1. Other folks stay clear, they think you are crazy

2. No bugs to clean off the windsheild

3. People do not expect you to wash the motorcycle

4. When you waive at another rider you know he/she is a kindred spirit

5. You can (hopefully) see the deer beside the road

6. A little extra time at the gas stops to talk to folks also lets your hands and feet warm

7. Coffee tastes better, plus doubles as a hand warmer

8. Opportunity to try out new methods of keeping warm

9. I like to wave at the kids in the back seat of cars, in the winter kids notice you

10. Bridges ice before road sign=Fear Factor

Rule of the Road

by Steve Short

I just witnessed something that I never dreamed would occur. On a Sunday afternoon between football games and NASCAR there were more than five commercials for street motorcycles. My favorite, several black sheep leaving fields, dales, and the back of a trailer truck joining ranks with other black sheep to attend a Harley gathering. Yes, after nearly forty years of riding I think the black sheep analogy may be correct. I admit to being a little different, maybe a couple degrees off center. A part of the mystique of riding two wheels has been that path less traveled. Just as those black sheep were leaving their more numerous paler comrades, we are a group that looks at the center line from a unique perspective.

Assuming you are a fellow baby boomer we have a duty to pass on some of our riding rules. Not the rules a MSF instructor would teach, but the rules of the road. Never pass a fellow rider who is having trouble. Most of us share a long list of cycles owned and subsequent ride history and have progressed to a dependable ride that we hardly give a second thought to starting out on ride across town or cross country. Not so when I was on some tired Harleys and those couple years on Great Britons pride and joy BSA. For a couple of years the word Lucas electrics was a cuss word, with the mean time between failures being measured in terms of miles instead of years. Probably three years before my bride of thirty-five years tied the knot she came to the rescue near Purdy, Missouri when a substantial portion of the wiring harness on a 1967 BSA Spitfire twin went up in smoke.

In the sixties and seventies the typical motorcycle shops were off the beaten path and more often as not a mom and pop establishment. In several the “showroom” was next to the repair department with the smell of new tires, 50 weigh and a pan of used gear oil within inches of the customer. Not like today where we are lucky to have a window to observe the technician practicing his trade. There were no couches with TV’s and coffee, we felt lucky if there was a stool at the parts counter.

Why am I reflecting on the past? Since our past time has become respectable and main stream (read street bikes being advertised during prime time and used in all sorts of advertising for cars, long distance phone service, and medicines) I fear the new rider may not appreciate that feeling of being stranded along side the road, where even if help is on the way it is reassuring to have a rider pull up and ask he/she can be of any help.

This spring Gloria and I were riding to a Tuesday dinner ride and spotted a rider on the side of 65. When we got closer we could see he was in a uniform and holding a radar gun and waving that we did not need to stop. I hope he knew that if he had been in trouble we would have tried to help. When I shared this with retired motor officer Bill Dowdy he stated no one had ever stopped when he was running radar from his motorcycle. I tell myself Bill must have been one of those folks who found ways to conceal 900 pounds of steel along side the road!

In 2004 my riding buddy Mike from Kansas and I were riding our Harley’s to Alaska on the Alcan. Maybe it is the fact gas stations are seventy five miles apart and you go miles and miles without seeing other folks, not even a power pole that folks are more helpful. That day I was in the lead and had just stopped for the omni present road construction and noticed I was riding alone. I waited for several minutes and then decided I must do some back tracking. I found Mike by the side of the road with a lady getting back in her Suburban that was parked just in from of his Ultra. Mike proceeded to tell me his disposable camera had flown out of his pocket and in turning around he got his front wheel in deep gravel and it fell over on him. The rest of the story is he had foot surgery earlier in the year and his left ankle was not 100 percent. In lieu of his riding buddy, a lady stopped and lifted the Ultra off the pinned cyclist. I told him he was lucky because I had tried to lift my Harley before and could do it. In the Yukon folks know that sometimes strangers need help and offer what they can.

Two more incidents occurred on that trip. A young girl in a Bronco hit Mike in Palmer, Alaska. Enough force to break his tour pac and bend the rear fender into the tire. Luckily he did not go down. Well that’s what he told me because I was again riding in the front and never knew that he had been struck. I did recall hearing some tire squealing when I turned off the highway but did not notice the Ultra was not behind me for several miles. Back tracking I found Mike and the sobbing girl by the side of the road waiting for the police to investigate. A borrowed tire iron was used to pry the fender out of the way. Maybe I could be more helpful to riders in need if I keep better track of the folks riding with me.

A few days latter after riding Pacific Coast 1 and the redwoods we were on I-5 just before the long Fourth of July holiday. Cruising along at the legal speed limit I observed the engine speed increase and the sickening feeling that power was not transferred to the pavement. Broken drive belt. Mike could see something was wrong and turned on his flashers as he followed me to the side of the road. He did see the black belt spin off and fall to the concrete. The Harley had about 90,000 on the odometer and we feel the dealership in Grand Prairie, Alberta that had installed the new tire may have over tightened the belt. Oh yea, I did not tell the flat tire story that happened a couple hundred miles outside of Prince George on the way up. We had been warned the Alcan roads could be trouble for tires. While going up a mountain I noticed the back end of “Blue Lady” getting squirrelly. Pulled off to what little shoulder there was, and Mike pulled up behind thinking why in the world would Steve pick such a dangerous place to park. The gravel sub grade trailed off sharply not leaving much room to park the cycle off the pavement. Good thing there was not much traffic. I have two tow insurance companies but not much good on the Alcan where there is no cell phone coverage. It took several minutes for me to dig a hole in the gravel with my boot so I could get the kick stand down. Before I get the stand deployed Mike has found the hole, retrieved the 12 volt air pump and the tubeless tire plug kit. During this time a fellow Harley rider has stopped, we recall waving at him earlier on the road as we have already traveled a couple of thousand miles on Canadian roads. He is from Winnipeg and after determining we have things under control he motors on. We talk to him again in Wasilla, Alaska. That tire is plugged but still leaks so I have to add air from the air pump every morning, then morning and evening, and then three times a day. The tire that was installed a couple of days before departing and had lots of tread was changed a few thousand miles latter on the return trip. Mike also developed a slow leak so we both had new tires installed in Grand Prairie, Canada. What lesson to be learned here, try to anticipate the weaknesses and be prepared. I carry tire plugging kits, yes plural, CO2 kit, 12 volt compressor, some tools (do not know what to do with them however) and spare gas, about a half gallon. On the Harley I also had a spare clutch cable, spare clutch and brake levers, multimeter, and duct tape. Even though we had the flat tire under control it was nice to have the rider pull in behind us and see we were ok.

Speaking of flat tires, remember that bride of thirty-five years. In the summer of 1972, when she was truly a newlywed of nearly a year we took off on a summer vacation that ended up to be eight thousand miles and nearly a month long on a 1971 R75/5 BMW. We had a little over two hundred dollars and a Texaco gas credit card that we did not use on the entire trip. Gloria had just finished her first year of teaching ($5,700 annual salary and yours truly a graduate student.) Back when we both camped and bummed off of relatives we only spent one night in a motel, that in Strawberry, Colorado when it got so cold one night we both wanted a warm place to sleep. I can still recall the excitement of taking a shower in a well used cabin and sleeping on a real bed. The trip included Mexico, California, Oregon, and back to home base, Fair Grove, Missouri. Three flats, Stockton, California, Salt Lake City, and Miami, Oklahoma. Maybe that is why she does not travel with me as much now. That and getting sand in her sleeping bag in Texas. Back then I could remove the wheel, find the leak, repair the tube and pump it up (some BMW’s had a bicycle type pump attached to the frame) and be back on the road with only dirty hands and sweaty brow. To tell the truth we rode to a Honda dealer in Stockton, pulled into a gas station in Salt Lake City and used their air, and with Gloria running beside the motorcycle with a rear tire that was nearly flat, made it to a Fire Station in Miami where the firemen rolled out an air compressor.

Sorry for the travelogue, had better get back to the subject at hand. What stories do I have from stopping for a sidelined motor rider (1) Harley rider who had just finished painting his motorcycle. I saw an oil trail leading to his cycle on I-44 near Lebanon. His buddies were coming with oil; it appeared a loose oil line had blown off. (2) A middle aged man on Highway 65 had stopped to locate some sunglasses that had blown out of his pocket. (3) A Hispanic gentleman on a Sportster who had run out of gas in the dark early morning hours in the Texas hill country. He was glad that I carry extra gas in MSR bottles. The reflection of the next towns’ lights could be seen on the horizon. It was probably less than ten miles away but that is a long ways to walk. From my experience, do not ask how, cycles usually fall short of the next gas station by fifteen miles or less. (4) Harley couple from Michigan had a flat tire on the Oregon high desert. My tire repair inventory would not help because the tire had partially wrapped around the wheel. Folks had promised to send a wrecker at the next town. I gave them a two liter of water even though they had some smaller bottles of water. (5) Harley rider from California changing into rain gear on 96 Highway. (6) Numerous folks just taking a rest or a smoke break.

Notice how usually it is not an emergency or a real problem. Usually there is nothing for us to do and have never been cussed at for stopping. May you never have the need for me to stop, but please think about stopping if you see a black sheep standing by a two wheeler.