Leanings

LEANINGS

All my rowdy friends

THERE’S A GREAT SONG THAT HANK Williams, Jr. wrote and recorded a few years ago, called “All My Rowdy Friends Have Settled Down.” In it he laments that all his old hard-living pals in the country-music business have become mature and responsible in middle-age, and that it’s almost impossible to find anyone who still wants to go out and tear up the town.

Hank wrote the song about partying and raising hell; but from my own warped perspective, he could just as easily have written it about motorcycling, because I sometimes get the wistful feeling that a lot of my own rowdy friends have settled down. They’ve fallen by the wayside, several of them now, old friends who used to be my riding buddies. They were guys who spent roughly the last two decades poring over every word in the motorcycle magazines, comparing this bike with that bike, discussing the mechanical and aesthetic advantages of Nortons versus Triumphs and Hondas versus Suzukis-

Most of these guys traded bikes every few years, alternating between European charm and Japanese performance, between simplicity and complexity, but always finding an excuse in each new generation of bikes to walk into a motorcycle shop and plunk down a whole bunch of money on a new machine. Each trade-in seemed to signal a subtle shift in philosophy, a sudden appreciation for some unexplored side of the sport, be it a new mechanical refinement or a different way of looking at the laws of physics. Or sometimes, a particular bike simply looked so good they just had to have it, function be damned.

Whatever the excuse, choosing a new motorcycle was Serious Business, a reflection of both values and state of mind. Bikes were basic equipment, like blue jeans or a stereo; you didn’t consider whether or not you should have one, you just asked what brand.

That was four years ago. When everything was cool.

Then, three and a half years ago, my friend Jim called. Jim, my Wisconsin weekend riding buddy from the dawn of time; Jim, who bought his Norton 850 Commando the same week I bought mine, and ditto for our Honda 350s years before that. “I’m selling my Yamaha,” he said. “Know anyone who’s looking for a bike?”

“I’ll check around. What are you going to buy next?” I asked, innocently.

“Nothing, for right now. Maybe next spring I’ll look for something.”

Spring came and Jim bought a personal computer, but no bike. Now he’s the head of a computer users club, and when I call him to talk about bikes or other things, I know that I’m interrupting his computer work. Even on the weekend, I can hear keys clacking in the background when he first picks up the phone and says hello in that distracted tone of one absorbed by images on the green screen. Another victim of the computer body-snatchers. Gone.

A year later, another friend, John, sold his beautiful silver-smoke BMW R900S and replaced it with nothing. John, who raced across Canada with me on a freezing autumn trip to Watkins Glen, who took a whole summer off to trek his BMW solo over half the backroads in America. John has a computer now, too. He’s working very hard to get ahead in his career, and even though we don’t go on banzai Sunday-morning rides any more, he’s sometimes able to break away from computing and business long enough to join me for breakfast—by car. But I think that a whole morning, let alone a whole day, of riding would now be out of the question for John, even if he still had a motorcycle. His profession doesn’t leave him enough hours in the week to shop for groceries, let alone ride.

In all fairness, both Jim and John are still somewhat interested in bikes. Mention motorcycles in conversation and you see that spark in the eyes, the same glimmer of recognition you get from your great aunt in the rest home when she realizes, just for a moment, who you are. The memory is still there, but continuity has faded. And they aren’t alone in this. The same thing has happenened to at least two more of my riding friends.

None of these guys were dilettantes who tried motorcycling once and then dropped it. They were people who owned lots of different bikes and rode for years. Hard-core motorcyclists. So why the sudden wave of defection, or gradual disaffection?

People do—or don’t do—things for a lot of complicated reasons. But in this case, I suspect that age may be the common factor. Like me, my friends are almost 40, and some of them are reaching points in their careers where they have a lot of responsibility and feel a certain amount of pressure to succeed. They’ve realized that life is shorter than they thought, and they’re trying to get things arranged—before someone else arranges things for them. In other words, they are very busy just now. But I believe the time will come, perhaps in a few years, when they’ll look around and see that their houses are in order, but their garages are empty. Then the tribal instinct will reassert itself and they’ll once again find themselves standing in a showroom filled with motorcycles.

I hope that happens. Computers are great tools, but the whir of a hard disk is a poor substitute for the thud of a good Twin or the frenetic chorus of an overactive Four. And no software program ever devised can make the earth tilt while cool mountain air blows past your face early in the morning, or make a hot cup of coffee taste so good when the wind and noise have stopped.

I hope they also rediscover that most passions for which you do not need a helmet, boots, gloves, a leather jacket or at least some protection from Nature are, generally speaking, not worthy of the name.

Peter Egan