Up Front

UP FRONT

OUTDOOR LIFE

Allan Girdler

Destinations aren't required on Sunday morning. Many's the time I have ridden in aimless circles, just to ride, but in general it’s nice to have someplace to go.

On this particular Sunday, I knew where I was going. A small town south of where I live was having its annual festival of bluegrass music. I like rock and pop and classic and jazz and all that, but deep down, I like bluegrass best and this festival is one I wouldn’t miss for the world.

There are three ways to get from here to there: the interstate, the back roads and the woods. Interstate is out. without debate. I much prefer a road that works w ith nature that tits itself and the traveler into the topography, to a road that bludgeons a path across the world.

The woods would be fun, as son Joe and I had a few' weeks earlier discovered the last trail in a series of trails that will take us all the way down the southern half of our local mountain range. Doing 75 mi. in the woods, though, would take more time, would force me to push when I might not feel like pushing.

So I took the back roads, east from home across the valley and up the canyon, following the creek until the creek becomes a waterfall and the road is carved from rock until it gets to the summit.

Just east of the summit there's a parking space and a snack bar. known as The Lookout because you can look over a wide valley with lake and the next range of mountains towering into the sky. It’s a traditional motorcycle rest stop. This highway is the best winding road for miles around and I doubt there's a minute from Saturday sunrise to Sunday sunset that there’s not a couple bikes parked there while the rider and passengers talk . . . bikes. What else? Dressers and choppers, cafe and enduro—they are always there and I never pull in for a cup and a little bench racing that I am not reminded once again how alike we are. The outlaw on the hardtail with Knucklehead top end on KH cases admires the Jota. the CBX rider is impressed by the Knuckle. Shared enthusiasm is far more powerful than any debates over which brand you'd rather eat worms than ride.

This morning there was a flock of cafe bikes and I parked next to a man with a new CB750 four-piper fitted with flat bars. I'd do the same thing myself. I said, and he liked the way the Krauser worked on the CX500. Another man had just got a CX500. traded in his CB400. and he mentioned that he's having a little trouble getting used to the bigger bike, especially on righthand curves.

From there we got into road riding in general and I was reminded anew of how different we—we meaning motorcycle riders—are. We ride. On the way to this coffee stop traffic was light and I was working, picking the lines, using the engine and brakes, getting over that road in serious fashion.

Now. I am not a fast rider. Whenever I say something like that some ot the other guys here get on my case. I shouldn’t talk like that. lam told, people will think we're a bunch of klutzes.__

I don’t agree. I am a good rider. We all. have our own personal limits as to how hard w e'll go in any set of circumstances. I don't actually race on the road and I sure as Hell don’t take chances on the highway in traffic and 25 mph in a school zone gets no quarrel from me but okay, I take seriously those skills that mean you cover ground on a motorcycle faster than with just about anv other form of transporta, tion. How long since you saw a sports car being conducted with any enthusiasm* How often have you seen a sports bike that wasn't?

And here we all were, a nice selection of ages and engines and everv man jack of us* was out there to use his machine to the best of his ability.

On down the road I went, wondering, why? We are not halfwits, or daredevils looking for a spectacular way out of this world. What is it about motorcyclists that makes us ride the way we do?

1 got to the park early and had lunch under a tree with an elderly couple. She was there to hear the songs her father used^ to sing, she said, adding that “he'd be 134 years old now.” which would make her. say. 90? One never asks a lady’s age. so I settled for the estimate.

Bluegrass music isn't commercial and there were no names present. No record contracts were negotiated, no talent scouts lurked behind the picnic tables.

The music was, well. I was so swept UTT by the music and the crowd that I nearly burst into tears.

Local talent. A cowboy did a bunkhouse shuffle while chording blues on a harmonica. A kid with GI haircut and surfer shorts was in the talent contest and I worried some. Servicemen in peacetime are not the most popular people but not to fear, he' could pick the of five string and he got cheered and hollered until he came back for an encore. There was a family with. mon^n^da^oi^Tythm^h^^^ea^ol^> girl on banjo, the 14-year-old boy on fiddle and the beat-allest 12-year-old mandolin player I ever did hear. Just about everybody who walked on stage had friends in the crowd when they began and was friends with the crowd before they were through.

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Off to one side, they danced. This is back country, with farms and 1 suspect a few communes. One group, all the men obey the biblical injunction against trimming hair or beard and the women with them wore loose dresses that must have been made at home. They were dancing, nothing formal, in time to the music and each other. I read some time back a line about the tranquil faces of old people who've never lived in the city and I thought to myself, there are some of those faces in the making.

The audience was old and young, families with kids, college students, hippy longhairs. businessman shorthairs. sharing only their appreciation fora form of music not everybody appreciates.

You can understand the parallel that suggested itself to me. It was the kind of gathering where you can talk with anybody. No matter who it was sitting next to you. there was common ground. Never mind that I quit playing banjo because I finally knew that I'd never be good at it. I can still sit here and listen.

What a good crowd. I said to myself.

This is just like going to the races.

There it was.

Not the big races, not the Supercross style event with the audience that knows nothing about bikes and comes because the television ads promise brushes with death and destruction.

No. This was like the club races, the ones where the audience knows the riders and likes them, can tell the good from the clumsy, where the fans are there because they are fans, not because somebody persuaded them that this was the place to be.

The people at the bluegrass festival were participants. Everybody in the crowd knew firsthand what it was like to make that run, work those chords into a pattern, use every skill you've got. .

So it is with us bike nuts. When we go to the races we go to see people who are terribly good at what we . . . well, we are good. We aren't as good as the pros and that doesn't matter much. Just to do it. to live firsthand, in the world and part of the world, is what we’re out there for and if that means we go faster than the cars and faster than we need to go, shrug. Riding well is its own reward.

When the music ended. I rode home through the sun and the wind and the wildflowers. I'm not Earl Scruggs and I'm not Kenny Roberts but I sure do have a good time.