Motorcycles Bartenders F-Bombs

    East of El Paso on Interstate 10 , the daytime legal speed limit is 80 mph.  There's not a whole lot of traffic, it's flat, desert, no one seemed to go over 85 mph. I watch what other drivers are doing; I try not to stand out. So I went with traffic, kept my sped down to around 83, and cruised past few sneaky patrol cars, speed traps, just waiting to accelerate out onto the super-slab, and nab some law breaking speeder. Forty miles west of Van Horn, all traffic was funneled into a Border Patrol checkpoint.  The officers looked very serious, and had serious looking military style equipment. There was one man in the booth, one man standing near the side of the lane with a short barreled assault rifle, and one man holding a vicious looking dog on a short lead, all at the ready, and very serious. No smiles, here. The dude in the booth, he asked me a question, but my hearing was all shot to hell from all the wind noise of high speed riding, and the roar of the engine. On a good

  It was once an Apache campsite and silver ore was discovered at nearby Chloride Flat.   Silver City, New Mexico was founded in the summer of 1870. It was a town with a violent crime rate: Butch Cassidy and his Wild Bunch frequented the saloons in the late 1800's, and Billy the Kid was arrested there twice by Sheriff Whitehill. In 1878, the town hired its first town marshal, "Dangerous Dan" Tucker, who had been working as a deputy for Whitehill since 1875. We took the room at The Drifter because they advertised a bar, pool table, and pool.  After we checked in, we found out the bar was closed on Mondays, and the pool was closed, too.  The place was run down, pretty much deserted, except for us.  But there was a restaurant/bar across the street, so it would do.  We'd reached the furthest point of our ride and would be heading mostly east from now on. We drank a few left-over beers in the room, with ice, because they were hot from being in the saddlebags, and went acro

  I like butts and I like riding, so I went to Buttzville for lunch. There’s nothing like having no place to go, and all the time in the world to get there, so I shot out onto the interstate, blasted into the left lane and stifled a scream of joy while the heavy 88 inch motor pulsed along, rolling past lesser traffic. Relaxing into the backroads of New Jersey, I wandered route 94, and took a quick pass through the pet cemetery amid monumental statues of giant animals. Route 519 had swooping curves and little roller coaster hills; flocks of turkeys scooted towards the woods. Buttzville lay on route 46, and I rode through twice looking for an interesting place to eat. The most crowded place in town, no doubt, was an old time hot dog joint, outdoors fast food with lunch lines at three windows. I stood in the slow line, discreetly checking butts. I saw a lot of average butts and several good ones. There were a couple I would consider “fine,” but there was one, only one that I would cons

A motorcycle race was the only way to settle it, and young Bob knew that his clapped out, oil burning, Ironhead Sportster, was not up to the task. But it was a warm September day in the Poconos when the fast-talking stranger rolled up and parked his flat black touring bike next to Nellie's Burrito wagon. The stranger looked like he had some miles on him, tough wrinkled, greybeard miles.  And unlike the Sportster, the flat black touring bike, looked to be well maintained and fast. Oh, it was grimy, but you could just tell, it was fast. So, sitting in the white plastic lawn chairs alongside the two lane highway, next to the burrito wagon, Bob struck up a conversation about motorcycles, which eventually led to talk about his upcoming race, and he subtly inquired: "Well, how can I make my bike go faster?" So Bob and the stranger went over for a closer look at the hopeless looking iron head.  Bob started the bike, and revved her a few times, and they both watched as thi

  $500 Spider The spider, it appears that he's building a web around my speedometer needle. Think of the possibilities:  "I didn't know I was speeding officer…oh, look, there's a spider web in my speedometer." Or this:  "…one hundred miles per hour…No Way. My speedometer only said fifty-five." Well, there's a little hole in the back, and I hooked a tiny hose onto a can of Raid, and gave him a little shot. There's really no way to get the little fucker out of there; I don't think the speedo comes apart. So for now, I'll just wait and see if the Raid will take its toll. And think of more excuses… So…the spider was living in the speedometer, and I figured, “…live and let live,” that is, until she started building a web to the needle.  So a little Raid applied around the holes  in the bottom, where the wires go in, and a dose of heat from the heat gun, to spread the fumes, and the spider lay down at a spot between 90 and 95 MPH, on the glass.

 Riding backroads, the last mile before home, I make the right at the stop sign, let out the clutch and, zip, nothing. Engine’s running, no power to the wheel. Another gear, same thing, no power to the wheel. I’m at the bottom of the hill, and she ain’t moving.  Neighbor comes by in his truck, and we fasten a strap around the top of my fork, attached to his bumper, and he tows me to the bottom of my driveway, where, with much effort, we push the dead 650 lb. machine up the hill to the garage. What could cause such a vulnerability? I’d had the tranny rebuilt only 23,000 miles ago. So I drained the tranny. There were no metal chips on the drain plug magnet: a good sign. So I dug into the primary, and the clutch, considering the high mileage of 148,000, looked good. When I took off the inner primary, the problem was readily apparent: a loose mainshaft sprocket nut. Aluminum shavings littered the recess of the sprocket from where the spinning nut gouged the area around the mainshaft seal o