The Ego Trip Trip

THE EGO TRIP TRIP

Herb Gunnison

The reason I know it didn't happen in 1972 is because I was riding a Moto Guzzi Ambassador that year. And the reason I know it didn't happen in 1974 is because that is the year BMW put an auto-lock on its starter systems so you couldn't start a Beemer in gear unless

you held the clutch lever in, and if my bike had had this setup there'd be nothing to recall after all these years.

I'm sure it happened in 1973.

There was a time when I saw nothing wrong with remembering the milestones in your life by recalling various motorcycles

which have contributed so much to mak ing milestones out of what. in automobiles, would merel\ be miles. Nor did I see anything wrong with keeping tabs on the past by recollecting motorcycle accesso ries. Thus I remember one year because of the 450-18 knobby. another has become~ the fairing revolution year, and recently we have all lived through the mag wheel year.

As I used to see it, it was better to handle the past with positive recollections like these rather than to remember a certain year for negative reasons, such as the Cuban Missile crisis or a specific scientific prediction of the ending of the world.

But whenever 1 think back on 1973. and that Beemer that could be started in gear. I'm not so sure . . .

It began innocently enough. I was cruising north on highway Y in the state of X when I came to the intersection where interstate Z crosses Y and gives the rider who might be getting tired of north a chance to align himself and his bike w ith the eastern or western quarters of the earth.

Perhaps you've been there. If you have, you might remember the Crossroads Cafe, which is only three-fifths of a gearbox away from the intersection.

I had already exceeded the 150 miles since breakfast required by the "Phase One: Morning'' stage of my coffee break ritual and since the cafe sign was an enormous neon coffee cup—inviting as all get-

"I've always considered the Rolls Royce to be the Cadillac of automobiles."

out—taking the off-ramp was not a matter of free will, but was as inevitable as fate.

The Crossroads Cafe was set well back from the highway at the top of a long, sloping, and optimistically large concrete parking area. It was built entirely of glasswell. that's a lie. but it did give you the feeling you wouldn't want to be caught near it with a rock in your hand. The front was almost all plate glass and because of its location on the hill, it provided a spectacular panoramic view of the parking lot and the Eternal Clover Slaughterhouse across the street.

On the oil-splotched concrete apron in front of the cafe there was a single car. a Cadillac, and 1 banked around in a 180degree parking turn and eenterstanded my BMW beside it.

As I stood beside my bike taking my helmet off and my earplugs qut I did a little think jqb qn the expression "the BMW is the Cadillac of motorcycles." 1 could never understand this analogy because I've always considered the Rolls Royce to be the Cadillac of automobiles. But even that marque doesn't fit the analogy because the Rolls is not a sports car. Better. I thought, to call the BMW the BMW of motorcycles: This not only makes a more accurate figure of speech.

but is also literally true.

As I pulled the cafe door open the closing apparatus above my head made a hissing sound like a Metzeler with a spike in it.

Inside. I noticed the building was in the form of an "L" with the counter and booths to the right and along the window, and tables and chairs for formal dining in the back.

A large grey-haired man. a man large in all dimensions, was sitting in one of the booths with a smoking cup of coffee in one hand and a donut glazed with white ice in the other. Obviously, I thought, the owner of the Cadillac. His bearing, his impeccable Hickey Freeman suit, the expensive rings on practically all of his fingers, suggested another analogy: He was to the human race what the Cadillac was to the automobile.

Because the woman behind the counter had as much gray hair as I had and was therefore without interest I amused myself by trying to size up the human Cadillac. Have you ever entertained yourself by looking at a man and trying to imagine how he would make out on an enduro, or studied a guy's face and the way he handled himself generally and wondered if he could throw a Frisbee?

Well. I looked at this man and tried to imagine him on an enduro, or riding a BMW, or throwing a Frisbee, or doing anything important.

1 couldn't.

All I could imagine, and this struck me as a certainty, was that if he did own a BMW. he would have the shop towel in the tool kit dry cleaned.

While I was thus mentally breaking the poor guv down, for no useful purpose, suddenly our eyes met and he gave me a warm forgiving smile and winked. It was such a disarming greeting that I was ashamed of my first impression of him.

I drank my black coffee in misery, hit the restroom, and left.

Once again the front door mechanism bled air noisily, but this time it sounded like a sigh.

Before resuming my trip I performed my safety-check ritual on the BM. I switched the turn indicator to the left and right and walked around the bike checking the flashing lights. Then I depressed the brake pedal with my extended right foot while leaning back to make sure the brake light was on.

While I was doing this I happened to glance back at the cafe and noticed that the Cadillac owner had been watching my every move with a look that was a mixture of dreams and unmistakable envy.

Now. although I'd rather maintain a pet dinosaur than own a Cadillac. I have to admit that it was a heady feeling to be envied by a Cadillac owner.

I owed this man something.

Figuring the only way I could pay him back for the unkind thoughts I had about him was to help him with his dreams, I decided to put on a show that he could enjoy vicariously.

Moving smartly down the parking apron to the street. I then stopped dead, feet up. and cocked the handlebars full lock to the right in my best touring simulation of an airborne motocrosser. Just as the bike decided to fall over, by chance, to the right. I flipped the right turn indicator, released the clutch, and made a graceful sweeping turn to the right. Then I deftly snicked the clusters. 2. 3. 4. until I w'as out of sight of the Crossroads Cafe.

The only flaw in my performance was that to get back on highway Y I should have turned left.

Well, so what? I could get some gas in the town ahead and Texaco doesn't seem to mind if you charge 50c worth of gas. I took my sweet time getting the gas, hit the restroom again—doing about as much good for myself as the gas had done for the bike—and when I passed the cafe a while later the Cadillac was gone.

"The only flaw in my performance was that to get back on highway Y I should have turned left."

Back cruising again. I had a little talk with myself. Why had I acted like an idiot? Why. for that matter, did most of my enduro crashes occur at spectator points?

There is a side to human nature that people don't like to talk about, much less admit to. It has to do with creating fantasies to indulge the ego. Even in the now well-entrenched cultural revolution it is still a delicate, sensitive, and highly personal phenomenon that I probably would avoid if 1 wasn't getting paid to write about it.

On the other hand. I thought as I cruised along, perhaps this subject is losing some of its bad vibes. Bars are coming down all over the place.

Fook at the new sexual freedom. I told myself: At the rate those mores are easing up it is only a matter of time before necrophilism becomes legal as long as it is between consenting adults.

Compared with a raunchy coupling like that, an occasional harmless motorcycle fantasy would be as innocent as two angels holding hands. Besides, fantasies are ir nowadays and one has to be careful not to let the world pass him by. I decided to pass these insights along to my fellow motorcy> clists when I got home.

Why should Playboy readers have all the fun? Are Cycle World readers orphans, for crying out loud?

Look, I said to myself as I detoured around a bridge-building project, suppose a guy buys a silver motorcycle and outfits himself with a matching set of leathers and full coverage helmet and imagines he is a knight in shining armor (or, as Henry Manney would probably put it, as Lohengrin). What's wrong with that? Who does it hurt?

Come to think of it, Lohengrin was a hell of a nice guy, and so was his old man. Parsifal. Right, Henry?

OK. Now let's suppose the shining armor freak was in my boots, right now, and saw that bulldozer over there. Would it be a crime for him to imagine that it was a dragon and that his helmet was a magic tarnhelm which changed him from Lohengrin to Siegfried so he could slip back at night and slay the Fafner-dragon by removing its distributor cap?

Of course not. 1 go through this drill every time I see a bulldozer and look at how well adjusted / am.

1 envisioned Mr. Editor Girdler hiring a fantasy expert—a pro—to field questions from disturbed bikers.

When Ed cleared the detour I composed a note and mentally filed it away just in case:

"Dear Zoroaster Hollandaise: 1 know that ships are supposed to be feminine, but my problem is that whenever I'm on an enduro and my bike and I hit the whoopde-doos 1 get the feeling that my bike is feminine and get embarrassed. Can you help me? Signed, Name Withheld."

Then I imagined the reply:

"Dear Name Withheld: I'm sorry to have to tell you that bikes are feminine. However, the solution to your problem is simple. Ride the whoop-de-doos on the pegs. You should be doing this anyway. Signed, Zorry."

And thus I cruised along, slapsticking my way through the countryside and laughing all over my jean jacket in the Beemer-induced breeze.

For the next 10 days I cruised from A to Z. delighted with my new touring fantasies, which were hanging out all over the place. I figured a CB radio would only interfere with what I had going and decided to put my money into a Fuzz Buster instead.

Then one morning, 150 miles from a late breakfast, I found myself cruising south on highway Y, in the state of X. and approaching the intersection of interstate Z.

This time, I know you've been there.

Because of my late breakfast it was almost noon and the Crossroads Cafe parking lot was full. Fortunately I found a vacant spot right in front of the cafe and

centerstanded my BM alongside a new

Chevy.

I started to do a little think job on the BMW and the Chevy, but decided the hell with it: It was asking too much.

The door closing piston was back to sounding like a Metzeler with a spike in it, the cafe was packed, and because I was self-conscious about just getting coffee during the rush hour I drank it quickly and matched its price with my tip.

Nothing cheap about me when my self image is at stake.

Before resuming my trip I performed my safety-check ritual on the BMW.

However, my ritual had changed somewhat in the past 10 days.

This time I checked the turn indicators and brakelight, as before, but only for starters. Then, with the front brake on I rocked the bike forward and checked the fork action. It was snubbed both ways: Forks were OK. Next I ran the throttle up to 2000 rpm and locked it against the stop with my thumb and turned the handlebars both ways to full lock. The rpm didn't vary so the cables weren't binding.

Then I got down on one knee and slowly rotated the rear tire while checking for

"Why should Playboy readers have all the fun? Are Cycle World readers orphans, for crying out loud?"

nails, glass, and cuts. While I was at it I tried moving the wheel sideways to check the bearings. I repeated this inspection on the front wheel.

While I was performing these safety checks I carefully avoided looking at that big plate glass window where all the booths and people were.

Never do that when you're safety checking your bike. That is what fantasies are for.

It was not hard to imagine what was going on behind the glass. It was lined with faces. People were pushing and shoving. Everyone had lost interest in his lunch and was crowding behind the glass eating his heart out with envy. Someone went back and told everyone in the dining room to come and look what was going on in the parking lot. and they all came.

Suddenly I noticed that the oil splotches on the concrete apron had a green hue which was not the color of used oil. and then I observed that a green haze was filtering through the window.

This envy, I thought, is a kind of pain in the mind that motorcyclists give their less venturesome neighbors.

When the green glow' had reached its richest and most vibrant shade I decided to

check the weather, because as we all know it vitally affects motorcyclists.

I directed my eyes aloft with the learned and expectant expression of a NASA meteorologist releasing a weather balloon.

For an encore I turned my visored helmet full profile to the cafe and gazed thoughtfully off into the horizon, feeling and looking, I hoped, like Balboa at the moment of discovering the Pacific Ocean, standing silent upon a peak in Darien.

Fully satisfied that it was now safe to go for it, I threw my leg over the saddle and made myself comfortable while I carefully pulled on my new black gloves. I flexed my fingers a few times and then cupped my hands and gently embraced the grips, while apologizing to my bike for doing this with my gloves on.

When I pushed the starter button the transmission was in first gear, but the engine caught anyway. The bike lurched forward and caught me off balance so I quickly put my foot down but it must have landed on an extra-green oil splotch because it slipped out from under me.

Down we went.

The left jug center-punched my instep and pinned me to the ground like a grotesque science-fiction swamp creature, brought to bay at last and lying helpless on the ground, writhing in its own green slime.

It had all happened quickly, but thanks to my years of enduro riding, my electricwire nerves, and the reflex conditioning I'd developed from more than my share of endos, I had enough presence of mind to panic just before I hit the ground.

But that was nothing. Physical panic is no big deal because it has short duration. You can't really think panic, you can only recall it, and by then you're usually home free. Rarely, usually once in a lifetime, do you get in a situation where after a physical crisis the next thing you know, you don't know nothing.

Anyway, lying on the ground looking up at the front brake lever silhouetted against the clouds, with my meteorological balloon floating away like a broken ball-end in my weather-assessed sky, with the Beemer engine and my imagination racing out of control. 1 began the uneven fight against the unholiest terror of all, psychological panic, which is not of short duration but clouds your life forever like the half-life of radioactive waste.

And I heard that dammed cafe door make its Metzeler noise and then the sound of quick steps, and I thought I heard someone laugh, and now. years later I keep trying to slam the door on this experience and not remember 1973 because it was the year before BMW put the auto-lock on the starter, but remember it because of something I can handle, like the Cuban Missile crisis or the end of the world. 0