Fire Eaters' Chile

A Century ago, horticulturalist Fabian Garcia planted the seeds that grew into New Mexico's $400 million chile-pepper industry. He created a pod that growers and consumers could depend on, both in terms of size and in terms of consistent, predictable heat. Today, more than 16,000 acres of New Mexico chiles are under cultivation in the land of enchantment, and and the result is tons of red and green chile peppers.

New Mexico’s favorite foods have one common ingredient: The New Mexico Chile, spelled C-H-I-L-E. This spelling is the subject of some debate. I explain this while I firing rounds from a Vaquero single action revolver in my latest show. Please watch it so you understand, once and for all, that Chili with an “I” is a Texas soup.

The chile is very much a part of New Mexican culture. The ristras that decorate homes in the fall -- strings of red chiles -- are being sun-dried for preservation. Some are used for decoration; most are later roasted and used to make chile powder and sauces.

Who says guns and cooking don't mix? Part cooking show, part redneck games, watch me prepare chile powder from roasted New Mexico chile peppers, and then I share my world famous recipe for Fire Eaters’ Chile.

And Now for Something Completely Different!

Who says guns and cooking don't mix? Part cooking show, part redneck games, watch Peckhammer prepare Guajillo Glazed Turkey and Cornbread Soyrizo Stuffing during episode one.



Peckhammer shares his favorite Southwest recipes and takes viewers on his hunting adventures, which typically go awry. He then creates healthy, simple, delicious dishes, always making one item for "them hippy vegetarians."

Three Bottles of Wine and 109 Ponies Don't Mix

Let me be the first to say, it's not the story you think it is...

I was out with Girl Wonder enjoying the last few days before the monsoon, taking a leisurely two-up ride along the coastline. We hugged the shore starting in Alkai Beach, and worked our way towards the Vashon Island Ferry. From there we headed back to Seattle, eventually climbing over the West Seattle Bridge towards Columbia City, and meandering through Seattle's many neighborhoods. Near the end of our ride, Girl Wonder said she needed to pick up some wine that was on sale at Dread Meyer.

While she was in the store getting the vino, I decided to do some emergency stopping drills in the parking lot. I like to know what to expect when you squeeze hard on the binders.

I must say, the R1200R's braking system is impressive. I was able to haul the bike down from 60 mph to a nice predictable stop without ever engaging the ABS. The front rotors were literally howling as I engaged the brakes just short of sliding. Very cool.

Girl Wonder returned with three bottles of Pepperwood, ready to head home. Since we are still waiting for the BMW system cases to arrive, she placed the three bottles into her backpack. I had to pull out into a swift stream of traffic, so I whacked the throttle open in the same way I had been doing all day.

The front wheel lofted skyward like a wild horse trying hard not to be tamed. I completed my right hand turn on one wheel, and then the front dropped a little abruptly as I let off too much throttle.

"What za hell was that," she inquired? My reply? "I think I missed this warning in the manual: Three bottles of wine hanging out past the rear wheel can adversely affect handling."

A Balanced Approach

Girl Wonder told me that before buying a new motorcycle, we should check out the new BMWs. When your woman is the one to suggest motorcycle shopping, you don't question it. You find your riding gear and get there any way you can before she changes her mind.

We've been riding so much in the dirt the last few years, I figured that we should give the 650 X-series bikes a look. What we discovered instead was the 2007 R1200R; A bike with classic roots that have evolved into a modern, cutting-edge motorcycle. With its striking appearance, relaxed ergos, Telelever suspension, and ABS, the R1200R is one of the finest motorcycles I've ridden. Precise handling, 109 ponies and plenty of torque make the package irresistible.

"Husky" used to be a size of pants for heavy kids

And now it's a damn good supermotard.

Mr. Bannon was kind enough to loan me his 510 today, and I was kind enough to give him an excuse to perform another oil change and to exercise the power-washer. I rode over to Bannon's on the SV, Girl Wonder riding pillion. On the way I was sort of marveling at the smoothness and excellent manners of the SV. The temperature was perfect, and the scenery fantastic. It made me want to catch I-5 South and pull a "Ward"(1) -- maybe not stopping until I hit the Mexican Border. Of course, we ended up in Mill Creek instead.

Bannon had his bike all prepped and ready. GW took over as captain of the SV and I planted myself on the seat of the Husky. I wanted to see what this bike was like on the highway, so we took I-5 south and then I-405. After 5 minutes of riding at 75, I thought that the vibes were intolerable. Of course, I had just come off the SV, and I had just been marveling about how smooth it was. We then took I-405 to Route 9 North, and worked our way to High Bridge Road.

I have to tell you all that I am bored stiff by the roads around here. After having ridden plenty of non-stop race-track-like curves in the Mediterranean, Washington State is a big yawn. There are a few nice roads here, of course, but you have to make a day trip on straight roads to get to them. High Bridge is one of the better roads within an hour of our place, and I haven't ridden it for a while. I have a love/hate relationship with it; It beckons to be ridden hard and fast, but it's rural-residential. IOW, it's impolite and dangerous to be treating it like a track.

Despite my stab at responsible maturity, I found that the Husky eats this road up like Kirstie Alley at an all-you-can-eat buffet. Unfortunately, I couldn't figure out how to ride the damned thing. Yeah, I was winging my way through corners and leaving GW in the dust, but the bike suffers from an identity crisis. Do you ride it like a dirt bike or a sport bike? I felt a bit awkward trying to figure it out. Part of this is because I haven't been riding street bikes very much lately -- and part of it is because the Husky is so very different.

Next up on the Husky's menu was Ben Howard Road. I had the same feelings as I did on High Bridge, but I did glance down at the speedo while entering a turn with a cautionary speed limit of 20 and noticed I was carrying 47mph. The husky is deceptively fast; I felt like I was doing about 15 mph. And speaking of fast, I could pull out of corners so quickly that I needed binoculars to locate Girl Wonder in the buzzy mirrors. You can step into a corner really hot, and then pull out of it like a jet-fighter. This bike can move.

We stopped at the Sultan Bakery because GW forgot to bring the liner for her jacket. At the corner of route 2, she was shaking more than the Husky. So we stopped and had a cup of coffee to bring her up to room temperature. I was glad to stop too, because at 41 miles, my ass hurt as if I had been on the wrong end of a college hazing ritual. It was over coffee that I suggested we head to Leavenworth. The previously unacceptable vibes were eclipsed by the feeling I had been prison-raped, but I was quickly becoming addicted to this torture ritual. I wasn't going to give up until tears filled my eyes. Besides, when you are busy cornering, you completely forget about how bad your backside feels.

We kept up a serious pace all the way to Leavenworth. It seems there is some disagreement in speedometers. The Husky said I was going 65 mph, and GW said I was going 80. I think that the Husky's meter is a bit pessimistic, and the SV's is optimistic. We were probably doing 72.

There is nothing new in Leavenworth, so I won't bother telling you about my bratwurst lunch. Basically, we landed, we ate, we refueled, and we got on the throttle. One hour later, and 13 miles from Goldbar, my ass felt like it had been beaten with a fence post... and then the engine cut out. I pulled over asap and spent a minute or so figuring out how to set the petcock on reserve. I recall Bannon's warning about 21 miles on reserve and sought the first gas station I could find. Seems I was getting about 35mpg... although I had been pushing the bike pretty hard.

We retraced our earlier route, doing Ben Howard and then High Bridge. Having figured the bike out a bit, I completely lost GW. Still, when I was banked over in a corner, I had this feeling as though my helmet was going to whack tree branches on the other side of the road. The Husky feels really tall. I am sure it's partly due to my perception, but it still has a serious effect on my comfort level.

All in all, I thought the bike was excellent. The vibration is really a non-factor after you get used to it. It is only bothersome when cruising over 80mph. And I was very surprised that the wind is also a non-issue. That little dirt bike number plate deflects quite a bit of the airstream. If it weren't for the seat, I could have done another 200 miles.

The seat probably works well at the track. I found it's uniform flatness to be a big plus when moving from side to side while setting up to hang off in the turns -- not heroic knee-down hanging off -- just a little knee pointing to heal that puppy over. The motor delivers plenty of power, although the transmission could use one more gear for highway riding. Then again, it's not intended for that. The bike is a perfect motard package and it doesn't require a home equity loan to perfect like a lot of the conversions I've seen. I think it's pretty close to perfect for use as a track bike and back-road scratcher.

As I discussed with Bannon post-ride, my preference would still be the Suzuki DR-Z 400 SM -- but that is because I want to take the occasional passenger and I'd want to outfit the bike with bags or some means of carrying cargo. The tamer suzuki engine probably gets better mileage too. The SV got 50 mpg today, which is what I expect out of any modern bike. I suspect the Suzuki SM would get something in that neighborhood, in a moderate state of tune.

But... If I weren't seeking an all-a-rounder in a motorcycle, the Husky scores pretty damned high. Since it's definitely more of a race bike, it lacks some of the rubberized comforts of something more pedestrian. Rubber-coated pegs and thicker grips would really help diffuse the vibrations, for example. The motor is in an excellent state of tune -- even if it surges at steady throttle at 40mph-ish -- and it looks exceptionally simple to work on. Nice bits all around, and I really like the brakes, even if I couldn't figure out exactly what to do with them when cornering. I think Mr. Bannon scored on this one.

BTW, the surging seems to go away at anything over 50. I think a different needle, or shimming the needle will solve that. There were lots of big insects out there today too. Bannon's bike is covered in protein. And boy does that rear tire get hot and gooey... Fortunately, it sticks like glue.

(1) I have a friend, who we'll refered to as "Ward," and he manages to disappear on his bike for months at a time. He recently spent a few months in Mexico.

El Poderoso

I stepped off the plane and into Parisian heat that felt like being draped in humid towels fresh from the dryer. All in all, it was a welcome change from the sub-desert-like conditions that they maintain on international flights. My lizard skin began to molt.

Making matters worse was the diesel-powered Air France oven - the concept of air-conditioning having never been explored for public transportation. The airport seems to have missed out on the principle of having the planes pull up to the terminal, so you are transported like cattle aboard poorly ventilated, vapid busses that flow over the tarmac with all the speed and elegance of a three-legged sloth.

We would have to change airports, either by bus, or by subway, in order to make our connecting flight to Corsica. Yeah, Corsica. Island situated between the coasts of France and Italy. Sea and mountains. Racetrack-like roads. Birthplace of Napoleon.

I had a bike rental lined up for most of the trip. Nothing exciting, really. All the good stuff seems to be located on the southern part of the Island -- you know, the Tansalps and Beemers and such. I managed to locate a Suzuki DR650 in Calvi, not too far from where the house is, for about $70/day. I have ridden a DRZ400 before and found it to be a decent all-arounder, so the DR650 seemed to be a logical compromise from what I could tell from Suzuki's web site.

Truth be told, I was not keen on the idea of riding some kind of dirt-oriented dual-sport on roads that rival some of the best tracks for curves. Endless curves. On a SV650, sure. A heavy old-school enduro... not really. OTOH, some of the roads I would encounter are no wider than my shoulders. They'll be teaming with semi-domesticated wildlife and homicidal French drivers who think that the lines on the pavement are carelessly spilled paint that needs to be cleaned up. And then there is the off-road potential for riding along the beach. I know this from my previous scouting mission, circa March, 2004.

On Monday morning we were driven to Calvi to pick up the 21st century version of "El Poderoso." First thing I notice is that the bike is rough. Not the paint, mind you, but after two-years of rental service the levers are bent, there are scrapes
and dings all over the place and the license plate had been sheered off from someone's over zealous wheelie. The plate was subsequently reattached with large rivets through the rear fender. I could tell that a hack mechanic did the maintenance, but I didn't have any options. I either accept the condition, or I'd sit on my ass drinking copious amounts of red wine for the next ten days, and pine about being bikeless in the med again.

I climbed aboard the Mighty One and thumbed the starter. The engine sputtered to life with the enthusiasm of a strangled corpse. It does run though. The one thing it doesn't do, however, is stop. I discovered this the first time I applied the binders. The front brake required a four-fingered death-grip, and the rear brake had no effect whatsoever. Great!

When I got this piece of crap motorcycle back to the house, I noticed that the brake fluid was the color and consistency of Turkish coffee. Both rotors were deeply scalloped although the brake pads looked fairly new. I did a complete brake system drain and refill, and then bled the lines. That got the front and rear calipers working. To bed the pads, I ran up and down the road a dozen times and braked as hard as I could - just shy of locking up the wheels. This seemed to result in satisfactory stopping power. I then adjusted the chain to dial out the drive-train lash, lowered the tire pressure, and adjusted the rear suspension.

While working on the brakes I noticed that the front tire's sidewalls were cracked and dry. Certainly wasn't a fresh Dunlop. I'd have to take it easy, but things were looking somewhat better in terms of mechanical fortitude. The only thing I wasn't going to be able to fix was the seat. The seat was so uncomfortable that after 30 minutes of riding you had the feeling of not surviving your first prison shower. I taped a towel over the vinyl seat-cover with packing tape to mitigate the pain.

Tuesday morning, we woke to Seattle-esque weather - mid-60s and overcast skies. Girl Wonder and I geared up and took an easy ride to Corte to get used to riding two up. After an hour of riding we were in ass-agony and the atmosphere was exhibiting the distinct signs that it was about to rain. And rain it did. We decided to stop for a long lunch and wait out the sporadic downpours that continued over the next two hours. While killing time we noticed a road on the map that looked as though it had been drawn by someone suffering from Parkinson's disease. Having gained some confidence in the Suzuki from the morning ride, we set a course for D71, a road which ran from Ponte Leccia to Piedicroce and then the D506 to Folleli. (See http://korsika.unas.cz/korsika-bastia-corte-19.jpg, and http://korsika.unas.cz/korsika-bastia-corte-20.jpg for *large* maps.)

Once the motor was warm, the DR had some grunt. There was a strange stumble midway through the rev-range as a result of the poorly jetted carb, but the engine had enough torque to short-shift before the sputtering began. It also ran fine in the upper rev range, so you had to either keep the motor turning below the stumbling point, or punch past it and keep it on the boil.

Engine vibration wasn't too bad for an abused thumper, but the lack of wind protection definitely made high-speed riding an unpleasant endeavor. This was all for the better, though, since the road we were on was stocked with every kind of domesticated creature imaginable. It appears that along with air conditioning, the concept of agricultural fencing has failed to penetrate the island's farming lexicon. On no fewer than a dozen corners, I rounded the bend to find cattle, goats, sheep, pigs and dogs in the middle of the road. WTF? Not only did we encounter these proverbial appearances of animal husbandry mingling with the transportation system, we also had to endure an innumerable parade of feckless idiots intruding upon our lane. The DR proved to be highly adept at mid-corner corrections allowing me to perfect abrupt line changes in
order to get out of harm's way.

At the end of the day, I started to accept this "arranged marriage." Despite the bad start, the bike was proving to be a decent all-arounder. It was especially good on rough sections of single track chip seal that were attempting to be passed off as roads. No corner was too tight, and no crater too large. The DR had taken it all in stride.

The next day we awoke to light rain and thunder storms. I had planned to test the DR's metal on Cap Corse, a mountainous promontory characterized by tiny coves, fishing villages and a nearly endless ribbon of meandering asphalt. Napoleon had this road built around this nearly inaccessible peninsula in the 19th century. It now ranks as one of the world's most beautiful seacoast driving/riding experiences, but I wasn't going to do it in a thundershower. Instead, I affixed my knee and elbow protectors like battle armor and headed towards the Mediterranean Sea.

With the surf cascading on the shore and thunder and lightning raging on the horizon, the coastline seemed surreal. I hit the deep sand of the beach and shifted my weight rearward to lighten the front and allow the bike to become buoyant. Then I just let the rear churn away in low gear. Wet sand has a lot of traction, but too much steering correction resulted in the bike squirting out from under me. This is when I realized how heavy the DR is, especially compared to my usual off-road mount that weighs in at just a few pounds lighter than my body. Trying to right the DR was just about impossible. I eventually dragged the seat up onto a mound and then busted my gut until I could get the damn thing vertical again. Jesus, that was hard work. It inspired me to keep the bike upright from that point on.

After a while I was able to cruise along the shoreline at about 30 mph, making steering corrections by simply weighting the pegs. I was also having fun doing slow donuts and posing for GW who showed up to snap a few pictures on the otherwise desolate beach.

Further down the beach there were a bunch of sandy, interconnected trails that I explored. The DR powered up and over a few small jumps and generally exhibited good off-road manners. While I wouldn't choose this bike for much more than light duty off-road type of use, it sure outperformed some of the ridiculous "adventure bikes" that have been showing up in the latest moto rags.

By early afternoon the weather had cleared up, so GW and I headed for Cap Corse. From Bastia, Route D80 follows the shore for approximately 70 miles around the peninsula. I figured it would be wise to top off the tank, but there were persistently long lines at all the gas stations. Hmmm...

Outside of Bastia we found a station with a slightly shorter cue, so we pulled in. An older couple on a handsome BMW R1150R explained that the island's truckers suddenly went on strike and were blocking all the fuel distribution depots. No one knew how long the strike would last, or what the ramifications would be. In the past, truckers' efforts to block fuel depots left gas stations dry and led to gas rationing and the prohibition against filling gas cans. I whipped out the cell phone in hopes of encouraging GW's father to fill the Benz in the event I needed to siphon off a few dozen liters. Shit! No signal. Is France telecom on strike too?

A few miles out of town we pulled over in hopes of cell service. GW explained the situation to her dad and he assured us he had twenty liters in storage. Cool. Just then the R1150R flew by. I was suddenly stricken with the urge to chase it down like a goofy greyhound in pursuit of a rabbit being propelled around the dog track. We put our helmets on, stowed the phone, and I got on the throttle.

Within a minute I had the BMW in my sites. The scene was mesmerizing - the Beemer banking left, then right -- jagged cliffs on one side, , and deep blue sea on the other. D80 between Pietranera and Masinaggio is a 2/3 scale Angeles Crest located next to the untamed coastline of the Mediterranean Sea. The road surface in this section is perfect, fairly level, and the
curves are laid out like a race track. (In fact, sometimes it is used as a racerack)

Just as I was closing the gap on the Beemer, a car overtook me and planted itself in the twenty-five or so feet of space between the two bikes. I hovered 15 feet behind the cars left flank, looking for an opportunity to overtake both vehicles. With the curves spaced so closely together, this was proving to be a futile effort, but soon the Beemer pulled off to enjoy
the vista. The slowing of the car ahead gave me the edge I needed and I punched my way through the gap.

Entranced by the rhythm of cornering, "El Poderoso" shape-shifted into an Aprilia RS250. A half-dozen curves ahead I spotted a couple of squids on Suzuki Bandits. I locked on the target like a Python 4 Air-To-Air missile. Now on their tail, I studied their lines and looked for an opportunity to stuff both of them. Of course, there were a lot of factors to consider. I
did have a passenger, though she is one of the best, always remaining very neutral. I would need enough distance too overtake two bikes traveling approximately two or three seconds apart, and I'd have to scrub off enough speed to make the next curve with a comfortable margin. Hanging out in the left lane is an invitation to be planted on the grill of a tour bus.

And then the moment came. I could see clearly through two tight curves, so I cracked the throttle wide open. El Poderoso, in its Aprilia form, rocketed forward, overtaking the first bandit, then the second. I gave a hard jab to the right bar while trail-braking through the remainder of the turn and landed beautifully set up for the subsequent bend. I kept up this
pace until I entered the next town. Damn. This lug of a bike can really corner. "El Poderoso" returned to its original Suzuki form, the one-lunger thumping along as if it had nothing to brag about.

An American Experience

Girl Wonder's cousins just finished up their first American Experience. Despite Phillip being 18, and Valerie being 21, neither had taken a plane before, nor had they ever left their own French borders. So they crawled aboard a KLM flight in Paris and headed West. To be sure that their American Experience was complete, we exposed them to pickup trucks, motorcycles, guns and crime - sometimes in odd combinations.

I figured that the most fun thing you can do at almost any age is ride a motorcycle. Thus, I decided to introduce the "cousins" to trials bikes. Neither of these young folks had ever piloted a motorcycle, so I organized a little training outing near Gold Bar, Washington. And this was when things got strange. I've never had any trouble in our local riding area, but this particular day would be different - different in a way that would validate all the perceptions that Europeans have about America and crime.

I had driven out with three bikes to our usual spot -- a wooded area with soft, loamy ground and a small trail system. This particular spot is about 3 acres in size and connects to a much larger trail system. It is a good area to teach new riders -- and my job was to instruct these two newbies how to do the basics and get them riding. I succeeded, but not without enduring a remarkable American Experience.

The day was going along rather perfectly until our cooler got stolen - a cooler with about $100 worth of steaks and French cheese that was supposed to make its way to a buddies house for a BBQ after the ride. Ultimately, GW is to blame for the loss of the cooler. She decided to leave it outside the truck so it wouldn't "get too hot." I had instructed her not to stray from the vicinity of the truck as I was working with Phillip. A few minutes later she showed up with Valerie who was struggling more. I wasn't pleased about this, given that Valerie has never ridden any motorized two-wheeler before. So I took over and asked Juliette to look after Phillip.


When I returned to the truck, I noticed that the cooler was missing. Apparently GW interpreted "looking after Phillip" to mean that she should take him deeper into the woods. So I waited with Valerie for a good half-hour without keys to the truck, and hence, no access to water, food, or my handgun -- which was under the seat.

Next to the spot where we parked, about 100 yards away, were some young "kids" -- maybe 17 to 22 years old. They had yelled at Phillip earlier for riding near them. They definitely weren't there to ride. They had set up an outside shitter that reeked, some tents and a trailer, and they were just hanging out around a fire pit, sans fire. They had the look of someone that might be having steak for dinner...

After GW returned with Phillip and sustained a caustic lashing from yours truly, I rode into what turned out upon closer inspection, to be a meth-encampment occupied by a half-dozen dentally challenged low-lifes. They were quiet as mice, which I found odd. One of the young men was sitting there with a baseball bat -- and there were no gloves or balls or bases. I asked if they knew anything about the disappearance of goods from my truck. "We didn't hear no breaking glass or nuttin'."

Realizing that I wouldn't get anywhere with them other than to provide some good campfire stories, I bid them farewell only to find out that they had apparently booby-trapped their site with chicken wire buried just below the leaves and loamy soil (Later I could see that it had been weighted down with some car rims). So, as I rode across this snare, the knobbies picked up the wire and proceeded to wrap me up in this entanglement like a fly in a spider's web. SLAM when the bike! I could not free myself because my leg got wrapped up in the wire along with everything else. So now I am surrounded by potential bat-carrying meth-heads, with nothing more than my helmet and my two spyderco knives for protection.

Fortunately, they seemed so fascinated by the situation that they actually helped me get untangled - all the while asking me "how much is that bike worth?" Hmmmmmm. Just about the time that I freed my leg, GWshowed up with my Glock, concealed in its fanny pack-looking holster.

So these fine young folks hung out with me for the next 20 minutes while I made several hundred cuts through the wire with snips to get that wire off the axle, brake line, rotor, sprocket, chain, etc. Other than some cuts into plastic bits, the damage was surprisingly light. "That stuff is all over the place here... you'd best not ride around here." The fact that they had yelled at other riders for being anywhere near their little encampment was not lost on me. I've ridden in this spot for the past two years and never seen chicken wire out there before. It doesn't blow around like tumble weed.

After I got the bike freed from its meshed-bondage, I left GW with her cousins and the Glock, and I took a short ride to make sure the bike was
O.K. In my absence, some guy showed up with a baseball bat, allegedly
looking for a "17 year old punk" who had stolen something from him, and he indicated that this punk had been hanging out with "those people over there." (IOW, the meth-heads.) GW thought his gig was a bit dubious and was prepared to gun the SOB down if necessary. He left without incident.

When I returned, we rode for another ten minutes doing some exercises, but the meth-heads started getting loud -- screaming and carrying on like they were engaged in some tribal ritual about to go awry. They must have drank the Kool-Aid and it was clearly time for us to split. And that we did.

Interestingly enough, this encounter had no negative impact on their vacation. Just before they left Seattle, Valerie said, "If we had know how much fun America was, we would have come a lot sooner." Ah... kids...and their crazy perceptions!

Courage

I was told by someone, while visiting Boston, that millions of dollars changed hands every day, some of which inevitably slipped through the fingers of frivolous spenders and dealmakers. All you had to do was be there to catch it. No one had ever told me this in Buffalo.

In Buffalo we were concerned about keeping our sidewalks clean after the snowfall. We bragged about our supermarkets and architecture and how cheap things were. We got by - sometimes barely - and we had different expectations than the people in those other cities.


In 1994 we left, car packed to the visors with possessions and artifacts of a soon-to-be former life. We arrive in Boston, and the first thing I noticed was that they did not clear their sidewalks after the snowfall. This would have never happened in Buffalo.

We held our arms out and ran around catching some of the money that slips though the fingers of frivolous spenders and dealmakers. Five years later we were on our way to being millionaires. This would have never happened in Buffalo.

****
I was told by someone, while living in Buffalo, that California was a terrible place. Los Angeles, in particular, was a horizontal megalopolis spilling out over vast desert. Drivers shot at each other on the highways for failing to signal. Gangs roamed the streets and smog strangled the sunlight into a pale diffusion of dismal light. This was not a place to go. Ever.

Years later, I found myself walking towards the Pacific Ocean. I knelt on the sand and touched the earth with the gratefulness of a man who had nearly died at sea. The water was warm as it soaked the cuffs of my pants. I almost cried for having been deceived by half-truths.

****
My mother told me that she had cancer. I flew her to Seattle so that I could spend some time with her. I was shocked by the sight of her, an annual after the frost, withered, frail, pathetic. It was not the disease that did this to her. It was the winter, which kept her imprisoned in a basement apartment, her world a television set and what she might observe through high basement windows. Her perspective was that of a woman having to look up at the snow and ice and cars and boots that represented the place where elderly hips and collarbones are broken.

I offered her my home in Florida as a place to escape the cruel seasons. She replied that someone she knew told her it was flat there and the people were unfriendly. I told her about the lies I had heard too.

For the rest of our visit, she dwelled on the past. She spoke of my father as if they had never divorced. She spoke of Buffalo as if the streets were teaming with post-war solders and swank couples. Cocktails and Sinatra, big American cars with fins, and a contagious optimism existed where a sullen mall stands today. I marveled at her courage, cancer merely an inconvenience, while she lived in this perpetual reverie - but then I realized, like Buffalo, she was already dead.

Memorial Day Weekend, New Mexico

Ninety degrees in Seattle and I was looking forward to getting on that plane and heading to New Mexico for Memorial Day weekend. Weather was supposed to be mid-seventies and I had reserved a convertible. Before signing off the computer, I decided to see if Jason and the Argonauts were playing anywhere. I had checked a few weeks before and they were going to be playing at the Old Taos Inn, but before I could get there. As luck would have it, they were booked in Jemez Springs.

So fly we did, in search of better weather, motorcycle roads for future use, and a general curiosity to see if the Red River Rally would suffer from the call to boycott the event. We found the answers we were looking for, and caught some good music and a good unwinding along the way. After arriving in Albuquerque, which so far has always reminded me of Buffalo with a different climate, we headed North to Jemez Springs.

State Highway 4, is one of New Mexico's splendid and scenic drives that takes you past amazing geological formations, ancient Indian ruins, the Jemez Pueblo and Los Ojos, the local watering hole. There were approximately 50 people attending the Memorial Day JAMM Festival. Great place if you are uncomfortable with crowds. We hung out, sampling salsas, barbeque and Indian fry bread until Jason played. At best there were 15 people sitting in the tent as he opened with "Everything Good." During his set, it began to rain like a bastard, so the entire cadre of festival attendees suddenly appeared to take advantage of the tent. Good thing I put the top up on the car.

After chatting with Jason at the conclusion of his set, we headed North, and then East towards Bandelier National Monument. By then the rain had stopped and the scenery was kick-ass. We eventually landed in Chimayo to check into our hacienda. At the conclusion of yet another wonderful New Mexican Dinner, I smoked a cigar and relaxed outside. A passing native asked me if I wanted a beer. "No thanks," I answered, a little suspicious of her seemingly unstable gate and slurred speech. She assured me it was non alcoholic, but she could come up with some wine if O'Doul's didn't suit me. I used the cacophony of coyotes yelping in the background as the reason for why I had to leave, immediately, and thanked her for the offer. Maybe next time.

On memorial day we headed up to Taos via the scenic route. Toas get's its fair share of spill over from the Red River Rally. The locals seemed to indicate that things were a bit quieter this year.

Last year, 15-year-old Gerald Bailon of Questa hit a motorcycle traveling east along New Mexico 38, head-on, and sent another motorcycle skidding out of control. This resulted in the deaths of two bikers, and there is a theory that the driver crossed the centerline on purpose - a sort of game of chicken or bizarre scare tactic. There is a feeling by many bikers that the families of two bikers that were killed have yet to see justice. Fuelling this anger is the fact that the kid's license was never yanked. There is also speculation that his family is politically connected. Just a bad situation all around.

In response to this tragedy, Abate of Colorado had said that they would boycott the rally, and they encouraged others to do the same. It seemed to be having some effect, though I questioned whether it really hurt the intended targets.

We drove through Taos and indeed there were bikers - grey-haired circus clowns dressed in Harley bling, sans helmets (anyone catch this months Motorcyclist article about helmets? ), brandishing their Harley credit cards and tattoos. I was embarrassed for them so we headed north to our property which rests in a valley near Arroyo Hondo, where the Hondo River meanders through farm country and eventually meets the Rio Grande Gorge. We hung out for a while and then drove down to the Gorge to watch rafters preparing to battle the class 4 rapids.

Hunger eventually got the best of us, so we had to endure the biker circus until we could seek refuge at the Old Taos Inn. After a few margaritas, few glasses of wine and a wonderful feast consisting of duck, venison sausage and elk wellington, we started to forget about all that shameful noise and silly behavior going on out front. I was half-prepared to gather them up and hold an intervention, but then I thought, hell, if these people want to play dress up and throw money at the town, why not? I left Taos wondering what sort of goon-squad would replace them after they eventually died out?

Spring Cleaning; Rediscovering Your Sprint

Girl Wonder and I have been so busy riding dirt bikes that the tires went flat on the SV650 and Sprint RS. This weekend seemed as good as any to breath some life into the streetbikes.

The truth is, we've been having so much fun in the dirt that if someone had stolen all of our streetbikes I would never have noticed. And even though I was about to take a ride, my heart wasn't in it the way it was a year ago. This happens in all types of relationships. You know, you wake up one day and that person sleeping beside you isn't as interesting as the tattooed tongue-pierced bar-maid that you've been heavily tipping on the outside chance she'll lock you in the bar and reseat your bearings.

There seems to be an obvious difference in fun factor, even if both women are anatomically similar, save the bolt-on doodads and ink. The real question, though, is whether you'd dump your babe of record and take a chance on the chick who can tie the stem of a cherry into a knot with her tongue. It sounds like an obvious choice if your hormones have anything to say about it, but it never is, and it never works out the way you expect it will. Take my ex-wife, for example. She was the total PSE(1) once the bedroom door closed, but in all the other rooms of the house she was an obsessive compulsive freak with no self esteem, an eating disorder, and real lack of endurance for the aspects of a relationship that aren't advertised on the inside of a Hallmark card. Three years and one-day later I was describing it as a "starter marriage."

Anyway, the same is true for modes of motorcycling, and I am not about to dump my streetbike in favor of the dirt machines until all my needs can be met. Hopefully someone doesn't come out with a kickass supermotard or I'll be in a real quandary.

The good thing about being where I'm at right now is that the throbbing I used to feel for a lot of other bikes has subsided. Sure, I still think they are sexy, but it has become much less important to own them. And as I rode my Triumph Sprint RS towards Mt. St. Helens, I was realizing, or perhaps remembering, just how good this bike is.

When I first bought the Sprint in 2001, I wasn't sure if it would work out. I wasn't in love with it, but it did everything well. After a little time together the bike's personality and do-everything prowess grew on me. It was like an arranged-marriage that worked out way better than expected. I have enjoyed this bike on the track, it's good over long distances, and it enthusiastically charges through curves as if it were a more purposeful bike. No, it's not a lot of things that the latest and greatest superbikes are, but I just don't ride that way often enough to put up with the downsides of most single-use weapons.

Our ride to Mt. St. Helens was cut short, unfortunately, because the only road worth riding within two hours of Seattle was closed (Forest Road 99 to Windy Ridge). Apparently it doesn't open until June so that the snow melts off. How much snow could there be? It was almost 80 degrees out. We continued on Forest Road 25 towards Cougar, but a quarter mile later I was faced with the answer to my snow question.

Girl Wonder was not having any of my talk about trying to push on a little further. "Hey, it's only 12 inches deep and there are wheel tracks to follow." Nope... no way. We ended up doubling back over our initial route. Once on the edge of the city, we headed to "Smarty Pants" to have some of the best bar food in the Seattle area -- one of the only motorcycle-themed bars that doesn't cater to the rough and tumble wannabees. This place is for hungry enthusiasts. We wolfed down their massive barbecue pork sandwiches while staring at a mid to late-sixties Ducati single and a couple other nicely restored relics that are displayed above the entrance door. It was a cool place to end our day after dustng off our under-appreciated street bikes -- all part of the spring ritual.

(1) GFE and PSE refer to services provided by escorts. Those acronyms mean Girlfriend Experience and Porn Star Experience.

Desert Lessons

Girl Wonder and I paid a visit to our California neighbor and riding guru, Gary LaPlante this past weekend. Gary lives about 2 1/2 miles (the way the crow flies) from our property in Aguanga. That's qualifies him as a neighbor, even though we had to fly from Seattle to see him. Gary has 300 acres of varied high-desert terrain located off of Reed Valley Road; house-sized boulders, great hill climbs, a one-mile MX track, lot's of sandy desert trails, and beautiful views. This is all part of his "Motoventures" operation that he started back in 1998, and he is one of the best teachers and tour guides for any skill level. It's always great to be mentored by a veteran racing and trials champion.

A few days before we arrived, those aforementioned views were threatened by the flames licking their way over a nearby ridge and consuming everything in their path. To the south, Route 79 had been shut down by another fire. There aren't many trees to burn - only brush and barns and houses - but these fires really cook. And in their aftermath, they leave a mat-black and totally barren landscape which is curiously silent. Fortunately, both of our properties were spared and the weather was perfect for riding.

The reason that I believe in continued training, whether it be for street bikes, dirt bikes or firearms, is that we tend to forget the basics unless we are engaged in the activity every day. We do the same thing with our posture, sitting nice and straight, and then over time, slouching - unless someone gives us an occasional tug on the ear and says, "sit up straight!" Hopefully there comes a day when there is no need for correction - when the right form becomes the natural state of being. Slouching and other gradually acquired bad habits start because unlike the gym, there aren't any mirrors on the wall or at the sides of the road. Yeah, there are narcissists among us – like my friend’s dad, who was so mesmerized by his own reflection while driving past a storefront window that he smashed into a parked car – but we are often not privy to the objective view.

GW and I ride almost every weekend in Washington, where traction is not really a problem. In the desert, however, traction is measured in negative numbers. This is the place to experience losing control, and it doesn't take much effort to have the front and rear sliding. In fact, I had forgotten about this and immediately felt as though I was riding on ice. And my apathetic counterbalancing was coming up short. Gary and his assistant both pointed this out to me. Me? Less than perfect? No way! It was true, and the terrain conditions wouldn't let me deny it or make excuses. Expert criticism and the terrain's irrefutable feedback were the missing mirrors.

GW had some hard-learned lessons. She typically rides behind me, so my critical eye is often not upon her. But out there in the desert there is no way to hide your weaknesses. She too would have every bad habit emphasized by the demanding conditions and having to ride an unfamiliar bike. Her Kawasaki KLX300 that she rides at home is a forgiving machine. It will lug all day and let you get away with poor clutch and throttle control. It will allow you to sloppily eat your way up hills, and slog down embankments with nary a concern. In short, the KLX is a tractor.

The Honda CFR230, which she was riding on Saturday, has less power and needs to be flogged. The clutch also needs to be finessed in order to keep the bike running while creeping along. And there is far less engine braking. Do it wrong and you will pay for the mistake with an inconvenient uphill stall, or worse.
One of the exercises best done on a dirt bike, as opposed to a street bike, is threshold braking -- you know, riding at the very edge of a lock up for maximum braking efficiency. If you lock the wheel and fail to perceive it -- and not immediately modulate the lever pressure -- you will sustain a predictable, and sometimes painful lowside. This is not the thing you necessarily want to experiment with on your plastic-ensconced race replica. Dirt bikes, however, will take much more abuse and the plastic almost never breaks.

So we went through some drills racing down a straightaway and then clamping on the binders to the point that the front disc begins to howl, keeping the front wheel just shy of a lock-up. It's amazing that you can stop so well on semi-loose granular surfaces, and as GW found out, it's equally amazing how fast a locked front wheel will hurl you towards the earth -- especially if you fail to perceive it happening. And THUD she went, with two hundred and something pounds of bike slamming on her ankle. This is where you ask yourself if you've paid enough for your boots. Luckily, she had, and while she sustained a nasty sprain, nothing broke. Gary leaves it up to the rider to determine how tough they want to be. He doesn't coddle women riders, or anyone else for that matter, because dirt biking requires a fair amount of toughness and aggression. That's not to say he lacks patience or care. And after five minutes of agonizing pain while lying prone, GW was back on the bike and where she continued to ride another 3 or 4 hours.

GW had a tough day, but she realized what skills she needs to improve: clutch, throttle and brake control. She also forgets to counterbalance, which like me, is a slowly developed bad habit born out of Washington's superior traction. She did have some moments of achievement. She succeeded in climbing a very challenging hill after two attempts that resulted in get-offs. Climbing up a hill in a straight line is fairly easy. Throw in a few boulders that you have to traverse, obstacles that must be sliced between with surgical precision or risk tearing off your pegs -- and some loose traction -- and all bets are off. Because I had to stop part way up and wait for GW to clear the carnage of body and bike, I had to finish the climb without any built up momentum. I made it, but it wasn't pretty.

We finished the day playing around on GasGas trials bikes. Trials bikes are the tai chi approach to motorcycling, and if you can ride one well, you can ride anything else. It's all about superior balance, strength and machine control. The object is to creep up and over obstacles such as elephant-sized boulders and other technical obstacles without putting a foot down.
What I took away from the day was that variety in your diet is important. Being faced with new challenges is the quickest way to realize that there is still much to learn. And having an expert give you constructive criticism will stop the "slouching."

To not break from tradition, we headed over to The Blue Coyote Café in Palm Springs for our favorite margaritas. At 100 degrees, Palm Springs was a good 25 degrees "warmer" than where we had been riding -- and those killer margaritas have never tasted so good.

Bikeless in the Med

We recently staggered off of a plane from the Mediterranean -- a supposed vacation. Vacations with parents, at a particular point in your life, are not vacations. I never really enjoyed vacationing with my own parents, and spending time -- to me, excessive time -- with Girl Wonder's parents, is pure hell. Fortunately, it does not have any detrimental effect on our relationship, which is a major miracle.

My plan was to escape the family commitments, with or without Girl Wonder, on a rented motorcycle. The family vacation home is situated near Bastia on the island of Corsica, and I had noticed in the phone book that there was a motorcycle rental agency located right at the airport. How cool is that? And even if I couldn't get my hands on a sports or sport-touring bike, there was a beach within crawling distance of the family compound in which you are allowed to ride on the 10 miles or so of beach and trail network through the chaparral between the sand and the mountains. This opened up the possibility of scoring a dual-sport or an ATV in the event that I struck out on my street bike quest.

It was my misfortune, apparently, to have committed some unspeakable acts in a past life, and I was going to have to serve my prison sentence over the next several weeks. I would have to serve it listening to the waves breaking on the shore, and the mosquito-esque buzz of two-strokes churning up the sand -- all whilst I remained trapped in my concrete cell as if I were the Count of Monte Cristo. And making matters worse was the fact that I could see, from my bedroom window, the island where the Count had been held
captive.

Newsflash: There were no rentals available until the tourist season starts, April 1st. April fools day and I was going to be the fool in March! I even stopped in and got friendly with the local Honda dealer in hopes of scoring an invitation to ride. The salesman kept referring to California as paradise, but that is not what I wanted to hear. Reality began to sink in: I was never going to get my hands on a bike, short of stealing one.

I know there are worse things than being imprisoned on an island in the Med, in a brand new house, complete with pool and a Mercedes in the driveway. Sure, the Count never had the luxury of a Benz, but the reality is that these amenities and the sun and the sea and the mountains wear thin when you are in the care and control of Pinochet reincarnate (Girl Wonder's father) with no chance of escape. There wasn't even a health club or other sort of place to relieve my stress, replenish my withering muscles and work off my expanding waste line. I am the action adventure sort of vacationer, not a house cat.

To amuse myself between drag-down hair-extracting verbal matches between other French-speaking gladiators engaged in the hourly battles, I cooked and ate myself up to an extra 5 or 6 lbs which seems to have settled in my mid section. These battles were engaged over a variety of subjects from socialism to investing for retirement, and I was able to stay out of 95% of the fray since my French ends at subjects beyond food and drink. With the din of arguing in the house, I whipped up meal after meal of Mexican and Indian cuisine -- something impossible to find in Corsica. These dishes were devoured and soon the word was out. We began entertaining the neighbors, with me at the stove's helm. Biryani, Chicken Tandoori, Chana Masala and Balti Chicken with Lentils; Fish Burritos, Albondigas, Chicken Chipotle Chimichangas and pounds of refried beans... all eaten, inhaled, plates licked clean. Of course, each meal was accompanied by bottles and bottles of local wine and cheeses. Weight gain was inevitable.

While I managed to avoid eating much of the traditional French fare, we did find a wonderful restaurant known as "LE BIPS" at 14 Cours Paoli in Corte, about an hour and a half away. My first impression of the place was less than desirable, but you can't always judge a book by its cover. The restaurant was a bit cave like, sort of medieval in atmosphere. This was further emphasized by the patrons who had obviously opted out of the state-sponsored dental program. Toothless or partially endentured goons, all smoking and eating and carrying on, had packed the small restaurant. It was likely a scene from Michael Palin's "Jabberwocky" that was left on the cutting room floor and now digitally re-mastered for my viewing pleasure -- the only things missing were snarling dogs jumping up on the tables to steal scraps of meat and a spectacular jousting scene staged in the parking lot.

We were warned that they were understaffed, as they had not anticipated all these people who had come for lunch prior to their having to attending a sport competition. Sports? These people? A cigarette in one hand and a fork in the other, drinking and consuming as if this were their last meal? Only bowling came to mind as a possibility, but it turned out that their children were competing in some sort of gymnastic endeavor. They would surely suffer asthma attacks, while catapulting themselves across blue padded mats, from all that second and smoke.

They weren't kidding about the staffing, and while we were promptly seated, we waited at least 45 minutes to get a basket of bread with our wine. I resorted to stealing bread from tables that had yet to be cleared. If I had been anywhere else, I would have left and never returned, but where else did I have to be? On the bright side, papa was keeping his mouth shut and that was a welcome change.

To my horror, I was the best looking man in the room -- sort of like Brad Pitt showing up as the guest speaker for the Wives of Recovering Burn Victims' Support Group. It seemed that all the women's eyes were upon me, which would have been flattering, stimulating even, had it not been for their canine resemblance. The singular exception was this total hottie with conical shaped breasts that defied reason. She was dining with her homely husband and her gaze was riveted in my general direction. Had it been a larger restaurant, I would have stole away to the nearest dark corner to further investigate whether those breasts were shaping her euro-bra, or if her euro-bra was shaping them. Here I am picturing Girl Wonder and this Emmanuelle Beart look-a-like as the ultimate aperitifs in my new home video entitled, "9 1/2 minutes." We are in a restaurant, after all - and I've got enough flash card left in my digital camera for a couple of short movie clips. Hey, when in France you cannot help but have these kinds of fantasies.

Once the food did make it to the table, it was stunning, both in quality and quantity. And fortunately, food does take a man's mind off of his procreative tendencies. We all had wonderful salads -- which would have
been considered creative in America, but were quite traditional for the area -- followed by a variety of Charcuterie, which is seasoned smoked or aged meats that are frequently served as soon as the red wine begins to pour -- Wild Boar pate, and of course, outstanding bread. Then our main courses came; 'Entrecote, sole meuniere, and cannelloni. After the main course came a selection of Corsican cheeses, the plate being passed from table to table. The wine kept flowing, and then finally a we indulged in a brandy-like wine mixed with myrth prior to ordering our deserts. I explained to the owner, who was waiting on our table, that I was quite full and didn't need any desert. "O.K., sure," she said, and then she brought me two: crème Brule and profiteroles au chocolat. I ate them both just to spite her. Also on the table for me to sample were chocolate mousse and an outstanding chestnut and mandarin ice creams.

I expected the bill for the five of us to be in the $250 to $300 area. Yes, it was lunch, but the quality and preparation, and of course volume, were well above any lunch I have ever eaten before. It was not lunch, it was a feast, but instead, the bill was adjusted for our having to endure the slow service: $70 Euros or $85 USD, the gratuity included. I spoke with the owner after extracting myself from my seat, and she invited me to return on Wednesday for another meal. I accepted the invitation figuring it would give me an opportunity to at least partially repay the favor of the reduced check. We did return on Wednesday, and feasted on steak d'autruche avec de la sauce au vin ostrich (ostrich steak with red wine sauce) and fish and
another wonderful assortment of food. The bill? There was no bill. I tried to pay, but she refused to accept my money. All this because of some slow service, and a little bit because she was fascinated with this dashing American.

The drive to Corte would have been perfect on a motorcycle. We took the National, which is wider and reminded me of some of my favorite asphalt in California. If you continue South from Corte, the road becomes even more spectacular. Corsica, like much of Europe, is a motorcyclist's wet dream. The only thing straight is your driveway. There are some caveats to consider, though. There are a lot of unfenced livestock in the countryside - cows and sheep sharing the road with traffic. In certain places there are cattle just wandering around and I had one of them dart in front of me. The little bugger was about 6 inches away being branded by a boiling Mercedes radiator.

On another occasion, I rounded a corner to find an entire herd of sheep running towards me in my lane and then darting sharply to my right as I sat there impatiently waiting for this woolen train to pass. Last but not least, the local police and Gendarmarie do not take kindly to riders doubling the speed limit. Not only are you taking some very serious personal risks, if you get nabbed at felonious speeds, you are going to need to call the American Embassy to help you get out of jail.

There is a different sense of safety and liability in France, despite it having a quasi-socialist government. There is definitely an "every man for himself" attitude. This seemed especially true in Corsica. In example, we were driving North along the Cap Corse (more on the Cap Corse in a few moments) when we, and everyone driving on the road, found ourselves to be moving chicanes in a road race. Yes, there was a road race in progress and the drivers were taking three warm up laps on this relentlessly curvy, narrow road - and the road was still open to the public.

These drivers were serious, dressed in flame retardant suit and helmets, and they would pass you without
hesitation -- even if it meant having to drive on the left shoulder to avoid a head on collision. My advice for anyone traveling to Corsica with plans to tour by motorcycle is to go in March if you are renting bike on the French or Italian mainland, or go as early in the tourist season as possible if you are flying directly to Ajaccio or Bastia. The more people that are on the roads, the more chance you have to become a hood ornament. You are going to want to be in full protective gear, and the temperatures rise significantly
during the summer months, so it makes sense to go early in the year (rental issues already noted, of course).

I did manage to steal one of the family cars and drive the Cap Corse. This is a harrowing drive on winding roads no wider than the car, with rocks on one side and the sea on the other. The drivers on the island, in a word, suck. I often found vehicles headed towards me, in my lane, as I rounded a corner because these people are too lazy or too unskilled or too brazen to stay in their own lanes. But when the opportunity presented itself, I did my best impersonation of a formula one driver. This came in handy later on as I evened the score for having to endure all those arguments.

GW's father seemed to like my driving, but not without criticism. I use the brakes too much... I should let the engine do the braking. I found this particularly amusing since I had taken over the driving duties because the guy cannot park, and had backed up into a tree. His driving method was typically French: no person shall ever be in front of him, and every effort will be made to ensure that -- whether it requires passing up hill in a blind curve with only seconds to spare before being squashed like a fly against the front of an oncoming truck. Well, they have curves in America, and I am accomplished in getting around them.

So after a laid back afternoon of tooling around the countryside, I brought up the matter of the brakes. See, I like to have my corner entry speed just right, so I typically shave a tiny bit of momentum off just before initiating the turn. As soon as I initiate the turn, I start accelerating to stabilize the suspension and not lose any momentum from the tires scrubbing off speed in the curve. Last turn of the day, before having to retire the car and probably endure a few more waking hours of shouting, and I set up as usual. This is a very sharp turn -- one most comfortably taken at 15 to 20 mph, but I am doing about 45. As I approach, I announce that there is no need to worry about the brakes on this one, and I rail through the turn at speed, tires shrieking and papa's arms are flailing about as he tries to grab handfuls of the dashboard and not soil his undies. He even vocalized a little "whooooaaaaahhhhhh." I just looked over at him and said, "Dude,
you've just got to have faith in the machine." It was priceless.

The rest of my days were spent surfing the web at internet cafes, or hanging out in Bastia sipping Pietra, a hand-crafted local beer brewed with a blend of selected malts hops and chestnuts. The people watching was
plentiful, and the weather splendid. Despite the fact I managed to salvage something of my "vacation," I will never again allow myself to be imprisoned in motorcycle paradise without access to SOMETHING, ANYTHING that has two wheels and a motor. Life is short and a few weeks without a bike is an unconscionable fate.

Extras:

A map of the island: http://www.himay.ch/images/Cartecorsetracee.gif
http://www.himay.ch/corse.htm - in French. Motorcycle tour in which they happen to stop at LE BIPS (telephone: 04.95.46.06.26)

Offbeat Bikes, The MZ Skorpion

Are you looking for a lightweight bike that corners like a dream and comes stock with stainless steel braided hoses, Grimeca disc brakes, Paioli forks and Metzler racing compound tires? Are you more interested in the perfect execution of a set of twisties than in setting record quarter-mile times? If this sounds like your ticket, then haul your elitist ass down to the local MZ dealer and check out the MZ Skorpion line. Where is your local MZ dealer? They are probably sharing space on the floor at your local Laverda dealer, or Guzzi dealer, or should I say Aprilia dealer (Aprilia owns both Guzzi and Laverda, but that's another story).

I first learned of the MZ Skorpion a few years ago while purchasing a vintage Honda at Bikeworx in Maynard, Massachusetts. The owner, Galen Miller, had a few of these peculiar German bikes on the sales floor as well as his own race-ready Sport Cup in the parking lot. Miller is a regular on the Sport Cup circuit and he appears to be one of the most knowledgeable MZ enthusiasts around.

I found a small MZ/Laverda/Guzzi dealer on the West Coast called Moto International (MI) in Seattle. The one thing I have found in common with dealers of these off-beat bikes is that they are very knowledgeable about the product and they seem to be in the business for the love of the sport - not the money. The guys at MI were so laid back that they gave me the keys to a Sport and a Traveler and wouldn't have cared if I attached a plow to the triple clamps and bulldozed all of civilization into a pothole.

There are three main Skorpion models: The Sport, the Traveler and the Tour. The Sport also comes in a race-ready flavor and is coined the "Sport Cup" after the racing series. While they all share the same motor, suspension and frame, the ergonomics are quite different between models. The Sport models have a maxi-pad style seat, low clip-ons and either full or half fairing. The Traveler has higher clip-ons, a standard seat, a full-fairing and hard bags. The Tour has the same seat as the Traveler but has regular handle bars and looks rather bland in its unfaired form.

The entire Skorpion line shares a simple yet highly functional tubular steel frame designed by Seymour Powell, the famous European design house. This practical steel tube design is well matched with the overall package and has as much to do with the bike's amazing handling as the suspension. The rear monoshock can be adjusted for preload, but the Paioli 41mm telescopic forks are one-size-fits-all. If you really need to tweak the front end you can change to a heavier fork oil or drop some spacers in the tubes. Like a few other motorcycle companies with low R&D budgets and lunch-money bank accounts, the engine is outsourced from Yamaha.

Calling this engine a power plant would be a misnomer - the 660cc, liquid-cooled, four-stroke, four-valve thumper makes 41 horsepower at the rear wheel. This mouse of a motor not only fits in a soup can, it doesn't even rattle the lid. Power-junkies can fix this by adding a 42mm Flatslide Mikuni Single Carb Conversion Kit and a Vortex slip-on from Dale Walker. The carb will set you back $600 but it buys you an additional five horsepower, and the Slip-On Exhaust will help pinch out a few more horsepower like flatulence from a well-fibered horse. Despite the lack-luster lump, you get time-tested reliability, and you'll be able to stoink liter bikes as soon as the road gets twisty.

In stock form, the engine has a fairly narrow power band. It does have more torque than a GS500, but getting the most out this 660cc thumper requires flogging the throttle and constant shifting of the five-speed tranny. I found myself bouncing off the rev limiter like an unruly poodle in need of a muzzle, but a quick upshift restored order. The transmission is one of the nicest I've ever experienced, with very positive short clicks from gear to gear. If you do get one of these bikes blazing, the powerful four-piston Grimeca caliper, floating disc brakes and braided steel lines combine to give tremendous stopping power. I found the brakes on the Skorpion Sport and the Traveler to be excellent and feedback was superb.

The Skorpion Sport comes with extremely low clip-ons and very racey ergos. The Traveler's clip-ons were a little more accomodating for those of us who are doing our best to avoid wrist and back problems, but the bars are not interchangable between the two models due to the Sport's fairing brackets. It may be possible to swap the stock bars for Telefix adjustable bars, if they are available for 41mm forks. Telefix bars adjust in several planes of motion - lower, higher, wider, narrower or even a different angle from stock - possibly the perfect solution for riders who spend more time in the street than at the track.

Every bike in the Skorpion line will handle the twisties as if it were capable of teleportation between the entry and exit points of a curve. No matter what you throw at them or how hot your corner entry speeds, these machines will leave anyone foolish enough to shadow you wishing they were jumping logs on Christopher Reeves' horse. What these bikes lack in neck-snapping power they make up for with sheer-footed agility.

With race-bred handling, quality components and a well-mannered motor, the Skorpion line has appeal for both experts and beginners alike. And at $5790 for a Skorpion Sport with a two-year warranty, these bikes are a fairly inexpensive way to step into exclusivity - something hard to find in an age where trend-surfers have even managed to transform the Ducati into a seasonal fashion accessory.

MotoVentures

Girl Wonder and I flew down to California last week to enjoy some of their rain. We don't get enough of our own fucking sopping wetness here in Seattle. And LA offered some of the best east-coast like rain I've seen
since, well, the east coast. The purpose of our trip was to go dirt biking somewhere warm. Actually, the real purpose was to learn how to do it without getting killed, and to get a break in the weather. Both things
happened, despite the soggy start.

I've been riding street bikes a long time. About 30 years in fact. And I've never had a get-off. On Wednesday that changed. I did crash -- or rather, I fell. It was no big deal. I was following Gary LaPlante and I watched him go completely side-ways on a patch of saturated clay the size of a Karmen Ghia. A half-second later I too went sideways. He recovered, but I didn't. Do I feel like I failed? No freakin' way. Gary is a trials champion and former motocross racer. I'm just a 40 year old guy whose been on a dirt bike a handful of times over the last quarter century. Anyway, this dump actually gave me some confidence that I can survive a get off. I've come a long way from a few years ago when my back was so messed up from
a motorcycle accident that I couldn't even bend over to tie my shoes. Yes, my back survived this fall.

Girl Wonder got her own instructor, a great rider named Cheryl. I had to share Gary
LaPlante with 2 older gentlemen. One was a 50-something and the other was 65 going on osteo-implosion. A few times I thought we were going to have to revive him or else use him as a small hill to jump over. He was due for a hip replacement, bionic knees and a heart transplant.

After a full day of survival exercises, or put another way, everything you've been doing wrong because you are a street-rider, I got my dirt wings. Gary suggested that the other two guys join the girls to practice some more while he and I went trail riding. Very cool. This is the kind of terrain you just don't get to see in Washington: http://www.eaglescall.com/peckham/dirt_0062.jpg

Girl Wonder also had a dirt epiphany. She has only ridden a dirt bike once before, but absolutely kicked ass -- and after working with Cheryl for two days, she was jumping, sliding and climbing her way all over Gary's training area on his 300 acre ranch. See http://www.eaglescall.com/peckham/dirt_0049.jpg

After Paul, the younger of the older dudes, spent an hour or so shaking off his fear and working on the drills we had learned before, he joined Gary and me on a trail ride. Earlier that day he had been scared shitless as we climbed to a spot about 3000 feet high. In particular, he was too scared to descend from that spot down a very steep hill speckled with boulders and other assorted hazards. Gary rode his bike down for him the first time, but now he was ready to try it himself. He made it by riding down with the motor off, using the clutch as an additional brake Man, I've never seen an old guy look so accomplished in my whole life. After that he stuck like glue to us as we traversed the various trails.

If you really want to see some incredible riding, then try to stay on Gary's tail. This guy can ride a wheelie for several thousand feet of the most twisted trail, jumping and swerving (still on one wheel, mind you) and
exhibiting more control than I've ever seen from a guy in his mid-forties. Not even Jesus could ride a two-stroke better than this mortal. Sure, I may be easily impressed, but I think the guy's record speaks for itself.

Bottom line is that if you're a novice dirt biker and you want to add volumes to your skill set, Gary LaPlante's Motoventures (www.motoventures.com) in Southern California is a great investment. My girlfriend had so much fun that she has been hinting at getting a dirt bike so she can "practice" her lessons.

Do it in the dirt

It was January and I was sitting at work with a computer in front of my face. I was soon distracted by the sound of rain ricocheting off the glass of my office window. The sound was distinct. It reminded me of the frantic clawing of an animal trying to escape its terrarium. This stirred my desire to escape the seemingly endless deluge of precipitation that starts in November and continues though February.
Despite the fact that I grew up on the east coast where the winters are long, cold and miserable, this prolonged soaking was taking its toll on me. My thoughts about hookers in insulated knee-socks faded by late December. In early January I was lusting for sun-drenched babes in string bikinis with their with pert tits and pointy nipples poking at my eyes. And now, in the closing days of the month, I was considering a plan to surgically transform Girl Wonder into a curvaceous, mammary-enhanced centerfold laying spread-eagle on a sandy beach where I would hump her until my ass developed skin cancer.

Even though it seems that my moral compass had been set too close to a vaginal magnet, the truth of the matter is that I was craving the sun and all the frolicking that comes with it. I turned back to my open browser, which was conveniently located on google.com. I thought for a moment. What will I search for... Sex or motorcycles? Once again, motorcycles overpowered my libido. Instead of surfing for nude beaches in South Florida, my desires had been sublimated by some two-wheeled fantasy. I had to add some dirt to the mix to make it interesting. I typed three words and the name of a city into the search field: DIRT BIKE RENTALS, SAN DIEGO. Near the top of the results list was California Motorsport Adventours.

I clicked on the link and began reading about three days of riding at the Glamis Sand Dunes. Too long. Then there was the one-day, Quad riding, lobster-eating trip to the Cantamar Sand Dunes in Mexico. I had lived in Boston long enough to be sick of lobster, and I thrive on two-wheeled fun, not four. And then there was the one-day tour in the mountains of Southern California. Bingo. Considering the fact that I haven't been on a dirt bike in 22 years, the Laguna Mountain Tour seemed to be perfect. I would be able to ride in the sun with Girl Wonder, I could take it easy and try to keep my spine in one piece, and they provided everything we would need, including a guide.

The price of the package was $175 per person. It included transportation to and from Pine Valley, a Honda XR 400, a full tank of fuel, riding gear, instructions and someone to lead us around. I called them up and asked for available dates. The weekend of February 15th was clear, so I made the reservation for Girl Wonder and I, booked a flight and marked my calendar with the words "escape."

I called up Girl Wonder and informed her that we were going to take a little tour in Southern California. I explained the whole dirt bike thing and told her that it would help her get over her fear of riding on gravel. "But I never have ridden za dirt bike before – they are very tall and I cannot touch za ground." "No problem," I assured her. "Besides, there will be a guide and he will give you some training." She reluctantly agreed... as if she really had a choice in the matter.

February came quickly, and we soon found ourselves in San Diego. We spent most of our time stuffing ourselves with shredded beef and bean burritos and as many award-winning marguaritas as we could tolerate. Getting liquored up was essential since we were staying at the luxurious Motel 6 in El Cajone. The hotel was full of lifers who had obviously been evicted from an Oakie trailer park To the left of our stark and barren room was Billy Bob, a representative of the nouveau white-trash mini monster truck crowd. Everytime someone passed his jacked up Toyota pickup, a synthesized voice would say, "Step away from the vehicle!" This would unleash a cacophony of barking from the dogs locked in the room to our right. And living above us was some kind of super stud who had obviously overdosed on Viagra and was manically humping the box springs. For hours we listened to non-stop squeaking and creaking, but strangely there were no other sounds penetrating the paper-thin walls. I figured that Tom Bodet had been given a free room to keep him from jerking off in public and he was now upstairs pounding one of the local strippers into a dry, crusty pulp. Surely she'd be screaming after the first hour of machine-gun fornication. Nope. Not a sound, other than the springs. I began to think that maybe she had split after empting his wallet and our sex machine of a neighbor hadn't realized it yet – or worse, she was now a cadaver ready for embalming. Needless to say, it was damned difficult to get a good night's sleep at this place.

Sunday morning, after loading up on huevos rancheros, we sped North on Interstate 8 for a full sixty seconds and then took the first exit in Santee. I turned on the radio only to be rewarded with bad news. The weather forecast promised to replicate, as closely as possible, the very climate we were trying to escape from in Seattle, albeit a tad warmer. We got to CMA's building about 9:15 and swung open the door to find Phillip, an almost stereotypical California surfer/snow-border/desert rider type, complete with wild shoulder length hair and a relaxed enthusiasm that can only come from years of mastering a combination of adrenalin-inducing activities and smoking lots of reefer. He was smiling an enormous smile and extended his hand. "Hi, I'm Phillip, are you ready to ride?" he asked. "Oh yeah," I replied, as I shook his mit. "You need to sign these forms so that if I take you out and kill you can't sue me," he chuckled. Girl Wonder looked nervous, but she signed the forms. These kind of releases are always amusing to me. They are very much like a software license agreement – if you don't click on "agree" you don't get to play. I signed too, and wondered how many people have ever read the fine print.

We walked through the back of the building into a large garage area. Phillip told us to pick out any gear that we needed. We grabbed jerseys, riding pants, knee pads and a kidney belt. We both decided to use our own helmets, gloves and boots, but we could have shown up naked and would have left looking like supercross stars. They truly had a lot of gear available, but nothing for rain, of course. Fortunately we had brought some of our own.

We piled into a truck loaded with three dirt bikes and a ramp. Since CMA does not accept credit cards, Phillip drove us to an ATM so that I could lock my account by withdrawing the daily limit. With $350 now in his Acerbis jacket, Phillip headed for the mountains.

The drive to the ORV area would take 45 minutes to an hour, so Phillip kept us entertained with stories about mutilated riders. In the middle of his story about the poor sod he had to cart back from Mexico after he did a complete ground-loop and spectacularly broke his back, I pictured myself lying in the desert with several vertebrae poking through my skin and a small flock of vultures pecking at my eyeballs. That Mexican Lobster tour looked a whole lot less appealing when I considered the total lack of an emergency support network.

Since we were on the subject of mangled backs, I mentioned my own twisted spine. It turns out that Phillip also suffers from several herniated discs. He didn't say how it happened, but with 25 years of dirt biking in the desert I assumed that he had thumped one too many cacti.

Phillip appears to have spent his entire life in a circle whose circumference can be plotted by connecting dots placed on Palm Springs, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, San Diego and Northern Mexico. After spending enough time in the kind of desert heat that turns your face into a super-sized slab of beef jerky, he had moved to San Diego. Across the street from his new digs lived Sven, the German transplant who owns CMA. They began riding together and the rest is history.

The closer we got to our destination, the foggier it became. This fog was punctuated by a light rain. We exited the highway and found ourselves in ORV heaven. Phillip quickly stripped down to his underwear and starting putting on his gear. "I am au-natural," he quipped to Girl Wonder with a big grin on his face. We joined in the quick change and then watched Phillip wrestle the bikes off the truck. He started the little mud beasts up, which took quite a bit of work given their cold-blooded nature. One by one the bikes thundered to life.

Phillip seemed eager to get underway, so we climbed aboard our Hondas. Since GW had no previous off-road experience, she got the bike with the best throttle and grip guards. Phillip gave us one instruction: don't go wide in blind turns or you risk being hit by on-coming ORVs. "Man, I am stoked about riding in the rain... this is totally crazy!" he exclaimed. Phillip snicked his bike into first and wheelied off. We cautiously followed.

The first part of the trail system was an actual dirt road, but the terrain in the San Diego area is never just dirt. It has more rocks mixed in than the surface of the moon -- rocks the size of golf balls, rocks the size of avacados, and rocks the size of a school bus. I stood up on the pegs for stability and looked back at Girl Wonder to see her white-knuckling the handle bars and looking altogether terrified. She must have been convinced that I deliberately planned this torturous ride so that she would lose control of the bike, careen into the abyss and wind up as a limbless wad of flesh never to be seen again until some future archeological dig discovered "Lucy II."

Phillip, on the other hand, was riding up the embankments, switching direction midway and then cutting a track in the dirt with his spinning rear knobby. Girl Wonder and I were riding pitifully slow and he was obviously trying to shake off the boredom. After a half-mile of suffering, he stopped us to see how we were doing. Girl Wonder wanted to know what the hell she was supposed to do to keep the bike in some state that remotely resembled control. Phillip's advice was simple: let the bike do what it wants and just try to stay on top of it. Frankly, I was amazed that she was sticking with it. I had never ridden anything so rocky before and I wasn't having an easy time of it either -- especially since the rain and fog had reduced our visibility to 50 feet or so. Not only that, between the drizzle outside and the fog that was forming inside our helmets, our face-shields were making things worse. Girl Wonder and I both started riding with them up, hoping to not be hit in the puss by some geomorphic projectile.

After a brief rest, Phillip decided that we weren't being challenged enough so he veered off the main road and onto a series of tight trails. Girl Wonder was now facing a slalom of panty-twisting corners -- one after the other -- with rocks, boulders, mud and elevation changes thrown in for shits and giggles. Phillip's advice must have triggered a personal epiphany for her, though, because no matter how tight or technical the trails were, she refused to be stopped by the conditions. Only twice did she take turns too wide, which caused her to ride off the trail. With tree branches and bushes whacking her left and right, her face-shield slammed shut leaving her blind. She just stayed on the throttle and let her intuition guide her way through the brush until she was able to lift the obstruction. The second time this happened she became lodged in some bushes and wiped out. She simply righted the bike and said, "Get zis thing started for me."

I was also getting comfortable. Inspired by Phillip's antics, I was power-sliding through corners with complete confidence on the well-balanced Honda. The motor was wonderfully torquey and delivered its power in a completely predictable manner. Even when we were riding uphill on waterlogged clay -- conditions that resulted in sudden and unexpected direction changes -- the bike was easy to direct with a little body-english.

In the late afternoon the trails were becoming dangerously muddy for inexperienced hacks such as ourselves. I watched some eager dirt bike fashion model go sideways and slam her big Suzuki down in a slithering pile of muck. She pulled herself out from under the frame and stood in a prone position for a good ten minutes while trying to shake off the pain. Inspired by her misfortune, we decided to call it a day.

Phillip had spent the previous day performing stunts on sand dunes for an Italian film crew. He was a bit sore, and now he was drenched, muddy and cold. I think he was relieved that the day was ending. He complemented us on our spirit of adventure, saying that most of their clients would never have considered riding in those conditions. He also praised Girl Wonder's relentless drive to keep going no matter how difficult the trails were.

As we were heading back to San Diego, the weather cleared. The area we were riding in came to life with a magnificent display of color. My legs were feeling sore, but otherwise I felt great. It was a tremendous experience, even with the Seattle-esque weather that could have easily dampened our spirits.

The rest of the day would be spent loading up on more of those award winning margaritas. We would eat our last shredded beef and bean burritos and later attempt to slip into a food coma so that our Oakie hotel-mates would fade into the din of El Cajone. As my head hit the pillow that evening, something occurred to me: I haven't had lobster in quite a while, but I think I know a good place South of the border...

Excerpts of Vercours Riding Trip, May 2001

Introduction

The following are my notes from an article I never finished:

After our return from yet another trip to California for a fix of mainline curve addiction, I realize that I have made another transition in medium in my life. Years ago it was photography that consumed every waking moment, then music, then writing, then film-making and finally furniture making. Whilst visiting a muscian friend in Vermont after making that transition from music and film to furniture making, I sheepishly tried to justify my latest change in direction. I produced a small photograph of a cabinet that I just completed. My friend said, in response to the photo, "You are clearly jammin' in wood, man."

I am now jamming in motorcycles. I have always had a rather myopic fixation on a particular medium at different times throughout my life -- a fixation akin to a form of autism, being barely able to concentrate on more than one thing at a time, but excelling in some quirky obsession. I have survived in relationships only because I have been able to involve my significant others in my work. When I was a photographer I was involved with a narcisist who couldn't resist being in front of a camera. When I was a musician, she was a singer, when I was a writer she was a lit major, and when I was a furniture maker she was a bulemic weight-lifter who eventually began to resemble Paul Bunyan... well, the latter relationship didn't work out quite the way I thought it would. It took lawyers and money to undo that damage.

"Motorcyclist" is how I identify myself, and Girl Wonder, my significant other for nearly a decade, is a natural born moto-fiend. If she had started earlier she would have been a racer, as I actually have to work to stay ahead of her these days. And we are on a quest to find the holy grail of roads in which to execute the perfect set of twisties -- the one road in which we have a pact that if one of us crashes and are obliterated, that the other will tie-strap the head of the fallen victim to the triple clamps like a Viking gargoyle and finish the run. While motorcycling may not be an art, cornering surely is, and to this we have dedicated much of our lives.

It is with this particular pursuit that we find ourselves on a plane to France with the famous Vercors as our final destination. We managed to find cheap seats on British Airways from Seattle to Lyon for $550 round trip. The seats were so cheap, apparently, because no other full-fare passenger would have tolerated being wedged between to other passengers like a porn star in a double-penetration scene. To make matters worse, this happened to be the nursery section of the cabin. One particular newborn screamer was seated directly next to me and the only thing that calmed the wrinkly parasite down was a tit in his mouth, and even the novelty of that seemed to be wearing off. I conspired that I could possibly get a few winks of sleep if I could just rub his fucking soft spot with all the force my thumb could deliver until he was cross-eyed and quiet. Fortunately for him and my criminal record, he fell into a deep slumber after sucking mom's tit dryer than Dean Martin's martini glass.

London

Our first stop was for a five-hour layover in London where we used our time to meet up with a friend and former business associate from Boston -- now working in the motherland as a software engineer/consultant. Eric picked us up at Heathrow and drove us to Windsor to catch a local brew and walk about the town to get a feel for British existence. The first thing you notice, if you are a motorcyclist, is that all the local bikers are wearing full leathers, boots, gloves and helmets, with very few exceptions. The second thing you notice, motorcyclist or otherwise, is that the country is full of ugly people, especially the women, who appear to have been tossed out the window of Ugly's AMC Pacer. I asked Eric if he had noticed this and he replied, " it seems as though the country was started by two ugly people and they've never recovered from it."

The only thing uglier than the people is the food, but at least you can find a decent Indian restaurant to jump-start your taste buds after they reflexively retreat from culinary abuse. It's no wonder that the Brits have such a love affair with Indian cuisine -- and as a conciliation prize the Indian people are whole lot more attractive to look at.

We used our short time to catch up on America politics, movie and book reviews and our respective future directions. After a pint outside the gates of Windsor Park, on Britain's first sunny day in a year or so, we had to depart for Gatwick. Eric dropped us off and we bid each other farewell until our next rendezvous, probably in Paris if all goes well.

Lyon

We boarded our plane and had a quick, uneventful flight to the Lyon airport. While disembarking, I noticed that British Airways had placed a red carpet at the end of the stairs so I figured they must be trying to make up for the cramped quarters and bitter snacks. I stepped onto the little red square only to discover that it was colored Astroturf soaked in chemicals to kill foot and mouth disease.

We had to drive another hour through tight and twisty mountain roads to arrive at the Girl Wonder family compound. In that hour, I took notice of some of the major differences between the US and France. At an even 6 feet tall, I tower over most people in South France by at least 12 inches. And I look like an Attila the Hun with my body by Stairmaster. The French do not appear to work out, but don’t picture a bunch of pudgy beret-wearing pouty-lipped cheese eaters. They are as thin as Iggy Pop on a hunger strike. The French appear to maintain their waif-like figures by eating small portions of high fat foods such as red meat, sausage and cheese, consuming alcohol at all meals except breakfast, and smoking cigarettes by the faceful. This diet is not approved by the American Heart Association, but it seems to be working fine for the French, at least when they are young. Many French, in their late thirties and early forties, acquire the exploding rivulet, Charles Bukowski-like complexion that comes from the constant flaring of facial capillaries in reaction to a steady stream of Cote du Rhone.

Another thing you can’t help but notice is how clean the towns and villages are. Without a McDonalds, Burger King and Wendy’s on every corner, the place isn’t littered with Styrofoam tumble weed and oil-soaked French fry vessels. The fast food thing is a cultural mismatch for the French, who do not consume food in their cars and they are not in a hurry when it comes to eating, or much else for that matter.

Despite the fact that the French are laid back in ways that an American can only achieve with Prozac or moggies, they drive like crazed maniacs. I have never seen such egregious and reprehensible conduct on the roads anywhere else – except Boston of course. No Frenchman can tolerate the presence of a vehicle in front of them and they will pass any and all obstacles at the crest of a hill, in a blind curve, while arguing on a cell phone. If you thought cell phones were an American obsession, you were wrong. Americans may like their cell phones, but the French LOVE them.

According to a riding buddy who works for a large telecom company, only 40% of Americans have cell phones, whereas 70% of Europeans pack the noodle-melters.
Motorcycles, scooters and mopeds are also much more popular than in the states. Both men and women have some experience on one or more of the above, but unlike the Brits, most do not subscribe to safety gear other than helmets and a fashionable leather jacket. If you do see a fully-clad rider they are most likely British, German or Dutch.

Swarms of derestricted two-stroke scooters and mopeds attack the streets with engines that sound like a mosquito on steroids. The range of motorcycles is vast. You will see everything from RS125 race replicas to big Dual Sports and Harleys, all filtering and lane splitting in an attempt to keep the snarled and congested streets manageable. And there is nowhere near the animosity and contempt towards bikers as there is back home.

We rested and drank away the jet lag for a few days in Roanne and then boarded a train heading south. Our destination was Holiday Bikes in Lyon, where we had reserved a Yamaha Fazer and a TDM. From there we would head even further South to the Vercors, an area surrounded by shear cliffs, deep gorges and cascading rivers, alpine prairies and wild forests, jagged ridges and high plateaux. And throughout each of these geographic archetypes, there are roads with curves tighter than my pants when I’ve got a raging chubby.

The Agency

We arrived in Lyon and walked to the Holiday Bikes, about 6 blocks from the train station. We easily found the building, which appeared to be an apartment complex with a few retail businesses on the bottom floor. There were no signs or indications as to the presence of anything motorcycle related. I had found Holiday Bikes on the Internet and they had locations in at least a half dozen cities in France, so I expected something that resembled a real business. As instructed, we rang the buzzer for “suite” 3, took the elevator and entered what appeared to be an apartment. It was an apartment, in fact, and it was being used as a branch office. The “office” looked like an unclaimed baggage room at an airport. The place was littered with an avalanche of paper and helmets and motorcycle bits. I made my way to a table spotted with coffee stains and croissant flakes in the middle of the room to sit down and relieve the leather wedgy that gathers when you stand in a race suit for too long. I knocked a helmet off of a chair to sit down and There was so much debris on the floor that I could only extract the chair far enough to get the surface for a single cheek.

In one small Oasis of organization sat a computer, fax and telephone. Girl Wonder did most of the talking since French is her native language. Despite the condition of the office, the pixy of a rental agent dress in body-hugging black attire which empahised his growth-stunted, cigarette-thin stature, had our paperwork in a well organized folder. We listened to the usual spiel about our responsibilities, about the $1300 insurance deductible and holding the agency harmless for maiming ourselves on their bikes. I largely missed the details because my French is only good enough to well fed and drunk, so after providing copies of our licenses and entrusting credit card slips to the paperstorm aftermath, I left and waited out front. Pixy boy and his sidekick emerged from the parking garage a few minutes later on the bikes.

I mounted the TDM and GW climbed about the Fazer. By now I was sweating profusely from being tapped in leathers, so I was anxious to get under way. We needed gas though, because the tanks we only half full.

The TDM is big sweaty farm animal which is capable of inspiring true discomfort, especially in your ass. The TDM is Yamaha’s butt-ugly answer to the Adventure-Touring paradigm, not that many of these bikes could win a beauty contest even if it were judged by blind swine. Powered by an 850cc vertical twin, it’s a big oaf of a bike with strange, yet moderately comfortable ergos. The handlebars are high and wide which results in surprisingly light steering. Piloting this misfit through thick and nasty traffic is a breeze, and visibility is good since you are perched atop the crows nest of a seat. The seat is 33 inches off the deck. If you are a vertically challenged rider you’d better be wearing heals. And the foam padding is also paper thin, so expect your ass to ache as if it were beaten with an oak cricket paddle.

The TDM has a sloppy five-speed gearbox that combines with the 10-valve 849cc vertical twin cylinder power plant to generate enough torque to drag Robert Downey Jr. into rehab. The space between gears is generally good, although the gap between first and second is a bit of a stretch. This results in strange power delivery at low revs. Rolling the throttle on and off usually produces an unwanted lurch which is just the kind of thing you want to avoid when piloting a bike through tight curves.

The bike can corner though. Lean angle feels exaggerated given the height of the bike, but once you become acclimated to the sensation, you can really push the TDM through tight bends. The suspension has a lot of travel, but the front seems to be too softly sprung. This is most noticible when squezzing the binders which compress the forks in a big gooshy dive. The brakes also lack power and feedback. I am biased since like my woman, I never want to use more than two fingers -- and with my Triumph, that’s all you need to loft the rear.

Post Crash

He was dressed in tight black clothes which fulled revealed the fact that he had the body of a prepubescent girl. He went over the bike, commenting about the larger damage and whining about every micro scratch in the clear coat. This was in clear contrast to our experience with Cruise America in California where the rental agent specifically said not to sweat the small stuff -- these were rental bikes and they expected a few scratches -- they'd only be looking for road damage. I was taking it all in stride until he started balking about the scratches in the peg feelers. Given the enormous difference in our size, I figured that I could snap the twiney motherfuker in half and leave him bleeding from both eyes in the parking garage. A quick collection of our paper work and credit card slips and we'd be home free. He would never be able to identify his assailant with his hollow eye-sockets and I could use my bad back as an excuse as to why I could't have possibly perpetuated suck a forceful attack. These ideas rose and fell as he would complain about the slight roughness on the weld of the muffler was a problem, but he would not charge us for that. I nearly executed my plan, though, when he pointed out that the saddled bags had abraised the clear-coat on the side covers. Girl Wonder handled him with reason, with me looming in the background.

With his list, he quickly totaled up the damage: One mirror, one turn signal, one brake lever, the upper fairing, and the left lower fairing all for a quick and dirty 4,000 french francs, or approximately $600 US. There was not a lot we could say.

To help us swallow the cost like bad medicine, he suggested that we lie to our insurance company and tell them that we knocked over his motorcycle by accident -- not by riding it, mind you, but by pushing it over in some strange act of negligence. I assured him that there is no insurance in America that was going to pay for the act of an individual, but if he'd let me use his phone, I would check with my Platinum MasterCard since they often include an insurance benefit or two. I called citibank, and the woman said they do cover rental cars, but motorcycles are excluded. c'est la vie. We'd have to take our lumps and take solace in the fact that GW didn't get hurt.