Why We Ride. Mark Barnes, PhD
It was a gorgeous day, and I had a lot to look forward to.
Needless to say, those miles did not pass as quickly as expected. I had to stop. A lot. My bones, tendons, and bladder had apparently undergone significant changes since my last daylong ride. I knew my muscles would be out of shape—you know, those mysterious muscles that seem to be used for nothing other than riding and identify themselves with piercing clarity after the first full-day voyage at the start of each season. But this was different. (Indeed, those muscles didn’t scream until the next day.) My joints were on fire. My hamstrings had shrunk to what felt like just a few inches in length. My head was numb. I had to rest half an hour for every hour of riding just to revive myself from the stiff and stuporous state into which I would repeatedly devolve from being fixed in one position. So much for the SuperHawk being a kinder, gentler, more comfortable sportbike! Actually, the main culprit was I-81, which greatly compounded my misery with thick, slow traffic for most of my trip.
The author’s SuperHawk (left), having survived its unconscionable mistreatment, rests with its cohorts somewhere in the Shenandoah Valley as the late Larry Grodsky holds court in the background.
By dusk, I’d finally made it to the end point of my interstate droning: New Market, Virginia. There, I’d at least gain the relief of switching to a nice curvy road (US-211) through some mountains on the last leg of my journey; finally, I’d be moving around on the bike. SuperHawks are gas guzzlers with small tanks, so I topped mine off—just to be safe. You never know what you’ll run into in uncharted territory. And, this way, I might be able to save a gas stop the next morning. After all, it had become abundantly clear that I needed as much rest as possible. I congratulated myself on this forethought.
The first couple of twisty miles were indeed refreshing. Although I was physically shot, the change of pace and scenery restored some of my mental acuity. The sunset was beautiful as I entered the dense forest at the mountain’s base. But as I asked my bike to climb the first rise, it balked. Kind of a burp/hiccup/backfire that sounded totally unfamiliar. Moments later, a miss, and then another. When I opened the throttle quickly, a cacophony arose from the engine bay like a jackhammer duet. I went easy. Great! A breakdown was the last thing I needed now. I’d miss my tour, have to get my lame bike home, and sleep in the wilderness on what was fast becoming a very chilly night.
I pulled over to take inventory. No sign of anything out of place. Maybe I’d gotten some bad gas. I guessed I’d have to burn through it, so I pressed on, but my bike ran worse and worse. I eventually lost one cylinder altogether, and the other was good for only about 30 mph. Whenever I slowed down, it stalled completely. And each time it was harder to restart. I just wanted to make it to Warrenton, but I was only halfway through the mountains. If I stopped here, I’d be equidistant from help in either direction.
It was then, maybe because the breeze had changed direction, that I smelled it. It was a sickening odor, not because of what it did to my nose but because of what it meant. It was the smell of a tractor trailer. A bus. A bulldozer. A diesel engine. Except mine was the only engine operating on this road for miles. My heart sunk into the small of my back. I must have put diesel in my tank in New Market. I pictured my pistons with huge gaping holes in them from what I now realized had been the sound of horrific detonation earlier, although its extreme intensity had made it unrecognizable to me then.
I looked behind me, and—sure enough—I’d been leaving a crop-duster-esque trail of thick, billowing smoke. My poor bike. Poor me. Unbelievably stupid, idiotic, #@&% ME! I’d never, ever done that before, not even close! Fortunately, I’d only put in two gallons; the rest of the tank contained premium gasoline. I remembered a little “last chance” gas station/diner/gift shop some 20 miles back, and I figured it was the closest place where I might drain my tank. Thanks to St. Honda, my bike limped all the way back. They had no siphon (SuperHawks don’t have easily accessed petcocks), but I was able to improve the ratio in my tank with an additional gallon of high-test. That got both cylinders firing, and—as long as I kept the revs up—the bike didn’t stall. It had grown very dark.
I made it, wrung out and bleary-eyed, into Warrenton at 7:00 p.m. With absolutely astonishing luck, I happened upon Blalock Cycles, which was just closing. They took pity on me, vacuumed my tank, and sold me new plugs. I filled up at the gas station next door, insisting on gasoline this time. After a few more stumbles, my bike acted like her old self again, apparently none the worse for wear throughout the rest of the trip. Amazing.
As I look back on this near-catastrophe, it’s completely inconceivable to me that I mistook the diesel pump for premium. It’s also impossible to believe that I didn’t recognize what was happening sooner or turn back earlier. Had I been fresh, I’d have disassembled my fuel lines and drained my tank at the “last chance” place, siphon or no siphon. I made one bad choice after another. All because I was tired, quite literally, out of my mind. I certainly knew I was sore and anxious to finish the day. But I had no idea how seriously impaired I’d become mentally, largely from the monotony and lack of bodily movement on the interstate—I was much more “out of shape” for those factors than for covering 450 miles.
Part of what gets lost in a state of severe fatigue, as in a state of inebriation, is one’s perspective on how fatigued (or inebriated) one actually is. If you think you can go on, it might be a good sign that you shouldn’t. If only I could have taken my own advice.
Time Machines
February 2017
Riding buddies do more than supply camaraderie and assistance. Sometimes, they also nudge us to try things we might not have checked out on our own. In this case, I didn’t require any pushing, just the offer of an opportunity I hadn’t previously pursued. Curiosity can be richly rewarded.
I was never a vintage motorcycle guy; advanced technology was my passion. But two events have nudged me toward adding an old bike to my stable. First, the 2016 Vintage Festival at Barber Motorsports Park plunged me into the world of two-wheeled yesteryear. A seemingly endless variety of machinery and enthusiasts reminded me how much diversity exists beyond the confines of modernity. For a true technophile, the past actually couldn’t be more intriguing!
We talk about the multitude of increasingly specialized niche-market bikes. Such observations imply that motorcycling has become unprecedentedly variegated, with more uniquely differentiated designs than ever before. Well, yes and no. We now have categories that weren’t in the lexicon of our youth—adventure bikes, supermotard riffs, and hipster-classic styling exercises, to name a few.
But this explosion of designations isn’t all expanded variety. There have also been shifts toward greater homogeneity as the usefulness or appeal of particular designs has prompted convergences in engineering and aesthetics toward the patterns that work/sell best. Sure, there are significant differences between, for example, today’s power cruisers. But step out of the present to appreciate the vast array of mechanical solutions to motorcycling’s age-old problems, and the distinctions between those power cruisers shrink from small to microscopic. It’s true in every other category, too. The niches may be more numerous, but the machines within them are less unique.
Classic. Evocative. Triumph’s old Bonneville is relentlessly compelling, despite its technical shortcomings and maintenance requirements. This bike took me down memory lanes I’d never traveled before.
Considering the temporal dimension is like adding depth to length and width. The environment expands exponentially, with the variations among modern motorcycles just a thin layer of foam atop the ocean of their predecessors. However, quantity doesn’t equal quality. Just because old motorcycles approached challenges from more angles doesn’t mean they had more success. In fact, the flip side of the engineering convergence principle is that most of those delightfully inventive, divergent approaches proved inferior and died out accordingly. But “quality” can be