BMW Twins

My daily ride is a 1999 BMW R1100RS, purchased in April 1999 and ridden home in a driving rain for my first ride in almost 20 years. The RS, the half-faired "sport"-tourer of the first generation oilhead boxers, was never a big seller in the U.S. I think they imported less than 200 that year. More people were buying the full fairing and touring package of the RT model, or the cafe racer-esque styling of the just-introduced R1100S.

The half-faired RS was my preference. I love to see the engine out in the open, but enjoy enough fairing and windscreen to make a 600-mile day a pleasant ride. I like air-cooled engines for their simplicity, and the boxer's twin lumps hanging out in the breeze make for easy servicing. You can change the plugs or even pull a cylinder head without removing the tank or a fairing panel (not true for changing the fuel filter, which is a non-intuitive hours-long adventure).

I have also harbored a small-ish secret pride in the exclusivity of this RS. In almost 10 years of riding mine, I've only see a half-dozen or so on the road. In Ann Arbor, I had seen two: one red and one in midnight blue. I've seen them each just once while driving a car, and each time I thought the least I should do is turn around and follow them, to where I don't know, introduce myself and assure them their RS' have a long-lost cousin who'd like to meet them.

This past spring, I left a meeting on campus and crossed the street to my bike, when I saw my RS, or what looked exactly like it, turn out of the bike lot and head up the street. By the time I looked to confirm that my bike was still where I had parked it and attempt a friendly wave the other RS was gone.

This left me just plain goofy. There was another black R1100RS in town. I had that one ephemeral chance to make contact with a previously unknown RS next-of-kin and missed it again. A black one too.

How goofy is that?

The next week I pulled in and there it was again, parked in the lot. I parked next to it and gave it a good walk-around. I pulled out my business card and wrote "Cool. I've got the same model." and tucked into the gap between the rider's seat and the pillion. But I never heard from the other rider. Over the next few weeks I would arrive for a meeting in this part of campus, park in the bike lot next to the other black RS and still be a little amazed at this coincidence. At home, Teri was feeling increasingly sorry for me that my big report for the day was "It was there again."

When I finally met Wes, the owner of the other black RS, he was leaving for the day and I was just arriving for a meeting. I introduced myself, to which he replied "Oh, the guy who left the card. Yeah, I noticed our bikes look alike." Wes' RS is also a 1999. I'm calculating the odds on two black, 1999 BMW R1100RS' being in the same town, no, the same parking lot... at least 1% of all the 1999 RS models in the US are parked here right now. It would be an even higher percentage if I knew the color breakdown.

"Yeah, it's kind of cool," says Wes. "Same color, year, everything. Looks like you wash yours, though. I'll have to try that some time."

Starting all over again

It's been a long time since I logged into this Blogger dashboard. A few days after my last post at the end of February (!) our youngest son had a serious solo bicycle accident and we almost lost him. On his way to the community college just two miles from our house, he high-sided on a patch of black-ice on an otherwise dry road just 100 feet from home. He was wearing a helmet, but the weight of his heavy back-pack (38 pounds on my fish scale) must have added greatly to the impact which was directly to the forehead. His modestly priced helmet split in two. He hit hard enough to sustain a closed head injury that left him comatose and unable to breath on his own for the next 36 hours. The accident happened on the very first day he had ever worn a cycling helmet - ever. That was the first in a string of amazing events that returned him healthy and whole again. It's been 8 months now, and he's been 100% for a while. We are truly thankful.

We've also passed through a season of parents passing on, leaving for what all hope to be something even better, and children getting married. It's a full life in every way. But it's been a long time since I had the time or the desire to write about riding, or anything else.

I have huge respect for those bloggers that keep bringing us into their worlds week-in-week-out for years. Dean Adams ("Soup" news from Superbike Planet.com), Cecilie Hoffman ("Cecilie's Moto Journal"), Steven Munro ("loudbike"), Paul Crowe ("The Kneeslider") - are my all-star list.

Today the hours of daylight must have fallen below a threshold that triggers some synaptic rhythm I need to begin writing. If the moving parts aren't seized up from neglect maybe I can kickstart this thing back into a rough idle.

Winter Riding Tips: Tune up Your iPod/PMP

I tried listening to music, just once, while riding. We have an Autocom rider-pillion intercom installed on the beemer which Teri and I use to simplify those short, necessary on-bike conversions about which of the last four gas stations we've passed might have the cleanest restrooms. Or whether "bear right after fruit stand" means taking the dirt lane up the hill between the cottonwoods, or that long cambered sweeper that branches off 50 yards further down the road.

The Autocom on-bike communications system, by the way, is superb. Ours is almost 10-years old, lacks Bluetooth capability, but delivers remarkable sound. In addition to the things you'd expect like (fast) voice-activated microphones and expandability to integrate multiple audio devices, the sound quality of the volume-compensating, noise cancellation is remarkable. We have clear communications with visors cracked open at 85mph, and when you slow to a stop, the volume is adjusted automatically. The firmware was, after all, designed for battlefield use by helicopter crews. BTW Autocom now has plenty of Bluetooth-capable systems, but for some things I prefer wires anyway.

The one time I tried in-helmet music, using one of the open ports on the Autocom it was distracting as hell. Whether touring, commuting or riding on the track, a large component of the riding experience for me is total engagement with the bike. I read somewhere (okay, so this is HIGHLY anecdotal) that the complexity of environmental assessments, multiple control inputs and fast-cycle feedback loops, makes riding next in line to flying combat aircraft in demands on operator engagement. The music accompaniment experiment lasted about two hours, during which I drove too fast, too slow, daydreamed or was otherwise out-of-synch. Do fighter pilots listen to music in the air? Maybe I'm just easily distracted.

But during our Michigan season of little or no riding, the car audio system gets a full workout. Some tunes about biking would be fun. Unfortunately, music about motorcycling is just as scarce as are good books about riding. To the rescue come Cecilie Hoffman and Carolyn Bierman. Cecilie (Cecilie's MotoJournal) has published an updated list of motorcycle-inspired music, a list that was first begun by Carolyn Bierman (BluepoofBikes Motorcycle Adventures) in 2006. They even have compiled lyrics for the 34 songs listed. Cecilie's site is organized in frames, so I can't give you a direct link to the song list, but as of this post (February 28, 2008) the list is accessed on the current-entry page. In the future you should be able to navigate to it by going to Cecilie's site and under 2008, click through the February listings to the entry on February 16th.

Thanks Cecilie and Carolyn.

Winter Riding Tips: What's on your wall?

Part I - My back wall
Somewhere -- in the garage, your den, living room, home office, basement workshop -- is where you wear your motorcycling heart on your shirtsleeve.

During the university's winter break, I took a week off work to, among other things, get in some motorcycling "head" time. I'd been off the bike for six weeks by then. I went with Dave and Tim to the International Motorcycle Show near Detroit, read "Top Dead Center" and "Riding with Rilke," and updated my home office with some new images.

If you're like me, and many of my riding friends, you collect posters, books and photos on a regular basis -- and store them on a shelf till they turn yellow and brittle. Living in a riding locale where winter means snow on the ground and salt on the streets, this is a great time to see the riding on the wall.

This past fall I discovered an eBay store (Classic Motorcycle Ads) that sells vintage motoring ads. These are ad pages cut from original magazines, not photocopies. In high school, I had two bikes, a 1966 Moto Guzzi 125 Sport and a 1967 BSA 441 Shooting Star that I had never taken pictures of. So, for old-times sake, and for less than $10 apiece I found a mint-condition ad for each and put them under glass on the left side of the wall behind my desk.

If you've never seen the work of motorcycle artist Kendge Shibata (Seevert Works Gallery), you have to visit his site. Although my interests favor European singles and twins, his paintings of landmark Japanese GP bikes parallel the precision of the machinery he paints. When you visit his site observe his process in creating a single image. One of Shibata's newest and most remarkable works is a large-format poster of 21 Honda GP bikes from 1959-1967 titled ""The Legendary Attempt to Dominate the Road Racing World Championship: The Glorious Years of Honda Screaming Multis." You can see an image of the poster on Shibata's site, but he does not sell them to the U.S. I purchased mine from the "Soup Army" store (a.k.a. Hardscrabble Media), who have them available from time-to-time. This became the center-piece of the back wall.

Finally, two pictures, among several black and whites from the pages of the British publication "Bike" went up on the right. This was a series run in 1999 of "Bike" editors and their rides. A lot of character is expressed in these images. Top: one of the editors and his crew with their race bike -- race faces on. Gritty looking guys, these. Bottom: An image we can identify with - one of the editors, lying on his back on what we presume to be a cold damp shed floor, tearing into the vitals of his bike, by the eye-straining illumination of a single, old fashioned drop-light. No heated garage, no fluorescent lighting, no epoxy-finish floor (no space either from what I've seen of the typical UK bike shed). Just desire to be back on the road.

I wish I could dig up the names of these guys. Come to think of it, I bet I still have those back issues on the book shelves in here...