"So it was always at night, like a werewolf, that I would take the thing out for an honest run down the coast. I would start in Golden Gate Park, thinking only to run a few long curves to clear my head....but in a matter of minutes I'd be out at the beach with the sound of the engine in my ears, the surf booming up on the sea wall and a fine empty road stretching all the way down to Santa Cruz...not even a gas station in the whole seventy miles; the only public light along the way is an all-night diner down around Rockaway Beach.
There was no helmet on those nights, no speed limit, and no cooling it down on the curves. The momentary freedom of the park was like the one unlucky drink that shoves a wavering alcoholic off the wagon. I would come out of the park near the soccer field and pause for a moment at the stop sign, wondering if I knew anyone parked out there on the midnight humping strip.
Then into first gear, forgetting the cars and letting the beast wind out .... thirty-five, forty-five ... then into second and wailing through the light at Lincoln Way, not worried about green or red signals, but only some other werewolf loony who might be pulling out, too slowly, to start his own run. Not many of these...and with three lanes on a wide curve, a bike coming hard has plenty of room to get around almost anything....then into third, the boomer gear, pushing seventy-five and the beginning of a windscram in the ears, a pressure on the eyeballs like diving into water off a high board.
Bent forward, far back on the seat, and a rigid grip on the handlebars as the bike starts jumping and wavering in the wind. Taillights far up ahead coming closer, faster, and suddenly--zaaappp--going past and leaning down for a curve near the zoo, where the road swings out to sea.
The dunes are flatter here, and on windy days sand blows across the highway, piling up in thick drifts as deadly as any oil-slick...instant loss of control, a crashing, cartwheeling slide and maybe one of those two-inch notices in the paper the next day: "An unidentified motorcyclist was killed last night when he failed to negotiate a turn on Highway 1."
Indeed...but no sand this time, so the lever goes up into fourth, and now there's no sound except wind. Screw it all the way over, reach through the handlebars to raise the headlight beam, the needles leans down on a hundred and wind-burned eyeballs strain to see down the centerline, trying to provide a margin for reflexes.
But with the throttle screwed on there is only the barest margin, and nor room at all for mistakes. It has to be done right....and that's when the strange music starts, when you stretch your luck so far that fear becomes exhilaration and vibrates along your arms. You can barely see at a hundred; the tears blow back so fast that they vaporize before they get to your ears. The only sounds are wind a dull roar floating back from the mufflers. You watch the white line and try to lean with it...howling through a turn to the right, then to the left and down the long hill to Pacifica...letting off now, watching for cops, but only until the next dark stretch and another few seconds on the edge...The Edge...There is no honest way to explain it because the only people who really know where it is are ones who have gone over. The others--the living-- are those who who pushed their control as far as they felt they could handle it, and then pulled back, or slowed down, or did whatever they had to when it came time to choose between Now and Later."
....Hell's Angels, Hunter S. Thompson, 1967
A few points stick in my craw... and I don't even know where my craw is.
I doubt he'd hear the surf over his engine whine. If it was bike from that era, I doubt it had anything resembling quiet pipes. And the wind at any speed over 30 does a number on your fine hearing, especially without a helmet.
But still... a fun write up on motorcycling by a writer I woulda thunk I'd dislike.
I have to admit, I have only gone over the edge a few times. At the end of the day, I don't think it would be all that big a deal if I wiped out and died. Though I certainly don't want to. For all its trials, life's pretty amazing - even for me right now. There's lots more I want to do and there's the rest of eternity to be DEAD!
And besides, I haven't had sex with one woman of every skin colour yet.
But if you really go past the edge you're almost certainly plunging into the unknown. And to me, that's putting others at risk. To put it as simply as I know how: I have no right to do that. If I die riding, I die doing something I love. If I kill someone else...
If I can do anything at all to help it, I won't be that guy going over the yellow line at 100 MPH and taking out a family of four on a Sunday ride to Nashville. Much better to just drop off a cliff all by my lonesome and make an unobtrusive crash, unnoticed by human ears or eyes. At least that way, I get to feed some animals instead of having formaldehyde pumped into my corpse (something about that idea really sickens me).
So I guess I'll keep being the pussy and slowing down around blind corners, no matter how much more I know my Ninja will lean (even with the cruddy stock tires - I cannot wait to replace them with some Speed Demons!).
I'll keep my peace of mind, no matter how much that edge calls to me. And keep my one eye out for some more badass roads.
Labels: motorcycles
