issue recently. Is there some mushroom clouds visible in the area lately? Listened to a morning show that spent over half an hour discussing the very subject of ladies being able to get away with crop dusting in public places if even one man is around. Because it is attributed to him no matter what.

Jack Riepe said...

Dear Bobskoot:

Thank you for reading my tripe, once again. I believe that this was an issue whose time had come. I haven't ridden with Kimmi in a while. But I know quite a few dainty morsels who ride motorcycles. Each one handles a bike like an Apache rode a horse.

Only 4 more months Bob.

Fondest regards,
Jack/reep

Jack Riepe said...

Dear Dan:

I understand that Barry Manilow is the preferred recording artist of Suzuki V-Strom 650 riders the world over.

Congratulations on the new bike. I want a picture for the Twisted Roads Rogues Gallery asap.

Thanks for reading and boosting me on FaceBook.

Fondest regards,
Jack/reep

Jack Riepe said...

Dear Mr. Bregstein:

Do you realize I wrote over 1,100 words about flatulence and not once used the word "fart." Did you know the word "fart" is actually an anagram? It stands for "Fragrant Anally Released Torpedo."

Thank you for reading Twisted Roads and for occasionally wearing a bulls eye on your forehead. Do you think Clyde figured out he's "Clyde Trotsky" yet? Don't tell him.

Fondest regards,
Jack/reep

Jack Riepe said...

Dear Paul S:

Don't be a baby! Ride with us and take what follows like a man. Show the world your contempt for lesser mortals because you ride a mighty K1600.

And don't be the last one to leave the bar. There's a curse on that position.

Fondest regards,
Jack/reep

Jack Riepe said...

Dear Woody:

I have a truly humiliating flatulence story to write about. I think I will wait a bit and let the dust clear, if you catch my drift.

I hear you're getting a new bike tomorrow. I want your picture for my rogues gallery too.

Thanks for reading my blog and for sending me a comment.

Fondest regards,
Jack /reep

Jack Riepe said...

Dear Nikos:

Weisbaden! Isn't that the Medieval town where the squeak was invented? They have a great squeak museum there with more than 1,200 recorded squeaks on file.

Thanks for reading my blog and for leaving a comment.

Fondest regards,
Jack/Reep

Jack Riepe said...

Dear Steel Cupcake (Beemer Girl):

Did you ever see that great movie "Mars Attacks?" Do you remember the death ray that used to incinerate humans? I went out with a woman who could weld with her ass. There'd be a sound like tectonic plates rattling and whole villages would disappear. She would then look at me and say, "That's disgusting."

Thanks for reading Twisted Roads, and for chiming in.

Fondest regards,
Jack/reep



Ken said...

Jack - That story was a stinker! I'll be watching (with bated breath) for the next one.

BeemerGirl said...

I have seen Mars Attacks and love the "opera" at the end. If it weren't as late as it is, I would watch it again today.

Have you seen Despicable Me? And the invention of the "Dart" Gun? If not, you need to see it. Perfect example of enveloped by a faurte.

WooleyBugger said...

So I take it having you by for Chili cook off nite is probably a very bad idea.

BMW-Dick said...

Dear Jack:
You're still the most astute (AKA ass-toot)person I know. Thanks for the fun story. I'm sure Cavanaugh is out there right now duck hunting.

Unknown said...

You mean "acronym."

Greg Prosmushkin said...
This comment has been removed by the author.