Dusting Off

Sun beats down, baking the ground. The dirt road is bunched like a washboard, rattling the bike beneath me and the teeth inside my head. On the far horizon, the white salt residue of a dried lakebed ripples in the heat waves, curling in the distance like wisps of smoke.

I’m riding across the Carrizo Plain, a massive expanse tucked in the coastal ranges east of San Luis Obisbo. This is the most dirt riding I’ve done with a motorcycle, around thirty miles of washboard, sand drift, gravel, and rock.

At first, I slow down as I hit the washboard, trying to find paths around it. But as I grow impatient, I get out of the saddle and stay on the throttle. And the bike starts floating across the bumps, taking the rattle better at speed than it did while rolling slowly. The back end slides out easily while turning. Gravel and sand grab the front tire, wiggling the bike.

At Soda Lake, a salt-covered puddle of nothingness, I ride through scraggly brush, down a short single track path to the whiteness. I expect a hard-packed patch to rip across like a desolate personal speedway. Then the front wheel starts washing around, the tires are sinking in, and it’s only getting deeper. The undercarriage of the bike starts plowing through the soft, powdery salt and the rear wheel starts spinning out.

Panic sets in and breathing gets heavy. Miles from any paved road, I hightail it back towards the brush and hard-packed dirt. Breathing a heavy sigh of relief, I’m happy to get back to the bone-shaking washboard road.

A few days later I’m swimming laps for the first time in years and thinking about movement. How do we swim through the water? How do we ride across the dirt? How do we ride on pavement? Different materials demand different actions. Drilling through metal is not the same as drilling through wood. And there’s a truth in that.

We learn from physical action because there is no subtext. There is a purity in motion that transcends our trivial, mortal motivations. The tires are on the ground or the bike is in a ditch. The other rider is either ahead or behind. It’s not open to interpretation. There’s no psychology, no hidden motive.

When we engage in a physical experience, whether it’s the first time or returning after a break, we dust off a bit of reality. Our perception of the world is changed because we see first-hand how things actually work. It’s not hear-say, not opinion. And that opens us up to the next experience, to the next person, reminding us to take a moment to see for ourselves just how this new situation is going to work.

Not all roads are made the same. Just because it’s bumpy, doesn’t mean you should go slow. Just because it’s flat doesn’t mean you can go fast. And this leads us away from prejudice, causes us to consider the accuracy of our perceptions. If we try enough new things, it’s impossible to stay stuck in our old ways, although we may get stuck in the middle of nowhere.

Please help print fifty copies of this blog as a book. Go to:

Wave of the Future, Dude.

We’re crossing 16th street on De Haro, heading up Protrero Hill when I twist the throttle a little more. Is it really a throttle? I guess it’s a potentiometer, really, since it’s not actually controlling any apertures. Either way, suddenly I’m moving much faster than I had expected. Before I know it, I’m jamming on the brakes to avoid colliding with the other test riders. Welcome to the world of electric motorcycles. Yee-ha.

We stop at the top of the hill and the ride-leader from SF Moto asks if I’d like to switch bikes. I really want to move onto the sportier Zero-SR, with its ridiculous torque, but my recent scare makes me trepidacious. In a decision I’ll regret later, I stay on the Zero S.

We ride back down the hill and cross through the tech-bubble turnaround near Zinga and take Townsend towards the ballpark. Turning right onto King Street, entering the highway, I twist the potentiometer again and feel the back end wash out, losing traction on the crosswalk paint. Yee-hah.

The bike has no trouble getting going on the freeway. If anything I’m just a little disoriented by not having to shift and considering resetting my grip to keep twisting the throttle. It might be nice to have a shifter paddle that control the sensitivity range of the “throttle.” I’m about to see just how far the thing really goes — planning to weave around a pickup truck — when out ride leader signals our exit onto Mariposa. This is only a test ride, after all.

Next to the UCSF Mission Bay campus, we switch bikes. As we pull over next to the curb, a medical worker in scrubs says, “Hey guys, I don’t think those are parking spots.”

“We’re just switching bikes,” I explain. But what I wish I’d said is: “I’m not sure those are really clothes.” Seriously: what’s the deal with folks wearing scrubs out on the street? How is that sanitary? Oh, well, one more thing I may never understand about health care…

Anyway, now I’m on the DS, Zero’s answer to the on-road-off-road adventure bike. I set it to Eco mode at first, just to explore the range of the bike. As we take off at the next light it feels incredibly sluggish, about as slow as the Nighthawk 250 I teach on, maybe slower. I set it back to Sport mode at the next light. As we take off again, it happily gets out of its own way, even displaying some snappy git-up-an-go.

Turning on the DS feels more forgiving than the Zero S. With more of a sport-bike style, the S dips immediately at the beginning of a turn, relaxing as the lean increases. The taller DS responds more evenly, without the aggressive initial dip, it eases into turns with more continuity. If I was going to commute or go camping, I would definitely choose the DS.

Just a few blocks later, we trade again and I get a crack at the SR, Zero’s top of the line. While all of the bikes have been fun, this is the one that hovers in my mind the same way a samurai would covet a priceless sword. I can see it in the garage, imagine the heads I could cut with its ridiculous, one hundred pounds of torque, beating almost anything off the line.

“I should at least find out what the monthly payments would be,” I think, knowing full well that I can’t afford it. But a man can dream…

We ride down Bryant, past Sports Basement and I thwack the throttle a few times, pulling on the bars and leaning back. Up comes the front tire, not quite as easily as a KTM Duke, but more readily than my Yamaha R6. I see a small loading ramp set on a curb and ponder riding the bike up it and bumping down the curve. At our current speed, it would be an impressive maneuver, and the SR is nimble enough that I have no doubt of its possibility. But this is a loaner bike and the guy leading the ride has been real nice… so I keep it on the road. Woo, responsibility.

When we had first pulled away from SF Moto, I had a moment of skepticism. The bikes were eerily quiet and the initial power delivery is reminiscent of a bumper car — that soft hum and click of the electricity snapping through the motor, pushing forward, seemingly detached from the throttle until you really start moving. I’d laughed to myself how future motorcycle memoirs will have to swap “And away we roared” for “And away we swished.”

The quiet motor is kind of a double edged sword: you can hear a lot more around you, but there’s no auditory reminder that you’re accelerating.

But the Zero SR is a bumper car with ball-balls, baby. It handles as easily as my small cruiser, delivers power like my race bike and has fewer emissions than my toaster. The only downside is top-speed and range (and a $20,000 price tag). But the casual rider will rarely push those limits. Lot’s of folks talk a big came, but when you get right down to it, most people aren’t riding more than 100 miles in a day nor exceeding 100 mph everyday.

Some of you are still shaking your heads, saying “You can ride an electric bike. I’m sticking with gasoline.”

That’s fine for now — so will I. But the statistics say that we’ll all be using electric vehicles within the near future.

Additionally, I’m for it on a personal level. Soot from the busy street I live on collects on our building like fine black snow. When I roll down my car window, it bunches up in lines like dark, sticky sand. I can’t wait to see electric vehicles displace our cancerous, air polluting standard. Will I miss our loud, brapping, gas-rockets? Hell yeah I will. I’ll probably even cry about it at some point (I’m not kidding: I will literally probably have an emotional break down when I have to throw out a random carburetor jet I find at the bottom of my box of cassette tapes, years after internal combustion is outlawed on public streets — if I’m lucky to live that long). But I’m not going to fight the facts of what we’re doing to the environment. Instead I’m going to welcome the new toys.

And I hope to see if I can’t use a hundred pounds of torque to rip a rear wheel clean off a cheap bike by pegging the potentiometer in a muddy bog after I’ve flipped a bike. Yee-ha.

We can fear the new changes. We can lament how things should or used to be. Or we can do what we can, with what we have, where we are.

Can’t stop riding, so we gotta keep going…

The Lighthouse and the Lightbulb

I’m sitting at home with my legs up and ice on my knees. South Park is on the TV and there’s a Lagunitas Daytime Ale on the couch next to me, supported by my copy of David Macaulay’s “The Way Things Work.” Life is pretty good.

We just got back from the Point Reyes Lighthouse and, though it’s trite to say, it was an epic ride. 136 miles of twisting coastal roads that resulted in a real lightbulb moment for my sportbike riding.

The lighthouse is a unique piece of history perched out on the edge of the Pacific. Crafted in 1870, the ornate, rotating fresnel lens (pronounced “frennal”) is a glimmering view into a world gone by. The cliffside buildings also house of a collection of maritime warning devices. The light remained the same until recently, but the fog horns have changed over the decades. The first whistle was steam-powered, demanding 140 lbs of coal be shovel into a boiler every hour — eight tons a year.

The Coast Guard attendants spent endless hours scrubbing soot off of the intricate clockwork mechanisms. When not doing that, they were sanding away rust and painting the cast iron buildings. The park ranger giving the history lesson today didn’t mention how much alcohol the attendants consumed, but I’d guess it was the second most important commodity after coal.

On the way back from the lighthouse, my friend hooked up his gopro and had me ride in front. It provided the motivation to ride aggressively. I imagined him saying, “Get ill, dude!” or “Get after it!” So I was pushing things, trying intently to hold my lines, leaning hard around blind turns.

Keep in mind that the lighthouse road is pretty crap. Really: it’s beautiful and bumpy as hell. Pot holes that could swallow a Volkswagon speckle a ribbon of asphalt that winds between rolling hills, passing estuaries, marshes and vast green fields. It sweeps down into cattle farms and climbs suddenly around craggy protrusions of sand stone.

The road conditions forced me to get my butt up off the seat, just like downhill mountain biking. Suddenly I was whipping the bike around with much more authority, in control like never before. I had been riding in the saddle waaaaay too much. Now that I was floating over the bumps, using my legs as shock absorbers, I could really feel the bike on a different level.

Once we got onto the more forgiving pavement of Highway One, things kept clicking. I found I had been bunching against the tank too much and eased myself back, putting a longer bend into my knees. I’ve done plenty of out-of-the-saddle riding before, but the Yamaha R6 required the most aggressive posture and technique I’ve experienced yet. Basically, you get on all fours, slam the bike towards the ground while entering the turn, then use the throttle to catch yourself, using momentum to pull the bike back towards standing. Between pressure on the pegs, handlebar and throttle there’s a balance that lets the bike rip through turns like a sawblade rollercoaster.

The amount of actual lean that the bike has is kind of ridiculous. After feeling the turns in this new way, lowsiding stopped being a concern. All that was really important was whether I was drifting to the road’s edge and whether the bike was scraping the ground (didn’t experience any of the latter). I was pushing my angle of lean farther than ever before and it felt great.

All bikes, no matter how large or small have an range of lean at which they pretty much stay upright. After a certain point — the tipping point — gravity starts winning the fight. At complete rest, when the bike isn’t moving at all, a little motion either way makes the difference in keeping the rubber side down. (Try keeping both feet on the pegs at complete stop. If you can go longer than three seconds, you might want to considering quitting your day job and start riding full time.) But as speed increases, gravity takes second place to the bike’s forward momentum. It’s too preoccupied with moving ahead to fall towards the ground. As we go faster, the possible angle of lean becomes less dependent on gravity and is dictated much more by traction.

Anyway, an aggressive turn is a delicate dance between traction, gravity and forward momentum. Really good racers are actually dealing with slipping traction, which just blows my mind, considering the forces I just felt. Accelerating hard out of a turn, experiencing G-pull while leaned so far that I was looking side-ways at the road was a hellova rush — more like a rope swing than a bike.

It’s one thing to understand the physics of an aggressive turn, how opposing forces carve a vector into an invisible, three-dimensional graph. It’s another thing to climb inside that equation and get shot out of an uphill right-hand turn on a seaside road, screaming inside your helmet.

Cue the French Horns

The Giants are Losing on the television at Rancho Nicasio while the Tom Finch Trio plays soothing, melodic, jam rock. The aunts and uncles of a birthday girl dance near an unused piano. After riding down Lucas Valley Road in the dark, I’m just happy to be alive.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep…but also full of deer and cops and drunks. Oh my. And there’s also the new rear tire I’m still scrubbing in to consider. Riders are always supposed to stay loose, but that can be hard when you’re reasonably fearful for your life.

It’s been awhile since I did any night riding in a deer-filled area. The last time was in Texas, riding highway 71 into Austin after sundown. Another time that comes to mind was a mountainous region of I40 approaching Flagstaff, if I recall correctly. At first there were deer warning signs. Next there were even bigger signs with speed warnings. Finally there was a flashing billboard that basically read: “Seriously you assholes. Lots of of fucking deer. Slow the hell down. We’re tired of cleaning up carcases.” (I’m paraphrasing…)

Another moment of rational fear, also on I40, was when I broke down near the Arizona-New Mexico border in a monsoon. I limped back towards the last gas station I’d passed, riding the wrong way on the shoulder until I got a clear shot at crossing a patch of median that didn’t look too muddy. I can still see my front tire pulling back onto the pavement, feel the swell of joy and relief at succeeding. There’s also a triumphant, orchestral flourish of horns and timpani’s in my mind, but, well, that’s just wishful, ornamental thinking. (Or is it? Wasn’t music like that born from emotion…)

When you make it through situations like that, the relief you feel at your destination is as good as anything. It makes you wanna cry. It’s like being five years old again and getting separated from your parents in a crowd. The rush of emotion when you reconnect puts you at ease, but also reinforces how scared you just were, why it matters, how fragile and lucky to be alive we all are.

I’ve experienced a similar emotion after almost crashing, when the bike started to skid into a death wobble on a deserted back road. I did everything I could and somehow it worked and I found myself in one piece, still on the bike instead of broken in a ditch. I pulled over to the side of the road, turned the engine off and removed my helmet. Feeling very small in a mystical world, I stared out at distant horizon, searching for a sign that I was really alive. I can still feel the wind on my cheek, see the blue sky, smell the tree sap and dust of the forest.

Those moments stay with you. The moments of intense fear don’t ingrain themselves as deeply as the moment you realize you’ve survived. That stuff sticks with you like a beard full of bubble gum. Maybe it’s a survival mechanism, maybe it’s common sense. There’s just nothing that makes you as happy to be alive as almost being dead.

Focus On What You Want

My friend, who just got his permit, and I went on a ride again. I suggested that he take the lead this time so that I could focus on my relaxed riding and watch his form to give him pointers. We took more or less the same route as our last ride but we ended up trading off leading so that I could show him the way.

When we got to the bottom of Guadalupe Canyon Parkway again, I asked him where he wanted to go next. “I was thinking we could go back up the hill,” he said. “And then turn around and come right back here.”

That really put a smile on my face. There was nothing I’d rather do more. Hitting the same run a few times in a row is the best, whether it’s snowboarding, biking or kiting. Taking the same curves over and over lets you build a muscle memory of your line, frees you up to enjoy the ride.  It was great to see him take an interest in running back and forth across the same patch.

Even though he had been leading, on the last big downhill I had opened it up and passed him. So he recommended that I go first. On the final uphill left-hander, I got my eyes up and really loosened up on the bars. The bike seemed to melt away and it felt more like climbing the mast of a sail boat — I was leaned over, but didn’t feel like I would fall. With my eyes up, the little wobbles of the bike seemed less significant. The resistance of the tires against the asphalt felt less likely to slip and more like the keel of a ship or even a giant blade stuck into the ground.

We turned around and headed back towards the west again. On the big, sweeping downhill, I really opened it up. It was exhilarating. At the stop sign at the bottom of the hill, my friend pulled up looking a tad tense and said, “Ok, so, I just nearly crashed back there.”

“Let’s pull over in the shade here and talk about it.” Under the fir trees, we took off our helmets and got off the bikes. It can be hard to remember what happened in a near tumble, so it’s good to take a moment to examine what we can. I felt bad that I had pushed it so fast, he had probably tried to keep up, if only subconsciously.

As we had come down the wide left, he was going about as fast as he’d ever gone. He felt he was leaned into the turn as far as he could  but the edge of the road was getting closer, scaring him. He rolled off the throttle, but it still felt too fast and the edge was still getting closer. He stayed off the brakes, thank god, and realized he was looking where he was afraid of crashing. So, as he downshifted, he looked where he wanted to go.

And it worked.

Later, as we rode past Baker Beach, I could feel my eyes pulling to the places I was afraid of…the edge of the road, the cliff to the sea. As I focused harder on the curve, I could feel the knife-ship again, the bumps of the road became irrelevant, the goal clearer, the turn easier.

It’s ok to be afraid. It’s healthy. But don’t focus on what you’re afraid of. Just keep looking up — just like rock climbing, just like life. We don’t get where we want to be by worrying about failure, we do it by focusing on success.

Not Worth It

It’s a friend’s birthday party and they’re outside by the boats and the pinata debris.  I’m at the bar, waiting to order another Corona, when one of the waitresses runs in and says, “They’re fighting out there!”

The barback rushes outside and I follow, finding the biggest guy from our group being restrained. One of the girls is holding her swelling eyebrow. Another guy I’ve never seen before is being held back by strangers. How did this happen? How long had I been waiting to order? Two minutes?

“Little bitch!” Yells the new guy.

“Why don’t you come on to the public property here and say that?” Retorts our friend.

I help calm things down, another rotating referee pushing the boxers to their corners. I’m struck by how tall our friend actually is — he’s usually so docile. Trying to push him back, I’m craning my neck to see his enraged face, talking him out of steamrolling this interloper, who — it’s becoming clear — is really quite drunk, sluring his words and swaying around.

Staff from the bar take the inebriate by the elbows and guide him to the front exit. Our large friend is taken by his girlfriend and they go slowly down the grassy garden path of the public shoreline, presumably to a cab.

I talk to bystanders and members of our group, getting the skinny on how the fight started. The drunk-ass had come over and imposed himself on the birthday party. Our big friend told him to get away — probably not very nicely. Drunk-ass suddenly slapped our friend and then threw a wild punch that accidentally clocked a lady in the eyebrow.

Dumb.

As I’m leaving, the drunkard is still trying to get back into the bar.

I warm up the bike and roll over to one of the security guards. Stopping, I say: “Hey man, tell me to use some self-control right now.”

“What’s up?” he replies.

“That’s the dude that started a fight with my friend,” I say, pointing at dopey. “And it’s got me wanting to do some stupid shit.”

The security guard smiles and says, “Hey man, just ride your bike.”

That, I can do.

It’s a ride now, a carrot to pull this stubborn donkey away from the helmeted head-butt the instigator so richly deserves. I give him the stink eye as I roll past, but he’s too busy futilely attempting to blend in with the entrance line to notice.

As I pull onto the street, I feel the adrenaline making my left leg shake, the same way it does when I’ve taken a corner too hot. I remember the time I was riding out to Boonville and miss-read an uphill right that left me hugging the double-yellow and staring towards a downhill-moving produce truck. I corrected and rode on unscathed, but my left leg did an uncontrollable jackhammer impression for the next few miles. A little bit of adrenaline is a good thing. But a lot of it blinds you with rage and sets your muscles on a hair trigger.

We’ve examined in previous posts how there’s a thin line between being assertive and being a jerk. Too much rage will rob you of your ability to tell the difference. I’m proud of my friend for letting us talk him down. He could have pushed us aside and bull-dozed that guy. But, though the drunk seemed to deserve a pounding (or head-butt from me), my big friend didn’t deserve the consequences that would follow. Just like in the mobster movies when they say, “Tony! Tony! He’s not worth it!”

I certainly wasn’t about to trade a sunny afternoon motorbike ride through the hills of San Francisco for a conversation with a police officer. The sloppy slapper at the front entrance would get what was coming to him sooner or later. Or maybe not. Either way: fuck him — not worth my time.

The bike rolls through the the City and the world flows by like paper in the wind, pulling the rage away in layers that land next to the trash on the roadside. As I get to Haight street, I’m calm and collected again. I stop and talk with two friends outside of Aub Zam Zam, smiling, then meet up with folks at Murios. I get a hug from two gorgeous blondes that buy me a beer and give me a goat cheese BLT sandwich.

“I made the right choice,” I think, laughing to myself…

The back of the drunk’s shirt read: “Drink like you mean it!”

77.01

There’s a guy in a red polo shirt and radio headphones standing in front of a line of bikes. The jitters are creeping up. “Stay calm, stay calm,” I think, but I’m definitely not calm. People are watching, engines are roaring and I’m about to try going as fast as I can — at least it’s just in a straight line.

“The gas is on. The gas is on,” I tell myself as the mind runs over every checklist point again and again.

Three of us had ridden up earlier that day. Confused by the racing requirements, I’d worn a full leather suit and looked a little over dressed on my small cruiser. To get the best performance out of my little bike, I’d tightened and greased my chain, topped off the oil and checked my tire pressure. I’d removed the ammo-box-saddlebag from the side and purposefully ran low on gas during the ride up. After fueling up at the racetrack with about half a gallon of 100-octane racing fuel, I was ready to go. I just needed to know how to get in line. “Can you just lanesplit to the front?” Asks one of our group.

Looking at a line of cars, I ride over to a primer grey station wagon that was covered in stickers and asked  what the deal was.

“Well, this is technical, where they check us out,” says the driver. “It’s kind of a cluster fuck. It’s supposed to be one line but there’s too many of us. So, you know, wherever…”

Turns out the lanesplitting idea was more or less correct. I’m still waiting behind the station wagon when a group of bikes slips past. Once I get a little closer, the race tech waves me in with the other two-wheelers and gives me a form to fill out. The inspection consists of checking for a Snell sticker on my helmet and making sure the motorcycle has two wheels. After almost no talking, he takes out a white grease marker, draws the number 79 on my headlight and walks away.

Pulling around into the paddock, there are several lines of cars. I pull in behind the group of bikes. It’s mostly sportbikes and a few Harley’s. Amongst them: a Bandit, a GSX R, a CBR F4, a Harley Dyna Lowrider, and a souped-up Harley Sportser with a nylon strap holding down its front suspension.

My bike has less horsepower than anyone else. But at least I have more teeth than most…

I talk with the Dyna owner about what time he hopes to pull. Turns out my cute little dreams of hitting a hundred were pretty far-fetched. I had figured that if I could get to 50 mph on a single city block, I should be able to pull a bill in the quarter mile (the average reader will think, “Seems reasonable,” while the gear-heads are laughing). Telling the Dyna rider my aspirations, he points to the GSX R and says, “I don’t know man, he barely breaks a hundred.”

Checking out the different bikes, I walk up to the track staff standing in front of our group.

“Hey, sorry to bug you, but it’s my first time here,” I say. “How’s this work?”

“Well,” says an elderly and obviously bothered man. “You’ve got your different groups, there’s the sport, the uh, comp rods, the gear jammers — that’s the stick-shift cars — and the high-schoolers who’ll race the highway patrols.”

“Ok, but, I mean, when will we go?” I reply, pointing to the group of bikers.

“Hmm. Not sure,” he said. “But first, do you know what type of christmas tree you’ll be on?”

“Is this guy fucking with me?” I think (again, seems reasonable but the gear-heads are laughing). “Perhaps it’s some photo of every dragster they put together each December.” I imagine grainy photos glued to red construction paper, held to a large fake tree by pipe cleaners. “Nice.” But all I say in response is, “Nope.”

“See,” he says, pointing to the row of lights by two revving hotrods about to tear ass down the strip. “Well, it doesn’t help for you to watch this group because the lights are different for motorcycles. But, you see how there are two lights up top? That’s for positioning. You’ll see it when you get up there.

“With the cars, there are three yellows and then the green, see? But the motorcycles it’s just: yellow then go. All three yellow light up, then the green one.”

A few minutes later and we’re suited back up and the lights are blinking for motorcycles. “Stay calm,” I tell myself. “The gas is on.” I watch for the single yellow and then the green and… And then the guy on the Sportster drpps his bike. “Whew,” I think. “That really took the pressure off. I won’t be the biggest jerk out here today…probably.”

The 2005 Dyna Lowrider gets paired up against my 1987 Honda Rebel 450. We pull up to the line. First one positioning light comes on, then the next. A race attendant slaps down my visor. The Dyna pulls up and the positioning lights are all lit.

Yellows…Green!!!

The throttle twists. I see him fade back for a moment. Time to shift. Where’s the lever?! Looking…Looking down?! Ok, right, foot in place now. He’s still just to the left. I’ve got him! Tuck! Tuck! Shift! Twist! Throttle! The speedometer wobbles, springing around 80 as the wind screams and green hills streak by. He pulls away…

The race is over. We engine-brake up the hill and curve past the red and white striping of the curving race track. I’m actually on the same asphalt I once watched the superbike racers wheely down the hill. I lean hard, scraping a foot pet as I take the right turn and we zoom back down towards the paddock.

“All right, both of yah!” yells the lady in the little booth behind the track where we stop to get out times. “The speed limit on the return road is FIFTEEN!”

“Sorry,” I say as she hands over the print outs of our times. “Nobody told me anything. It’s my first time.” And then to the guy on the Harley, I ask: “Did you know?”

He just sort of grunts, passes over my time slip and rides away. I stuff the print-out into my glove as she waves an oversize fly swatter at me in warning, smiling, saying, “Do you see this?”

Riding back towards the line, the freedom of release after the nervous concentration washes over like a cool breeze. There hadn’t been time for much thought, it was just act, act, act. Looking back, I’m not even sure what had happened, what I had done. Had I really turned the throttle all the way? Why wouldn’t I have? Like an accident, only a few details remain.

When things move quick, we only get a couple memories. But sometimes we get a second try.

I let my right leg swing loose while I roll back to the line up…

Photo above by Jonathan Costello

Left: 2005 Harley Dyna Lowrider.  Right: 1987 Honda Rebel 450

To Everything, Turn, Turn, Turn…

On day three, one of the four riders packs up and high-tails it back to work.

The remaining three discuss a route home, say goodbyes to their gracious host, and head out. The stretch of Old Priest/Coulterville Road squiggles down the hills, narrowing to a single, but manageable lane.

Coulterville is adorable, a rusted iron and brick anachronism from the mining days.

Three riders head north… towards a burger stand in Jackson.

Here they find the best roads of the trip. Green rolling hills line a reservoir where Roger Rabbit had taken out his paint brush and drawn a curving road towards Toon Town, smooth as chocolate running down a hot spoon.

They pull onto the access road atop the dam. The water glistens and an old iron control house rusts on its pier.

Then things get cold, and trafficked… The bikes rumble behind slow cars and big rigs.

One rider pulls over to pick wild flowers for his nieces. Another grumbles.

At the intersection of Highways 4 and 88, the flower picker pulls over, offering to call the burger stand, make sure they’re open. The grumbling rider insists on moving forward.

Twenty minutes down the road, the burger stand is closed, but at least their bathroom is unlocked.

“I’m just going to say this once: I told you so,” says the flower plucker, laughing. “There, it’s out of my system.”

“I don’t really think that really qualifies as an ‘I told you so,’” says the grumbling rider.

Two people smile. One scowls.

“You guys wanna go back to that burger place in Pine Grove?” Asks your narrator.

And into the cold wind they ride again, back the way they came to a little burger stand with a few Harleys parked outside.

The little burger shack is warm and busy. It takes a while, but the burgers are delicious, and the fries are crunchy with a tasty, salt and pepper seasoning. If I’ve had a tastier burger, I don’t know when.

It occurs to me that a group ride is like a turn – it’s a compromise. A solo ride is like an open parking lot; you can go in any direction you choose. Or perhaps riding alone is like a straight away – you don’t have to discuss any decisions, just move forward. A turn restricts your options just like compromising with a group or a partner. A turn controls where you’re going. But you can still take the turn however you want: loose, bold, reserved, easy, hard, wide, tight, slow, fast – whatever works for you. Hell you can even high-side or low-side it if you really think you want to.

We take turns…leading, following.

Sometimes we do a good turn for others.

Sometimes we intentionally run off into a field, briars and barbed wire be damned.

Just before our planned stop in Sacramento, the grumbling biker breaks away. As the last two of us head home, I try signaling towards the Golden Gate rather than the Bay Bridge. The gesture results in a fist bump and, as I take the exit towards 37 West, I realize all too late it means we’re parting ways.

Sometimes we misread the situation and wind up cooking the corner accidentally.

Fighting the wind across the marshes, I stop to explore the sporadic exits off of highway 37, none of which lead anywhere unless you have an authorized vehicle (I swear one of these days I’m going to make a bunch of big stickers that say: “AUTHORIZED VEHICLE” and see where I can saunter…). The most heavily-blockaded road leads to Skaggs Island, a deserted army post from WWII I’ve been wanting to check out. I don’t feel comfortable going past this gate, but there’s supposedly a back entrance, too…

As the sun sets, I push on through the wind, eager to return home and go back to work. It’ll be nice to see everyone, to sleep in my own bed. Have to compromise in those situations, too…

“The world is a curve,” I think. You can go through it however you want, but you’re going to go through it. Turns out, if you’re generally  uptight, you’re probably uptight in the turns, too. So we try to loosen up and go with the flow, hoping the best for everyone, and we try to have fun in turns.

It’s your turn.

A Flower for Mom

“A completely honest person only tells the truth ninety percent of the time. The other ten percent is spent apologizing.”

It was Mom’s 65th birthday and she was throwing herself a party. A bluegrass/jazz/jug band was to play and everyone was invited. I said I would attend but was scrambling to get things done before heading up to her house in the north bay.

In my rush, I hadn’t really gotten her anything for a gift. There’s a tree in the arboretum that grows a strange flower that looks like a thin hand stretching out of an orange lotus blossom. Was it called a “Buddha’s Hand?” I couldn’t recall. It sounded like a nice present for a mother, and something unique. So I stopped in and plucked one for her and zip-tied it inside the cowling of by sport bike.

This would be a good exercise for me in calming down. The flower would survive regular riding, I was sure. But too much aggressive acceleration or excessive speeding would spell doom for the little bud. Much like the posture-training technique of putting a book on your head, or using a bell to make sure your tai-chi movements are smooth enough, I would know — should the blossom was ripped asunder — if I had relinquished control to my inner speed demon.

And I kept it reasonable on the 101, letting other riders take point as we moved through and around traffic. I took the Napa-Vallejo exit onto 37, then, while turning off at 121 next to Sears Point, I pushed it just a little to get in front of an SUV turning right off of westbound 37. This gave me a clear shot almost all the way to Schellville (a little one-intersection town centered around a Shell gas station that has nothing to do with the name of the town — as far as I’m aware.)

Just before that, though, another SUV in front of me was driving erratically — going the speed limit, then dropping down to 35 mph, then back to 50, a little swerving, slowing down again. Someone was either drunk, lost, on a cell phone, bickering with their partner or all of the above. I made the executive decision to pass them, double yellow be damned.

At the first opportunity, I throttled the sport bike and passed them with little effort. But just as I tucked back into the lane, I noticed a CHP on the opposite side. He was getting out of his truck to give a ticket to a red sedan and, though his frown deepened, he seemed to pretend he hadn’t seen me. There wasn’t much he could do about it anyway. Traffic was steady and he was in the middle of writing a ticket, so a quick u-turn was out of the question. He could have jumped on the radio, but the roads began to branch out from there, so it would be hard to advise other officers.

“Be aware,” he’d say into the radio. “Orange sport bike passing slower traffic; heading north, possibly to Napa, Sonoma or Petaluma.”

There’d be radio silence and then an older patrolman would respond: “Sounds like it’s still Sunday.”

But seriously, I made a point for that to be the most erratic thing I did all day. And I continued to luck out. Traffic was clear and I cruised down nice, open, twisting roads I know like the back of my hand. I got some good cornering practice in, setting a good speed, then leaning, looking and pushing through the turns. I tried to remind myself to be happy and take it easy. It was a nice day, I had clear roads and a well-running rocket. “Isn’t this nice?” I asked myself. But I was still thinking a lot. Going to the old home town always brings up some unpleasant memories.

The pleasant, wine-country suburb we lived in was tranquil and picturesque, but offered little stimulation for someone interested in adventure and wild nights. And Mom and I have had a mixed relationship since my teens — we even had a bad fight in the backyard once, physically struggling for control of a garden hose. Dad dying didn’t make things any easier. She’s a sweet lady that did her best to raise us well but, like many sons, I found her stifling. I remembered the time we were at the supermarket and I grabbed a box of cocoa puffs. “You don’t like those,” she said. I remembered standing there, shocked, thinking, “Jesus lady, you think that’s gonna work? You think I don’t know what the heck these delicious little niblets are? Ok, ok, fine. I’ll put ‘em back.”

And then there was the confusing censorship growing up. I wasn’t allowed to watch cartoons that had guns but I was allowed to shoot 22s at Boy Scout Camp. Mtv was off limits and, any time I went on a date, I was expected to provide a phone number for the girl’s parents. I remember one girl laughing about how her dad was probably passed out drunk anyhow.

So I started doing drugs and lying just to get out and have a good time, taking acid and coke by the time I was twelve years old. Shit, I couldn’t watch any of the stuff on TV that the other guys were talking about. I was really into bikes and snowboarding, but those were seen as dangerous. “Wear a helmet,” was most of what mom had to say about those.

All the warnings that Mom gave about everything added up to a general distrust of authority. If people told you not to do something, it probably meant it was awesome. As you can see from above, I still operate that way. Although I’ve mellowed out, like many bikers, I remain the one that decides whether I’m safe or not. And a lot of forbidden fruits are pretty sweet. Breaking the speed limit? Awesome. Going to the bad parts of town? Awesome. Smoking pot and listening to that “devil’s music” heavy metal? Both awesome. Unprotected sex? Schedule five narcotics? Beer before liquor? Staying out all night? Forgetting a sweater? All awesome.

But it is usually nice to have that sweater. And my mom is a really caring person that I owe a great debt to. She helped get me through college, something I probably wouldn’t have done without her insistence. And she’s a great ear when I’m down or confused, especially about women. She really gets mad when a girl breaks my heart, angry that anyone would hurt her “little baby.” I am truly lucky to have such a loving, concerned mother.

And her friends are very nice people. And so I came for the party, bringing along the “Buddha’s hand” flower for her. I talked with close family friends and we had good conversations about the state of the world; the gentrification in San Francisco; what a nice lady my mom is and how happy she seemed to have everyone there.

And I was questioned about my life by people that remembered me but that I had almost no memory of or interest in speaking to about their boring, cookie-cutter suburban lives in the wine country; sitting around drinking spoiled grape juice in their segregated, cloistered communities of expensive cars and conservative, religious beliefs; saying to each other, “Isn’t this nice?”

Maybe I just envy them. I wish I could ride a desk and go home to my ranch-style stucco home, sipping a rare vintage and catching up on the latest, banal drama on TV, dumbed-down from the controversial book published ten years ago. That would certainly let mom stop worrying about her crazy son. But I can’t. That’s not me. I have an intrinsic need to seek conflict, push the limits, feel the wind. If things are too still, to calm, I get uneasy. If there’s no challenge, I feel like something’s sneaking up behind me. “What’s the catch?”

I really tried though. I tried to be genuine when they asked what I was doing with my life. I started earnestly explaining the motorcycle first-aid course I had taken the day before, describing how to treat blood-loss vs CPR. That turned out to be a pretty good, unintentional way of ending conversations. “Oh, well, uh… that’s nice, uh…let me see where my husband went.” Even when I try to fit in, I find out I’m from a different walk of life.

This is the problem with all our relationships with our parents: we are who we are and we are different. Our parents tried their best to keep us safe but still be ourselves. And we tried our best to please them while pursuing our own interests. Just as they had to set standards for us, we had to test them, had to leave the sweater on purpose, find our own way. Out comes another human instead of a perfect dream. And the humans keep falling in love and trying to keep their perfect little dreams safe.

At least we all keep trying. I know I sound like an ungrateful brat in this blog, but I’m really hoping that this improves my relationship with my mom. A little honesty, not just said in passing while grumpy or annoyed. I’m not trying to hurt anyone. This is just who I am, how I feel. And that can only ever change so much before I’m miserable, lying to myself and others.

So I do my best to be nice. While at the party, I kept looking for pictures of the Buddha’s Hand flower on my smart phone but kept finding pictures of an orchid. Then I thought a moment longer and did a different search. Bingo. “Oh well,” I thought. “Not cut out for this stuff again…”

“Happy Birthday, Mom. I love you,” I said before leaving. “Oh, and it turns out I brought you a Devil’s Hand flower.”

She smiled and hugged me because she’s a really sweet lady.

Remembering Not to Die

“An object in motion tends to stay in motion unless acted on by a driver that doesn’t realize the lights are timed.” – The Immortal Sir Isaac Newton

My employer-friend at the motorcycle school asked me if I would like to attend a “Crash Course for the Motorcyclist.” Considering that CPR and first aid training for kitesurfing had been rewarding and informative, I decided it would be a good idea. And since my job is partially teaching people how to stay alive, it seemed like a triple win, even if it did take up a full Saturday.

He and I met in the Upper Haight at the ungodly hour of 8:30 am and headed for the Octavia on-ramp. There was little traffic but the light timing on Oak seemed out of sync. As we headed down Octavia, we got stopped by a light.

“Dang,” he said. “If you catch that one when it first turns green you can catch all these.”

Light timing is a very real thing and can be paired with speed and acceleration to avoid braking and accelerating. If you maintain the proper speed on timed lights, you can move to the front of the pack effortlessly while the newbs accelerate and brake furiously.

The lights on Oak and Fell are old pat to me now, but I realized that I wasn’t tuned into the Octavia lights. “I don’t get over to the East Bay that often,” I said. That didn’t used to be the case, but my patterns have changed.

The class was near the Powell street exit, so we didn’t have to endure much of Interstate 80. There had hardly been any traffic the entire time, so we arrived with a few minutes to spare before the 9am start time.

The class was excellent, taught by a calm and confident female motorcycling nurse and first-responder with years of experience under her Iron Butt (google it.) She explained how to approach a motorcycle accident, which is basically a trauma scene. I had assumed I would be mostly reinforcing years of first aid and CPR training, but I was in for a surprise.

Turns out that CPR is promoted and sponsred heavily by the American Heart Association. As a result, the training we receive is centered towards cardiac arrest. The protocol for Cardio-Pulmonary Resuscitation has changed over the years. Its most recent iteration is 30 compressions followed by 2 breaths — with the head is tilted back to open the airway. The technique has increased survival rates amongst victims of cardiac arrest and that is a very good thing.

However, most people who endure a motorcycle accident have not suffered from heart failure but are rather inflicted with traumatic injuries due to rapid deceleration. In these instances the odds of internal and/or external bleeding as well as spinal injury are significantly higher and it’s important that the priorities of a first responder change accordingly.

Chest compressions in this situation are estimated to have a 1% chance of effectiveness. If a person is unconscious, not breathing, and without a pulse, by all means engage in CPR. But it’s only fair to tell you that at this point they have very little chance of survival unless they get to a surgeon. Their squishy little insides have most likely been compressed into a bag of goo and though you must still do everything you can, their broken ribs will churn their bits to further mush with every compression. One member of the class had even administered CPR unsuccessfully to a crash victim. So it goes.

But there is hope and things can be done. Rescue breathing can keep a person alive until Emergency Medical Services reach the scene and whisk them away to surgery. It’s not extremely likely, but it is possible.

Not everyone is that far gone, but it’s still important to treat the scene of the accident as a trauma and not a necessarily a cardiac arrest. Breathing and circulation (bleeding) are more likely to be impaired and a first responder should consider this. You know: make sure they’re not bleeding out before you go beating on their heart. Try not to move them at all unless they are in immediate danger and don’t remove their helmet unless it is interfering with access to a non-functioning airway.

All of this stuff gets pretty heavy. I promised myself I’d have a little ride in the beautiful spring sunshine afterwards.

After the class, I talked with a friend about what we had focused on all day. “Wow,” she said. “If I’m ever in a motorcycle accident, I hope you’re there.”

“Well thanks,” I said. “I hope there’s a trained medical professional there.”

Then I tooled around the lowlands of Oakland and now I’m on Telegraph at Grand Ave enjoying a cheap craft beer and a Macaroni-and-Cheeseburger which is about the best thing ever. The sun has almost set and in a few moments I’ll ride between the blue water and golden sky on the Emperor Norton Bridge (googs its) and though I’ll enjoy the ride, I hope it’s tempered by these thoughts of survival.

With any luck, none of us will ever have to deal with a trauma scene. But the odds say otherwise; none of our soft, fleshy bodies are equipped to resist the harder elements of our world for longer than the blink of an eye. But we keep helping eachother along.

One of the great things about the afternoon was how many people it brought together that otherwise might not have interacted. I sat next to a Desert Storm vet that had “Tuff Muff” tattooed on her knuckles and I talked on break with a man from India about long-range touring. We might never have interacted otherwise, but we came together to learn how to help one another. I have no doubt that anyone that was in that room would not hesitate to do everything they could remember how to do, just to help you not die.