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[Nick]

yesterday. Still gettin' some of my groceries back into the sack. Was ridin' my bike, goin' from 595 to 95, shiftin' around between 2nd and 3rd as I reach back and unfold the passenger footrests.

  Now I'm on 95 in lane 1. Doin' 70 MPH. Check forward and aft, lotsa space. Lotsa movin' metal on the right. Little shoulder and a concrete wall on the left.

  All looks good.

  Now- as is my fashion- this is when I hang the front of my bootheels on the rear pegs, go chest down on the tank, drop/tuck the elbows and get my eyebrows just above the handlebars.

  [minimize wind resistance/maximize fuel economy]

  So bend the knees/hook the heels- ooops- what's up with this? Actually, down with this. Did the kick pedal flip out (that d clip is pretty new, shouldn't happen) and my foot push on that?
  The why'd the left one go down?

  O.K.

  Doin' about 60 somethin' now. Stuff probably catchin' up from behind. Time to look down.  Hey, that's not the normal arrangement.

  Lookin' for a good shoulder patch. Lookin' behind. Gearin' down.
  There!  o.k. kickstand dow...  Won't go down. Turn bike off. Check rear. This is no time to be auditioned as a hood ornament.

  Get off. Careful. Don't wanna be droppin this sucker- again. Hmmm. Unfoul the kickstand. Check rear. Seen people slam into cop cars (yes, their lights were flashing) on the roadside in true life tv clips lotsa times.

  Now WTF?

  The passenger footrig is about 8 inches lower and 3 inches aft of its normal (that's how I spell safe) position. Thought my rear motor mount bolts had backed out. Never happened before but I now two other bikes, a '73 and a '70 that each tossed one. They don't call 'em Milwaukee Vibrators just 'cause it sounds cute.
It's o.k., that's why they designed it with two back in 1952.

  They're still in there (check rear). The mounting plate broke. O.K., how do I fish this rig out?

  My trans vent (ala '77) mist tubing ty wrapped into the port side aft center stand mounting bolt hole (phew) kept the bar from getting up close and personal with the rear tire. Rear exhaust pipe kept the chain safe (THE CHAIN! WTF about the rider?!
Dude- lighten up. In this lifestyle it's all one).

  Off with the ty wraps. I tried sawin' the bar from side to side, just couldn't get the angle but the leather ridin' gloves probably kept burns from the hands a couple of times. Out with the tube. Out with the bar.

   Foot peg rubbers are still lookin' pretty good. Left one has the corner ground off from draggin' on the asphalt but that ain't nothin'. Now how am I gonna carry this?

   O.K. Through the belt at back (yeah, buddy- she likes to have her ankles up high when she's ridin'. Maybe it's a cooling breeze thing- I dunno).

  O.K. Double check all the other shit down under here. Nope. Nothing else looks fresh customized.

   Get on. Turn IT ON. Ahhh, fresh startin' gear- Crane single fire ignition- good stuff. Now to find a break in the 75 MPH steel snake slidin' past me. Here we go.

   1st
               2nd
                            3rd
                                                   4th

                                                        All right.  70 MPH (again.)  Cracklin' along through the cooling breeze. Happy in my heart. Totally unaware that the rear brake will be locked up and smoking at a red light 20 minutes from now.







Nick~ any ride you can write about is a good one~ Pierce


  





  

 

  



    

[Tobacco]

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[Nick]

Not finished, actual event and it is being posted to learn how to write truth in a commercially accepted manner.

Yeah, I got your reason hanging.

Like that with the no apostrophe and tone suggestion?

The day I first typed this a '73 Ironhead owner was at my place, read it, got a grin and said only another Ironhead owner would get it. Just wanting to see if it can be dumbed out for you folks who only use the ladies leg if you ride at all.

[asbestos_dust]

I got it. Been there, done that (on a 1200 Blockhead Sporty on I-610 in Houston - haven't ridden an Ironhead in about 100 years,) felt my ball sack cinch up when I read yours. Someday I'll tell you about blasting a honkin ('?) heavy home-built cruiser around a corner at about Warp 3 on a piece of shit 2-lane in Oklahoma and discovering as I'm laid out in the turn that in Carter County, anyhow, one way to do cheap roadwork is to spread a 3" layer of pea gravel shoulder-to-shoulder on the road for about a half-mile. Not dumping that bike was one of the fanciest pieces of riding I've ever done - felt like it took about an hour to get her back under control, though.

I didn't even shit myself, although it took a bit to convince my ass to let go of that chunk of seat it had sucked up.

I think your piece was pretty raw, but, as your Ironhead friend says, effective if you've been there - and I agree that non-bikers wouldn't "get" it if you were writing like Tolstoy, although you might be able to get them closer to it.

And, I haven't decided whether I agree with Jeremy about the apostrophe thing. I agree it reads pretty much the same either way, but without, it just looks lazy/careless/sloppy to me. Minor issue, either way, a style thing. As long as it reads like you intended.

[Nick]

Not dumping that bike was one of the fanciest pieces of riding I've ever done

Always seems like no one is around to see this shit when it happens, eh?
That's why I had to write this one out.

[asbestos_dust]

Always seems like no one is around to see this shit when it happens, eh?

Yeah, but every goddam one of them, probates, hangarounds, friends, family and strangers are around drinking beer and laughing when your foot slips out from under the bike on an oily patch and dumps you, the bike, and that goofy bimbo you picked up two towns back when you roll to a stop at the campsite. Fuckers won't let you live it down all weekend, either.

[Nick]

Yeah, but every goddam one of them, probates, hangarounds, friends, family and strangers are around drinking beer and laughing when your foot slips out from under the bike on an oily patch and dumps you, the bike, and that goofy bimbo you picked up two towns back when you roll to a stop at the campsite. Fuckers won't let you live it down all weekend, either.

May I direct your attention to 'Safety Lid' posted over in Fiction, Flash Fiction and Prose-Private.  I got my 5 minutes of fame that day, I suppose.

[Nick]

 My trans vent (ala '77)    

Nick, how the fuck is anyone gonna get this part?  Most Ironhead riders (all 769 of them) don't know that one of the case changes in  1977 was the elimination of the primary side one way pressure relief feature behind the chain making it necessary to vent transmission pressure elsewhere.

[Father Luke]

Why not submit this one to a motorcycle magazine, see if you can get it sold?