Why is motorcycling like sex?

Because when you haven't had any for awhile it brings a huge grin to your face to jump in the saddle for a couple hours. Check this out :

The Savage Storm - A chapter from my autobiography

The following writing was an assignment in the TESOL program at UCSD, which I completed in 2003. Here it is...

By June of 1993 I had managed to accumulate 1200 hours flight time, which is the minimum time required for flying as a Captain on air charter services. I campaigned heavily with my resume to all the air charter operations I could locate, especially those on the west coast. Lucky for me, I was hired right away at Pacific Air Charter, which was based at my home airport of Montgomery Field. I began training in July, and by November I had passed all the required FAA tests. I qualified as a Captain on the Cessna 310 and as a copilot on the bigger Cessna 402. I flew about a dozen passenger trips to San Clemente Island on the 402, and then when one of the senior pilots moved on to the airlines, I was assigned to fly cargo as Captain on the Cessna 310. It was my first job really flying, not just instructing. The hours were awful, the equipment was 20 years old, and the pay was low, but I was ecstatic – I’d made Captain at last!

I flew cargo on different routes around Southern California, but my favorite was the “Desert Route,” a courier flight carrying checks and other bank documents for Bank of America. This route left Burbank at 6:00 a.m. with stops at Palm Springs, Brawley, and Blythe, California. I would arrive in Blythe about 8:30 a.m. and then lay over all day. About 4:30 in the afternoon I would depart Blythe with the bank work and then stop at Imperial County airport on the way to San Diego. Upon arrival in San Diego I would turn the airplane over to another pilot, and then ride along with that pilot to Burbank where I would spend the night in the company apartment. The next morning I would start over.

As soon as I had the seniority to hold this route, I would bid for it as my number one choice every week. The route paid relatively well – one hundred dollars per day – and the five separate legs meant I got to do more flying than on any other route. Also, the deserts of California are warm and lovely in the winter, so I enjoyed my layovers in Blythe. I often brought along my mountain bike in the cargo compartment of the Cessna so that I could go riding in the desert during the day. I also spent quite a bit of time reading and writing at Blythe’s small public library.

On February 7th, 1994, a powerful storm was moving into Southern California. Throughout the day I stayed close to the phone and television in my Blythe hotel room, keeping abreast of the weather. By the time I was scheduled to depart that afternoon, the desert areas were blanketed by a high overcast which was producing light to moderate rain. There was some turbulence forecast for the desert, but nothing particularly dangerous. Meanwhile, over the mountains to the west, the coast was getting clobbered. High winds and thunderstorms were assaulting the shore and smashing their way up the Laguna Mountains – the very mountains I would have to cross on the way to Montgomery Field in San Diego.

At Imperial County airport, I went to the payphone and called again to the Flight Service Station for an update on my weather briefing. I also called Larry Wilson, the owner of Pacific Air Charter, to let him know my plans A, B, and C. Plan A was that I’d arrive at Montgomery Field with the cargo, more or less on time. Plan B, I’d have to divert to an alternate airport in the San Diego area if the weather conditions were below the instrument approach minimums at Montgomery. But if I crossed the mountains and found that the storm was just too gnarly, my plan C was that I’d turn around and go back to Imperial County. In that case, the cargo would have to be driven by ground courier to San Diego. While I was on the phone with Larry, the sun slipped below the horizon and the dark gray storm clouds above became a pitch black sky.

Although I had accrued over a hundred hours of flying time in instrument conditions, I had never before flown into such terrible weather, and I was more than a little nervous about what I would encounter once I crossed the Lagunas. I was flying a 1975 Cessna 310R, tail number N1976Y, or “Seven Six Yankee,” one of my favorite airplanes in Pacific’s fleet. The Cessna 310R is a 5500-pound twin-engine utility transport. Set up in the passenger configuration it can seat six persons; stripped for cargo it can carry up to 1200 pounds of freight. It’s a sturdy airplane that’s built for speed; it cruises at just over 200 miles per hour. On the desert route the cargo loads were light, under a hundred pounds most days. This meant that my thrust-to-weight ratio was excellent, and with a violent storm to fly through, I knew I’d be able to use that performance to out-climb all but the most severe downdrafts.

My good friend and mentor Jeff Sabo was working at that time for Executive Jet, flying the same sort of bank cargo in Lear Jets out of Portland, Oregon. I was extremely interested in making Executive Jet my next career move, so I told Jeff to ask one of his Captains what I would need to do in order to be looked upon favorably by their hiring department. Tim McConnell, Jeff’s favorite Captain, put it simply. Tim said, “He needs to go out and scare the shit out of himself over and over and over. Then he’ll be ready.”

As I flew over the Lagunas and descended toward San Diego, the turbulence increased with every mile deeper I penetrated the storm. Even with my seatbelt pulled as snug as I could stand it, my head bounced again and again against the cockpit ceiling as the Cessna was hammered by the worst turbulence I’d ever encountered. Above the freezing level, pouring rain froze on the leading edge of the wings and on the windscreen, which were both soon covered in ice as the plane pitched and tossed like a cork in a river. At times, lightning bolts flashed nearby in the clouds, startling me, and making me wish the airplane had on-board radar to avoid the storm’s cells. I found myself saying aloud, “Okay Tim, I hope you’re happy, man, ‘cause I’m scaring the shit out of myself right now!!!” It wasn’t a joke. I was frightened. But I had confidence in the airplane and in my flying abilities.

I made three separate ‘Pireps’ (pilot reports) to the air traffic controllers regarding the weather conditions I was experiencing so that the reports could be passed along to other pilots who might be considering following the same route. After fifty miles of flying through the tempest, I finally broke out of the storm clouds less than two miles from Montgomery Field. I was thrilled to see the airport, but my work wasn’t over as I was faced with landing in a powerful gusting crosswind. The wind was howling out of the south and filled with driving rain. By the grace of God I somehow made a safe landing on the dark, wet runway. I breathed a huge sigh of relief as I cleared the runway and taxied to our loading area.

Larry Wilson often waited in his car on the ramp when the weather was rough. With a flight departing or arriving every half hour, Larry liked to be around to oversee any difficulties brought about by the nasty weather. Sure enough, as I climbed down from the cockpit, Larry drove up in the baby-blue Mercedes that was his trademark around the airport.

“How was the ride down the hill?” he asked, referring to my trip over the Laguna mountain range.
“It was great,” I lied. “Piece of cake.” I was glad to be on the ground, but I was also filled with a kind of post-game euphoria of having faced my fears and prevailed. I knew I had just passed a very difficult test.
“You ready to go up there and do it again?” Larry asked with a leer, knowing I was scheduled to go to Burbank with Cindy Rice in half an hour.
“You bet!” I said, feigning more enthusiasm than I felt. “But you know what, Larry? I’ve got a hot meal waiting for me at home and I’d sure like to get out of these wet clothes. I was so busy watching the weather back in Blythe that I didn’t get a chance to eat dinner, and I’d sure like to go eat. Would it be okay if I rode up to Burbank later with Mike LaForrest?”
“That’s fine with me,” Larry said. “Tell Cindy when you see her at the office that you’re going up with Mike.”

As I finished unloading the Cessna I gave it a pat on the nose, and said a quiet thanks for getting us through a tough spot. I got in my car and drove to the Pacific Air Charter office across the road to turn in my paperwork for the day and to talk to Cindy Rice. When I arrived, Cindy was on the telephone in the briefing room. She smiled and waved hello. Still listening on the phone to the weather briefer, she beckoned me over. I looked over her shoulder at the page of notes she had taken during her briefing. She pointed at three lines she had dictated from the briefer. The three lines were my ‘Pireps.’ They were being passed along to her, even though her route would be up the coast to Burbank, and not over the Laguna Mountains. She pointed at the pirep notes and then pointed at me with her eyes wide and her mouth agape in mock alarm, and I nodded. We both smiled.

With so much severe weather afoot, I knew Cindy’s weather briefing would be extensive, and might take another ten minutes or more. If I was going to ride to Burbank with Mike I had only a couple of hours before I was due back at the airport. I whispered to Cindy, “I’m going home to eat,” and I pantomimed spooning something into my mouth. “I’ll ride up tonight with Mikey,” I said. “See you at the apartment.” Cindy nodded, then covering the mouthpiece with her hand she said, “See you up there!” We waved good bye to each other.

An hour later I was at home in dry clothes, savoring a hot meal – nothing special, just reheated leftovers from a restaurant – when the phone rang. It was Larry. He sounded stricken. He was apoplectic, not making sense.
“You’re home!” He exclaimed.
“Yeah, Larry, you said I could ride up later with Mike,” I replied.
“You’re not on the plane!” Larry blurted, frantically. “You’re not with Cindy!”
“Larry what’s wrong, what’s going on?” I asked, the hair standing up on my arms.
“We think Cindy’s plane went down in the ocean,” Larry groaned.
“Oh my God,” I said. “What happened?”
“They lost radar contact with her and nobody can raise her on the radio.”
“Where, Larry? Where did it happen?”
“About three miles northwest of Mount Soledad. One minute air traffic control was talking to her and then they just lost radar contact. They called her and called her and she never answered. They tried to have Myra Brown call her on the company frequency, but Myra couldn’t raise her. Myra and Lisa Garino were coming back from Burbank, they were around Miramar and heard it all. They said the storm was so bad it took both of them to fly the airplane.” He gasped, out of breath. “Oh my God. Thank God you weren’t on the airplane, too. When they called me I couldn’t remember if you’d gone up with her or not.”
“Where are you now, Larry, are you at the office?”
”No, I’m at home in Rancho Bernardo.” He sounded lost. “Mike LaForrest is over at the office, I just talked to him.”
“Okay, Larry, I’m gonna head over to the office, then. I’m just a few minutes away.”
“Okay. I gotta stay by the phone. The controllers have this number for me. I’ll stay here in case they call. Call me when you get down there.”
“I’ll call you in a little while from the office.”

I went to the PAC offices and found several of the pilots there, including Mike who had arrived early for his flight, and Myra and Lisa who had just gotten back from Burbank. Everyone knew. Aaron Rogers, who was one of our most senior Captains, was there. Aaron and I agreed to get on the phones and call the other pilots. We wanted to tell our co-workers before they heard it on the news. Better they hear it from us. Together we decided we would suspend all operations for 24 hours while we recovered from the shock, including cancelling the rest of the flights for the evening. Upon hearing from us, most of the other pilots decided to come to the office. Soon we had almost twenty people in the office, all waiting for the terrible confirmation that Cindy had been lost at sea in the storm. There were lots of hugs and some talk of hope, but we all knew there would be no good news. It was an awful night. Many of us stayed at the office all night.

One of our main customers, a major financial institution who shall remain nameless, wins the prize for callousness. They called several times begging us to launch our usual late-night flight. They kept saying “Do you know how much money we’ll lose if we have to drive the work to L.A.?”  Aaron and I both told them, “Are you kidding? This storm killed one of our pilots tonight. We’re all in shock, not one of us here is emotionally fit to fly. We’re not going to launch another plane tonight. Period!”

The next day the local newspaper ran an inch-high headline inside the front page which read, “Thousands of Bank Customers Inconvenienced” and a story about the massive loss of unrecorded bank checks and other irreplaceable bank documents, and how many customer accounts might be affected. A tiny subtext read “Flier Lost at Sea.” There was very little mentioned about Cindy, who was so dear to us. Cindy had been with the company for a couple of years and was loved by everyone. In her mid-thirties, she was older than most of us. She was well known, well loved and well respected in the aviation communities both in San Diego and in Ramona, her home town. As a Flight Instructor, she had taught dozens of people to fly. She was very popular. Her memorial service drew hundreds of people. An air traffic control intersection over Ramona was later renamed “RIICE” in her honor. (All intersections are 5-letters long.) I think the newspaper had their headlines askew. One life lost outweighs ten thousand inconvenienced customers.

It took the NTSB over a year to finalize their report analyzing the accident. When it was finally published, all it said was that the cause of the accident was “the pilot’s failure to maintain control of the airplane.” That’s a common phrase the NTSB uses when they don’t really know what happened. Practically all airplane accidents are caused in some way by the pilot’s failure to maintain proper control. But it certainly doesn’t in any way answer the question of why Cindy, who was a competent pilot and a trained aerobatics instructor, would lose control in the first place. Did the airplane come apart in mid-air? Did she hit turbulence do bad that it knocked her out? Did the cargo come loose from under its net and pummel her, or jam the controls? What happened?

It is my belief, shared by many who looked into the accident, that Cindy ran into a waterspout out there in the dark. The airplane’s radar track was consistent with that possibility, and there’s not much else that would explain why a perfectly good airplane and a skilled pilot would suddenly smash into the sea from three and a half thousand feet. The radar showed Cindy’s airplane initiated an abrupt climb and a complete 180° heading reversal, followed by a colossal descent rate. Then it was gone. Three radar sweeps, one every six seconds. Eighteen seconds from normal flight at 3500 feet to impact with the surface. Had to be a waterspout.

The wreckage sank in three thousand feet of water, deep into the La Jolla trench.A robotic camera was sent down to examine the wreckage, and the NTSB declared that the airframe had entered the water intact, leading to further speculation that Cindy was indeed unconscious or incapacitated by the event.

Rumors about the accident raced around the airport. The news media tried to make a sensational exposé out of it, casting aspersions on Cindy as well as on Pacific Air Charter. As usual, the local television news crews jumped at the chance to insinuate that all airplanes are dangerous, especially the small General Aviation airplanes that we fly. It’s a favorite ‘scary story’ of theirs: How safe are you, with these little airplanes falling out of the sky all the time?

One news channel’s camera crew approached me two days after Cindy’s accident, the reporter shoving a microphone in my face as I approached our flight line. “Mr. Reid? Is it true that you refused to fly with Cindy Rice? Isn’t it true you were afraid to go back up after you’d already flown that day? Can you comment on whether Cindy would have been fired if she hadn’t taken the flight?” I started to deny his questions, then I looked hard at the reporter for a few moments, and I understood that nothing I said would set the record straight. He wanted a story, there wasn’t one. I said, “I’m going to have to ask you to move yourselves at least fifty yards away from this flight line. I need to preflight this airplane and go to work, and you’re interfering with the safety of the operation.” Grudgingly they retreated and began filming me from a distance.

The “news” story ran anyway, with their footage of me conducting my preflight taken from afar. In a classic case of “have you stopped beating your wife” journalism, the news channel alluded that Cindy was facing termination if she didn’t fly that night, that the weather was far too severe for anyone to fly in, and that I had personally refused to go with her. None of those things were true. I‘ll never again believe anything reported on the local news.

In April 1994 I was hired by Executive Jet.

Mid-life Krisis? Make mine a K1200R Sport

Every time I lay eyes on the K1200R Sport my pulse races and my palms sweat. In weaker moments I think I'm in love, but I know it’s just lust. And we all know how men are brought down by their lust. I wanted to avoid that part of it if I could, so I kept not booking a test ride – I was afraid I‘d like it so much that I’d buy one on the spot and then have to break the news to my wife. “Honey, before you hear it from someone else, I behaved inappropriately at the motorcycle shop today.” Are there any biblical passages I could cite?

Alex, the owner of the shop, surprised me saying that nobody wanted them, that he’d only sold two K12R Sports during the two years they were in production (2007-08). The fully-faired S and naked R models have sold fine, well enough that both models have been kept in BMW’s lineup, uprated with the new 1300 motor and various other goodies. Now he’s got two more R Sports he’s trying to move, and still nobody wants them, even discounted €1500 from the MSRP of €15,500.

I found it hard to believe the R Sport was held in such disregard, as the half-faired styling, monstrous powerplant and electronic gadgetry all appeal to me mightily, but what do I know? Well, first I know that I like the GS boxers, and should probably keep shopping in that lineup to be happy. But I also know that I’ve got a weakness for sleek bikes with big muscles. (Read into it what you will.)

So would I really want a bike everyone else has steered clear of? What do they know that I don’t? And, more practically, would I ever really want to forego the upright observation deck of the GS for a leg-cramped crouch missile? If I were buying today, would I stay with the cozy comfort of my beloved boxer’s DNA, or go ‘hike the Appalachian Trail’ with a steroidal Sports-Tourer?

Finally, the lust becomes too much. I gotta fly to Argentina for a little dancing in the moonlight - time for that test ride. Thursday afternoon Vince meets me at the dealer to fly the chase plane while I see if supersonic shock waves are in my future. I settle into the comfortable seat, quickly acclimating to the forward-leaning, toes-pointed-down riding position. We launch. Will this be a love story at the end of the day?

First impressions are mixed. It’s got bags and bags of power, but the clutch engagement is way out at the finger tips so I keep messing up my clutch release with too much throttle, resulting in some fearsome lunges at awkward moments. It takes a few miles before I start to get it right. The gear lever goes snick-snick-snick easier than any Beemer I’ve ever ridden, and I have to keep an eye on the gear indicator to see what gear I’m in as I keep upshifting without really meaning to. For a while I wonder if it’s got some kind of automatic upshift feature. (It doesn’t.)

Ten minutes into the ride I find myself coasting through a tiny village called Brugg, politely minding the 50 kph speed limit by just holding in the clutch and rolling through quietly. Passing the “Leaving Brugg” sign at the not-very-far end of town I slip the clutch and roll on the gas, this time enjoying the massive surge of power. Out of curiosity I glance at the gear indicator. Holy torque monster, I’m in 6th gear! Yet the bike just pulls cleanly away, the engine moaning out the name of the town as it delivers its 135 ponies and 85-or-so ft-lbs of torque to the rear wheel.

Another 30 minutes of test ride and I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve rolled on the power in a higher gear than I meant to be in. My 1150GS is no slouch in the torque department, boasting 75 ft-lbs, but it needs 2nd or 3rd gear for hard acceleration out of these same villages. It would buck and snort if you tried to come up from 1500 rpm in 6th. The juggernaut K shrugs it off with a yawn. Gear? Not important. You want to yank your arms out of their sockets? Try 2nd or 3rd. Or 4th. You want smooth? Try 5th or 6th. I never really figured out what 1st was for. Drag strip? The locomotive power of this motor is loco alright.

By half way through the test it becomes clear that while the K1200R Sport looks great and has massive power, it’s just not suited to the single-lane farm roads and Alpine curves where I spend the majority of my time. It belongs on the Autobahns and main roads far from here. The deep well of unusable power quickly becomes senseless. The long wheelbase which no doubt makes it stable at higher speeds makes it unwieldy here. If I’d had time to take it for a long day to the Alps and back, I might’ve found a soulmate. But here in my backyard, it’s pointless and a bit frustrating.

Bottom line, she’s not such a great dance partner after all. I'd love to have one as the third or fourth bike in my dream garage, but not as my one-and-only. Now I see why Alex has had trouble moving them. A better bike for the local riding profile would be any of the boxer twins, including my 7-year old 1150GS. Granted, that’s strictly a regional observation. I’d seriously consider the R Sport if I still lived in So Cal and spent time on freeways, or if I lived in Munich and had to drive two hours to get to the Alps. The R Sport reminds me of my old FJ1200, but an FJ with the faults worked out. Like the FJ, the R Sport’s strength is its straight-line acceleration, not its handling in the slow twisty bits.

On the plus side, the fueling is fantastic, especially considering the amount of power you’re trying to marshal. This fact became especially important during a downpour. On that topic, the weather protection feels just right, blocking the bulk of the rain but allowing enough wind flow to ease the weight on your wrists at any speed above 80 kph. Finally, the whole package feels sportier than it looks, and like any well-balanced bike, its weight disappears once you get rolling. Good thing, as it’s no lightweight, tipping the scales at 237 kilos / 521 lbs.

Perhaps, though, the best part of the test ride for me was when a couple of riders passed the other way. As we all executed the appropriate “Hail Brother of the Wheel” hand gestures, I simply felt sooo much cooler on the R Sport than Vince looked sitting behind me on my own GS. Now that’s the kind of feeling that can sell a bike regardless of its shortcomings. It’s hard to put a price tag on that.

Speaking of price, I think the biggest question any potential buyer should be asking is, why should I spend fourteen grand for a bike that looks and acts essentially like a Suzuki Bandit 1250 ABS? Okay, the Bandit doesn’t have Electronic Suspension Adjustment, shaft drive, or a spinning propeller status symbol, and it’s got “only” 98 HP and 78 ft-lbs of torque on tap compared to the Beemer’s 135 HP and 85 ft-lbs. (Hardly much difference, when you’ve no place to use the power.) But get this: the Bandit lists for €8590, a savings of €5,410. That’ll buy you a lot of gas, gadgets, gear and goodies. Funny, but I’ll bet the Suzuki dealer up the hill has sold more than two Bandits in two years.

Okay, the R Sport does some things the Bandit will never be able to do. For example, the patented Duolever front end of the K bikes has almost zero dive or compression under braking, which is awesome to experience even as it gives you the eerie feeing of being on some kind of single-axis 2-D riding simulator, where all you have control of is bank angle and velocity. The Telelever front end of my GS also separates braking and steering forces, but it still compresses during braking and extends during acceleration, giving a modicum of ‘normalcy’ to the riding experience. The Duolever’s Hossack-type construction has all the pitching moments of a train. A tiny, fast, maneuverable train, I mean.

Personally, I had no trouble feeling confidence with what the front wheel was doing in both wet and dry conditions, though other testers have complained of “vagueness.” Maybe I’m just used to it from my GS’s Telelever front. The overall ride of the R Sport was very, very composed – and I never even tried switching between ESA modes as I didn’t want to enter more variables into a one-hour test ride than necessary. I just left it in ‘normal’ mode, and it felt perfectly suited to the road surfaces, my weight and riding style. I also didn’t try to learn all the features of the on-board computer, switchable on the left handlebar with a button marked ‘info.’ Suffice it to say you do get a lot of technology for your extra dough.

In the past I’d seen a lot of K12 bikes – S, R, and R Sport – with aftermarket tubular handlebars, and now I know why. The stock bars are just not-quite ergonomic, and are not adjustable. The only way I found to get my hands to fit properly on the bars was to do the funky chicken with my elbows. Then my hands fit, but I didn’t feel quite so cool. Maybe you get used to it. Cluck cluck.

After the test ride, it was a pleasure to be back on my GS, which not only was born and bred for the kind of riding I do here, but which is completely dialed in to me ergonomically. Yep, there’s no place like home. And I know now for pretty darned sure that my next bike will be another boxer, probably the 12GS. I guess that’s the end of my crush on the K1200R Sport. I’m glad I could satisfy my curiosity without having to break any news to my wife. No press conferences for me, thanks.

Alpine Riding Hazards

The Alps are filled with spectacular scenery on small, winding, heavily trafficked country roads with few guardrails. How many hazards did you spot in that last sentence? Here’s a list of common hazards, which is by no means complete:

1. Tractors, sometimes very large ones, which on occasion can be found towing machinery so large that they take up both lanes. This is fun when you round a bend at speed only to find you’ve nowhere to go.
2. Large chunks of mud which fell off the tractor’s wheels.
3. Grass and hay which fell off the tractor.
4. Cow sh*t, “road apples,” and other unidendifiable deposits.
5. Actual cows, horses, goats, sheep, chickens, ducks, etc.
6. Gravel – applied liberally during the icy season (November – May).
7. Beautiful scenery which takes your eyes off the road.
8. Sightseeing drivers whose eyes are not on the road.
9. Buses – sightseeing or not, they often take up more than 50% of the road.
10. Motorcycles which suddenly overtake you (Yes, Speedy, it does happen, so keep an eye in the mirror).
11. Cars and motorcycles which must be overtaken (or you’ll get so bored following that you fall asleep).
12. Reckless young men on race-replicas who just watched MotoGP on TV.
13. Bicyclists galore, huffing their way uphill they tend to swerve around a lot.
14. Hikers galore, crossing the road to where they parked without looking.
15. Austrian and Italian roads under repair all summer (German roads are perfect – ha!).
16. The beautiful Biergarten waitress in the low-cut dirndl carrying four steins of cold beer (Ja!).

I hope this list will inspire you to a rational riding style if you don’t already have one. With thousands of motorcycles out and about on any given day, it’s easy to think there’s some competition factor to the riding. There’s not. The only contest is to see how much fun you can have and to arrive at the Biergarten at the end of the day without an incident, accident, or violation.

On the topic of violations, the Swiss and Austrians (esp. the Swiss) are very strict about speed limits and impose heavy fines. In Switzerland you must pay the fine at the roadside or your bike will be impounded. Speeding through a village may incur a fine in the neighborhood of €350. They take credit cards.

All signs and speedometers are in kilometers. To get it clear in your head you can multiply by .6 to get mph. This 50 kph x .6 = 30 mph. Villages and towns automatically have a speed limit of 50kph unless posted lower, often 30 kph where the road is tight. Outside of towns the speed limit is 100 kph in Germany and Austria, 90 kph in Italy, and 80kph in Switzerland.

It’s fair to say that you can speed a bit outside the towns without too much risk. For example, I’m willing to go 120 (and occasionally more) everywhere but Switzerland, where I hardly ever go more than 90 because of the high fines.

Radar speed traps are common everywhere. Friendly riders coming the other way almost always warn you by flashing their lights and waving, and so far I’ve never had a ticket (knock wood). A fine for getting caught doing 10-20 over-the-limit in Germany would be about €40 and no points. I can afford that, so that’s my personal “speed limit,” with occasional riskier exceptions.

Jafen Pass Gran Prix

There’ve been some great moments this year's riding, and I’d have to say the absolute peak of the season to date (and probably will be for the whole year) occurred on the last day of four while riding with Manfred to the Venedig region of Italy. We happened to arrived at a construction light at the foot of the Jaufen Pass in far northern Italy at the same time as three racer-types in full leathers astride brand new Kawasaki Z-1000 naked bikes, who all jockeyed for position and revved their motors waiting for the light to change. 

Naturally, when the light went green it turned into the Jaufen Grand Prix, as everybody put their heads down, pinned the throttles, and started tearing up the mountain. By being first off the line  -- and given that there was no place to pass on such a small, windy road -- at the first hairpin it was Manfred in the lead and yours truly, followed closely by the first of the three Kwakkers, a persistent fellow who kept showing me a front wheel as he tried to find a way around me. 

He and I went at it hammer-and-tongs for the next ten or so minutes, with me gradually pulling away. My technique goes something like this: haul ass WFO*, brake late and hard going into the corner, turn quickly at a relatively slow speed (it’s a big, top-heavy machine, remember), and then start rolling on the throttle about halfway through the turn so that the motor’s delivering full cheese to rear hoop by the completion of the turn. 

This technique seemed to work well against my faster-in-a-straight-line young adversary, and resulted in me gaining a few seconds advantage at every hairpin, and I eventually opened up some distance between us. It helped that there were a few cars to pass which made it impossible for Zedboy to use the straights to pass me. I also timed a couple of passes on cars so that he would have to wait through the next corner to make his pass. Sneaky!

In the end I took the second podium position, rolling up to the tourist kiosk at the pass only about ten seconds behind Mamfie. 

From the curb I was able to look straight down the mountainside at the switchbacks to see the closest Zed. He was, I’d say, about 1500 meters behind me, or three tiers below the top if you count that way, with six hairpins to go. Maybe a minute. Well, that was a spry bit of fun for a couple of middle-aged blokes on their old sport-touring machines to put over on the youngsters with their big shiny horsepower factories and their fancy-schmancy leathers. Old age and treachery, like the saying goes. 

Manfred signaled a question to me at the pass asking if I wanted to stop for photos, but I waved him on. Better not, I figured. We might find our Zed-boy chums in a state of discontent with our riding style. Or, rather, their own. Or who knows, maybe they would have wanted to buy us a round. I thought, let’s just leave it a mystery. More interesting that way. 

*Throttle Wide-Freaking-Open

Best Road Signs on the way to Mt Blanc

(Enter your own psych joke here)

Most licked sign in Europe

No Pussy for you, bad boy!

The Curse of Sabo

Well, Sabo’s been and gone for our annual weeklong festival of sitting indoors glowering about how much riding we’d be doing if it would just stop raining.

This is the third year in a row we’ve been frowned upon by the weather gods. Sabo has the dubious distinction of being able to say that he’s spent 24 days in Germany over the last three summers but he still has yet to see one dry day. All that rain has not only curtailed our riding plans every year, it’s also caused Sabo to miss seeing a lot of great scenery such as the sight of the Alps from my house. The only saving grace in the whole sad story is that, because he’s an airline pilot, he doesn’t have to pay air fare to get here.

Sabo first visited in August 2005 after we’d had warm sunny weather the whole month of July. And that August it rained nonstop. July 2006 was again great, but August, while Sabo was here, set a new record for wet. So this time we all got smart, and said, “Come in July,” and – you guessed it – we had the wettest first half of July on record. Maybe if Sabo lived in Death Valley seeing rain would be a treat for him, but for crying out sideways, the guy lives in Portland and works in Seattle.

He left yesterday morning on the 5:35 train, and by noon the streets were drying under grey skies. By 3 o’clock the sun was fully out, children were playing in the streets, and the sound of lawn mowers echoed through the neighborhood while the Alps stood proudly in the middle distance. I knew then that he’d made it to his flight in Frankfurt and was westbound.

By nature I’m not such a solitary creature as you might think based on how much time I spend riding solo. I do, in fact, like to share quality experiences, such as awesome rides, and on almost every ride I find myself bookmarking a route as a must-share for when Sabo gets here. Here I’d been looking forward since last year to show him this fantastic setting that makes my riding – not to mention my day-to-day life – so amazing, and now I’m going to have to wait yet another year. That is, if it’s not raining the whole time he’s here next.

He left yesterday, and I’m still going through the five stages of grieving. I’m not grieving for his departure, I’m grieving for the death of all that precious time we’ll never get back. I’ve passed through Denial (“Oh no, not again!”) and Anger (“Frickin’ rain!”) and Bargaining (“Please please please stop raining, I’ll be a nicer person”) and now I’m firmly in the middle of Depression (“Ah, what’s the use?”). In a couple of days I’ll come out of it and be in Acceptance, but it was a low blow to have a “Polar Low” dump a record amount of rain on us while my best buddy was here for his once-a-year visit.

A pity for Sabo, too, who had paid $650 for a week’s motorcycle rental, only to have it sit in the garage part of that week. We were hoping he’d exceed the 1500-kilometer allotment that came with the rental. In fact, we were optimistic he’d have to pony up for another 500 or so upon turning it in. Instead, we rolled up after seven days boasting a mere 1100 km on the trip odometer.

He arrived Tuesday July 3rd, and we were scheduled to pick up his bike the next day. Instead, we spent Wednesday –the 4th of July – waiting for the pouring rain to abate. About 3 o’clock we finally gave up and told the shop we’d pick the bike up the next day. No sense paying a full day’s rent for a couple of wet hours one afternoon.

First thing Thursday morning, despite the continuing rain, we picked his shiny new R1200GS with its clever expandable handbags. We went home and packed, and then set out at 11:30 in steady rain. We cautiously rode for five and a half exhausting hours through the Austrian Alps in the rain. We were anything but fast – we only averaged around 40 KPH, compared with my usual average of 60 KPH on dry Alpine roads. The roads finally dried off late in the afternoon and we were able to up the pace a bit, but we were still riding under heavy grey overcast, wiping sporadic sprinkles from our visors.

Like last year, we climbed over the mighty Timmelsjoch pass with a view mostly of clouds and not of the Alps. It’s a spectacular view, I know. I wish Sabo could see it someday. Down the other side of the pass under clearing skies we cruised into San Leonardo Italy for dinner at our favorite organic restaurant (the one by the bridge, if you know it) where we gorged ourselves on “Bio-pizza” and “Bio-hefeweizen”. It tastes better if it’s “Bio”, right?

Friday dawned bright and blue, with only a few fair-weather cumulus clouds poking around the peaks. After a hearty breakfast, we cheerfully packed up the bikes and rode off for what was supposed to be a banner day of eight or ten passes in a big loop through the Dolomites, that grand section of the Italian Alps with the monstrous jutting rocky crags at every peak. We climbed over the Jaufenpass, down the valley on the other side and then up the Penser Joch, and down through the long Sarntal valley south toward Bolzano.

There are some fantastic looking castles on the ridges and peaks overlooking the valley, and I knew Jeff was under orders from the staff of his coffee hangout in Portland (Anna Bannana’s on NW 21st, where he gets his mail) to take more pictures than last year. I spied a nice photo-op turnout on the left, a dirt parking area with two driveways that would make for easy-in, easy-out. A glance in my mirror showed Sabo 50 meters behind me, and a car behind him. I turned on my left blinker and began slowing, paying attention to the two prominent potholes in the driveway of the lookout point.

As I braked and began my turn, I heard a screeching of tires behind me and in that split second thought, “What the hell is Sabo doing?” and, simultaneously, “Why isn’t his ABS working?”

Before I could even complete the thought I was hit hard by a car – the one that had been behind Sabo – and knocked over to my right in a high-side. The bike landed hard on the pavement and my foot was semi-crushed by something, maybe the swingarm of the bike, as it ground to a stop on its side. The woman in the Audi that hit me was getting out and Sabo was parked nearby and dismounting by the time I stood up. I hobbled in a circle to test my foot and found it would hold my weight, so I limped back to my still-running bike and shut it down.

Sabo and I righted the bike and Sabo pushed it into the parking area where we assessed damages. She’d struck me in the left-side hard case and then the bike had landed on the right one, so both cases had broken off the bike and were all scuffed to hell with big gouges in the plastic. The left-side luggage bracket was snapped and a mounting hook had sheared off of the right-side case, which meant there’d be no riding again with either bag. The battery had leaked acid all over the right side of the engine, and a cracked fuel injector nozzle meant that when the key was turned, fuel spurted out all over the side of the bike. Not good. Not drivable.

I asked the driver, a fifty-five year old grandmother of five named Frieda if she’d seen my blinker. She told me, “Yes, but I drive this road every day. I see lots of motorcycles with their blinker on by mistake. I saw your blinker but I thought you had forgotten it.” I said to her flatly, “No, Frieda. I meant it.” I mean, what do you say to that kind of logic? Next time I’ll wave my arms, too?

Frieda may be a horrid driver, but at least she took responsibility. She stayed while we waited for the police for an hour, who after several phone calls admitted they weren’t actually on their way. Then she drove with me to Bolzano to find a tow truck, led the tow truck back to the accident site and drove me to the BMW shop. She stayed to find out what it would cost, and, eyes popping at the initial estimate, drove with me to her insurance carrier’s office twenty minutes away. She never once tried to say it was anyone else’s fault but her own.

When I say she’s a horrid driver, I’m not saying it just because she hit me. I rode as passenger in her car a total of about two hours that day, and she had horns blown at her no less than three times in critical situations which would have resulted in accidents but for the vigilance and abrupt maneuvering of other drivers. Her response to hearing a horn blown at her is to blow her own. Perhaps she thinks the other horns are a signal of merriment. At one point – and this is true – I put on my helmet in her car while she had a horn-blowing contest with a semi that needed to merge. Somehow, no credit to her, it worked out. On a scale of situational awareness she’d score a negative number. If ever there was ever a case for emergency revocation of driver privileges, she’s it. There should be at least be urgent warnings on the radio when she’s out and about.

Martin Bertolin, the frenetic cappuccino-powered service manager of BMW Bolzano proved that we were far enough north in German-speaking Italy that things would actually get done, and done right, yet far enough south into Italy that only the necessary things would get done, without anyone fussing over unnecessary details. [In Germany: “Ja, such pity vee cannot release to you zee machine, but vee do nott haff zee corrrect sticker for zee logbook.”]
The accident occurred at 12:45, the bike arrived in his shop at 15:30 on a hectic Friday afternoon, and he managed to get me on the road by 18:00 with a new fuel injector and new hard bags. I’ll be sending Martin a present, that’s for sure. Maybe some decaf.

Onwards, then. Sabo and I doggedly pursued our plan to see the Dolomites, turning eastbound out of Bolzano up the Eggerstal Valley, grinding along with all the Friday evening traffic. We’d lost six hours riding, but at least we were back on the road. Near 7 o’clock we found ourselves above the traffic, blasting along in fresh mountain air near the top of the Karerpass. We hadn’t gone far from Bolzano when we decided to stop, but we’d missed lunch and it was getting on time for beer and pizza.

Stopping to enquire for rooms at one hotel turned up the interesting fact that while there weren’t actually any rooms, there was a stunningly beautiful barmaid. We went up the road and found a falling-down hotel called, ironically, the Savoy, and took rooms for €40 each. Sabo graciously let me have the one with the double bed, an act of sympathy I was later grateful for as I thrashed around all night with a swollen foot and bruised body. Naturally, we went back to the first hotel for dinner, and it was a great move. The view was great – of the mountains, I mean – and the food was superb. Man, one gets spoiled eating anywhere in Italy. The food’s great, and there’s natural beauty in abundance everywhere you look.

Saturday we finally got to check off one big box we’ve been wanting to check for three years: Riding the Dolomites. The roads are serpentine and the vistas breathtaking. That’s true of all of the Alps, pretty much, but just somehow more so in the Dolomites. Being a gorgeous summer Saturday, there were droves of bicyclists and cars to contend with, but therein is one of the more satisfying aspects of being on a motorcycle: the ability to dispatch such moving obstacles one by one, and blasting on ahead. Sabo improved his passing techniques exponentially this trip, and emerged a far better rider than when he arrived, and way better than he was last year. We talked about it at length, and he expressed a deep sense of satisfaction for having taken his Alpine riding skills to a new level.

It would be wondrous to ride the Alps without any other road users, but that’s a pipe dream in summer. They’re there, so instead of wishing for something that’s not, one should use every opportunity to pass as a whetstone to hone one’s riding skills. I wouldn’t recommend doing this on Palomar mountain or the Capistrano Highway. In fact I’d go so far as to say it’s only possible here in the Alps where the drivers are better trained, better disciplined, motorcycle conscious and generally very good at moving over to allow bikes to pass. You never see anyone full of resentment hogging the road. Drivers are happy to have you go past and get on down the road, they don’t want your headlight in their mirror for one minute more than necessary. Can’t say the same about my experiences in California, sadly.

By mid-afternoon Saturday we’d traversed five Dolomite passes and crossed back into Austria. Sabo led the way on a route we’d picked to skirt the traffic of Innsbruck. He memorized the route by using village names as fixes, and if you ask him today he can still cite them: Natters, Mutters, Götzens, Axams, Zill. The road we chose was but a small squiggle on the map yet it turned out to provide some of the most awe-inspiring vistas of our whole trip, looking across the Inn River valley north to the Bavarian Alps.

Northbound into Bavaria the road was thick with BMW motorcycles headed to Garmisch-Partenkirchen for the big BMW Motorrad Days Biker Meeting. There were also BMW-sponsored tour groups coming the other way from Garmisch, easy to spot as each group was comprised of one or two of each of the new models in BMW’s 2007 lineup being led by a guy in a green day-glo vest. We saw maybe ten such groups in the hour it took to approach Garmisch from the south.

Our hotel wasn’t in Garmisch but in Oberammergau about 20km away. After getting cleaned up finding a café to order our (much needed) nightly repast of beer and pizza, we found we’d missed the last shuttle bus to the show. Rather than get a cab we decided to just skip the BMW beerhall for the evening in favor of trying out a few sidewalk cafés there in Oberammergau. My foot was still pretty sore so I had no complaints about keeping the walking to minimum. Oberammergau is a tourist town, it’s exceedingly charming, quaint, and picturesque. There might have been a big party going on in Garmisch, but we were having a great time right where we were and just didn’t feel the need to try and trade up.

Sunday we rode to the show about ten and stayed until about three. The show is free and there are dozens of booths with all the after-market goodies you’d associate with BMW motorcycles plus lots of food, beer, demonstrations and activities. Next year I’ll bring the family, there’s even a tent for kids. The day was warm and sunny, except for one huge thundershower that soaked the place for an hour about lunchtime. Was it nature or just a crafty plan on BMW’s part to get everyone into the mess hall for lunch? Whatever, it worked.

Leaving the show, the sky was clear overhead but we could see some weather moving up from the south. Half an hour westbound out of Garmisch the sky went to dark grey, then to sprinkling, then to really raining. It’s a two-hour ride home in dry weather from Garmisch, but more than three when it’s pouring. So our trip ended on Sunday just as it had begun on Thursday, with us going on tiptoes into the corners, puckering at the limits of tire grip and silently thanking BMW for the GS’s wide tiller that’ll pick it up in a corner when it loses its footing.

Here’s the rest of the diary:

Monday, July 9th: Rain. Feeling pathetic and ashamed, we take the car (gack!) to the Held moto-apparel shop, which is an hour away on what are fantastic motorcycling roads in the dry. But Sabo comes away happy, with a new riding jacket, riding trousers, and two pairs of gloves from the bargain bin. Score!

Tuesday, July 10th: Mostly rain, but just enough clearing in the afternoon that we manage to sneak in 120 km in the farm-and-fruit country above Lake Constance.

Wednesday, July 11th: Steady rain. Sabo returns the rental bike in semi-defeat.

Thursday, July 12th: Sabo departs, weather resumes a spectacular summer.

Some critics might say we should just bundle up and ride no matter the weather. If there’s a mission involved, especially one with some reasonable expectation of better weather at the other end, I’d agree. (In fact, that’s just what we did.) But to launch for a day’s pleasure ride in crappy weather is, in my opinion, just inviting trouble, plus it’s not really fun. The concentration required and the lowered speeds make it feel more like work. Obviously, the likelihood of an accident is much higher because the roads are slippery. But even doing your best on a slippery road isn’t always enough, as car drivers can’t see (and don’t look for you) through rain-streaked foggy windows. Rain washes dirt and gravel into corners that you can’t see through your own rain-streaked foggy visor. So before you’ve even set out you’ve lost your ability to mitigate some of the most crucial risks of riding.

My idea of fun riding is all about relishing the performance and capabilities of the machine, savoring the great scenery, and arriving somewhere you can sit outside in the nice weather admiring the bikes while lying about getting your peg down in that last big sweeper. So when I complain that we got rained out, in reality I mean that we made a decision not to expose ourselves to undue risks for what would have been a minimal amount of riding pleasure.

Riding all day in the rain does teach you some important lessons, though, the main one being that it can be done and done safely. In southern California one seldom gets the chance to put wet weather riding skills to the test, much less improve and refine them. If any good came from all the time we spent in the downpour, it’s that we’re both better riders for it.

As far as securing Sabo a sunny ride, maybe we’ll try again this year in late September. That’ll fool the weather gods. And Sabo won’t launch from the US until I’ve got a positive high-pressure good weather forecast. Or, if that doesn’t work, we’re already well-practiced in saying, “There’s always next year.”

Until then, that’s the Reidman’s ride report. Now get out there and ride!

See photos here:
http://www.kodakgallery.com/gallery/creativeapps/slideShow/Main.jsp?albumId=590554460208&ownerId=59372270808