I ordered the GP Pro Series stands from GPI Industries which set me back $249.99. GP Pro Series stands are mandrel bent from one piece of 1 3/8″ tubular carbon steel meaning no joints, no wobbly bolts holding them together and no major assembly, just attach the wheels and they are ready to use. A lifetime guarantee accompanies every stand but after looking over their one piece construction I can’t imagine where they would fail.
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My engine thrummed while birds circled overhead, teasing the Columbia River air with their wingtips. Expert manipulators of space they moved with unconscious subtle gestures, altering their trajectory in anticipation of the next wind shift. Like a road racer making minute course changes with a lowering of the head to the inside of a corner, these birds were masters of instinctual flight. I assumed they were eagles.
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The picture was a metaphor, an allegory that burrowed deep into spaces in my mind I pretend don’t exist, things about the sport of motorcycling I bury beneath the temporal joy of the next corner.
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Standing at my workbench beneath the glow of my shop lights I washed the lingering taste of stale taco out of my mouth with another pull of moonshine from the mason jar, a solitary thought ricocheting around my head like the last, lonely ball on a pool table. As I fumbled for the drill that sole thought was that what I was about to do was wrong, way wrong, so wrong that it could either be the best thing I had ever done, or the worst.
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I pondered the unfriendly hand of cards life had dealt and the solitary thought poking through the fog of agony surprised me. It wasn’t about can I keep my job, will the surgery hurt, will insurance cover my illness, or will my dog still love me, it was this: Will I still be able to ride my motorcycle?
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I knew something was wrong. I remounted and ascended the grade slowly. With its rock face to the left and sheer drop to the right, running wide here meant endless airtime to consider what went wrong, get your affairs in order and picture your kids’ faces before gravity pulls you toward your inevitable handshake with the basalt rocks that lie below, waiting to mangle rider and bike. A couple of minutes into my climb I found Corey’s wreck. He had run wide.
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With great sadness I hold in my hand the last print issue of Cycle World. The brainchild of Joe Parkhust started publication in 1962 but ceased printing of magazines in 2020 as they transitioned to online media only. As the print version died, so did my dream of ever seeing my name in an issue of Cycle World…
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Welcome to my tearful farewell, my wistful goodbye to a house in the middle of a God-kissed corner of the Pacific Northwest bereft of time’s depravities, a place to run where the most important things in life are not things, but people. In this house, this oasis from life’s downward plunging corkscrew and its horrible sucking tempest there lived a gentle, retired Presbyterian minister and his wife.
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If you want a land to get into your soul, ask it to dance. Roam through its curves, flirt with its scenery, stop and stare at its unfolding landscape and it will talk to you, revealing itself like an intimate dance partner. Ask the landscape questions and it will whisper the answers in your ear, embedding it into your memory forever. As a northwest native, I never thought I could feel that way about Fall in the Appalachians.
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