A Sunday Ride

In which the author reminisces about riding motorcycles with friends through the Sunday country air.

Onions?

Yep. Onions.

Fresh, wet, growing spring onions, with a healthy dose of rich wet soil thrown in to make the bouquet complete. The sun has been warming the fields for about an hour now, and the scent of fresh growing onions fills my nose as the still-crisp air sweeps up the front of my bike’s fairing and through my helmet’s front vents.

This bike really likes speed, and running now at about 100 MPH along this forgotten farming valley highway in Central California, the bike feels like it is on rails. The only indication that we are moving fast is the surprising speed at which the telephone poles whiz past, like railroad ties under the steel wheels of a train.

The onion field passes and the air warms noticeably. That is one of the first things you notice when you get out of a “cage” and onto a motorcycle: the world is full of environmental microcosms. Pass a farm that has recently watered its fields, and the temperature can drop as much as 10 degrees on a hot day. Pass 5 different fields planted with 5 different crops and the scent will change within a few feet of each field. Smell the salt of the ocean on the breeze and know immediately whether tonight will be foggy or not.

Pushing 100 on a motorcycle will eat through tires quickly, or at least create some uneven tread wear that will annoy you in corners. I am enjoying mother natures’ work and thinking about excessive tire wear when I see Rocky check his left rear view mirror for me, then he relaxes his right wrist and moves a foot to his right. He wants to talk.

His bike slows slightly, and he falls in next to me. With his left hand he points at his fuel tank, and then tilts his hand up to his mouth in the international sign of “drink”. His bike is low on fuel so we will stop at the next gas station. I nod, and he speeds back up to his position in front and slightly to the right of me.

We always seem to ride this way. To a motorcyclist, even a one-lane road is actually two lanes: one lane where cars put their left wheels, one right lane where they put their right wheels, and a greasy, slippery, nasty bit of no-man’s-land in between. Rocky rides right, and I ride left. Always have. Dunno why.

We usually ride side-by-side like California motorcycle cops, so there is a better chance that the stereotypical old man wearing a hat sees at least one of us before pulling over on top of us. But at 100 there are other concerns, like a blowout, engine seizure, animals running out into the road, etc. It is safer to stagger and leave a few yards between us.

Skid marks and a small sign indicate a town off to the right with a restaurant and gas station, so we sweep around the corner to see a place we have never been, but have been hundreds of times before. Every small town out here is essentially the same, with the same distribution of people and shops, and the same amount of nothing to do.

We pull into the 2-pump station (always the first building at the near end of main street), shut the bikes off, and sit up for the first time in more than 3 hours.

The sound of the road and engines fades in our ears, and as we pull our helmets off the familiar quiet of Sunday in a small town settles over us.

The first kids on bicycles are pedaling their bikes madly down the street to see the “bikers”, as the old gas station owner (“Walt” it says on the front of his coveralls) comes out to see if he can be of any help.

Rocky has finished putting in his 4 gallons, and hands the nozzle to me to fill my bike up too. I have an extra 1.2-gallons in my tank, so I could go for another hour, but we always fill up at the same time to make sure we get the most hours possible in the saddle.

“Those are sure some pretty machines” says Walt, wiping grease off his hands and admiring our bikes with the eye of a man who is remembering his days in the saddle, so long ago.

“Thanks” I reply.

“You get good mileage on those?”

“I get better mileage than he does, but I am a smoother rider.” I say, smiling.

Rocky hits me with a glove and replies, “Yeah. I remember the way you smoothly slid off the road into that tree last year.”

“Was better than the other option of sliding under that station wagon that was in my lane”, I reply a bit bitterly.

Walt cuts in, “Boy I miss the old Norton. I rode a 500 back when they first came out. Fastest, scariest thing I’ve ever been on, and I used to work horses, too! But these bikes you guys have today are way too fast for me. Would scare the hell out of me.”

“Maybe, but you don’t have to ride fast to have fun. The right road at 25 MPH can be a lot more fun than a straight road at 100” says Rocky.

I hand Walt exact change for the fuel and two Cokes.

“You may be right there, son. Just be careful near Silverdale. They got some new radar guns, and Walker has set himself up a speed trap about half a mile outside of town.”

“Thanks for the tip. Mind if we rest here on your grass?” I ask.

“No problem, boys. Feel free.”

“Thanks” we both reply simultaneously.

We push the bikes over under the shade of a tree and sit a few feet away on the grass. The flies are eating their dead comrades off the front of our bikes, and we don’t want to be too close to the gore-fest.

The boys on their bicycles have taken up a safe position across the street, where they can watch us, but not get too close.

Some of them race up and down the sidewalk making racing engine noises, and jumping over curbs in what must be spectacularly high jumps to them. I know when I was that age, jumping a curb was a leap into the unknown, sailing through the air seemingly forever, and worrying if I could keep the handlebars straight when the front wheel made contact with the ground again.

Some of the show is for our entertainment, and some for the inevitable group of giggling girls who seem to be magnetically drawn to motorcycles. But the magnets switch direction as the girls get close, and there is a perimeter around the bikes and us that the girls never penetrate.

“Nice town” Rocky says, half kidding.

“Yep”.

“Kinda place I’d like to live.”

“No you wouldn’t” I offer. “You wouldn’t last a week. Die of boredom on your perfect front lawn.”

He knows it. “Yeah. But it is a nice place to visit.”

“For 10 minutes.”

Eventually, one of the smaller boys comes over (they always do) and, looking at the bikes he shyly asks, “How fast does it go?” Now that the perimeter around us has been breached, the other boys come over to get a closer look, too.

“Fast enough.” Is my reply.

“But…but,” he is still pulling at his shirt and looking at the bikes instead of us, but his confidence is building, “how fast does it go?”

“Oh, I guess it could go 115 MPH.” One of us answers, truthfully.

One of the cooler, older boys at the back is propped sidesaddle on his bike: “That’s nothing! My dad’s Ford can go 160!”

We don’t bother to explain that the biggest number on the speedometer is not an indication of the maximum speed of the vehicle, or that most vehicles will be inaccurate as much as 7 MPH at 60 MPH. This serves two purposes. First, the boys tend to disperse fairly quickly once they have established that we aren’t going to go 250 MPH down main street. Second, the questions tend to stop and we can rest undisturbed for a while.

The girls across the street have realized we are not paying attention to them, and even the haughty older one has stopped whacking the smaller ones to show her Alpha Female status.

Every once in a while there is the one kid with a little extra gleam in his eye, or who gets into a trance state around the bikes. He will walk around looking at every detail of the bike. You have to make sure he doesn’t touch the exhaust pipe, because they are still smoking hot and his skin will burn and stick instantly to the shiny chrome.

But he has that faraway look in his eyes. You want to give him your phone number and say, “Hey kid. You got the fever. Call me in 20 years, and we’ll go for a ride. You on your bike, and me on mine.” This kid is going to be a rider.

This time it is just the usual assortment of kids on bicycles. They all want a Trans Am or Camaro, and a girl with big tits and blonde hair.

Our jackets are folded as pillows under our heads and the Cokes are half gone when Rocky breaks the Sunday afternoon silence: “So how you doin?”

“Surprisingly,” I say, “I feel OK.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah. It feels good to be out and riding again. Forward motion is good. Makes me feel like I am alive. And the world is still here, and still OK, and plants are growing and farmers are tending their fields, and small boys are drawn to motorcycles, and girls breasts are all funny looking when they are 12 years old.”

Rocky snorts a quick laugh, “Yeah, and at that age they all dress like it is 1976…flared pants, striped tight shirts, long straight hair and tennis shoes.”

“This part of the world seems to have been frozen in the Brady Bunch era.” I suggest.

“Yeah, but it is good of them to do it. Someone has to remind us what we are working so hard for.”

That’s why I ride with Rocky. His head is clear, his opinions are simple, and his solutions always work. He also keeps the conversation to a minimum, which is good when you are riding. All you need is someone to remind you that you are not actually a part of the machine, but someone riding it. I sometimes feel that I could sleep for a while and the bike would just know what to do instinctively through its contact with me in my most intimate places.

Yeah, I am sitting on it, so my balls are resting on the seat, but it is the inside of your thigh, the palm of your hand, the sole of your foot and the space between your shoulder blades where you are in the greatest contact with the vehicle. All directional control of the bike is done with the thighs, while speed and braking are done with the hands and feet.

I can feel the tire wear changing through the handlebars. The engine and gearbox transmit their signals through my feet and hands. I am wired directly into the heart of the vehicle from the nerves in my palms and soles of my feet. I am one with the vehicle, and the vehicle lets me be that close to it because I maintain it with my own hands. I have seen it’s intimate insides and it’s hard parts and soft places, and I have given them the love that only a mechanic knows. Imagine if your lover was able to take your heart gently out of your chest, wash it down, polish it, adjust it so it ran more smoothly, and then put it back in the exact place again, all shiny and new and with a special coat of love on it.

Yes, my machine loves me, and I love it too. Call me weird, call me an anthropomorphic fetishist if you will, but when I am leaned over into a corner, feeling the ground with the tip of my left toe, head up, watching the corner open up, rolling on the throttle, my bike and I are a single entity, breathing and living as one.

“Fresh air does help the perspective, doesn’t it?” he asks.

“Yes it do…yes it do.” I reply in my best cartoon-Texas accent.

“Shall we?”

“We shall.” And with that we get up, put our jackets, helmets and gloves back on. With a quick consultation of the map we fire up the bikes and ride through the middle of town to the highway at the far end. We ride slowly because we do like the attention, and the sound of a pair of twin engines on main street on a warm Sunday morning will bring a tear of memory to many a man, hearing it from on his lounger with the Sunday comics in his lap.

By Christian Jacobsen. All rights reserved.