I've had a slew of bikes now, most good and some better-are there any truly bad motor-cycles?-all bristling with lessons I needed to learn. There is no better way to learn humility than by begging your buddy to yank your suddenly porky dirtbike off you, now-right-now-please-now before your barbecuing leg starts to smell like food. There isn't a finer lesson in the subtleties of international relations than seeing the wiring diagram of a Moto Guzzi 850 T-3 translated into Texican with a roach clip and circuit tester 180 miles east of Santa Fe. The world's best abject lesson in sweating the details is your first lusty leer at the steering head of a new-to-you Ducati. Triumph hardtails, plunger Beezas, RZ350s and single-cam Hondas all had things to teach this slow, hard-headed student.
All I've really learned is that I'm a rider first. I've nailed two degrees, failed at two industries, gone to war and written a book. I've piloted armored vehicles, Class 8 trucks, construction equipment, large yachts, hydroplanes and aircraft, but those are only pieces of my experience.
Motorcycles are a component of my personality. I still whip my head around to see what kind of bike just went by. Bilateral hearing damage doesn't prevent me telling a Harley from an open-pipe Virago, eight blocks off.
My second wife was too practical to suffer riding. Important things must come before such frivolity. Leaving her to grind away at those important things, I decamped south to work on fine and frivolous things with a pretty girl who learned to ride her Kawasaki KZ440 around the green hills of Eugene, Oregon.
After a couple of weeks, sister Joy called to tell me that my old buddy Bill is a chicken farmer in (where else?) Eugene. The BMW R1200S I fired up to run out there may not be Commando-cool, but it is a sinister-black thunderhead of vicious torque and Wagnerian pathos. One hot spring afternoon I skittered down Bill's steep dirt driveway, ignored the 12-gauge and chugged his last beer. In random order, we viewed his chainsaw, glass-blowing lathe and flock of free-ranging guard chickens that lay pastel Easter eggs. Behind his shed door, I spied a flash of blue Yamaha paint.
Bill still keeps his RD400, in sad shape but mostly complete. As my dad still says of every pretty girl, it makes an old man want to try again. With radial-finned heads, maybe, and some Spec II chambers off Craigslist...
A long time ago, I thought a Norton 850 Commando was the coolest thing ever.
I was right.
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