Two Wheels, One Heart, and Many Perfect Days

Copyright © 2021

by Ralph F. Couey

In the spring of 1993, I had landed a job at a Caterpillar plant in Boonville, Missouri.  We were living in the south part of Columbia, which gave me about a 60-mile round trip commute.  Although I had a fairly efficient car at the time, the gas (at a confiscatory $1.12 per gallon) was eating us up.  After years of unsuccessful lobbying, Cheryl, out of the clear blue, suggested I look into buying a motorcycle.  

Once I recovered from this considerable shock, I began my search.  I was fortunate in that I worked with a guy named Mike who knew a lot about bikes.  He taught me a lot about all the ins and outs of not just riding, but maintaining such a machine.  After a considerable search, and some help from some co-workers, I found my first bike, a Suzuki GS-550.  It was a very basic bike, but with enough engine for freeway commuting.  It was on this bike that I learned, first riding around the neighborhood, then some cautious forays around town.  It was a good bike, although afflicted with the electrical problems for which Suzukis of that era were notorious.  I fell a few times, not at high speed, but usually trying to execute an ascending right turn.  The only casualties were the handlebar mounted mirrors.  Fortunately, there was a motorcycle salvage yard not too far away which provided a reliable supply of replacements.  

                         

As time passed, I gained skills and therefore confidence.  On Mike's fervent recommendation,  I attended a Motorcycle Safety Foundation-sanctioned beginning rider's course.  Over that long weekend, I learned a ton of valuable information as well as skills that the experienced instructors assured me would help keep me alive.

I passed the course and a week later took my motorcycle rider's test for the state license.  It was pretty straightforward.  First test was to be able to locate all the switches on the handlebars without looking for them.  Then, I rode a straight line at low speed, making sure I took all of the allotted time.  There was a test where I accelerated quickly, and brought the bike to a controlled stop within a specified distance.  The last test was a slalom through some tightly-packed orange cones, which I had to complete without stopping or putting a foot down.  Between the class, my own practice, and Mike's sage advice, I passed the test with flying colors.  I took the written test, and received a temporary license.  A couple of weeks later, I got the real thing, actually my regular drivers license with a motorcycle endorsement.  

I got better with practice, and I began to expand my rides, taking on some twisty roads and finally, the Interstate.  At that point, I felt ready to turn my commute over to the bike.

I had that bike for about a year, when I was able to acquire an old Yamaha 1100, a kind of chopper-looking machine.  A few months later, I bought the bike I had always had in mind, a BMW 750.  Eventually, I was able to sell the Suzuki (having gotten tired of fixing electrical issues) and the old Yamaha, but at one point, I had three bikes in the garage at the same time.  Man, did I feel wealthy!

1996 proved to be a bad year.  In the summer, our house burned when some kids shot an errant bottle rocket into our garage, lighting up a stack of newspapers and a 5-gallon tank of gasoline.  I'll spare you the pain and agony of that experience, except to say that the BMW was in the shop that day.  In the fall, however, riding on a country highway west of Columbia, a deer leapt out of a culvert directly into my path.  I reacted well, but the combination of new tires (still slick), and a wet road surface put the bike on its side, and me on my back.  We were both sliding down the road, and I remember turning to look at my beautiful bike shredding plastic body parts all over the pavement.  Fortunately, another driver witnessed the accident and called 911.  I had a painful road rash on my left forearm, and my brain thought that I could put my foot down and stand the bike back up, which left me with a partially-torn Achilles tendon and a badly sprained ankle.

Sadly, the bike was totaled, but some creative work by the BMW dealer in Kansas City left me in better financial straits.  I was bikeless for a few months, as I healed up.  But despite the accident, the itch to ride remained.  

After some searching for a touring-type motorcycle, I settled on a 1995 Honda Pacific Coast.  This was an odd bird, having been designed, not by Honda Motorcycle, but by the folks who did the Honda Accord.  The machine was completely swathed in very swoopy-looking plastic body panels and instead of the usual saddle bags, a waterproof trunk.  The engine, thus shrouded, was almost silent when running.  Still, it was a capable 800cc engine with enough punch and power to do what I needed it to do.  The problem was, the bike was in Colorado, and I was in Missouri.  I prevailed upon a co-worker for help, who volunteered his pickup truck.  I arranged with the seller to meet in the small town of Colby, Kansas.  It was January, and we were rolling the dice with weather, but the forecast looked good.  So we left early in the morning for the 500-mile trip to Colby.  We arrived in the evening and found both bike and seller.  After a quick tutorial, I took the bike for a ride around town.  I was very happy with my choice, so upon the return to the motel, we executed the money transaction, got the title signed, and the deal was done.  We had intended to return the next day, but out of the clear blue, the formerly placid forecast was replaced by a winter storm warning.  We decided to head back that night.

Only the young and dumb do such things.

We got the bike loaded into the truck and secured with tie-downs, and then pulled out of the lot and headed back east.  Big wet flakes were falling out of the sky before we were out of town, and the journey back was fraught with slick roads, sleepy eyes, and no small amount of nerves.  The snow didn't stop until we were on the other side of Kansas City. After a stop for some caffeine and exercise, we hit the road again, reaching Columbia as the sun began to peek over the horizon.  We found a place to offload the bike, and after profusely thanking my companion, I mounted the bike and rode home.

That began a relationship that lasted for eight years and over 100,000 miles.  While I've owned six motorcycles, the PC800 was the one with which I forged my fondest memories.  

I graduated from Columbia College with a Political Science degree in 2000 and a desire to go to work for the Intelligence Community.  This was before the Internet really got going, so the process of applying for these jobs was way more difficult than today.  But after three years of ceaseless effort, I secured an interview with a counter-drug agency in Pennsylvania.  I flew out, had the interview and returned, only to get a call a couple of weeks later to find out that I "didn't make the cut."  It was devastating.  I had invested a lot in this process, including traveling to St. Louis for an FBI-administered polygraph.  For a couple of weeks, I stomped around home being, and making everyone else miserable.  Finally Cheryl told me, "You get on that bike and head west.  Don't come back until you've found your smile again."

It was inspired council.  Within two weeks, I had planned the trip, loaded the bike, and on an uncharacteristically cool July morning, I began my journey.  It wasn't my first long trip, as the year before, I had gone north to Lake Superior over a long Labor Day weekend.  But this was something altogether different.  Ahead of me lay some 5,000 miles across Kansas, the panhandles of Oklahoma and Texas, across New Mexico, diagonally through Arizona, across Colorado, then through Kansas and back home.  This trip was to take nine days.

It was, simply stated, the nine greatest days of my life.  The American west, with its wide-open skies and limitless horizons was meant to be experienced from the top of a horse or the back of a motorcycle.  Each day had its charms and adventures, from the long glide between endless wheatfields in Kansas, through the stark grasslands of Texas and Oklahoma, still recovering from the Dust Bowl years.  Leaving the Interstate and heading south on Route 80 into the empty lands of southwest New Mexico.  Arizona, with its starkly beautiful deserts.  The dramatic mountains of Colorado with all the twisty roads through them.  

As I think back over the decades, snippets of memory come alive.  The graceful Flint Hills of Kansas.  Getting chased down by a county sheriff outside of Dalhart, Texas who accused me of leaving a gas station without paying.  Fortunately, I keep my receipts.  Sacramento Mountains of New Mexico, a place of green grass, blue streams, and grazing cattle.  A man and his five-year-old son at another gas station in Tombstone, Arizona, who looked a the bike with such longing, that I gently lifted up onto the seat, let him start the engine and rev the throttle, and watching his eyes get so big.  Zigzagging up the Yarnell Hill and through Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona.  Encountering a bear in the middle of a road in Colorado.  Climbing to the top of Rocky Mountain National Park, and then the long and twisty ride back down from 12,000 feet.  Having to reroute around a wildfire on the front range of the Rockies, and almost running out of gas before literally coasting into Limon, Colorado.  And finally the last run across Kansas, only pausing to collect a speeding ticket outside of Abilene.  When I finally powered up the driveway at home, I had indeed found my smile.  I was welcomed by joyful kids and a wife who wouldn't kiss my until I had shaved my beard.  Yeah, if I was on vacation, so was my razor.

In 2004, I finally landed that job in Pennsylvania, and when we moved, the bike came with me.  I discovered the joy of riding the mountains of western PA.  During that time, there were other trips, a sojourn to one of the ultimate motorcycle roads, the Tail of the Dragon at Deals Gap on the North Carolina-Tennessee border.  318 curves in only 11 miles, and I promise you, I never felt more alive as I carved through that stretch.  

By that time, I had accumulated 110,000 miles on the Pacific Coast, and decided to sell and get something newer.  I posted an ad, and to my blank astonishment, sold the bike in three days.  We went through some financially tough times, which left me bikeless for awhile.  On Cheryl's suggestion, we took a long Memorial Day weekend, rented a big ol' Honda Gold Wing in Connecticut and did six days through New England.  It was my first time on such a big bike, but I found out that once you got it going, it handled like a champ.  

A few months afterwards, I bought a Kawasaki Vulcan 900 from a local dealer in Somerset, PA.  I had it for almost a year when I had to lay it down to avoid a car that pulled out in front of me.  My lucky day, as this happened right in front of a hospital.  I broke three ribs -- and that's a whole new kinda pain, let me tell you -- and was laid up for a month or so.  Once healed, I found another Vulcan, a virtual copy of the one I had previously.  I had that bike for the rest of the time in PA, before my agency was shuttered and I transferred to FBI in Virginia.  Of course, the bike went too.  

DC was a whole new kinda driving experience, but in the five years we were there, I never had an accident, although there were many close calls.  I spent a lot of time riding in the hills of the Shenandoah, and if there is a more beautiful place in the fall, I've not seen it.  I also took a trip up north to visit the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, New York, something I'd wanted to do since collecting baseball cards as a kid.  

My time at FBI came to an end, and with it my time with my bike.  I remember that I sold it to a couple of guys who drove down from Maine, who picked it up the same day our shopworn Toyota Highlander was donated.  I remember saying to Cheryl that after watching my motorcycle and SUV go away, I thought I'd have to give up my man card.

Since then, we've lived a kind of nomadic existence, which precluded owning a motorcycle.  I've also realized that my reflexes are slower now, which makes riding a more dicey proposition.  But, I've acquired a Mustang, and that has helped to fill the void.

For nearly thirty years I rode those bikes across most of the country.  I have such great memories of beautiful days, peaceful sunsets, breathtakingly beautiful countryside.  Yes, I had a few accidents.  But I avoided a lot more of them because I was skilled, and careful.  There will always exist in my mind the memory of a sun-dappled roads, the wind whipping past my helmet, and the incredible feeling of freedom that could never be experienced inside a car.  The thrill of leaning hard into a curve, reaching the apex, and accelerating out onto a straightaway.  Especially those times when Cheryl rode with me, feeling her close behind and those heart-warming hugs.  Those were the perfect days.

I still look at bikes from time to time, but I know that part of my life is past.  I must re-live those memories, almost at an arm's length.  But they will always be there, ready to be recalled and treasured.

During that stopover in Tombstone, a couple asked me why I rode. Unbidden, these words came to me:

There's a horizon out there.

On the far side are places I've never been...
Things I've never seen...
People I've never met...
Experiences I've never had.

All day long I ride to that horizon, freed by the knowledge
that I have nowhere to be,
and all the time in the world to get there.

There is no destination because the ride itself is the adventure.
I touch the world and the world touches me.

And yet, I am driven by the desire to go there,
see that,
do that...
feel that;
The urgency of a finite life in which to explore the infinite universe.

And the best part?

Every morning there's a new horizon out there;

Calling to me...

I just don't think life gets any better than that.