I'm in the garage and hear the phone ring about 7:30 this morning. Not much I can do here, really. Just futzing around and drinking my AM coffee. Up in the kitchen, I hear the voice of Glen; "Uncle Ernie, you never called last night about pushing your bike up the driveway- so I'm comin over right now"
Younger folks don't understand what it's like to play a record at a slower speed, but I hear what sounds like a recording of a Ducati-powered clothes dryer full of bolts and tennis shoes -played at a slower speed -pull into my driveway. Glen on his '46 Chief. We are gong to Hillbilly's ride. I have never been on this ride, but I assume it's a guy Glen knows and they plan to take in some countryside on their old bikes. Hillbilly is known for riding his flathead to Alaska and back using an engine that Ken Crouse built. Personally, I try not to let the bigger pieces of trivia block the drainage tubes in my head. In-line filters work great, and so I say, "Huh" with a deep look on my face.
So anyway, I get the jacket and accoutrement donned (that's French for, "I got my stuff together" and we push the fiddytwo up the drive a bit. 2nd, gas, ignition, shove, and a series of low pops emerge until they speed up some and I get all adrenalized and open the throttle because I know what will happen if I don't as I roll into the garage. Tyhese are 2 relatively rare Bing carburetors and to keep it stock, I have almost had to build them from pieces from different sources. They work pretty good while running, but I can't kick-start the bike and I have to keep the throttle open so the bike will idle. The right carb has slack in the cable, but the slide doesn't come to rest low enough and doesn't respond to any speed screw adjustments. The left has no slack, but the slide sits where it's supposed to.
Glen grabs the bars and pushes me back as I turn around again and get up the driveway. Easy.
We head down 74-A to a gas station where Stuart and his son Jake are waiting. They both race AHRMA and Stuart is an incredible bike restorer. He's riding an impeccable Triumph and Jake is on the bike I want most in the world but can't ever have because I could never start it- a BSA single.
74-A goes through a too-fast developing area and heads into the mountains a little. It's about 65 or 68 degrees and I'm real glad I wore my leather jacket. A cool morning and an old bike and a leather jacket all just go together. They have a certain "fit"- a "je ne sais quoi" if you will. Like a hug from your mother when you were homesick. We go through the open parts and pass fields that display a vast, wide sky that's very blue in the background but there are huge mountains of cotton balls in the air. The clouds somehow make the sky seem even bigger. We make our first gradual turns up the lower part of the hills and the trees swallow us up. It's kind of dark now and getting cooler as we get closer to the river. The road snakes back and forth between the uneven sides of the mountains and the irregular path of the creek -or river- or whatever you'd call it. Seems too shallow these days to call it a river.
Because we're all on old bikes and in a group, we take it pretty slow. Glen has no idea how fast he's going because his speedo doesn't work. I swear I never saw an Indian with a working speedometer. I am sort of pushing back and forth. It occurs to me that the difference between "twisties" and wonderful S's and sweepers is just a matter of speed.
I have been staring at the computer and worried about "stuff" and I am so happy to be doing this waltz I start to cry a little. Mile after mile of cool air and trees and water and wafting back and forth sun-dappled pavement.
An awful lot of the trees and bushes and telephone polls are covered with a vegetative scourge originally from China called Kudzu. Rich folks of the antediluvian south brought it over as a decorative alternative to ivy, and it has taken over the south. It seems almost as if you have shrunk to 3 inches tall and are trying to get though a thick carpet. I am sailing through thick carpeting of Kudzu. It covers everything and my mother used to call the looming shapes "monsters". that still makes me smile because she's right. Was right. She daid. I'm sitting here laughing at that, but I know she would too. My signature is a quote from her.
I think about this kind of stuff while I ride; wending my way through- not only the curves and turns and trees and clouds, but through thoughts of people and the past. One reason this is so special right now is I'm not fretting about the future. This is just what it is- and I get a little verklempt again.
I see some bikes parked in a lot and assume this is the place. What the heck -there are more people here than I thought there would be...
We park, but bikes keep rollong in. Nice bikes. wow. Sensory overload;
