For Adults Only

FOR ADULTS ONLY

UP FRONT

Allan Girdler

On Friday Nov. 26, 1982 my youngest son went to the post office. He filled out a form, signed it and gave it to the clerk. He was registered for the draft. I still have three sons and a daughter. Because the youngest is in school and hits me up for lunch and gas money, I still have a dependent. But I no longer have any children.

This personal landmark is made public here because a few days prior to this fateful date I heard from a man who asked two questions and hurt my feelings.

Seemed like a nice guy, too. He has a 12-year-old son who is nuts about motorcycles. The father rode in his younger days and he wondered 1 ) what are my thoughts about kids on bikes and 2) if he gets his son a bike he’d like to go along and do I have any thoughts on what would be a good choice in secondhand dual-purpose machines?

Well! As befits a man who puts his picture in the magazine every month, I take myself seriously. How could this man not know? The first story I ever sold to Cycle World, ten years ago, was about how I’d bought my middle son a mini motocrosser.

But on reflection and after research, the hurt feelings were a figment of my imagination. It turns out the concerned father doesn’t get the magazine. Instead, egged on by his son, he’d been reading our Introduction to Motorcycling. There was no way for him to know that the kids in the pictures are mostly my kids and the father teaching is me.

Further, I had forgotten (a sign of advancing age) about the compression of time. Not everybody who reads Cycle World has been doing so since 1962. Kids and bikes have been reported here at length, but obviously those who weren’t here at the time don’t know.

So. Inspired by the landmark mentioned above, some thoughts on motorcycles as a family sport:

On the afternoon of Nov. 26, 1982 my youngest son, my wife and I loaded our truck for the trip to Barstow and our annual rendezvous with that retired racer, fighter for freedom and all-round good man known professionally as the Phantom Duck of the Desert. We had two bikes, my own XL250 and a newer XL250 owned by my middle son. He’s working construction back east and won’t know I’d loaned the scoot to his kid brother until he reads this and boy, is he gonna be ticked.

But I had my reasons.

It ain’t easy, being the youngest.

When the older kids got their first motorcycles we lived in the country and they could ride out of the driveway and into the wilderness.

But the youngest wasn’t old enough to ride until we’d moved into town. His dirt riding began and ended with rides in dad's truck. When he rammed the enbankment I was right there. When he went over the cliff (I am not making up any of this) I heard the silence within seconds. He had the benefit of my full attention, which must have been harder on him than it was on me.

He inherited his brother’s 50. He learned to work on that, and we sold it for a fair price. Then came an XR75, and he washed and polished and tightened and we got top dollar when that was too small and learned about lights and stuff on an XL 185 and we got top dollar for that one, too.

Barstow to Vegas has bothered me for several years. Not the ride. That began as a memorial to the race, inspired because the Phantom Duck asked if anybody would like to go trailing on the old race course, as a protest to the event’s death at the hands of the BLM and the Eco-Nazis. At first the ride was so small the Duck himself handed out finisher pins, which I still cherish. Then, and I’m proud to say this magazine helped, the annual ride became political, a raiser of consciousness and funds.

By that time my youngest was old enough to go. Except that he was handicapped. What happened where which year, I forget now (age, I know, don’t remind me.)

But on the ride this year, I marked each memory as we passed.

Soda Dry Lake. That was when my son-in-law’s engine seized. I had to take the pavement to bring the truck. The kid was too young to have a license, so he stayed behind and missed the finish.

Basin Road and the giant endo. I didn’t see it, thank goodness. But the guys behind me said it was something; bang into a rock, up into the air, full forward flip, down unhurt. He said he’d heard a rattle so he looked down and next he knew he was flying. One of the things one learns is concentration.

Cima Road. We were sitting this year waiting for our wife/mother/crew and we remembered, somewhere out there in the bushes is a tire pump. I threw it as far as I could because it didn’t work. Actually, it did. The flat tire didn’t hold air because we’d pinched the tube, but we didn’t know that until we were back in the truck, too late for the finish.

Halloran Summit. A fair and square loss. Two flats and a ruined rim on a rock uphill that also put dear ol’ dad onto the ground. Reason for all the damage was that he was on a 75 with little wheels, racing full speed to keep up with the old guys on big wheels.

He never complained about any of this, but I figured he was entitled to a finish. Ride your brother’s bike, I said, but I don’t know what shape it’s in. He knows where the tools are. I heard him start it up, but I didn’t watch and I didn’t check his check.

So it came to pass that at 3:30 p.m. Nov. 27 we rode into the finishing area. We jumped the last hummock side by side, he swung right and I swung left, we cut two synchronized brodies and skidded to a stop at the back of the truck. It was, you might say, the end of childhood.

Worry? I should say so. But I’ve added up 24 years of having children in the house. My daughter broke her arm. On a bicycle. The oldest boy got a finger mashed. While working at a print shop. The middle boy got a bad concussion. His pal rolled his truck on a curve and my son was thrown out. The youngest boy has a scar on his face. He was running across the family room, tripped and hit a corner of the fireplace. Motorcycles? Cuts, bruises and abrasions.

I’m not saying bikes are safe. On the ride this year, on another part of the course, our ad director, a grown man and experienced rider, hit a whoop wrong and got a dislocated shoulder, sprained wrist and cracked ribs. It happens, it can happen to you and it can happen to the kids.

I lost sight of the kid in the dust cloud on the dry lake. As the air cleared, I looked around. No kid. But there on my left was an adult, waving at me. Yellow Moto 3, red Honda, I’ll be damned. Funny how grown up they are when you don’t know you’re looking at a kid.

You’ll only see it once, dad, and you can’t afford to miss it.