Up Front

UP FRONT

SWEPT AWAY

Allan Girdler

When we were planning our annual staff trek to the road races at Laguna Seca I mentioned in an off-hand sort of manner that I planned to ride my XL250. The other chaps fell down giggling with admiration for my grit.

"...At least part of the way," I added and the air was filled with mockery. Here I was on public record as not liking to drive, so comes the social event of the season and I planned to use my truck? The vote was close, with half the guys picking wimp and the other half traitor.

Unfair. All I was doing was hitting two birds with one stone. Or trying to, anyway. For several months I’d been assembling and collecting the odd missing bits for my XR750 Harley and had progressed to ^vhere I could actually sit on it. Also, I’d found a man with parts I needed and contracted with an expert to install brakes.

The tuner’s shop is 100 mi. north of me "and the parts were 50 mi. beyond that. Hey! I realized, I could put the XR and the XL in the truck, leave the XR, pick up ^the parts and stash them in the cab, park the truck and ride to Laguna Seca.

Things went almost according to plan. As always, when you figure to do A by a certain time, then B, then C, you get late with A, B comes later still and C is hopelessly off schedule. I got started late, arrived at the tuner’s later, picked up the parts after that.

And I couldn’t find a place to park. Henry says California is the Land of the Great No-No and he’s right. You can’t park on the highway, they tow you from restaurants, there’s a 24-hour limit in residential neighborhoods and what with $300 worth of used Harley parts tucked under the seat I didn’t relish the thought >of too much isolation.

Bribery did it. The place where I got an excellent if overpriced hamburger said sure, park the truck up in the corner of the lot.

All the above faded away instantly I rode off down the highway.

My XL has a better seat than all but maybe two of the modern Multis currently in production. The height and bend of the bars are perfect for my riding posture. Lacking style as it does, the seat is high and the pegs are far enough below to allow unkinked knees. The bike fits me, is what I’m trying to say. A small duffle bag lashed to the back with a four-leg bungee cord held all I thought—wrong—I’d need. All I couldn’t do on the 250 that I could have done on, say, a 750 or a 1000 was go fast, so I settled down to a nice 60 mph and enjoyed the scenery.

An hour or so out I was passed by a Yamaha Seca 550, which dropped back, re-passed, and literally rode circles around me, the rider all the while peering at my tinted shield. In town at a light he said “Allan?”

“Geez. How’d you know it was me?”

“You’re the only guy I know who rides an old XL . . . and has AG on his boots.”

“Oh. Yeah.”

So we ambled along. On the wide and straight parts, cars rushed past, including one Ferrari with driving lights and everything. Then we came to the coastal mountains and there they all were, docilely plodding along behind an overburdened camper.

Hah! Bless the motorbike. We nipped up the procession, one quick jump at a time, passed the camper and motored away.

We stopped for coffee at the hippy cafe (real name Nepenthe, south of Big Sur on California 1 in case you’d like to enjoy a magnificent view, admire some unique architecture and pay $1.80 for a cup of coffee). Some time later here came the slow train, camper first, Ferrari last.

Not so the bikes. What a hopeless romantic I am! What a worldwide club we are! Choppers and dressers and cafe, a nice combination or two, full-race Zls, a snarl of RDs and a pride—no other term fits as well—of Velocettes. Just like the Isle of Man, and how nice of the state to build California 1 in place of being allowed to ride ’round the circuit.

All of which added up to being caught in my own web. It got dark. And cold. A front came in with winds up to 30 at least, plus fog. I emptied my duffle bag of shirt, sweater and then rainsuit, partially for the dampness but more for the wind protection and the visibility. There are those who laugh at yellow riding gear. They’ve never been out after dark, wobbling in a crosswind, peering into the dim glow of a sixvolt headlight while imagining people not peering at the glow of a six-volt taillight.

Swept away, I said to myself, by my own optimism. If you wish for good weather and a swift journey, you don’t have to prepare for the un-hoped-for. It sounds so easy when you aren’t there or if, in my case, you’re the sort of person who hasn’t in 25 years learned that if you put your helmet on the seat, it will fall off.

Calling upon the Texas motto, Onward Through the Fog, I soldiered on at a shivemig^iam£jmd^£a^ui^25jTi|)l^^^Us^ there was the hotel, with John’s BMW anjd Peter’s Triumph parked in front. They left after me, which says something about something.

The racing was pretty good, but thaï4 comes many pages from here. Saturday night there was another mixed victory.

Last year I reported my anger and dismay at the use by a company involved with motorcycling of a private club on property that bans bikes from its premises. This year the man in charge of the pro* gram gave me a new map, to a new place for the annual party. Yippee, I said, got1 tired of the anti-motorcycle business and taught them a lesson, eh? v

Not exactly. Instead, the private club was so darn hard to find that husbands and wives spent the evening going around in* circles, screaming at each other. Divorces followed and a more readily located place for the party followed that.

On Sunday I hung around long enough to get a free lunch and watch Kenny and Freddy retire, Randy and Wes put on a good show and the rest of the field look^ slow.

Riding east I was banked over to the pegs, fighting a side wind, but the route turned right and I had a free ride. A tai^ wind, honest. It always seems as if you’re going the wrong way, that is, when the wind blows it’s right at you but this time, O perfection, the weather and I were in harmony and I wafted along for 100 restful miles. Wonderful.

When the wind changed I knew some sinister force was at work. Near the ocean the wind changed and not long after that^i strange figure, a lanky rider crouched low over the bars, jacket flailing behind, thundered past. It was Kimball on his Guzzi. Skeptics may doubt this but 1 believe he”* killed the tail wind. Seems to me if I can’t have a Harley Racing Team jacket—and I can’t. Dick O’Brien says only team merr^bers get team jackets—then people who don’t own Harleys shouldn’t wear Harley jackets while riding Moto Guzzis. Against nature, as the wind shift clearly proved. +

But Steve boomed out of sight and the headwind died while the searing heat cooled. I buzzed down to the ocean, stopped to put sweater and jacket back ori, and just as the sun sank into the sea there was the restaurant and my truck.

I popped a wheelie. Not one of your-« Roberts/Mamola wheelies, true. More like a second-gear hop of the front wheel. Then, because it felt so good I did it again. Two surfer kids helped me get the bike u^ the ramp. They asked if I’d been riding on the beach. No, I said, been up to Laguna Seca. Wow, they said. That far? You mus^ be beat.

Nope. An overflowing heart collects no bruises.