The Accessibility Factor
The Accessibility Factor
LEANINGS
Peter Egan
WHEN MY WIFE BARBARA AND I MOVED from California back to Wisconsin 16 years ago, we came up with a list of reasons to explain the move to those who were baffled. For instance:
“You can cool your beer just by setting it outside the door in the winter,” or, “I need at least five months of arctic hibernation so I can finish restoring my Norton.” All in good fun, in a bleak sort of way, but two of our reasons for moving were actually quite serious:
We wanted to be close to a couple of restaurants in Madison-Paisans, our favorite pizza place, and Smoky’s Steakhouse, winner of many awards as one of the best steak houses in the U.S.
And all these years later, we still go to both places at the drop of a hat. We often use Smoky’s as a way of celebrating significant milestones, such as birthdays, buying another Ducati or finding a lost Snap-On 10mm socket under the workbench. In fact, we go there so often we’ve become friends with a member of the family that owns the restaurant, Tom Schmock, son of the original Smoky and his wife, who founded the place in 1953. Sometimes Tom even buys us a martini or sends a bottle of wine over to our table.
Yes, it’s official. I am now so old that real restaurant owners actually know me by name, instead of throwing me out for being a hippie.
It helps, of course, that Tom is an avid motorcyclist who’s become a regular at our Slimey Crud Motorcycle Gang meetings. He rides a Ducati ST2 and has a Suzuki DR650 dual-sport bike exactly like mine. And, just last month, Tom bought himself one of the new Triumph Scramblers, the high-pipe variation on the Bonneville 900 Twin.
And now we see him everywhere.
Go to Border’s books on a cold autumn night with snow flurries in the air, and in walks Tom, wearing his insulated GoreTex enduro jacket. “Are you riding on a night like this?” you ask.
“Yeah,” he says, “I’m on the Triumph. I can’t stay off that thing.”
The other night, Barb and I went to Smoky’s for dinner (to celebrate my recent purchase of new guitar strings for the Strat), and we asked the waitress if Tom was in the building. “No, she said, “he’s out riding his new motorcycle.”
I looked at the waitress and said, “It’s pitch dark and 29 degrees out there.”
She just smiled and shrugged help-
lessly. Barb and I were, frankly, a little disappointed because there was no one to buy us a free drink.
But a few minutes later Tom walked in, wearing a neck-warmer and his motorcycle jacket. He came over to our table, radiating cold (if that’s possible) and carrying some wine glasses.
“Out on the Triumph tonight?” I asked.
“Yup.”
“You’re riding that bike a lot.”
Tom frowned thoughtfully and said, “It’s so inviting and easy to ride. You just hop on it and go. There’s nothing to discourage you from riding, if you know what I mean.”
I knew exactly what he meant.
I’ve had a lot of bikes over the years and enjoyed them all for different reasons, but some have been ridden a lot more than others. And those have all shared a trait you might call “accessibility.” They’re motorcycles you ride on a whim, rather than in fulfillment of a plan.
There are a lot of small, subtle things that make a bike whimsically inviting to ride, and they make a wonderful testament to the widespread condition of human laziness-at least in my case.
For instance, if a bike is too tall, clumsy or heavy to back out of the garage easily, it doesn’t get ridden as often. Also, I’ve found that a sportbike with severely dropped handlebars and high rearsets may be wonderful on a pre-ordained Sunday
ride with friends, but it seldom gets used for a trip to the post office or the book store, or just a quick evening cruise to soak up the last hours of summer light.
Many of my sportbike friends are mystified at the continuing popularity of Harleys, but I always try to explain it with the simple phrase, “They’re easy to ride.” Low eg makes them easy to maneuver in the garage (or at a gas station), various forms of windshield keep the bugs off and you can put both feet on the ground. Start it up and go, easy as a golf cart. They make no unreasonable demands.
I see the same thing in my own garage. My main bike for the past several years has been a KTM 950 Adventure. Once this thing is out of the garage, warmed up and rolling, I love it. But I often choose my Suzuki DR650 for short, impulsive rides because it’s just a little lower, lighter and easier to maneuver between the car and the lawnmower. More of a nobrainer to park and hop off of, too. Tom’s new Triumph is easier still. It throws up absolutely no defense-real or imaginedagainst being ridden.
The world is full of other examples outside the realm of motorcycling. My neighbor Lyman recently told me he’s doubled the amount of bicycling he does since he replaced his old roadracer with a hybrid. “I don’t have to change shoes,” he says, “and I don’t get a crick in my neck looking for traffic.”
I have a book on buying used sailboats in which the author says, “For every 5 feet of length and complexity you add to a boat, you will sail it half as often.”
You could see the same syndrome with test cars when I worked full time at Road & Track during the Eighties. When it was time to drive to lunch, everyone gravitated toward the Honda Civics of this world, while the Lamborghini Countach sat in the parking lot. Beautiful and exotic, but hard to see out of and too much work in town. A great weekend car, but not so good at Burger King.
Exotica, in other words, can be very rewarding, but so can honest simplicity. In the ideal garage, there’s sometimes room for both.
Which reminds me, our local Triumph shop, Sharer Cycle Center, has a leftover 2006 Triumph Scrambler on sale right now. Just like Tom’s. It probably wouldn’t hurt anything if I wandered over there later this afternoon, just to say hi. □
