#patent

How much is enough? When does a rational person look at what is available in motorcycle showrooms and say, “Okay, that’s enough for me.” Or even more paternalistically, that’s enough for you, too. What is too much? Is there too much?

I rouse with a start early, abnormally early, every day. I’m a creature of habit, I take comfort in my pre-dawn routine. I warm up a cup of coffee and read the Washington Post while everyone else is still drooling on their pillow in the dark. Must be some sort of survival mechanism, I want to know what blew up overnight. I can’t recommend this routine to everyone in good conscience though; the world’s headlines are no way to start the day, it’s woefully depressing stuff depicting a divisive world for the most part. I often retreat to the sports page where some respite from the real world can be found, well, in most regions anyway. “Most” regions does not include the Washington D.C. area though – our professional sports teams have been perennial disappointments. So inevitably, after reading about various sectarian factions trying to slaughter each other in the Middle East, and a third of the Washington Nationals starting rotation on the disabled list, I almost always find myself perusing bike sites on Facebook looking for something with a little less carnage and missed playoff opportunities. I was pretty dubious a few years back when I had a handful of friends pestering me about getting on Facebook. I didn’t really understand what it was all about. Well, I figured it out in short order, and one of the really cool things I discovered early on were the various sites dedicated to bikes and the people that ride them. I’m curious about the world and the people in it.

When you approach it from the outside looking from a distance, it looks like a giant ant hill rising out of the North Carolina clay. It’s imposing and weird at the same time, encircled in fence at the top. It is Oz and you’re here to meet the wizard.

“Deadline” is a term coined around the Civil War era, used to denote the line that prisoners of war shall not cross lest they be shot. Cross the line, be dead – pretty straight forward.

It’s that time of year again. There is ice, and snow, and muck outside and the wife is making noises about, “tidying up” the basement. In the absence of a garage the basement is, in large part anyway, my domain. Nothing strikes fear in my heart like hearing her utter that phrase, “tidying up.” Tidying up in her parlance means disappeared, like the Bermuda Triangle, never to be seen again.

I find myself sitting up at 2:30 in the morning sipping a cup a coffee and just letting my mind wander. This has become a pretty common occurrence here lately. I lost somebody I was very close to over the holidays, and it really put a damper on the, “Ho, ho, ho” aspect of the holiday season. And so I sip coffee at o’dark-thirty in a quiet house, on a quiet bay, and let my mind wander, looking for good and some sense of order in the dark.

Something unusual happened awhile back. My boss contacted me and wanted me to take a look at copy for an upcoming column coming out, a column written by John Burns. I have a great deal of respect for Mssr. Burns. The body of work John has produced over the length of his career speaks for itself, so what could I possibly add to anything John had to say? But okay, El Jefe wants me to look at something, sure, send it my way.

It’s something of a coincidence that as I was working on this piece, John Burns’ column on the CDC, helmet laws, Rob Dingman and the AMA broke last week. Some sort of synchronicity I suppose. It affirmed my belief in something positive I have witnessed here at MO for almost a year now. Namely, the powers that be at MO have an editorial vision that allows, encourages even, the editors and contributors to address contentious issues in their op/ed columns. There are no topics that are sacrosanct. I’m of the mind that discourse like this is good, unanimity is best left to Quaker meetings and jury verdicts. And so, onward and upward; there are always more dragons to slay and windmills to tilt at.

A decade or three ago, I noticed a trend that I found kind of amusing whilst laboriously combing through an annual set of Motorcycle Industry Council stats (yawn). The average age of your typical American motorcyclist was me. And over the years I noticed something else that remained fairly constant over time – like decades of time – that demographic novelty has remained true; as I aged, so did the average age of the American motorcyclist. And finally, after the passage of a number of years, something else came ringing home, worrisome, much as I might like to deny it: I am getting quite old.

I am an evangelical motorcyclist. It’s an unsettling realization. I’m not entirely comfortable in that role, as being an evangelical anything can be something of an annoyance at times, but when I consider the facts, there is no denying it. I try to curb my preaching so as not to be overbearing. But if I detect the slightest interest from a potential new rider, or an ex-rider who wants to come back to motorcycling, I don my Vanson frock of Two-Wheeled Salvation and grab the tie downs. I’m just hardwired that way. If I see an opportunity to increase the size of our flock, and spend somebody else’s money in the process acquiring a new-to-them motorcycle, what’s better than that?

Years ago, I had a boss who kindly informed me one day that everybody was expendable. I accepted that as gospel at the time, though I eventually came to find out that it’s absolute nonsense.

The one nice thing about the United States Army is you learn early on there are the written rules, and there are the unwritten rules. Knowledge of this simple truth can prove helpful throughout one’s life and has many useful applications. Take motorcycling for instance.

A lot of things get fixed in a garage, not all of them mechanical. I’ve come over the years to be convinced that a garage is an essential part of being a whole human being and a vital member of the community, any community you wish to be a part of. Sure, there is the obvious: working in a garage is preferable to squatting in a mud puddle in a gravel driveway in February. But there is more, much more.

“When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big-league ball players and the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time.”

I had the good fortune to be standing in a driveway in Northern Virginia last year staring at what appeared to be a box-stock, showroom condition, 1978 Yamaha SR500. Yamaha introduced the big thumper in ’78 but it was meant to evoke images of the earlier BSA Gold Star, G-50 Matchless, and Norton Manx, big sporting singles that had preceded it from a bygone, kick-start only, era. A time when men wore porridge pot helmets and had square cut jaws and steely faced grimaces that prevailed in places like the Isle of Man, or at Normandy and El Alamein as the case may be, if their racing season was interrupted by unpleasantness on the continent. This particular pristine big single had been purchased by its original owner 35 years ago from CycleSport in Northern Virginia, and here, several thousand miles and three and a half decades later, I had just bought it, along with an impressive collection of spares.