Reborn In Chicago
Reborn in Chicago
LEANINGS
Peter Egan
"IS THIS OUR EXIT?” JIM WARGULA asked, clutching the wheel of his Chevy pickup.
I glanced down at my map, which showed a hopeless tangle of eight freeways converging near Chicago’s O’Hare Airport. It looked like the snake pit in Raiders of the Lost Ark.
“I think it’s the next one,” I told Jim. “Oh, wait! That was 190 East... That was our exit!”
Too late.
Our exit slid into history as we barreled straight into the jaws of O’Hare Airport. I smacked a fist to my forehead in the standard gesture of frustration, with overtones of mock suicide.
“Well, that does it,” I said to Jim. “I’ve been coming to the Chicago bike show at the Rosemont Center for 15 years, and I’ve never gotten there without getting lost or missing a turn.”
“You can see the place from the Interstate,” Jim noted, “but you can’t get there from here. Next year we’ll just abandon the truck on the shoulder, climb over the fence and walk to the show.”
Forty-five minutes and two more wrong turns later, we finally got there.
There’s an old Waylon Jennings song called, “Too Dumb for New York and Too Ugly for L.A.” I can personally relate to both those problems, but I really hate being too dumb for Chicago. Never mind the ugly part. Oh, well, we finally made it.
Chicago throws up some formidable defenses to those who would scale her ramparts from Wisconsin-not the least of which is an endless series of costly toll booths-but I keep coming back to the bike show every year nevertheless.
Why? Well, partly because Cycle World sponsors the show and we have a booth set up where I can hang out and talk to readers for a few hours every day, but mostly because it’s held in February-that cruel month when your Battery Tender nearly expires from boredom. In darkest winter, it’s hard to ignore the appeal of a huge heated pavilion where nearly every motorcycle-and accessory-in the world is on display.
Also, the Arlington Heights Guitar Center is just a few miles to the north, and I always stop there, en route, to see if I can be tempted by anything. So does Jim, who is a fellow guitar player in our extremely loud yet primitively euphonious blues band, The Defenders.
The correct balance between amps,
guitars and motorcycles is critical, and requires constant reflection, like the lime and tequila ratio in a good margarita. Anyway, we escaped without any new musical equipment this time, but spent two days at the show, wandering around and collecting enough brochures to sack the suspension on Jim’s truck.
This being the 15th consecutive year of my attendance, I’ve finally begun to notice a couple of familiar behavior patterns taking root, along with a few conclusions about the show itself. This year, I wrote some of them down:
1. In any given year, there are only two or three motorcycles I’m really drawn to, and in those two days of meandering, I keep coming magnetically back to them, over and over again. This year, for some reason, I kept gravitating toward the new version of the Triumph Tiger, in green and silver. It looks nice and sits well.
The other big draw for me was the Ural sidecar display. I’m not a sidecar fanatic, but these things look so vintagecool-and are so reasonably priced-you keep imagining the fun of having one in your garage.
What else? I think I sat on the black Ducati ST3 about nine times, mainly because I’m planning to put that improved seat on my own ST4S. Also, black motorcycles are the very Socratic definition of “The Good.”
2. As far as I can tell, the main reasons
most people come to a motorcycle show, unless they are buying accessories, are to a) look at bikes and b) sit on them. It amazes me that manufacturers will introduce a new model and put it way up on a rotating display stand where no one can sit on it. This is like selling tickets to a movie with a picture but no sound. Put those things down on the floor, dammit! We sit first and buy later.
3. At least another 30 percent of the reason for attending the Chicago show is to look at all the beautifully restored old British bikes displayed by the Chicago Norton Owners Club. Also, I always need to renew my membership, even though I am tragically between Nortons. If these guys ever quit showing up, I’ll have to re-think all those toll booths.
4. The “Balls of Steel” indoor thrill show, with three motorcycles orbiting inside a spherical steel cagewhile the announcer stands in the center-has to be seen to be believed. It’s the very definition of what “thrill” shows are meant to do, which is make you extremely queasy with fear.
5. KTM, one of the seven or eight brands of motorcycles to which I’m addicted, never has a factory display. This is very disappointing to a KTM owner such as myself. Maybe they blow all their money on the Dakar Rally, which is at least a viable excuse.
6. The Hyatt Regency, across the street from the show, has an excellent rotating restaurant on the top floor, which is great, because all compass points of the north suburban Chicago “skyline” look exactly the same at night, so you never get dizzy. It’s like watching a slide show with 360 identical photos of the Horsehead Nebula. Especially after a few drinks.
Jim and I checked out of the hotel on Sunday and left for home in the afternoon, driving into a wretched mixture of cold pouring rain and sleet. Fields everywhere were flooding into huge lakes of dismal gray snow-melt.
As we passed the Arlington Heights Guitar Center, Jim said, “Did you want to stop in and take another look at that Telecaster you were thinking of buying?
“No,” I said, watching the wipers push aside thick berms of freezing slush. “I’d better not. Spring is coming any day now, and I might need the money for another bike.” È
