She's at it again. . .

Okay, I'm back. It's been a couple of years, I guess. . . bought a Road King, took it down the Blue Ridge, got my pic taken by Killboy mid-Dragon, ate a lot of biscuits and gravy, it was hilarious. Traded it for a stunning Road King sidecar rig, did all the proper mods, it was f'in' horrible as a regular rider. The last day of July this year, I bought a 2011 H-D XR1200X with 1300 miles on it and have commuted to work on it every day since, about 3000 miles so far, it's a very useful motorcycle. Oh, yes, I still have the '01 XL1200S, it's too much fun to get rid of, even if it beats me up too much on long rides.

AND Fat Bottom Girls Racing is back in business. Mary decided to go back racing in May, and she got the RD400 ready to go. I picked up a '79 SR500 that I would have had ready to go for the last couple of USCRA events if the summer hadn't been so stunning and I couldn't see spending it in the barn. Lots of stories to tell already, and hopefully, I'll work through a few of them here.

What was I thinking?

Now, be serious. I've never been known as Captain Sensible. I've owned a lot of sport-tourers, for sure, but what have been my favorite bikes? C'mon, I go for the way things feel, always have. My true all-time favorite pure riding bike is the Ducati SS750ie. . . of which I've owned three. Sold the first two because I couldn't justify keeping them alongside more practical mounts- the sport-tourers that I commuted to work on, rode to Nova Scotia on. Now I've got one I built for the track from a salvage bike- a near-total-wreck- that I thankfully have so much more invested in that it could ever conceivably be worth and so, selling it would be futile. I love the smaller motor simply because it does need to be shifted more.

Bland motorcycle are easier to ride, get you through a long day in comfort, provide you with no unpleasant surprises. . . but where's the juice? You've got an hour to go for a ride- is it worth it? Nah. When I had my SR500, it was. . . you could get into a whole day's worth of trouble in far less than an hour. The kickstarting ritual alone was almost enough- you hardly needed to leave the driveway.

So tell me- why was I in the process of taking one of the world's most excellent hooligan motorcycles, the Harley-Davidson XL1200S and putting hard bags on it, trying to make it into something it's not, and neither of us would be happy with? Dunno, but I've come to my senses, apparently.

Okay. All is not lost. I hadn't started to put the hard bags on, and since I paid (on eBay) quite a bit less than half retail for a complete new set, I don't think it will be difficult to recoup the money from somebody that has the XL1200C they belong on. Everything else I'd already gotten or had on order was still pretty appropriate: the Screamin' Eagle airbox kit, the Dynojet carb recalibration kit, solo rear rack. I've got a Corbin Classic Solo seat on order, all black, no welt, that will look smashing, and an oil cooler for the left down tube.

What caused the change of heart, you may well ask? When I was first working on the '75 Ironhead (a long-term project that has, er, become a little more long-term lately), I looked at a lot of exhaust systemts, and decided that the SuperTrapp 2:1 for the Evo, with its beautifully curved headers and subtly upswept muffler is one of the best-looking setups on any bike, especially in stainless steel. But, of course, it doesn't cooperate well with luggage in general and not at all with hard bags, and, it tends to be loud, and it was originally intended to be a race system. These factors insured that it didn't get much traction around the house. Then, shortly after I got my sportster, another arrived at our house, an '06 XL1200R- and interestingly enough, a BUB/ Rinehart 2:1 was acquired for that- and that system isn't known for its delicacy. Last week, though, in an idle moment, I was doodling around on eBay. . . and two days later my careful snipe got me a brand-new stainless-steel SuperTrapp system.

So, this is where I find myself, setting up a hooligan Sportster that will probably be loud, impractical, dangerous, and loads of fun. Right now, it's on the lift, still a bit dirty-looking, without seat or exhaust, air cleaner off, waiting for a rear tire, too. The tire and belt tension guide should arrive this week, although I'll probably have to wait until next week for the SuperTrapp. Saturday could be a big day; rear tire mounted, carb cleaned and rejetted, airbox on various small rust spots painted with Rust Bullet. Should be a good day, and I'll be back here with pics.

XL1200S/T, a Sport-Touring Sporty, part III

I pulled in to Granite State Harley, parked the great beast up on its sidestand, and walked over to the line of used bikes. Can't help it. . . it's the same reason we troll craigslist, and wander around National Powersports Distributors in Concord. You see something you like, you try it on in your head. "Oooh, I could use this for trips to the beach," or, "Here's a cute little number I could go on SMOG rides with," (Spanish Motorcycle Owner's Group- and if you happen to know of a running Bultaco, let me know). I was feeling a bit of a Luddite about then, so I was cruising down the lineup, checking out air cleaners- or actually, what was peeking out over the tops of the air cleaners. As in- is that a throttle body, or do I see the flat top of a CV carb? I was looking for carbs. A fresh-faced young lad stepped out of the front door and headed over to me. "Anything special you're looking for?" Oh, great, I thought. . . the boys inside have sent the newbie out to see how he does with Hammerwoman.

"Yep, carbs."

"Oh, you know now, fuel injection. . ."

"This isn't something you want to get into with me," I said, well, fairly gently. I gestured toward the building. "Did they send you out to talk to me?"

"Uh, yeah."

"I thought so. Well, my young friend, they're just playing a little joke on you. My name is Gail- they all know me, and they sent you out here just to mess your head up a little." Meanwhile, I was continuing down the line, fuelie, fuelie, fuelie, fuelie. . . oh, look, a flattop, hey, those are piggyback shocks, dual plugged heads, and that tank logo!  "That's an XL1200S- come along, then." I headed inside, with a rather bemused young salesman in tow.

A chorus of "Hey, Gail, what's up?" and general laughter greeted us as we came through the door.

"Can we get a plate on that XL1200S?"

"Of course!" and the young gentleman that had come out to greet me was dispatched for a plate and the proper paperwork. That filled out, I could hear the low rumble of the S's stock exhaust outside. It was a cold day, and I was cautioned to leave the choke out a bit. While the bike warmed up a little more, I looked it over. Basically stock, but with a poofy black seat and a clunky little sissy bar. The bike had obviously been ridden in all weathers and stored outdoors, at least for the riding season. Exhaust clamps were fairly brown, the thinly chromed shock springs somewhat beige, paint chips here and there, new front tire (Dunlop GT502, at least), shagged Super Venom on the back, and the whole thing even dirtier than my bikes usually get. Potato, potato, potato. . . she sat patiently running while I looked her over. Oops, not ready to run without the choke yet, for sure. Don't know if you're going home with me, but if you do, we're going to let you breathe, open up the airbox and exhaust, and rejet. I have no idea how H-D was able to certify this big aircooled motor with a carb, but she's certainly set up wicked lean.

I headed out on their standard test ride, along which I've ridden Dynas, Softails, the XR1200, Tourers, pretty much everything on the floor. This was a bit different, because I was thinking seriously about buying this one. Normally I'm just having fun.

XL1200S/T Sport-Touring Sporty, Part II

Back to the bike at hand, or, in this case, on lift. Well, back to the story, anyway. We're still a ways from actually talking about the bike. At least we've gotten to the fall of 2007, and I had just taken delivery of the bike everybody wanted, or was at least looking for an excuse to buy, the BMW R1200GS. Blah, blah, blah, Ewan and Charlie, the Road of Bones, blah blah blah. Now, don't get me wrong. On the big GS, I am Queen of the Universe. I spit on the roofs of Range Rovers. I can go the the ends of the earth. More importantly, I can get home. The first time I followed Mary home (our first date), I was riding my Ducati Supersport, race-bike-with-turn-signals, zero steering lock, up (that would be straight up) a road that's first gear, four-wheel-drive, in the summer. Up over the headwall, 90 degrees right, over the sheet of plywood bridging the ditch, and another fallaway 90 down to the barn. More than once, on a cold, rainy night, I found myself sliding face-down toward the barn, wind knocked clean out of me, with my bad-tempered little darling lying on her side nearby, engine screaming where she'd spit me off. . .good fun, that. The sport-tourers were a little better, but not much. Wide, sticky road tires without a lot of tread, tall gearing, and a forward seating position made for some serious 4:00AM pucker when Mary got home from driving tractor trailers all night for Big Brown. We were getting older, no mistake, happens to everybody, and we were getting worried about how we were going to keep doing this. So, of course, we were house-hunting. Then we discovered the GS, and as we told our friends, we both bought new(ish) bikes, but we didn't have to buy a house.


The GS isn't problem-free, however. There is that little issue with the rear-end seals that BMW keeps stonewalling. Moving the bike around when you're on the ground can be heart-stopping, or when you're actually off-road (like at our house), and you suddenly become aware just how large and tall and heavy an object this is. Plus, it's complex beyond our understanding of complexity. Okay, it doesn't have gyroscopic lean-angle sensors or traction control like the newest BMW, but it does have ABS, a GPS unit mounted on the handlebars, fuel injection, ignition coils in the spark plug caps, and a see-all, know-all computer that can't be turned off. Really, you can't turn them off. When you turn that key on your bike (or car), and things stop turning, all you've done is request that the computer shut the engine down and turn the lights off. The computer is still operating. Walking into the shop area of a BMW dealer when they have a GS on the lift for service can make you more than a little queasy; it appears that they've split the bike in half, wires and hoses everywhere, and it looks more than a little like an autopsy. Plus, of course, the GS has all the sexy-factor of a really good washing machine- and I can't think of anybody, no matter what they've installed for an exhaust, who would ever start a GS up just to hear it run.

Now, you can see from this blog that Mary and I have spent the last two seasons racing with the US Classic Racing Association. Some years ago, the AMA had- and quickly dropped- a Formula 883 series based on the XL883R Sportster. When they dropped it, the USCRA added "American Twins" to its schedule. Now, American Twins is an extremely unpopular class, for two reasons. First, as every racer knows, Harleys are shit. They don't handle, they're slow, they're not worth racing. Second, nobody can beat the Flachs. Steve and his father Dave are old flattrackers. Steve was national pro-am dirt-track champion on the XR750 decades ago when he was a teenager, and the old man's no slouch, believe me. Their road-race bikes are all converted dirt-track tackle, mostly totally built SR500s with great wide bars and an upright riding position. Piloting the 883 is a natural for both of them, and under them, the bikes fly. At last year's Bike Week support race, I was wandering around the pits and noticed that Henry's Sportster wasn't among the gaggle of bikes in his garage. "I'm concentrating on my little bikes today," Henry said. "The 883 is entered, but it's still in the van. Why don't you race it?" Now, even with my Ironhead project firmly into its second year, I had still never ridden a Sportster, plus Henry doesn't have a stellar reputation for maintenance on his race bikes. "I'd love to!" I said, and we rolled the 883 out into the sunlight. It seemed to roll pretty hard when I took it over to tech, and only had a quick look-over while setting the tire pressure before rolling it out to the hot pits for warmup. Practice? Well, I did ride it out to the track gate to get a tech slip from Eve. . . "You're not Henry! Are you going to ride that? Those handle like crap, you know."

"Yup," I said. The bike did turn heads among the Harley crowd, for sure. Over in the hot pits, I rode over to Betty Bluenose and was lifting my face shield when she said, "You're not Henry! Are you really going to ride that thing?"

"Yup," I said. The Flachs were stoked. Dave kept telling me that I was in for a big surprise, that it was a much better bike than I thought. Waiting for the wave onto the track, the bike did sound very cool, and didn't feel at all like I had expected. Of course, all the race-prepped 883's have extra-tall shocks to put more weight on the front wheel and quicken up the steering, but other than that, they're mostly stock. . .well, except for the conversion to chain drive, open airbox and exhaust, all that. I was pretty much able to stay with Dave through the warmup lap, although his seemd to accelerate much faster than Henry's. Once the green flag dropped, however, it was clear that the bike I was on wasn't in the same class as the Flach's. . .strange, since they both have at least 100 pounds on me. That wasn't the issue, though. NHMS was working on the track drainage (the old track had a pond in the infield), and Turn 1 on the road course was a construction zone, so they'd set up a cone slalom on the oval for us. I came in ready to shift hard to the inside, knee down, total commitment. Coming into the turn, considerably behind Dave, I caught sight of him seemingly going straight through with a flick of his, well, mature and substantial hips. He did it at the other end, too, and left me pretty much in the dust. My main goal was to have some fun and bring Henry's bike home none the worse for wear, and I did. I rode into the pits and straight up to a congratulatory (and somewhat shamefaced) Henry who held out a small round metallic object. "What's that?" I asked.

"Uh, that's a rear brake puck for a Sportster," he said. He had found it on the floor of the van. Evidently, the pad had fallen out, and when I touched the brake the first time heading for the pit garage, the piston had somewhat wedged itself against the brake disk. The disk looked salvageable (it's not easy to ruin a Harley brake disk), but it was plain that much of the engine's motive power had been squandered providing the burger-frying heat that was radiating off that great whacking hunk of metal.

The race, for me, had been a howling success. I had spent the warmup lap, and the first four laps of the race, waiting for this supposedly evil-handling piece of junk to bite me. I spent the second half having a blast, making friends with a bike that, while it wasn't really a road racer was huge fun, and trying to learn the wide-open, upright riding style that this flattrack descendant likes. "So, what did you think?" asked Dave.

"It was great! It's a much better bike than I thought it would be, and so much better than anyone here thinks it is." So, I went home, and continued to work on my Ironhead whenever I could take time away from the race bikes or, well, work, the laundry, etc.

Two things conspired to deliver unto me the Evo I was looking for without really knowing it. First, the weather. It had been a truly lovely fall, with good riding weather long after we've usually given up on our short New Hampshire "summer." Second, the economy. I don't know if you've noticed- hard not to- that all used motorcycle values have crashed- but especially Harleys. Everybody's getting rid of their toys (last night I saw an XR1000 close on eBay for under $8000, less than half of what it would have sold for a year ago). The Saturday after Thanksgiving, I had to ride back up to Lebanon to do an errand (yeah, two old ladies gotta have their medications, and I had forgotten on Wednesday). Yet another beautiful day, and I decided to stop in at Granite State Harley. I hadn't been in to buy parts in a while, and as it was getting on to the holidays, it was time for a hello.

Tell me it's just a surfboard. . .

Okay, I'll get back to the endless motorcycle stories soon, I promise! Trying to pay off some debt, while still feeding the motorcycle obsession has been difficult. I've been doing everything I can not to spend any "new" money, which to me means I've gotta sell stuff to buy stuff. According to the laws of retail and thermodynamics, if done properly, this can result in not only a net loss of stuff- if that be your aim- but, in the end, less time dealing with stuff. I resorted to eliminating entire categories. I sold all of the snowboard race gear in one fell swoop (as a ski patroller, I always rode race boards in ski boots so I could be a switch two-planker for sled-dog duty). I got rid of a whole bunch of cross-country ski stuff going back close to forty years. I was kind of leading up to the surfboards. For years and years, especially during the ten years I was a boarding school nurse, I surfed whenever there were waves. In New Hampshire. Especially in the winter.  I worked fifteen-hour overnight shifts with a six-hour "on-call" segment in the middle where I could sleep. I'd get off at 0800, and if there were waves, I'd go to the beach. I'd head back to the school mid-afternoon, rinse out my gear, relieve the day nurse, and go to dinner. I'd get something out of a bottom drawer, and salt water would run out my nose all over the place. Very professional, I know. Surfboards are kind of commodity items. You're going to destroy them eventually. They get dents from your heels (knees, head), they get dinged-up, they eventually break. If you're lucky, you can keep them for some years, though, especially if you're not obsessed with lightness. I was never a great surfer, though, and I'm an old-fashioned kind of girl, so I like traditional-looking boards. The Stewart Hydro-Hull is a great board, but the production item has a sanded (dull) finish, and you usually find them with huge airbrushed flames down them. Still, they paddle and ride like a dream, in everything from ankle-slappers to double-overhead. When I ordered mine, I asked for a 9'0" Superlight blank (a name that they gave it in the 60's- it weighs about twice what a modern blank weighs), three wood stringers, and a fancy wood tail block. Gorgeous. I'd only had it a few weeks when I took it to Rincon, Puerto Rico for Thanksgiving week in 1995, and met somebody in the lineup there that examined the writing on the bottom and told me it had been shaped by the legendary Terry Martin. It was my main board for the next four years, and I had many, many great days on that board. It was a comforting presence in some bad situations, and a delight always. Then life changed, and my job changed. Still, I had mentioned surfing on my dykefinder.com profile, which is how Mary found me there. We surfed  few times together, but for years now, our surfboards have been stuck up in the barn loft, their bags serving mostly as mouse condos. I got them down last week to get ready to sell. The board of Mary's that was up there, she had only used twice (we bought it on a trip to P'town), and my 9'6" "big-wave" longboard, another Stewart/Terry Martin custom, I had only surfed a handful of times. The board bag zippers were frozen solid with metal corrosion and I had to cut them out, but the boards cleaned up really well, ancient wax and bushels of mouse nest coming off pretty easily with Fantastik and mineral spirits. I got great pics in the fading light on Saturday afternoon, and figured I'd get the 9'0" cleaned up for pics the next morning. I set it on the padded sawhorses in the fan blast from the heated end of the shop, and went to the house for a cup of tea while it warmed up enough to scrape the wax off. After, I went back to the barn and started in scraping. As the wax was coming off, I started noticing how the board felt under my hands, noticing the tiny line of green where the foam meets the wood stringers (the mark of a Clark Foam Superlight blank), the dents on the deck that showed how I stand, how I fall. . . the pale gray-green of the repairs. . . it seemed to take a long, long time to get the wax off. Taking a blue towel (unused operating room towel), folded and soaked with mineral spirits, I began to wipe the remaining wax off the board, and that's when it started. Have you ever cleaned up a body? I have, lots of times. It's never bothered me. This was feeling a lot like that, but my chest was getting tight and it sure was bothering me. This is crazy, I thought. It's just a thing. A hunk of plastic. A slab of petrochemicals, nothing more. It's in the past, it's done and over, sell it and move on. I put the rag down and went back to the house. Mary was cleaning the bathroom. "Come to the barn with me, please?"

"Why? I'm busy, and I'd have to get all changed to go outside. What's up?"

I was just about in tears, and I felt really stupid. How could I explain this? "I can't deal. I can hardly breathe. Please come and tell me it's just a surfboard. Tell me it's just a surfboard and I'll be all right, I can sell it."

Mary looked me calmly in the eyes. "It's not just a surfboard."

"This isn't helping."

"It's not just a surfboard. There's a lot of you in it. A lot of life. Don't sell it, you might want it some day, and besides, it's beautiful. Hang it in the living room, or wherever, but don't sell it."

So, there it is. I guess I'm keeping it. Last time I was out in LA visiting Alison and Chen Wei, I bought a ratty old Harbour 10'0" and paddled around a bit, even caught a wave or two, so I guess I can still, on some level, still think of myself as a surfer. Maybe I'll even get in the water a bit in New Hampshire again, although my old wetsuits will hardly fit me these days. Gotta do something about that, too, or I won't fit in my race leathers either.

Sigh. . . well, better get to it, what else is there to sell around here?

Note- the pic is of the 9'6", which has some funny yellowing up near the nose, and is actually for sale. Couldn't bring myself to take a pic of the 9'0".

A Season Off

Before I return to my thrilling saga of Sportster-farkling, I should probably inform our race fans that Fat Bottom Girls Racing is taking at least this season off from competition. To quote- or nearly- Peter Egan, "Racing makes heroin addiction seem like a vague wish for something salty." We loved racing. The US Classic Racing Association folks welcomed us with open arms (and toolboxes). Our skill levels in riding and wrenching improved at an incredible rate, and I'm very proud of the work we did, and the results we got. But- and it's a big but (don't go there, I'm warning you!), nothing else happened for two years. We didn't go on a single vacation, motorcycle trip, or even a decent weekend ride; weekends were invariably spent in the barn, working on bikes. Vacactions were timed around race events, so (for example) we would have a whole week to get ready for the first event of the season. Mountain bikes got dusty; waistlines expanded. The Laundry Monster took over the living room. . . most of the racers, of course, have a wife that takes care of the house so that they can race on weekends, or spend time in their "man cave." Yeah, well, around here, that wife is me, and once the laundry, cooking, shopping, metal fabrication, lockwiring, tire changing, fiberglassing, painting, etc., are done, it's about time to open a beer and watch MotoGP. Halfway through last season, panicked at the state of my checking account and the horror of my credit card statements, I sold my Ducati TT2 and spend the rest of the season as a corner worker for the races. When you need something for racing- like when you bend a handlebar or your tires are shagged- it's not a question of afford. It's a question of which credit card still has room. We are pretty lucky; we live less than forty miles from New Hampshire Motor Speedway where all of the USCRA races and most of the Fishtail Riding School events are held, but a day of racing- food, gas for the truck, ice, race fuel, track passes, race entries- easily cost upwards of $600 for the two of us- and that doesn't take into account bikes, parts, tires, tools, race trailer, etc., and it was getting beyond what I could sustain.

I was very privileged to own such a bike; not too many people are lucky enough to have heard the music of a straight-ahead Ducati Pantah engine with a 2:1 exhaust, and very, very few have heard one at top-gear-redline from the saddle. I've still got my track-day bike, a 1999 Ducati SS750ie, the direct descendant of the TT2, a bike I rescued from salvage and rebuilt. Thankfully, I have way more in the bike than it will ever be worth, and Mary has forbidden me to ever sell it. So, there will be track days this year, but there will also be rides out to legendary hot dog stands in Maine, and hopefully, lots of riding with the Motor Maids.

XL1200S/T Sport-Touring Sporty, Part I

This will probably be a very long story, but, well, it's winter. This is a 2001 H-D XL1200S, a "Sportster Sport," that I bought in late November when I wandered into the dealer just to say hello. It's in the process of becoming an XL1200S/T, a long-distance blue-highway tourer and very capable daily rider. I bought it on the Saturday after Thanksgiving, rode it home Sunday, and took the following Friday off to go for a good long ride. On Saturday it snowed, and here we are the next day, engine running, warming up for a pre-long-winter's-nap oil change.

My favorite bikes have always been sport-tourers. About eight years ago, I found myself suddenly in need of a touring-capable bike, and although I was putting a few thousand miles a month on my Ducati SS750ie, working as a Case Manager, I didn’t fancy taking it up around the Gaspe Peninsula loaded with luggage; my wrists were suffering as it was, and I would be traveling with a group of women that were mostly riding cruisers. Not much likelihood that the windblast on my chest would be lightening my wrists up very much. My new girlfriend had just given up her Low Rider for a Ducati ST4 that she was totally in love with, and I wholeheartedly approved, as I was still suffering from anti-Harley prejudice, a common malady of sportbike riders. Well, come on, on our first ride –er, date- together, some piece of chrome trim fell off her bike, and as I was riding pretty close (lovely view, that), my evasive maneuvers weren’t sufficient to avoid having the bouncing hunk of metal shear off one of my turn signals. Well, of course we’re still together, why do you ask?


Mary was getting the ST4 set up for the trip, and we were standing at the parts counter of BCM Ducati in Laconia, NH, talking to Chris, the Parts Dominatrix. I don’t know what it is, but the women behind the parts counters at many motorcycle shops are incredible. Carly, at Second Wind is often dressed in 40’s or 50’s high style (but with pink hair), and Rose down at Max’s? In black Hot Chillys top and bottom and a camo Utilikilt? My word. But Chris was the best. When BCM changed hands (ahem) Chris went to driving big rigs over-the-road, but nobody could ever top Chris’s knowledge- or attitude. If you needed something, you got it. If you didn’t need it, you didn’t get it. Simple as that. When I first came face-to-face with her, she scared the shit out of me, but, well, it didn’t take long. . . a few weeks later, I walked into the shop and asked, “Where’s the big blonde bitch?” Eric and Jay didn’t look up, or even flinch. Eric continued working intently on the forks he was revalving, but quietly observed that if either of them gave any evidence that they knew who I was talking about by acknowledging the question, they would be killed. Okay, back to the story I was telling. Not that I’m in a hurry, mind. I’m sitting at the dealer where Mary bought her new truck when the Tundra’s undercarriage rusted out, and where they dented the running board doing the first service. So, they’re replacing that, and I’m sitting here a’blogging of a Saturday morning.

So. Where were we? Oh, yeah, at the parts counter. Mary was saying that I should buy an ST, and Chris said, “Yeah, you should by mine,” and she named a price that I couldn’t walk away from. Oh, my. A 2002 ST4s. A racebike with luggage. 115 bhp in stock trim, which this was not. Bruce and Susie have a pic of them on an ST at Barber in a big sweeper, two knees down. I bought it, the trip was wonderful. . . except that a little problem with the ECU would prevent the bike from starting hot. Every gas stop, lunch stop, rest stop, turned into a 2-hour cooling-off period. After the trip, the ECU was replaced, and the problem went away- for a while. We’re daily commuters. Daily. Not when it’s not raining, not when it’s not too cold, or too windy, or whatever. Once the season is here, four-wheeled-vehicles are only for going to the dump or hauling the race trailer. The bikes have to start in the morning, get us to work, get us home. The final straw came one day not long after the fourth or fifth ECU had been installed (OEM, aftermarket, it didn’t matter), and the bike started bucking and snorting in the first few miles of an all-day Saturday ride. BCM once again, yet another ECU installed, another day spent at the shop. On the way home, I needed to get Mary’s attention, and touched the horn button. The engine cut out. I released the horn button, the engine cut back in. “History,” I said. I can’t have an unreliable bike. Or, of course, a bike that tempts me into 125mph speeding tickets. . . a story I’ll save for another time.

I dropped by Nate’s shop, National Powersports Distributors in Canterbury (they’re now in Pembroke, drop by, tell ‘em Gail sent ya, they’ll laugh). He had a brand-new BMW R1100S in Pacific Blue that had become an orphan when they closed the corporate BMW shop in Manhattan. Oh, my. What a lovely bike. I broke it in on a trip around the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton, Nova Scotia. Never a hiccup, but in the interests of full disclosure, she did drool a bit from a porous cylinder casting that was later replaced under warranty. A Corbin Canyon Dualsport saddle was a wonderful addition- a Second Wind customer had ordered it- they are not cheap- with color-matched piping (that matched my bike) no less- endured the legendary wait, installed it on the bike, sat on it, pronounced it good, put the original seat back on and headed down to Loudon for a trackday where he proceeded to throw the bike down the track for a total loss. I got it cheap, but my current project (don’t worry, we’ll get to it) will get one even if I do have to pay full price, and Mary just got one for her Sporty. The company has a hard-earned reputation for terrible customer service, but, well, the saddles are works of art and they are comfy. Then came the Ohlins suspension, front and rear. Magic. I was gonna keep this bike. The best-laid plans of dykes on bikes, though, aft gang agley. . . huh? That’s not how it goes?

So, we were down at Max’s while my bike was being serviced. Yeah, we may build our own racebikes, but we normally take our late-model commuters to the dealer. Mary was riding her Multistrada 1000sDS (having traded in her ST). Incredible motor, great handling, weird looks. She loved it, but it had stranded her twice on the way to work. Now, Mary drives a big brown truck. At night. She generally gets home in the wee pre-dawn hours. Getting to work late is not an option. Breaking down on the way home is even worse. Max had a couple of R1200GS demo bikes out front, and Mary wanted to take them out. Ho Hum, the big trailie bloated almost beyond recognition. We took them out, and I wasn’t terribly impressed, but after my S, how could I be? This was a lot like Mary’s Multi, though, only better, and with not only BMW’s legendary reliability (ahem, again), but- shaft drive. No chain to clean and lube when you’ve just ridden home through driving rain at four o’clock in the morning. She traded on the spot, and predicted I’d be buying one within a month. Doubt it, said I. Yeah, I took it for a ride up North Road through the gravel, standing up, feeling like some tank commander. Big deal. Totally unsexy, just a great, big, industrial-looking beast.

The next weekend, we went on an errand run. Mary had forgotten to pick up oil and a filter. . .it’s a tradition, whenever one of us buys a bike, to change the oil, and we needed to pick up something at BCM. First, down through Henniker and Weare to Second Wind for the oil change stuff, since we’d just been to Max’s. We wanted to go out 101 east to 107 (a beautiful road), and we needed to get up to Manchester. I have no memory of how we were trying to get there- probably because so many brain cells were destroyed by the heat that afternoon. Somehow, we wound up on an interminable detour through a residential part of Nashua, creeping along (mostly with engines off) behind an oil truck, at about 100 degrees. We finally found ourselves in recognizable territory and made it to BCM, but the damage had been done. Later on, sitting on the curb outside the Irving station in New Hampton, still trying to rehydrate, I was totally exhausted. Staring at the ground between my knees, I remember saying, “I’m all done.” In a surprised voice, Mary said, “Really? I’m fine.” I was totally flabbergasted. Mary doesn’t usually have anywhere near my riding endurance. It had to be the bike. “I’m gonna get me one of those,” I said, and a few weeks later, I traded my wonderful, beautiful, prized R1100S for a demo R1200GS, again at Max’s.