A couple summers back, I rode the then-new BMW F800ST from the northeastern edge of New Jersey to the midwestern rim of California. The two weeks and 4200 miles included side trips to visit old friends, a pause for the vintage races at Mid-Ohio and a wrong turn in Yellowstone that put me in Montana. All time well spent.
And damned if it wasn't fun!
As an Ohioan born and raised, the familiar roads of the Midwest were much the same, and the girls just as pretty. But the new hardships across the land were obvious, and the pervasive sense that this chapter in the American drama was coming to a close. But that's what eras do: They end. Which means that new ones begin. And so long as you have available both road and motorcycle, the response is equally apparent: Just ride.
Idaho, which has what must be the country's highest per capita of tractor-trailer rigs and
Pennsylvania's I-90 ranks among our better slabways, snaking through the pleasing greenery of the Pocono Mountains. Sharon, Pennsylvania, requires a stop at Quaker Steak & Lube for the "Best Wings USA" (with 19 barbecue sauce varieties) and a cold Yuengling Lager draft (brewed in Pottsville since 1829). In Canton, Ohio, three days of rain let me catch up with old friends Bill and Barb Schiltz, and exhaust their supply of Dortmunder Gold Lager (Great Lakes Brewing, Cleveland). Bill provided my first two-wheeled ride on his Cushman scooter 50 years ago.
At Mid-Ohio, I run into a platoon of Hoosiers helping Harley rider Jon Shultz during practice. Bruce Alexander is the first of many to ask about the new BMW twin, which I have to say is a remarkably good motorcycle. Turns out Bruce has an extra room at a Mansfield motel, and it's next to a Mexican restaurant! This taxes my credulity: Mexicans in Mansfield? In my day, the town was synonymous with the Ohio State Reformatory, a gothic prison built in 1886, featured in the film The Shawshank Redemption. The refrain echoes in my memory: "You just keep it up young man, and you're gonna end up in Mansfield!"
But sure enough, El Campesino is staffed by real Mexicans and the margaritas come in quart-sized goblets. Jon hadn't the best day at the track; a leaking fuel tank on his '54 Harley KH, a quick soldering job... iffy... see how it goes tomorrow. But that doesn't account for the pain now gathering in his face, and I notice the chile verde salsa in front of him, and the droplets of sweat forming on his eyebrows. What is it, Jon?
"Gasp... don't eat the green stuff," he whispers.
Ducati pilot Jonathon White (97) recently sold his original 750cc racer to a Californian n
The next day, familiar faces are everywhere in the pits: Nobby Clark, tuning a Norton International; Joe Bolger, the original hero of Spanish two-stroke motocrossers in the '60s; fellow Buckeye and Ducati single ace Jonathan White; Dave Roper, the reigning geezer guru of vintage racing on the ex-Cal Rayborn Aermacchi Sprint. Jay Springsteen and Gary Nixon are here, and Henry Hogben, lord high master of the Ducati single. My own new hero, however, is young Brice Cooper in the Triumph Thruxton Cup Series, who has a beer magazine, Draft, as one of his sponsors. Sweet.
Plus, the Shultz cooler offers up a Leinenkugel Sunset Wheat beer (Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin, est. 1867.) Could life be better?
Hard-nosing the Heartland Highway
By Indiana, I yield to the reality of hot weather and the baby Beemer's sporting saddle and strap on the Airhawk. Much better. Logansport's Olde Style Inn offers 75-cent drafts on Monday, and a decent hamburger for $2.50. God bless America! On to Peoria, Illinois, home to one of the last great TT scrambles, and Galesburg, where I pay my respects at Carl Sandburg's birthplace. Bound for Moline, I leave the charming farms and towns of the Midwest and make for the next stretch of Interstate, the big 80 straight across Iowa. I lay up for the night in Iowa City to gather strength. A Reuben sandwich and a bottle of John's Generation White Ale (Millstream Brewing Co., Amana, Iowa), seem to help.
By Tod Rafferty
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