Leanings

LEANINGS

Years of gear

Peter Egan

LAST WEEK I FINALLY BOUGHT MYSELF a pair of leather riding pants-street leather bottoms, I guess you’d call them. They have plastic inserts for knee and shin protection, and closedcell foam where the hip bones meet the ground. Or could.

The incentive came during a recent three-day comparison test ride in the California mountains with U.S. Twins roadracing ace Nigel Gale and two other fearless types. I looked down at my blue jeans after a fast ride one slidey wet morning and suddenly pondered the protective capacity of a single layer of denim twixt flesh and tarmac versus, say, padded and rein-forced leather.

Perhaps it was time to unlimber the old check book and buy myself a little protection of the lower extremities.

So I bought these extremely sveltelooking Euro-pants that have some fantastic name, like Stealth Death-Ray Rocket Ship Pilot Pants or something, but they feel good and look good. (Try to imagine Jim Morrison if he’d lived another 23 years, and you’ve got the picture.)

The only problem, of course, was that I brought them home last week and now there’s no place to hang them up.

Okay, I can’t say there’s literally no place—you can always get one more thing in a closet, creating a kind of riding-gear laminate. But the inescapable fact (I just realized) is that we now have an astounding amount of riding equipment lurking in the dark recesses of our home.

Why so much?

The problem seems to be cumulative. I bought my first bike in 1963 and have since owned a grand total of 30 motorcycles. All but four of these bikes have come and gone, yet I’ve hardly ever deep-sixed a piece of riding gear.

In the beginning, life was simple. During the Sixties and early Seventies I had only a Bell 500TX helmet, a black leather jacket, a pair of work boots and some gloves. Period. There was nothing else in those early student apartments that could be construed as riding gear, except maybe my Bob Dylan-edition Triumph T-shirt, which finally fell apart in the wash. All of this stuff could easily be packed in a single box the size of one Pioneer stereo speaker-and it was, when I went in the Army. So far, so good. Years passed, and only one other item was added: I bought a new Norton Commando in 1975 and naturally had to have a genuine waxed-cotton Belstaff Trialmaster jacket. I still have it, of course, but it’s faded and worn. This year, I bought a new one, so there are now two Belstaff jackets in my closet.

Then, with roadracing, things began to pick up steam. In 1978 I bought a used set of Lewis leathers, along with two sets of boots, two sets of gloves and a new full-face Bell Star helmet. Within minutes, a virtual doubling of gear mass, and then some.

Things got worse when Cycle World hired me in 1980. Desert riding, with its rocks, cactus spines and high speeds, demanded real off-road riding gear, so boots, shoulder pads, pants, socks, goggles, and a Bell Moto III helmet were added.

This dirt-riding stuff alone now occupies an entire, oversized Hondaline duffel bag that sits upright in the closet of our guest room and sometimes falls on visitors who open the door, like a stiff body in an Abbott & Costello comedy. It also imparts to the guest room a delightful je ne sais quoi aroma of desert flowers, fear-induced sweat, and spilled beer from Mike’s Sky Ranch and the Slash-X bar. One deep breath and you’re there.

Cycle World also bought me a new set of Bates leathers for roadracing and photography, along with matching boots and gloves. These leathers don’t fit me any more, but how can I give them away? They still have a pave-

ment smear from Riverside’s Turn 7 across the thigh and kne'e. Historic stuff. They are also a pungent reminder (literally) that by dieting and running 4 miles per day, a person with my skeleton can weigh as little as 162 pounds. And once did.

I’ve since acquired a newer set of Z leathers, as well as a yellow DryRider rainsuit, an Aerostitch touring suit, newer helmets-oh Lord, the helmets. I also have an antique wooden box in the back corner of our den that contains nothing but visors of different shades for different helmets. Most of them are badly scratched “spares.”

Boots? Yes. Boots of many lands. Roadracing boots, touring boots, cowboy boots, work boots, motocross boots, engineer boots... .

All right. So we have way too much stuff in our closets. This would not be so bad, except that my wife Barbara has also been riding since the midSixties, so you can double all the road gear. She even has a Belstaff Trialmaster suit-bought in 1982 at the Isle of Man, no less. Our closet under the stairs looks like the Birmingham Waxed Cotton Exhibition of 1939.

Considering that our house is of only average size, I have to admit, however, that careful sorting, folding and packing have allowed us to keep most of this stuff pretty well hidden from public view. Visitors, for instance, are not immediately aware that the house around them is virtually insulated with leather, Kevlar, Gor-Tex, nylon, Vibram, waxed cotton and closed-cell foam, tightly packed and spring-loaded for action.

It is only after looking for a couple of aspirin, a both towel or a place to hang their clothes that guests gradually come to realize things are not quite normal in this household. Some of them stay a few days. Others don’t.

So the new pants are a problem. But the real crunch will come if I decide to buy the Death Star Space Invader Jacket that goes with them. Right now the pants are a serious mismatch with my faded old Buco riding jacket. I look like a Frankenstein creation stitched together from different riders who once lived in widely separated decades.

Which, of course, is exactly what so many of us have become. And we have the closets to prove it. □