soul

  As I rode into Salt Lake City, my BMW K100RS was humming right along, though it’s tires were shot, brake pads thin, engine oil black and dirty, fairing covered in bugs and road grime. Our Iron Butt Rally was  only minutes from being over and I caught myself leaning in close and patting the K-Bikes pearl white aluminum fuel tank with my leather gloved left hand, and saying aloud, “Thanks for everything!” The K-bike seemed to shrug it off, saying” Anytime”. The Iron Butt Rally has been known to break a man’s spirit as well as well as that of his steed.

    The BMW had, over the last 11 days, been subjected to torture. From  115 degree heat in El Centro, California, to bringing me across the entire state of Ohio in a driving rain, my motorcycle endured. We had traveled about eleven thousand miles over the last eleven days, and every time I accelerated, it was usually full throttle. Many times, when I braked, it was scrubbing off speed from 80 plus mph. Sometimes, the only break that myself or the BMW would get would be when we stopped for fuel. Twenty hour stints were not uncommon. The German built BMW dutifully went along with whatever I asked it do. In eleven thousand miles, crammed into eleven days, it never missed a beat.

     This is probably the first time that I realized that motorcycles have “Soul”. I don’t mean they have ’A’ soul like the one I have that God gave me. This motorcycle  has character and attitude, panache if you will.  I think what I have come to realize is that a lot of inanimate objects that we take for granted are the direct result of the passion of their creator. The BMW K-Bike design is not an accident. It is the end result of someones idea of what it should look like, ride like, and perform like. I remember reading a magazine article addressing the very model of BMW that I owned. The test rider for the magazine was interviewing one of the engineers that was responsible for creating the K-Bike and complained to the engineer that this motorcycle had a significant amount of vibration at 50 to 60 mph. The engineer had a puzzled look on his face, then asked “Why are you riding so slow? we designed it to ridden much faster”. Engineers had not considered the speed limits of the good ol U S of A but had the German autobahn as its test track. Indeed, this BMW K-bike had little or no vibration between 75 and 130 mph. Soul built right in.

    Sorichio Honda was so passionate about building a complete motorcycle that he named his first motorcycles “Dream” . Mr. Honda had grown up poor and his first foray into design was a superior piston ring. Though he was pleased with his design, he dreamt of being able to design and manufacture a complete engine, then the entire motorcycle. His “Dream” came true when he built and sold his first complete motorcycles, bearing his namesake  in the 1950s. In 2001, Honda became and still is the number one manufacturer of engines in the world. Dream realized. Soul, no extra charge.

       What do you ride?  What do you drive?  Think about the vehicles that share your garage or driveway. Do they have soul? Try this. Slowly run your hand over the gas tank of your motorcycle, or the fender of your car or truck, and see if it will respond. If it has soul, it will speak to you. You may even be compelled to give it a good soapy wash, or lay on a coat of fine carnuba wax. You may realize that it’s crying for an oil change, or needs a new pair of shoes.  Or, or maybe, maybe, when no one is looking, you’ll give it a hug. After all, it does have soul. Boyd

The good, the bad, the ugly (Continued from “Roots”)

The Good…

 …”ey up, are ye knackered from the lorrie ride to the agency?, yalookin’ a lil’ gobsmacked mate”… the Norton uttered.  I’m not sure what he said or who he was addressing so I didn’t say anything.  “He’s asking you if the ride in the truck to the dealership made you tired” interpreted the Parilla. Oh, okay, wellll, (wow did she have a sultry voice) “uh, no, no, the ride in the truck was fine, the ride from the “agency” to here was rather harrowing” .  ‘ol Vic, he’ll test ye mettle, he will” again, the Norton speaks and again, I don’t know what he said. Before the Parilla can relay what he said, I replied, “I can speak “motorbike” with the best of you, but for the life of me, I can’t understand what you are saying”.  “It’s a fair cop guv, you’ve got me bang to rights you do” the Norton comes back.  The Parilla interrupts, “he likes to bring a little of the old country with him but he means no harm. You’ll figure him out soon enough”. Pip Pip, cheerio and all that rot” says Norton. The Parilla rolled her headlight, “he’s showing off a little, but he’s okay.

   Just about every Sunday for the next  2 years, the Norton was shuttled off to some racetrack, usually sporting some kind of trophy when he came home, so I knew he was faaast. The Parilla was Vics’ favorite ride to go eat breakfast on every Saturday morning. He would ride to a different obscure little restaurant, then ride some interesting roads, roll back into the garage around  three o’clock, then clean us up. Oh, by the way, I get ridden just about every day back and forth to work. Vic works thirty four miles from his house, and though I’m not sure what he does all day, it must be pretty stressful ‘cause he’ll wring me out on the way home.

 The  Bad…

Dateline: Some Saturday in November 1963 – 8:35 am

    Vic always opens up the garage at exactly 6:30 am every morning. Rain or shine, Holiday or no, I’ve never known Vic to take a day off. He always strolls into the shop, whistling some catchy tune, a clean towel at the ready, just in case one of us need a quick wipe down. He was over two hours late and getting later. We were all talking amongst ourselves, trying to figure out what was going on, but it didn’t matter because he never did show up. I mean, HE NEVER DID SHOW UP! EVER! I MEAN, NOT ONE TIME EVER AGAIN, DID HE SHOW UP!

   After a lonnnnnnng time, could have been months, may have been years, the garage door opened slowly and a couple of people that we didn’t recognize walked in. They really didn’t seem too interested in us although one of them had a screamin’ little ba…uh, kid that would jump on each one of us, dragging his little cowboy boots across our gas tanks, twisting and pulling everything  from the clutch lever to the choke, but Norton quickly put all the fun and games to an end when he promptly fell over, pinning the little kid underneath him. The Parilla stifled a laugh but I didn’t. I laughed out loud, though through all of the commotion, I don’t think anybody heard me. It took both of the bigger people to pick the Norton up and get the little kid out from under him. He was crying and had snot running out of his nose but he wasn’t hurt too bad. The bigger people seemed to want to get out of here, so left with the crying kid in tow.

 The ugly…

     A few days after the “cryin’ kid people” left, we were all split up. They loaded up Norton , and I was waiting my turn to load up when they drove off, leaving the Parilla and myself in the garage. Sure enough, some young looking punk came and crammed my key into me and hit my starter button but my battery was dead. He was able to kick start me but I didn’t give in until the pimply faced kid was sucking some serious wind.  I tried to tell the Parilla goodbye but she wouldn’t look at me and I couldn’t get her attention. He rode me hard for about three weeks and burned my tires smooth as a tabletop, then rather unceremoniously parked me in a barn forever. Well, not forever but long enough for me to go into a deep coma.

   I woke up for the first time in a long time, in the back of a pickup truck, leaned over against an old mattress. At least it was pretty comfy. It seems like we had driven for days when we came to stop somewhere in a place that is indescribably hot.  Oh, and humid too! I found out later that this place is called Tulsa,Okohma, or something like that. Now this fat chick with some truely bizzare tats comes over to look at me, and says, “I thought you were a  Harley”. Now I really wasn’t sure what a Harley was but figured out that it was some other kind of motorcycle. She spat a wad of tobacco juice at me and said, “I don’t want no freakin’ rice burner”, and with a crude jesture of her thumb, said, “send this thang to my sister in Bonham, Texas”. I wasn’t even unloaded, in Okmahoma. The same day, I landed in Bonham, Texas. A real nice guy named Rick, ( brother-in-law to tat girl ) came out and looked at me and said that he would take me. I’m thinking, finally, someone is going to adopt me but this guy rolled me right into his shed, leaned me over against a post and walked away. Sigh.

    I was asleep when Rick came out one day and loaded me up into, yeah, you guessed it, another pickup truck. He took me to a place that he went to work everyday, some car dealership.  He said some guy named Lanny wanted to look at me. Lanny came out and said he would try to see if there was something he could do for me. So he messes around with my electrics for a few days and here is where things get really weird.

   This dude name Byod, Body, nooo, maybe Bob, I don’t know, strange name, anyway he sees me an starts to hyperventilate or something. His knees went weak, his face was flush, his words all astutter, starts rubbing my seat and stroking my gas tank. I’m thinking, “hey, maybe this fat dude has a clue” Well it takes this guy like to month to strike a deal for me (salesman Indeed?) but he finally ponies up the cash and takes me to his place. When he wheels me into his garage, I see my cousin, a black dude named “Dream” already there. He was born after me, like ’66 I think and he’s a 305. There are some other kewl dudes hanging out in there as well so for now, it looks like I’ve found a home, at least this guy seems to like me. I’ll keep you updated on my progress as he says he’s gonna make look like new. Later and write when you can. Benly