From my Friend and Bro Chuck, we have all had this kind of Road Trip!!
The Alpha Biker, Preacher Chuck D. Now… what you are about to read is 100% factual. I am not creative enough to make this shit up. This is typical of what happens to me and those unfortunate enough to be near me on any given road trip. This is a documentation of one of my trips from Richmond, VA to Prospect, PA for the Easyriders Rodeo. I think this is fuckin’ hilarious… I’ll let you be the judge… and… frankly… would like the feedback. This is one of a couple dozen of these stories that I have already written but haven’t actually “officially” published in any form.
Here it goes…
Hmmmm… Friday… 4:27 p.m. … we’ll round that up to 5:00. Time to roll. Down the side stairs, out onto the sidewalk where the bike is parked… leg over, thumb on starter… it’s on. As I zip through what Richmond, VA calls rush hour traffic to meet my good buddy Brian, I contemplate this weekend’s plans. I am to meet him down at his garage where he spins a wrench on old Beemers then head due north to Prospect, PA for the Easyriders Rodeo. For those who know Virginia, we will be heading up route 522, jumping on 17 to Winchester, onto 81, back onto 522 into Berkely Springs, WV and then hitting the PA turnpike west towards Pittsburgh, and eventually north to Prospect. This is a leisurely six hour or so ride. We have a tendency to make up time on the interstate… hell we’ll be pitching our tent on the fargrounds by 9:45… or so we thought.
We are rolling up 522 enjoying the scenery. Everything is going as planned. Perfect weather… no traffic… life is good. About two hours into it we stop off just north of Winchester for some gas. We fuel up, go inside to pay, and get back to the bikes. Now is when it starts to go downhill… at least we thought it was a hill… turns out it was like one of those fuckin’ ski slopes you see on the olympics… only we didnt’ know that… and we weren’t wearing any fuckin’ skis… but I digress.
We walk over to the bikes and there is this piercing high pitched noise coming from somewhere, but we can’t place it. It’s like when you leave a Metallica concert and you have the “channel twos” going… only this is really fuckin’ loud, ’bout up near the inaudible range of pitch. We look around… must be the bank alarm across the street or something. Our powers of observation are stumped. We saddle up and get ready to roll. My buddy Brian… who is riding an old Honda sportbike that, while running great, looks like it should be put out of it’s misery and is not much different than the first bike Don Johnson rode in “Harley-Davidson and the Marlboro Man”… thumbs his starter… nothing. Enter the “yang” side of things…
My buddy is pissed… I say… no worries man… I bump started a bike for an entire summer one year. Don’t sweat it. I get behind him… give him a push… bike fires… we’re off. Life is good again. We don’t get 10 fuckin’ miles down the road when Brian’s bike completely shuts down. Lights out… no motor… nothing. Fortunately we were on a downhill, and lo and behold there is a gas station at the base of the hill. We coast on in, dismount, and inspect.
First thing we notice… yeah that high pitched sound… that was his bike. Okay, now what. Well this place we stopped is a little mom and pop stop that doubles as a general store, gas station, and house. Out steps the owner and in a Southern drawl asks… “You boys need some help? I’ve got some tools you could borrow if you need them”. We graciously accept and begin to tear the body work off Brian’s bike to see what the fuck is up. Turns out that high pitched sound we heard.. yeah… that was his voltage regulator melting down… which in turn… cooked his battery. Both pieces we assessed are clocking in at about 400 degrees… this is based on the layers of skin left by Brian’s hands as he removed them. He is actually better off without the fingerprints anyway.
Now, we passed a shop a few miles back. We figure we’ll find a place to stay the night, hit the shop tomorrow for a voltage regulator and battery, and off we will go…be to Prospect by noon on Saturday… life will be good again… or so we thought. We ask the the owner of the gas station if we could leave the bike on his property for the night. He responds “Well, you could, but the local boys would probably take her… hell… why don’t you wheel her inside the store to keep her safe.” I look over at Brian… uh… Okay… thanks. We park the bike right in front of the fuckin’ beer cooler… no shit. We gather all of Brian’s stuff off his bike and strap it to mine.
Well we now look like a couple of fuckin’ homosexual hillbillies on my Springer. My buddy is not a small guy… weighs in about two-and-a-quarter… I’m about a buck-ninety… we’ve got about fourty pounds of gear and tents strapped to the sissy bar. We tell the guy we’ll be back with parts tomorrow morning… don’t put the tools away.
We decide the best place to drown our sorrows would be Martinsburg, WV… and the various gentlemen’s clubs therein. We spend the night downing brews at Legz and grab a room at the roach motel down the street. The next morning we head on down to the shop for a voltage regulator and battery. We get to the shop… “shockingly” they don’t have a voltage regulator for my buddy’s ‘92 Honda… but they do know of a “local” salvage yard that has one. Cool… we take the battery and directions to the salvage yard and walk out to my bike reading the directions.
After comparing the directions to our map, it turns out this shop is 80 miles west over the mountains. I look at Brian… hang-on… and you best be leaning with me on these roads. We absolutely strafe the mountainside on my bottomed out Springer. This bike is essentially now a rigid with its remaining 1/16th of an inch of travel left in the suspension. I feel bad for my buddy as he is taking the brunt of every pebble in the road directly up his spine. See, at the time, I was running a Harley “Badlander” seat whose passenger pillion is decorative at best. The view of us from behind pretty much showed a rear tire about to blow its sidewalls, one big ass pile of gear hanging off the sissy bar, and two large ass cheeks draped over either side of the rear fender like saddlebags. I thought I was going to need a fuckin’ pry bar and some WD-40 to get him off of the thing.
80 miles of mountain road later we roll up to the salvage yard. Now, I’ve never seen Brian cry, and he tells me it was the wind getting under his glasses, but I’ve never seen anybody so happy to get off a motorcycle. He walks bow-legged up to the parts counter and retrieves his voltage regulator. Keeping a stiff upper lip he gingerly re-straddles the bike, and we are off.
As we get closer to the store I can feel that Brian has engineered a strategy to deal with this literal pain in his ass. About every five miles… down to the 1/10th… I feel his body weight shift four inches from left to right and then back again. Apparently it is better to punish one cheek at a time rather than have them share the load. I can’t help but smirk every time this happens. We have a little dance going on here. He goes up and over to the right, I compensate and go up and over to the left. People behind us must have thought we had Buffet on the stereo. I can still hear the comments… “Hey, they are not good looking, but at least they have each other.”
We get back to the general store a little after lunch and I’m not sure who was happier, Brian or the Springer. I swear that was a sigh I heard and not the suspension decompressing when he got off. I’m pretty sure my bike is not going to call Brian for a second date. “Yo Brian, I’m sorry ’bout the seat man”… “that’s not a seat, that’s a fuckin’ brick wrapped in leather, asshole’. Somebody’s a little testy.
Strolling back into the store we are greeted by the store owner and about a dozen of the locals. Seems word got out about the two poor bastards who were down to one ride between them. Everybody is super friendly and proceeds to buy us beers and sandwiches. So I am leaning against the beer cooler sipping on my brew and eating a country ham sandwich when I look down on the floor by the bike and realize that Brian’s bike is not house-trained… fuck! There is a good pint of oil working it’s way to the low spot on the floor in front of the beer cooler. Oooops. Turns out the owner could care less.
He and his bros help us get the bike out the front door and down the stairs. The bike re-fires and we are off… arriving in Prospect, PA about a day late… and a voltage regulator short. Once again, life is good… beers are flowing, bands are playing, breasts are bouncing, yang is back to yin… and for some reason Brian opts to stand the entire evening… guess his yin will have to wait ’til tomorrow.
~ THE END ~
