September 2012 - CityBike

HERTFELDER
It was after our enduro club’s gavelhammer
contests—probably the night
Fritas proposed starting C riders first
to give them an easier trail to ride, and
some of us could see them getting pushed
to ride over their heads by faster riders
who would use them for traction after they
went down. Gary Noble drifted over to the
“Senior Members Only” table and asked
me if I might pit for him at the Speedsville
Two-Day Qualifier.
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It
Sharing the Gold
was like asking me if I’d like to help him
spend the $6 million he’d just won in the
State lottery.
It’s probably unnecessary, but I’ll explain
what a Qualifier is: It’s a step in selecting
which riders will represent the Unites
States in the annual Six Days Enduro. You
might call it a sort of Olympic tryout.
All dirt riders, regardless of ability, harbor
dreams of competing in the ISDE. The
purpose of the Qualifiers is to weed out the
hotshots who come out of the woodwork,
win an occasional National enduro and
then spend the next three days OD-ing on
Tylenol in a bedroom where the Ben Gay
fumes are peeling the wallpaper off. The
last time I dreamed of participating in a Six
Days ride was just after I’d zeroed the first
two checkpoints at an enduro—and just
before I hour-ed out at the third.
September 2012 | 24 | CityBike.com
I agreed to pit for Gary with only two
requests: that he and I have his motorcycle
110-percent ready and in my van by the
Thursday before the Qualifier and that he
had himself 110-percent ready, especially
his hands, when he left the start line. My
goal on Thursday was to get the motorcycle
away from Gary so that he could get his
mind off it and relax for 48 hours without
running to his garage to see if he had really
tightened the frammazant nuts.
It also made it easier for me to run out
to the van to see if I had tightened the
frammazant nuts.
My concern about his hands made Gary
smile because he already had the problem
covered. He’d been using a pair of springsqueeze
grips that produced a fine row of
calluses on his palms and a passable strip of
gristle along the inside of each thumb.
Too often, riders prepare for a two-day by
running, jogging and doing lots of sit-ups
and push-ups only to quit halfway into the
second day because their soft hands have
been tenderized and look like something
ready to grill. Those of us who ride the Six
Days of Michigan know how to keep the
calluses all year long—some use springsqueeze
grippers and others wind a weight
on a string up a piece of broom handle.
I prefer to take the power steering belt off
my van and carry it under the driver’s seat.
This not only develops calluses but also
tends to discourage folks from borrowing
my van when they find they can work up a
pretty good sweat just getting the thing out
of the apartment parking lot.
Speaking of the Michigan Six Days, if I ever
discover a cure for monkey butt you’ll read
about it in the Michigan Journal of Medicine
and treatment programs will be available
without a prescription at my address.
Thursday afternoon, after one brain-fade
type glitch with a new exhaust pipe, we
loaded Gary’s XR250 into my van, and
he knew he could get that off his mind.
The motorcycle would be ready and as
well maintained as I could manage both
mornings of the Qualifier.
I prefer to take the power steering belt off my van and carry it under the
driver’s seat. This not only develops calluses but also tends to discourage folks
from borrowing my van when they find they can work up a pretty good sweat
just getting the thing out of the apartment parking lot.
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I also took along a street full-face helmet,
fully prepared to ride the motorcycle to
Speedsville in the event something nasty
happened to my van.
Friday evening we camped out in the
requisite Speedsville torrential rainstorm
and enjoyed every drop because any rider
prefers mud to dangerous dust conditions.
The Speesdville pit areas resembled the
road to Baja, and on Day One Gary seemed
to get stronger and more rested at each
fuel, chocolate and water stop. He basically
cruised too a Day One bronze finish: the
only repair needed on the XR was to run a
hacksaw down the jaw of the shift lever to
tighten it on the splines.
When we discovered Gary had taken
a gold at the end of Day Two, I knew
exactly how he felt; a happy brew of
elation, accomplishment and pride
swelling in his heart.
You see, the same happy brew was also
swelling in my heart, but mine was a
thicker, tastier and warmer brew that had
been simmering for a long, long, time.
For a copy of Ed’s latest book, 80.4 Finish Check,
send $29.95 with suggested inscription to Ed
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maynard HERSHON
Loyal readers will recall that when I
advertised my Triumph Thruxton for
sale a few years ago, I was surprised
by the uniform demographic of my potential
buyers. I’d expected an old-time rider or
two, guys who might remember Triumph
twin glory days. Guys like me.
No one remotely like me answered my ads.
No one over 35 answered my ads.
Remarkably, I felt, each of the guys who
responded to my ad was the same guy,
within a few years of the same age, within
a few thousand dollars per year of the same
income, within a few millimeters of the
same hair length…and they all bought their
clothes at the same place.
Then my friend Aaron told me he was
selling his turbo Audi station wagon. He
mentioned in passing that the various
guys who came to check out his Audi were
all the same guy – only the names were
different.
They weren’t
the same guys
who came
to see my
Thruxton or
the guy who
bought it, but in
many ways they
were nearly
identical to one another, so much so that
Aaron remarked on it.
Last week I noted that just a block down
the hill from our place in central Denver,
in front of an apartment house occupied
by youthful graphic designers and their
friends, three motorcycles were parked
against the curb in neat formation, like
police Harleys outside a doughnut shop.
First I noticed the orderly parking.
Then I noted that the three bikes were
fundamentally the same. They were a
naked Buell twin, a KTM Duke hooligan
single and a Ducati Monster. Each had a
single front disk and a small fairing in front
of its instruments.
They were not Japanese. They were not
equipped with luggage or any sort of useful
accessories. They were not intended for
travel or sport, is my hunch, but for city
transport and appearances at Facebook
Generation gathering places.
None of the three was what you or I
would expect to see there, in front of that
apartment building. No dual-sports, no
SV650, no old Japanese Four.
I’ve watched. There is never a time when
all three bikes are absent from that curb. I
have never seen any one of them in motion
but I would bet their riders are again…
pretty much the same guy.
I’d say the three guys had never
met before they bought their
bikes. They had never talked
about bikes among themselves.
And yet they bought very similar
motorcycles—motorcycles with the same
job descriptions, the same look in profile,
the same relationships between seats and
bars and pegs.
No wonder so much money is made dividing
us into demographic consumer groups; we
are ever-so predictable as consumers. Tell
companies who produce advertising a few
things about yourself, or just let them find
out for themselves via your computer, and
they can predict what you’ll buy. Especially,
it seems, if you’re young and urban and
spend your life online.
Were we, in our relative motorcycling
youth, just as predictable? We’d have hated
the thought.
We’d have flat rejected the idea that
anyone could predict anything about
us. Especially that we’d become riders,
flaunting rebel souls. We weren’t
predictable; hell, we rode motorcycles.
In the U.S, after the war but before Honda
and the “nicest people,” there were Harley
riders, Triumph
riders and BSA
riders. We
Triumph riders
recognized
BSA riders
as our
unenlightened
cousins, but
we had hardly
crossed paths with Harley riders.
No one knew if you’d be
a Johnny Mathis fan, a
Hank Williams fan or a
Gene Vincent fan.
The Same Guy
We figured there were huge cultural
differences between us and those
guys. We might have lived in the same
neighborhoods, gone to the same
schools and hung out at the same drivein
restaurants, but when we began to
define ourselves as motorcyclists we were
strangers to one another.
Maybe we figured we could spot a Harley
rider as he walked down the street in his
work clothes, but no way did we believe
that something in our stars or our buying
habits determined that we’d be Triumph or
BSA guys, not Harley riders. No one knew
enough about us to make such a prediction.
No one imagined there’d ever be a way to
predict—by the time you got your first
real paycheck—which make or model of
anything you’d buy. No one knew if you’d
be a Johnny Mathis fan, a Hank Williams
fan or a Gene Vincent fan. Who could
know those things?
Who could have looked at my friends Phil
and Corey as young men at opposite ends
of this country and known somehow what
would be in their garages today? I believe
both those guys would deny that there
could have been any such predictions, no
matter how vague.
September 2012 | 25 | CityBike.com
Today, someone somewhere can identify
the readers of slick monthlies and niche
motorcycle magazines and websites. That
person knows what the reader rides or
what bike he or she wants to learn about.
That someone bases decisions—about the
worth of advertising in that magazine or
which models to feature in ads there—on
data we are scarcely aware they have.
Are we as consumers far more predictable
than we were 40 years ago? We know that
the science of accumulating and analyzing
information about us, about our interests
and probable buying choices, is far more
sophisticated, far more revealing. There’s
nowhere to hide.
I wonder if the three guys down the street
stand back and look at the three nearly
identical bikes parked at the curb and
wonder at their similarity.
What are we saying when we dress the
same, drive the same cars and ride the
same motorcycles as our socio-economic
peers? Are we even aware that we’re
doing just that?
If we are doing just that—or even if we
aren’t, and we think about that dude
somewhere who knows just what we’ve
done and what we’re likely to do next, does
that give us a good feeling? If it doesn’t,
what in the world can we do about it?
From 3:14 Daily
Valencia @ 25th
415-970-9670