“These are the times...”

Thomas Paine was as much of a visionary as he was a revolutionary in the fight for American independence. I cannot help but feel he envisioned me personally, when on December 23, 1776, he wrote, “These are the times that try men’s souls.” He wasn’t kidding. Though it is a balmy 32º (Fahrenheit -- please see note below) on a day of brilliant sunshine — with expectations of hitting a pleasant 39º high — the weather dopes on network TV from Philadelphia are claiming we can get up to a foot of snow tomorrow night, going into Saturday morning. It is hard to rejoice in this kind of prognostication considering the state and municipal response to these storms will be to dump tons of salt, gravel, and cinders on the pavement. This will be the fourth storm we’ve had in three months and the street outside this house is beginning to resemble a dirt road. It is curb-to-curb rubble, with extra debris deposited in intersections, blind curves, and just before hidden stop signs. It is amazing that the stuff they put down to make ice less slippery, is as slippery as the ice itself when left on a dry road.

Important author’s note: All temperature measurements on this blog are cited in “Fahrenheit,” because this is the United States and that’s how we do things. If you don’t like it, you can kiss my ass. This incredibly accurate and easy to understand unit of measurement was named after Franz “Liebkind” O’Fahrenheit, an Irish physicist who allegedly established it after he came off a six-day drunk. I am told by reliable sources that Fahrenheit remains the preferred method of measuring temperature in the most progressive countries, such as the US and Belize. For those less fortunate who live in Fahrenheit-free countries (where tiny coffee cups and women who braid the hair on their nipples are the norm), I have provided a convenient metric conversion link here. Fahrenheit died a year before Paine was born. Otherwise, they might have been great friends.

American "Fahrenheit" coffee cup on the left... Celsius coffee cup on the right. Photo by Leslie Marsh.

The accumulation of gravel and cinders on the roads around here makes it worth your life to lean into a curve, attempt a hard stop, or just to put your feet down without going into a serious slide. Last week, three days of drenching rain and temperatures in the high 60’s washed away the salt, raising hopes of some early season riding... But then it snowed again, dropping three-quarters of an inch of precipitation followed by two inches of granite quarry slag and salt mine run-off. The major roads have been bleached white by the salt on them. Speeding vehicles are pursued by clouds of salt dust, which have to be bad for the beautiful black engine casings on my signature 1995 BMW K75, and worse for my lungs, which are already tanned from years of healthful cigar smoking. Last year, Dick Bregstein and I rode deep into January, spitting in the eye of the elements. Some salt crud managed to cling to the chrome crash bars on my bike during those rides.

“I’ll deal with that later,” I said to myself. Two weeks later, the salt had already pitted the chrome. Now I didn’t really give a shit as I had plans to powder coat these bars anyway. (They look great in flat black, a natural chrome replacement color for any motorcycle, and one that eliminates hours of polishing stuff.) But damage to the engine casings would make me sick.

Now to some riders, like Rick Slark (author of Keep The Rubber Side Down) and Domingo Chang (author of REDLEGS RIDES), there is nothing more exhilarating than riding off into a country-side buried under two feet of snow. Their blogs routinely illustrate hellish rides against an uninterrupted white background. Another friend of mine, world-class rider Doug Raymond, once attempted to ride through a Rocky Mountain pass in the middle of a blizzard. I salute these fearless BMW jockeys and admire their spirit. But for me, riding in snow or on roads choked with grit and salt is strictly shit for the birds. And the way things are shaping up now, I won’t be riding until the middle of March. Coincidently, I have scheduled my first group ride of the new season for the third week in March. This is assuming things warm up and local public works departments, plus PennDOT, go after the overtime and sweep this grit/shit off the pavement.

It should be noted that the fiercely independent and notoriously green state of Vermont no longer coats their roads with salt in the winter time. Rising concern over salt damage to the environment gave state leaders and ever-present “Friends of the Muted Shrew” (of which there are 2.5 left, both shrews and their friends) sufficient drive to seek an alternative. They now liberally sprinkle cinnamon over the pavement whenever it snows. This does nothing for traction, but it makes the whole place smell like fresh apple pie in the winter.

My bike, one of the most perfect motorcycles ever built (artistically and tastefully tweaked into a two-wheeled signature masterpiece), sits on the center-stand in the garage, connected to an “Accumate” battery tender and life support system. Putting my ear to the gas tank, I can detect a barely audible hum coursing through its steel muscles. It is the quiet resolve of this Teutonic machine to again range free and unshackled on a multiple state rampage. Brian Curry, well known among the Mac Pac and BMW circles as a K75 Guru, switched out the connecting plugs on both the battery tender and the pigtail to the battery. I believed he used something akin to a John Deere connection, which appears to be tighter and very effective. Disconnected from the tender, the pigtail has a tight-fitting cap and disappears against the black background of the frame when not in use.

Under normal circumstances, I would be doing whatever I could to get my machine into Tom Cutter’s shop for its annual service. However, the unanticipated loss of 80 percent of my income since (last December) has cast a pall over motorcycle expenditures. The typical service I would be seeking this year includes changing all fluids (engine oil, transmission, coolant, and brake fluid) plus lubing the rear shaft splines. Tom Cutter — of the Rubber Chicken Racing Garage — services motorcycles like Edison invented light bulbs. Cutter restoration bikes are highly prized and valued at the top of the rare motorcycle food chain. He has been recently honored by the International Council of BMW Clubs as a “Friend of the Marque,” which is one of the highest forms of recognition bestowed by the group. It is not uncommon for bike owners to list “Cutter serviced” as an added feature of a machine they are looking to sell.

I may attempt to do some of this work myself, but publicly admitting this drives up the cost of the repairs when I eventually show up at Cutter’s with a disassembled motorcycle in a bag. Anticipating the day when I might be forced to service my own bike, I invested in a set of tools, in an official toolbox with many little drawers, purchased from my riding buddy Clyde Jacobs.

“What are you going to use these for?” asked Clyde, as he pushed the red toolbox into the garage on a dolly.

“It is important to have all of the tools you need whether you are attempting a routine service job or a major modification,” I replied.

Clyde looked at me as if a public toilet someplace had begun to recite Shakespeare.

“Do you know where the oil filter is on a K75?” he asked, in the kind of snide manner assumed by a paleontologist polling a third grader to see if he knows the brontosaurus is pointy at both ends.

“The oil filter is strategically placed in the middle of the K75’s lubrication system, where it can most effectively screen out contaminants,” was my answer. Followed by a robust, “So fuck you.”

“That’s what I thought,” said Clyde, concealing a smirk of encouragement by beaming it around the garage. “If I come back here in a month, I bet this tool box will be on the back porch, doing double duty as a cigar humidor, or in the exact same place I left it.”

Some comments are best answered by a gesture and I flipped Clyde the bird in a defiant challenge. He had his back to me, however, and lost out on a great opportunity for a comeback. His reflexes aren’t what they used to be and it pains me to take advantage of a friend in this manner.

Most BMW riders keep their garages and workbenches looking like operating rooms where rich people go for plastic surgery. The garage here is a total shit house. Two of the bays are reserved for Leslie’s Subaru, the canoe, and her art stuff. That is because this her house, which I presently infest like a huge parasite. (Leslie is as merciful and compassionate as she is endearing.) The motorcycle bay is home to my bike, a trailer, and all the gardening stuff. It is scientifically arranged in such a manner to closely resemble a flea market that has endured a natural gas explosion.

My shit is all over the place.

The garage looks like a flea market that has endured a natural gas explosion. Photo by Leslie Marsh


There really is no excuse for it... But in the event the gentle reader will accept one, let me say my joints seldom surge with enthusiasm for reorganizing this space. I had thought about holding one of my famous “garage night events,” in which I graciously sucker my riding buddies into giving me a hand with stuff like this, but recent setbacks would cause me to insist they also bring the beer, pizza, and cigars. There are limits to what even I can get away with. Besides, I am reserving their favor for more important things, like picking my fat ass out of the trench when I slip on the last fucking handful of gravel left on the road when I take my first group ride on March 20th, 2010. I have asked my beautiful, 25-year-old-daughter to give me a hand. She is delighted to do so and has a free Saturday morning on March 13th, 2027.

Perhaps I am looking at this the wrong way.

Maybe what I need are four more weeks of global warming, during which the snow falls fast and furiously, in atmospheric conditions that cause sparrows to freeze in flight, and also during which the authorities drop enough ground stone for ancient Roman road-builders to make a highway from Naples to the rings of Saturn, to isolate me from the distraction of riding, and to concentrate on organizing the garage and writing something that earns me millions of fucking dollars, and the attention of women who will stand alongside my ride routes, just waiting to lift their shirts for my consideration.

For Nikos:
Twisted Roads Reader Nikos posed a question a while back, regarding oil that appeared to be leaking out of a vintage BMW “R” bike’s rear drive. I put that to the boys of the Airhead’s group at a recent Mac Pac breakfast.

They claim that it is most likely the lubricating oil from the bike’s final drive, seeping out through a weep hole that is there for that purpose. According to Todd Byrum and Joe Dille, there is rubber membrane or seal in the rear drive that keeps the oil in there from coming into contact with the braking mechanism. They suspect the rubber seal has given up the ghost. Now as I recall, this motorcycle is close to 20 years old, and nothing rubber lasts forever (though child support seems to).

Joe Dille says the ruptured seal could be indicative of a bigger problem involving a bearing. It is my understanding that this sometimes occurs in these older machines if they are not properly maintained. If I recall, you bought it as the second or third owner. If it is a bearing, it isn’t likely to be an inexpensive investment. The job should be done by a qualified BMW wrench. Your contacts with local BMW groups in Britain should be able to give you some good recommendations.

Coming Up...
On Monday: This blog will feature a long overdue “Dispatches From The Front” section, during which I will air my dirty laundry (letters from readers), honor readers who have sent me stuff (Bob Skoot, Ricky Matz, and Tena Abbey), and detail some future rides, which some of you might try to attend. Unlike Michael Beattie from Key West, I love surprizes.

Twisted Roads will feature new blog posts every Monday and Thursday! Set Your RSS Feed Now!


©Copyright Jack Riepe 2010
AKA The Lindbergh Baby (Mac Pac)
AKA Vindak8r (Motorcycle Views)
AKA The Chamberlain — PS (With A Shrug)

Bottoms Up...

The day was hotter than hell that July weekend (35 years ago) and we were riding around on back roads, where Bergen County, NJ backs up against the New York State line. The bike was my 1975 Kawasaki H2, which was all balls and go. But it was unbelievably short on creature comfort with a distinct buzziness that rose and fell with the tach needle. The seat was a 3/4 inch sheet of foam over a plastic pan. From a distance, like in a satellite photograph, it looked it would be as soft as a sofa in a congressional office. And it was, for periods as long as 45 minutes. Then the heat of the asses on the black vinyl would change the molecular structure of the foam, converting it into slate. While extremely durable, slate is no longer used for motorcycle seats. For one thing, it acts like a lightning rod, conducting every imperfection in the road straight to all 4,823 nerve endings in the average ass. And for another, it reminds women with the most perfect of asses that they have to take a piss every 30 miles.

“I have to pee,” she yelled in my ear, over the sound of the bike, which made the same noise as a B-52, had that aircraft been powered by huge lawnmower engines.

I nodded in the exaggerated way that riders, like deep sea divers, use to convey basic understanding. I knew this woman well. She certainly did have to pee, but she also wanted a cigarette and cup of coffee too. Normally, I am agreeable to the coffee and donut philosophy of motorcycle riding. But she had already pissed so often that morning that I was getting the impression she was staking her territory. I saw a sign indicating a local park, and followed it, anticipating the kind of restroom with an aroma and general upkeep which discourages pretty girlfriends from going inside.

In truth, I’d grown accustomed to having her run into nearby cover and squatting for the 30 seconds it took to complete the ritual. I have never tired of watching a woman drop her jeans while wagging her butt in my direction. The place where I had pulled over was not really a park as you would expect, however. This patch of greenery was a new urban investment in an experiment to convert vacant lots (illegal dumping sites) into “Vest-Pocket Mini Parks.” There really were no facilities. Just a little road that ran through it, with bushes on one side, and a stream on the other. The stream had been dammed to create a little pond, upon which floated a big, majestic, malignant swan.

Now most people, especially dopes who live in cities, think swans are the ultimate expression of nature’s beauty. They see them as avian clipper ships gently moving across the surface of a lake, or as seamlessly smooth feathered sculptures waiting to inspire poets or artists. In reality, swans are dobermans with fucking beaks. They will not hesitate to hiss at, spit on, or savagely attack anything they deem an aggravation. And everything that is not some stupid old lady feeding them stale bread is an aggravation. Their wings are armed with bony joints that can break a child or a dog’s leg. In Europe, where they know about these things, swans are hunted with a regular season.

Two swans waiting to attack something... The ancients thought the black markings at the base of their bills were their souls. Photo from Wikipedia.

My girl hopped off the bike and disappeared into the brush, such as it was, to wag her backside at me. Speaking of birds, it is said that the ostrich will attempt concealment by sticking its head in a hole. The woman I was with that day felt concealed as long as she couldn’t see anyone looking at her. Her ass was clearly visible to me (no objections) and to the two cops having coffee in the cruiser parked under the three trees in this place. They apparently had no objections either. The only other player in the drama that was about to unfold was an old lady sitting on a park bench, who was entranced by the swan.

I dismounted and sat on a bench of my own, knowing that my denim princess would now be lighting up a Marlboro, possibly two.

“Did those cops see my ass,” she asked, plopping down on the bench.

“I believe they did, and since they didn’t shoot, it must have passed muster.”

The swan was striking all the poses these aquatic bird-shit generators have used to glom day-old bread from suckers for generations. But the little old lady wasn’t there to make a deposit, just to watch. It finally resorted to dabbling along the bottom of the lake with its forty-foot long neck. The bird would pull its head out of the water, gargle, then repeated the process, wagging its ass at us. This happened three or four times. But the last time, it flapped its wings while its ass was still in the air, and then the neck came up without the head — spurting blood from a white hose.

The old lady started to shriek and scream.

The cops flipped on their roof lights and were there in 10 seconds.

“What happened?” one yelled.

“What’s the matter?” the other cop asked, looking directly at me. My girlfriend and I pointed at the swan at the same time. The headless neck was still moving around, while the body continued to paddle for a bit, before coming to a stop.

In truth, my girlfriend and I were both subscribers to the Monty Python’s Flying Circus school of humor, and we thought this was the funniest thing we’d seen in forever. (I had to cover my mouth to keep from laughing out loud.) The cops were amazed too, to the point where I’m sure they found it hard to laugh as well. And I know this sounds horrible, but the shrieking of the old lady only made it funnier.

Common snapping turtle, about 22 feet in diameter. Snappers this big can weigh up to a ton. Note the fog line chewed away from the asphalt. This turtle went on to rip the tires off a bus, before being worked over with a flame thrower by a local SWAT team. Photo from Wikipedia

Shortly thereafter, a local paper reported that an $800 swan, purchased through a grant for a reconditioned park, had been killed (decapitated) by a huge snapping turtle that had moved into the pond. While the turtle had been trapped and removed (out of consideration for kids who may have ventured into this cholera-infested water), there were no plans to spend $800 bucks for another swan.

Whether you are a swan or a beautiful woman, it pays to cover your ass.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2004

AKA The Lindbergh Baby (Mac Pac)

AKA Vindak8r (Motorcycle Views)

AKA The Chamberlain — PS (With A Shrug)

We Were Here First...

There is nothing that suggests order and tranquility in the world like a properly loaded motorcycle. The perfect balance of panniers and tightly lashed gear hint at competence, drive, and strong organizational ability. My first bike always looked like the delivery vehicle from hell’s flea market. There was crap lashed all over it whenever I had someplace to go and stuff to carry.

This early Saturday morning in April, 1977 was no exception. I was out for a day trip and wasn’t carrying much, but the backpacks I had to put it in were either too small or way too large.

The day’s objective was to ride my bike to a pretty little lake about 70 miles distant, where I would meet one of my closest friends (Ihor Jaroslaw Sypko) and spend five or six hours fishing for perch or small-mouth bass. Fishing is equal parts philosophy, natural science, personal reflection, and rehabilitation for the soul. It is the pursuit of thinking men that occasionally results in a fabulous dinner derived from the most rewarding techniques of the hunter/gatherer. Fishing is the ability to overcome the sensory perception of an adversary that has been more than 500 million years in evolution — relying on nothing more than $800 or $900 worth of highly specialized gear.

I had condensed the gear I wanted into a little pile of odd-sized plastic boxes, which in turn fit neatly into the confines of a battered pack. The vest was a different story. It had a dozen pockets on it, each bulging with stuff deemed “essential.” Folded, the garment became an irregular lump of material that resisted being shoved into the pack. It was slightly less so rolled, but the pack took on a shape that could only be described as “haphazard,” which was not the image I wanted to convey.

“Screw the image,” I thought to myself. “I am what I am.” The sissy bar on the back of the 1975 Kawasaki H2 now held a beat up pack that looked like a pillowcase sporting straps and buckles, a three-foot-long canister that contained two lengths of a fishing rod, and a trout net. At the last minute, I bungeed my old fishing hat to the rig as well.

It was 4 am when I left the house, an apartment on Boulevard East, in Guttenberg, NJ. Looking down from the cliffs that ring Manhattan on the west, it was like someone had pressed the “mute” button on “The City.” New York may be the “city that never sleeps,” but it gets a little drowsy about an hour before first light.

The H2 started like a velociraptor clearing its throat. A reassuring cloud of blue smoke issued from all three pipes, hanging in the cool morning air about a foot above the ground. I snicked the bike into gear, and headed off on the twisty, three-mile stretch at the top of the cliffs, before picking up the highway at the mouth of the Lincoln Tunnel, and heading north.

Route 17 in New Jersey is a meat-grinder of a highway lined with strip malls and abrupt feeder lanes which can make for an interesting ride, but one devoid of any visual stimulation worth a damn. I had covered this stretch hundreds of times, and it was traffic free at this hour of the day. The sky was just starting to lighten as I passed through Paramus. I was tempted to twist the throttle wide open, but I kept coming across police cruisers (looking for the last of the Friday night drunks), and changed my mind.

Crossing the state line at Suffern, NY was like stepping through a trap door. Little mountains popped out of the terrain, creating valleys lined with villages that still held their colonial charm. Thin, tilted headstones in churchyards offered mute recommendation to sermons delivered under stone steeples still straight and true. Route 17 is the main street in places like Sloatsburg and Tuxedo Park, but it had real personality 30 years ago.

I would be on time for meeting Ihor, who came from another direction, driving a 1948 Willy’s Overland Station Wagon.

(Above) Here is a beautifully restored Willys Overland Station Wagon that was like Ihors. This one is definitely not his (which was yellow and black). This car is owned by C. Stevens. Picture taken from the Internet.

Sixty or seventy miles north of New York City lies a chain of lakes and forests strung together in a beautiful necklace of state parks, that stretch west from the majestic Hudson to the bucolic and creek-like Ramapo River. It is a cathedral of woodland repose for three seasons out of the year. Deer, fox, turkey, and bear ghost through these hardwood-covered foothills of the Catskills, and from anyplace high, you can see ridge-top fold into misty ridge-top.

This heaven becomes hell in the summer though.

Thousands of folks (and I do mean thousands) from the Big Apple converge on this place every summer afternoon, with boom boxes, tons of litter, and absolutely no respect for the setting nor anything else. The noise level alone is frightening.

At the time of this story, Ihor (pronounced EEE-whore) and I were still city boys. Though avid campers, we had just discovered the true religion of fishing and thought nothing of the two-hour pre-dawn drive (ride) to spend the day casting in comparative solitude.

The solitude was temporarily guaranteed by the cool, rainy nature of spring, and New York State's Department of Environmental Conservation, which declared these lakes could only be used for fishing. This guarantee was upheld by two rangers responsible for about 1200 square miles of park. Remarkably, they could hold the crowd at bay, when they were there. Their job was easy on chilly spring days. Ihor and I were determined to squeeze every last hour out of the solitude season.

Yet the weather turned unseasonably warm on this particular day and the crowd arrived weeks ahead of schedule.

The lake we favored covered about 50 acres. There was a walk of just under a mile to reach the far end of it, which offered a huge boulder to sit on and to cast from, within the shade of the trees, but without the interference of their branches.

We were in mid-cast on this boulder when an apparent Mardi Gras burst from the trees. At least twenty people equipped for a major party set up bar and churned into the water not 50 feet from our lines -- barely separated from us by a stand of birches. Their boom box was rippling the coffee in my thermos cup.

Ihor Jaroslaw Sypko —archaeologist, sportsman, man of letters — my friend and dietician for 35 years. To quote P.G. Wodehouse, "We were boys at school together." Here we see Ihor with a beautiful trout he seduced from the AuSable River using a light rod.


My friend is the classic sportsman in every respect. I've never known him to swear nor to even raise his voice. Rolling his eyes and reeling in his line, Sypko's expression conveyed heartfelt disgust. There were seven big lakes within a few miles of each other. The crowd could have gone anyplace. Instead they came straight to us.

About this time I glanced to the side of our rock, and noticed a sinister-looking copper shape coiled in the shallows.

"Look at this snake," I said. "I think it's a deadly swamp adder."

"It's probably a stick," said Sypko.

"Well the stick just flicked its tongue at me."

"What kind of head does it have?" asked Sypko.

"What do you mean what kind of head does it have? Do I look like a hat salesman to snakes? It has the flicking kind of head common to the deadly swamp adder."

Sypko leaned over edge, studied the reptile below, and announced: "Common is right. It's a common water snake. Round eyes and a slim head that's nearly under water. Poisonous snakes hold their heads high in the water."

The northern watersnake... This one is destined for Congress. Photo by the University of North Carolina, via the internet.



"I once read that deadly swamp adders are often identified as common water snakes," I said authoritatively, still attempting to compete with Sypko’s wealth of wood lore.

"There is no such thing as a deadly swamp adder, certainly not here. That's a common water snake. It will swim away with its head nearly underwater."

To prove his point, my friend drizzled a few twigs down the side of the boulder, which started the snake (head practically submerged), out into the lake.

"See," noted Sypko. And then he got an odd look in his eyes. It was the sort of look I imagine Jack the Ripper got when shaving.

Adjusting the trajectory of several more twigs and little pine cones to hit the water just right, Sypko steered the swimming snake around the spit of trees and into the adjacent festivities as if by remote control.

Nothing happened for a few seconds. Then the Mardi Gras exploded into a stampede. Twenty people came screaming out of the water -- many in various stages of undress -- barely pausing to grab chairs, towels, and shoulder-mounted stereo equipment in their flight to the road.

The following silence was both immediate and stark, like suddenly being thrust under a bell jar.

"Suppose that snake had been a deadly swamp adder," I asked.

"We were here first," said Sypko.

"Actually, the snake was here first."

"Then remind me to bring a mouse for our host next week," said Sypko, casting a line into the lake.

©Copyright Jack Riepe 2003
AKA The Lindbergh Baby (The Mac Pac)
AKA The Vindak8r (Motorcycle Views)
AKA The Chamberlain — PS (With A Shrug)