Advice To the Lovelorn

ADVICE TO THE LOVELORN

UP FRONT

Allan Girdler

Today’s example of life’s little lessons begins with an incredible streak of bad luck. We destroyed the cover bike in a testing session at the track. Then we went to the desert to photograph enduro bikes and had two flat tires within minutes. (Yeah, I got one but it wasn’t my bike and anyway, nails in the desert are hazards against which no precaution avails.) Then the longterm Kawasaki GPz1100 was stolen from the airport, never mind that the forks were locked, it was parked in plain view and the incident was so rare (according to the police) that they wouldn’t accept a theft report for two days, telling me instead to go and look again.

Then Steve didn’t successfully defend his Vetter Economy Run trophy. The account of that follows in due course, but for now, what he won’t tell you is that we did have a winner. Sort of.

Me. Because Steve had rigged a Yamaha Exciter 185 as a thrifto-scoot and I didn’t have anything to ride, I took the longterm Yamaha 650 assigned to him and won my class. Well, a class, the one for 750 Yamahas and no, I didn’t ask if there were any other entries, who cares? My bank cashed the check and I had a wonderful time.

Kimball hates to lose. The 650 is in his charge so no sooner had we got back to the office than he claimed it for some evaluations, which left me with the 185.

First surprise, it’s fun. Even despite its being geared taller than the Boston Celtics, once I learned to wind the thing tight in first so as to leap across the gap between first and second, to not bother selecting top until I was doing 50, I began to like the 185. No grunting and heaving to back out of parking spaces, no great burst of power followed by great handfuls of brake. The 185 is perfectly suited to city life.

Or errands. My truck has been in need of professional help for weeks but 1 didn’t get around to it because of the bother of getting it there and me back, me there to collect it and so forth. The 185 is a good auxiliary. Roll it into the truck and away you go, like J.P Morgan and his yacht with launch attached.

Now. Most of the time I am aboard something in the hardcore line, as in the late lamented GPz or sports 550 or my XL250 with desert tank, high pipe and knobbies. I am also one of the world’s least patient people, devoted to slicing through all that dumb traffic clogging the road between me and where Em going.

As fellow practitioners know, this isn't a great way to make friends. Sometimes people tell you what they think, more often they sulk or wait for the chance to fill you in on the details of the terrible accident suffered by their wife’s brother’s next-door-neighbor’s son, the one who used to ride motorcycles.

But on the 185, I caught people smiling at me.

There 1 was in my full coverage helmet and flaming dayglow riding jacket, leather gloves and sturdy boots, the very picture of a Serious Biker . . . perched on this scrappy little device. The 185 is of course a Special, Yamaha’s version of the laidback image that those drive-in movies have persuaded the public motorcycling is all about. Except that the 185 is so small the tank doesn’t even rate peanut status, the apehangar bars are more like a trapeze for hamsters and when it comes to royalty, the seat isn’t so much King as it is Prince of Wales, the new one I mean.

And there 1 was, riding on something that should carry a cheerleader or maybe a surfer kid in shorts and rubber sandals.

I know why they were smiling.

They thought 1 was cute.

No offense meant, by them or by me. The 1 85 does its assigned job perfectly. It looks the way buyers want, and you can’t blame the machine or the maker for that.

Further, I realized I had an advantage here. Several months back we reported on sidecars and one of the findings was that people, meaning the general public, love combinations. They are disarming. They pose no threat. Far from being crazies or terrorists sidecar fans are perceived as loveable eccentrics and they get better treatment than bikers as a class.

So did I.

As mentioned, the gearing is odd and launching the 185 takes a good first move; lots of revs and don’t hang back. (I suspected some of what follows, or I should have. One morning Steve was on the 185 and I had my 250 and 1 got him at the light, never mind that he really hates to lose and wound the engine to 12,000 at least.)

I began weaving through the most impossible jams, secure in my status as No Threat. Not only did 1 get right up there where 1 had no right to be, when I arrived the guy in the truck to my right asked where I got that little fairing.

Lined up for the start at the next light, no kidding, the man in the car to my left saw the yellow come on for the cross> street, the stoplight racer’s version of the legitimate Christmas Tree, and he spoke across the car to tell me:

“Get ready.”

Which I already was, of course, and away I went, ahead of the pack again.

This was really neat. What a discovery. I already knew that in Japan, for instance, there is a special lane in cities, reserved for motorcycles. They are not only allowed, they are encouraged to get in that lane and go to the front of the line, so as to not impede the flow of less agile traffic. In England every motorcyclist runs the maze of semi-mobile cars every chance they get and again, nobody minds or complains.

I used to think that this was because the Japanese are polite and the English sporting. No. They are, but beyond that all but a handful of bikes in Japan are little more than scooters. We hear about Bonnies and Velos doing the town but in fact the median motorcycle in England is a 50, a mo-ped or no-ped.

What it all means is that little motorcycles ridden by people too big for them are no threat. They don’t make people jealous, they inspire the reaction usually reserved for a 14-year-old growing his first mustache or not filling her first pair of stockings.

What a wonderful trick, I gloated to myself, I must do this more often.

Then I rolled up to a light. Next to me was a VW. A Beetle. True, it had some fancy exhaust pipes but still, a VW Beetle, lowest of the low. When I had an MG permanently coated with rubber dust deposited by every passing Dodge, Ford, Chevy, Jaguar or Porsche, I could always look forward to my next VW.

The light changed. I shot off the line, wound tight in first. The VW gained a few feet. I slammed into second, and the Beetle became an insolent yellow speck.

Tomorrow our replacement GPzllOO arrives and I can hardly wait.

Forget what they told you. Love doesn’t conquer everything. Love can’t even beat a VW and if that’s the case, I vote for power. I9