I know I haven't posted anything since May 9 (yikes!) and for that unannounced hiatus, I apologize. As an excuse of sorts, I must plead "happiness." I have come to realize that many of my essays derive from my unhappiness, disquiet, or just plain curmudgeoness. Lately those sources have been unavailable to me, as I am going through a period of unexpected happiness and contentment. A beautiful woman has come into my life and given me a great gift -- the knowledge that love, and all that goes with it, is still possible at my age, and that I am incredibly lucky to have found it. As a consequence, I will be attempting to write for a while about the amazing circumstances that brought us together, and what I am learning from the whole process. Of course, as always, you can count on all of what I write to be a combination of non-fiction autobiographic material, and wholly made-up stuff for purely entertainment purposes. It shouldn't really matter to you which is which because, no matter what, all of what I write is truth from my perspective. My promise is to do my best to be more regular with my posts.
But before I get started down that road, my first essay, which follows, is all about some particular trials and tribulations of mine as I took up the hobby of motorcycling. I wrote it a few years back, but I have had some recent requests for it, so here it is . . .
Wednesday, June 27, 2007
Ninety Degrees of Separation
How Do I Drop Thee . . . Let Me Count the Ways
Dropping a motorcycle is not as easy as it looks. I am not talking about low sides, high sides, laying it down, acing the bike, hitting some oil, coolant or black ice, or any other term for getting ass over tea kettle at speed -- anybody can do that. Just get a bike, point it straight down the road, pin the throttle, and wait for the fun when it comes time to turn the damn thing. I am talking specifically about the almost forgotten art of getting the bike to fall over at any speed from 0 to .5 MPH. Most people just don't know how to do this correctly. I mean there are young riders out there on some little ZZX1RY2VF Mach 3 sport bikes that weighs just over 40 pounds, and it never occurs to them to practice dropping and picking them up. And then they wonder why we call them squids.
I, on the other hand, have chosen as an adjunct to my motorcycling hobby, to become an expert on the various methods and styles of getting the thing to just fall over. I practice all the time, and have attained the level of Black and Blue Belt. Now, for the sake of those of you who are always on the lookout for riding tips and drills, I will set down some guidelines by which you too can discover the joys of falling down and going boom.
First, it is essential to get the right equipment. Since dropping a motorcycle is somewhat counter intuitive, it helps if you get the right bike for the job. Ideally, you want something with a whole bunch of weight carried way up high in the frame. That way, once you let that puppy lean more than 5 or 6 degrees from vertical, the choice is no longer yours. You are committed to going down so you might as well enjoy it. Another important characteristic to factor in is seat height. Eye level is best, or at least high enough so that you can only get two feet down if you are on Pointe. (Note to self: Find out if Alpinestar makes ballet boots.) Finally, it really helps if you are naturally gifted with an inseam of 29 inches or less. If you are tall, what can I say? You must learn to undercome your handicap.
The choice of motorcycle is certainly up to you, but I have two personal favorites that I highly recommend. Both are elegantly tall and heavy and can be dropped by almost anybody. The first is a Honda V65 Sabre -- truly a classic – big, tall, heavy, and unstable at a standstill. Just sitting there parked, it seems to call out to you to kick up its side stand and try to walk it forward. I will never forget the first time I was pinned under my Sabre at a gas station. What a glorious feeling of helplessness, mingled with embarrassment, coupled with an inability to breathe, tinged with rising panic. It was a truly sublime. The V65 Sabre is indeed a great starter dropee, making every stop and go an adventure in possible outcomes.
Recently, however, I have come to appreciate another bike, the Honda ST 1100, for its lithe delicate beauty at 80 MPH, that masks its unbelievable wallowishness at a walk. Unlike the Sabre, which usually bends or breaks something when it hits the deck, Honda designed the ST with horizontality in mind. It has a well placed engine and body guard on each side that prevents serious damage while still giving you the thrill of waving goodbye to 700 pounds of determined machine. Believe me, that ST can be dropped over and over and it keeps coming back for more. Of course if you feel you must do some damage to the bike to prove your prowess, you can always drop it on a curb. If you play the angle and deflection just right, you can easily destroy $200 worth of mirror and mirror housing. It's your choice. Either way, the ST responds to letting go of it every time. Of course, there are many other examples of good dropping material, and the choice of machine is certainly a personal one. But I would like to remind you that the more expensive and undamaged your bike is when dropped, the more satisfying will be your emotional catharsis. There is almost nothing to compare to dropping a brand new Harley Extra Wide Glide BFD on the way out of the dealer’s lot.
Now, once you have mastered the basic stepping-on-oil-foot-slide, and the equally simple gravel-under-the-boot-whoops, you can move onto the more sophisticated drops. Here are a few of my favorites. The first three involve effective use of the dropper's ally, the side stand:
Parking the bike on the side stand, facing downhill with the transmission in neutral. Yes, it’s an oldie bordering on cliché, but somehow it manages to remain on the top ten list, year after year. I am sure it brings back memories for many of you. That exquisite first squeak of movement, followed closely by the delicious catching of breath and rise of nausea as we see our brand new (of course it is) motorcycle slowly work its way forward on the side stand and then head for pay-dirt (actually pay-asphalt).
Lowering the side stand on a perfectly positioned bump that causes the bike to be too vertical. That way, when you dismount left, the bike has a really good chance of diving to the right when the suspension unloads, or escaping that, at the moment when you gently break the camel's back by removing the weight of your key. Now those two are what I like to call "Watching it Go" drops. Very pleasant to behold, especially since they always seem to happen in slow motion.
The following are co-dependent drops where the rider is astride his beloved steed, and both go down together, Mano et Machino:
Leaving the side stand down while backing the bike up. I promise that if you get in the habit of doing this, one of these days you will be fortunate enough to run that stand up an incline or bump and realize that you are about to experience the confluence of going over with your motorcycle. It's sort of like bungee jumping without all those cumbersome rubber bands. If bodily injury is your thing, hold on tight and try to stop the bike from going over. On the other hand if you would rather be able to step away and join your friends in admiring your handiwork, by all means allow yourself to be thrown clear from the soon-to-be-parts-bike. You can then get up, dust yourself off, and pretend it’s not yours.
The next couple of drops have a higher degree of difficulty because you are on your
own -- no more side stand to help you out. They both involve critical decision making as to where to stop&drop, or walk&drop the bike.
The stop&drop. For the stop&drop, there is but one simple rule: Always choose to stop the bike on precipitously sloping terrain. The perfect location would be on a crest, with the ground on both sides of the bike sloping away at an extreme angle. Picture in your mind parking the bike on the edge of a knife. You will know you are in the right place when neither of your feet can touch the ground, and you have the option of choosing either side as ground zero. However, since such perfect terrain is rarely available, you should expect to use the more common terrain that only slopes to one side or the other. My personal favorite, an example of which I recently revisited in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is stopping in the curb lane of a street on which the center line is much higher above sea level than the curb. Sure, I could have leaned it left and kept every thing on the up and up, but imagine the glorious moment of terror I felt as my right foot wildly sought purchase on nonexistent asphalt. Then, after what seemed like an eternity of falling, I was rudely spit out prone upon the sidewalk, while my ST’s body work exploded against the curb. Did I mention that this happened on a busy thoroughfare with oodles of bemused bystanders? Oh, yes. I also recall that as I lay there, I was actually trying to transport my body to another location by the sheer power of wishing it so. I know I would have been successful in beaming up to the Enterprise had I not been brought back from deep space by a policeman asking me if I was okay.
The walk&drop. Walk&drops most often occur when you return to your bike after having parked it in a challenging location – tight, uneven terrain, where you have to ease the throttle, feather the clutch and waddle walk the bike away from danger. A really good example of this would be parking your cycle right in the middle of a line of customized Harleys at a rough biker hangout. If that’s still not enough of a challenge, you can add the element having to traverse an edge trap at a shallow angle. (NOTE: In this context I am not referring to edge traps as you find them on the road: uneven pavement joints, metal plates, trolley tracks, etc.) At creeping speed, many small items can have the same effect on you and your bike as say a railroad tie at 60 MPH. Always be on the lookout for such things as clods of dirt, seashells, and dead beetles, and be confident that any of these could deflect your front wheel just enough to start the dominoes falling. I was once tripped up by a garden hose and managed to take out three other bikes with me. That hose might as well have been a rattlesnake for all the grief it caused me.
Now for your final lesson. All of the foregoing techniques can have greater or lesser emotional impact on you if you also include an educated choice of dropping environment. In other words, do you choose to spiral in at a time and place where there are multiple witnesses, like New York City at rush hour, or in some desolate location where no one is around to score your dive? At first glance, you would think that the more populated drop environment would be superior in terms of pure shame, but the isolated drop has the more subtle reward of you having to look at your downed steed for a longer period of time. If it’s real isolated, say like the Mojave desert in August, this type of reward could last a very short lifetime – way too much of a good thing. Of course, you only have to worry about such things if you have made the right choice of bike, i.e. one that is much too heavy to lift up by yourself. (Lifting your fallen bike will be the subject of Part 2, “The View From Beneath.”)
So, there you have it, your rubber side up, shiny side down primer. If you practice these techniques well, I promise you not only a satisfying new hobby, but a deeper personal relationship with your dealer's parts manager.
Dropping a motorcycle is not as easy as it looks. I am not talking about low sides, high sides, laying it down, acing the bike, hitting some oil, coolant or black ice, or any other term for getting ass over tea kettle at speed -- anybody can do that. Just get a bike, point it straight down the road, pin the throttle, and wait for the fun when it comes time to turn the damn thing. I am talking specifically about the almost forgotten art of getting the bike to fall over at any speed from 0 to .5 MPH. Most people just don't know how to do this correctly. I mean there are young riders out there on some little ZZX1RY2VF Mach 3 sport bikes that weighs just over 40 pounds, and it never occurs to them to practice dropping and picking them up. And then they wonder why we call them squids.
I, on the other hand, have chosen as an adjunct to my motorcycling hobby, to become an expert on the various methods and styles of getting the thing to just fall over. I practice all the time, and have attained the level of Black and Blue Belt. Now, for the sake of those of you who are always on the lookout for riding tips and drills, I will set down some guidelines by which you too can discover the joys of falling down and going boom.
First, it is essential to get the right equipment. Since dropping a motorcycle is somewhat counter intuitive, it helps if you get the right bike for the job. Ideally, you want something with a whole bunch of weight carried way up high in the frame. That way, once you let that puppy lean more than 5 or 6 degrees from vertical, the choice is no longer yours. You are committed to going down so you might as well enjoy it. Another important characteristic to factor in is seat height. Eye level is best, or at least high enough so that you can only get two feet down if you are on Pointe. (Note to self: Find out if Alpinestar makes ballet boots.) Finally, it really helps if you are naturally gifted with an inseam of 29 inches or less. If you are tall, what can I say? You must learn to undercome your handicap.
The choice of motorcycle is certainly up to you, but I have two personal favorites that I highly recommend. Both are elegantly tall and heavy and can be dropped by almost anybody. The first is a Honda V65 Sabre -- truly a classic – big, tall, heavy, and unstable at a standstill. Just sitting there parked, it seems to call out to you to kick up its side stand and try to walk it forward. I will never forget the first time I was pinned under my Sabre at a gas station. What a glorious feeling of helplessness, mingled with embarrassment, coupled with an inability to breathe, tinged with rising panic. It was a truly sublime. The V65 Sabre is indeed a great starter dropee, making every stop and go an adventure in possible outcomes.
Recently, however, I have come to appreciate another bike, the Honda ST 1100, for its lithe delicate beauty at 80 MPH, that masks its unbelievable wallowishness at a walk. Unlike the Sabre, which usually bends or breaks something when it hits the deck, Honda designed the ST with horizontality in mind. It has a well placed engine and body guard on each side that prevents serious damage while still giving you the thrill of waving goodbye to 700 pounds of determined machine. Believe me, that ST can be dropped over and over and it keeps coming back for more. Of course if you feel you must do some damage to the bike to prove your prowess, you can always drop it on a curb. If you play the angle and deflection just right, you can easily destroy $200 worth of mirror and mirror housing. It's your choice. Either way, the ST responds to letting go of it every time. Of course, there are many other examples of good dropping material, and the choice of machine is certainly a personal one. But I would like to remind you that the more expensive and undamaged your bike is when dropped, the more satisfying will be your emotional catharsis. There is almost nothing to compare to dropping a brand new Harley Extra Wide Glide BFD on the way out of the dealer’s lot.
Now, once you have mastered the basic stepping-on-oil-foot-slide, and the equally simple gravel-under-the-boot-whoops, you can move onto the more sophisticated drops. Here are a few of my favorites. The first three involve effective use of the dropper's ally, the side stand:
Parking the bike on the side stand, facing downhill with the transmission in neutral. Yes, it’s an oldie bordering on cliché, but somehow it manages to remain on the top ten list, year after year. I am sure it brings back memories for many of you. That exquisite first squeak of movement, followed closely by the delicious catching of breath and rise of nausea as we see our brand new (of course it is) motorcycle slowly work its way forward on the side stand and then head for pay-dirt (actually pay-asphalt).
Lowering the side stand on a perfectly positioned bump that causes the bike to be too vertical. That way, when you dismount left, the bike has a really good chance of diving to the right when the suspension unloads, or escaping that, at the moment when you gently break the camel's back by removing the weight of your key. Now those two are what I like to call "Watching it Go" drops. Very pleasant to behold, especially since they always seem to happen in slow motion.
The following are co-dependent drops where the rider is astride his beloved steed, and both go down together, Mano et Machino:
Leaving the side stand down while backing the bike up. I promise that if you get in the habit of doing this, one of these days you will be fortunate enough to run that stand up an incline or bump and realize that you are about to experience the confluence of going over with your motorcycle. It's sort of like bungee jumping without all those cumbersome rubber bands. If bodily injury is your thing, hold on tight and try to stop the bike from going over. On the other hand if you would rather be able to step away and join your friends in admiring your handiwork, by all means allow yourself to be thrown clear from the soon-to-be-parts-bike. You can then get up, dust yourself off, and pretend it’s not yours.
The next couple of drops have a higher degree of difficulty because you are on your
own -- no more side stand to help you out. They both involve critical decision making as to where to stop&drop, or walk&drop the bike.
The stop&drop. For the stop&drop, there is but one simple rule: Always choose to stop the bike on precipitously sloping terrain. The perfect location would be on a crest, with the ground on both sides of the bike sloping away at an extreme angle. Picture in your mind parking the bike on the edge of a knife. You will know you are in the right place when neither of your feet can touch the ground, and you have the option of choosing either side as ground zero. However, since such perfect terrain is rarely available, you should expect to use the more common terrain that only slopes to one side or the other. My personal favorite, an example of which I recently revisited in Chattanooga, Tennessee, is stopping in the curb lane of a street on which the center line is much higher above sea level than the curb. Sure, I could have leaned it left and kept every thing on the up and up, but imagine the glorious moment of terror I felt as my right foot wildly sought purchase on nonexistent asphalt. Then, after what seemed like an eternity of falling, I was rudely spit out prone upon the sidewalk, while my ST’s body work exploded against the curb. Did I mention that this happened on a busy thoroughfare with oodles of bemused bystanders? Oh, yes. I also recall that as I lay there, I was actually trying to transport my body to another location by the sheer power of wishing it so. I know I would have been successful in beaming up to the Enterprise had I not been brought back from deep space by a policeman asking me if I was okay.
The walk&drop. Walk&drops most often occur when you return to your bike after having parked it in a challenging location – tight, uneven terrain, where you have to ease the throttle, feather the clutch and waddle walk the bike away from danger. A really good example of this would be parking your cycle right in the middle of a line of customized Harleys at a rough biker hangout. If that’s still not enough of a challenge, you can add the element having to traverse an edge trap at a shallow angle. (NOTE: In this context I am not referring to edge traps as you find them on the road: uneven pavement joints, metal plates, trolley tracks, etc.) At creeping speed, many small items can have the same effect on you and your bike as say a railroad tie at 60 MPH. Always be on the lookout for such things as clods of dirt, seashells, and dead beetles, and be confident that any of these could deflect your front wheel just enough to start the dominoes falling. I was once tripped up by a garden hose and managed to take out three other bikes with me. That hose might as well have been a rattlesnake for all the grief it caused me.
Now for your final lesson. All of the foregoing techniques can have greater or lesser emotional impact on you if you also include an educated choice of dropping environment. In other words, do you choose to spiral in at a time and place where there are multiple witnesses, like New York City at rush hour, or in some desolate location where no one is around to score your dive? At first glance, you would think that the more populated drop environment would be superior in terms of pure shame, but the isolated drop has the more subtle reward of you having to look at your downed steed for a longer period of time. If it’s real isolated, say like the Mojave desert in August, this type of reward could last a very short lifetime – way too much of a good thing. Of course, you only have to worry about such things if you have made the right choice of bike, i.e. one that is much too heavy to lift up by yourself. (Lifting your fallen bike will be the subject of Part 2, “The View From Beneath.”)
So, there you have it, your rubber side up, shiny side down primer. If you practice these techniques well, I promise you not only a satisfying new hobby, but a deeper personal relationship with your dealer's parts manager.
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