As a technique freak, it might be the nicest thing anybody has ever said to me.

I’ll have to ask my shrink why, but forever I’ve been interested in technique, probably past the point of rationality. Perhaps it’s due to being a first born or some genetic trait inherited from my high-achieving parents. Who can say for sure, but my self-selected path forward invariably goes though a little town called “master the skills.”

One of my parents’ favorite stories about little me turns on a precocious three year old finding a screwdriver and reattaching all the plug covers and light switch plates after a family-legendary wallpapering of my room. I think the opportunity presented itself after a “disagreement” between my parents on some aspect of the job left a vacated room available for exploration and experimentation. Modern safety-nuts surely cringe at the idea of anyone, yet alone a little guy like me, poking about hot plugs with a screwdriver, but the story is a telling one. I was and am interested in how and why things work.

Over the years that followed, I took lessons upon lessons: swimming, sailing, judo, recorder, and piano are a few that come to mind. Later it was basketball and I am adult enough to admit, folk dancing. Later still: photography, golf, and most recently, riding motorcycles. I’m sure I’m missing some. When I say lessons, that meant group instruction, individual instruction, reading books, reading more books, going to camps . . . pretty much whatever was available.

Some of it took better, some of it didn’t. Nothing from the first list survives today in the form of any noticeable facility or even interest. I do wish, in an idle sort of way, that I could play cocktail piano . . . you know, where you sit at the keyboard carrying on idle, witty conversation with a half dozen people while effortlessly playing down the Duke Ellington songbook . . . but I’m at no immediate risk of doing anything about it.

Basketball proved an interesting study in the confluence of technique, natural ability, and confidence. Strangely, I had a fair amount of the second, which added to the first should have made me a good if not great high school player or more. It was the complete lack of the third quality that put me squarely on the bench, there to watch the exploits of largely technique-free players who played and competed with the kind of carefree abandon I couldn’t imagine. If I missed a shot, it would ruin my month. They hoisted another one next time down the court. It wasn’t until I was in my early 30s that I really came into my own, long after I stopped caring and long after my body stopped cooperating. But I did have a well of fundamentals to draw on, and as I discovered, experience and treachery beats youth and vigor eight out of ten times.

During my late 30s I took up golf thinking it would help me develop business. Or something like that. I fell in with a woman pro who told me that if I wanted to consistently shoot in the low 90s or high 80s, I would have to spend the first year taking lessons and hitting practice balls. No actual golf until year two. I suppose any rational person would have said “thanks for nothing” and walked on, but not me. The technique-freak in my grabbed the wheel and I spent the next year taking a lesson a week and hitting 500 balls when I wasn’t. At the end of the year I had the most beautiful swing in twenty-seven counties. It was instruction-tape quality. I also couldn’t hit a ball further than 175 yards with any club. I did finally get on a course and played with indifferent results for the next five years and then gave it  up. I did shoot in the low 80s once and managed to cure some of the distance problem towards the end. Along the way, someone forgot to tell me the part about hitting down on the ball, a bit of technique that would have surely helped.

My first adventures in motorcycling were completely devoid of technique, knowledge, or any sort of thoughtful consideration beyond did I want a Suzuki or a Honda (I bought a 1980 CB750F). If the dealer hadn’t thrown in a helmet, I probably would have left the shop without one. I was living in Hawaii at the time and rode the bike for about nine months, often in sandals, shorts, a shirt, and sunglasses and without the first clue what I was doing. How I managed to get around corners much less stay upright the entire time is a nod to the gods who clearly were holding benign thoughts for me.

After two-plus decades on ice, my moto-itch flared up again and I scratched it with a Ducati Multistrada. The basic instruction program I took ticked a box that allowed me to get a proper endorsement on my license and a break on my insurance but didn’t otherwise make a huge impression on me. I sallied forth, thankfully far better geared than before, wandering down highways and byways while wandering across centerlines without any notion as to why.

The next year I took an advanced rider course. Two-points for me for thinking I needed help: That old technique gene was kicking in. Sadly, and I say this with no disrespect, nothing in the curriculum added to my woefully barren cupboard of understanding and skills needed to make a motorcycle perform properly. It’s just not what the courses are designed to do.

Total Control

During my sojourn in the land of ignorance I began to read voraciously. It wasn’t for lack of a theoretical understanding that I was still straying across centerlines, tiptoeing around corners I knew could be taken much faster, and generally acting like the 50th percentile rider I was. If there’s one thing I can’t stand it’s being average at something I really care about. And I was starting to really care about riding motorcycles well and safely because I really cared about riding. And staying alive.

Lee Parks, the author of Total Control has a healthy ego so I say this cautiously: taking the Total Control class from Puget Sound Safety was like an awakening for me. In a day, it changed everything I knew and thought about controlling a motorcycle. The effect was sufficiently galvanizing that I took the class again and then went the final mile and got certified to teach it. I also starting going to track days, there to take more classes and do more riding under controlled conditions. I read more books. I got certified to teach the absolutely superb SMART method by Bret Tkcas at Puget Sound Safety (Bret is one of the most elegant riders you’ll ever see). I am a man obsessed. I’m also a leagues more proficient rider. I still screw up more than I’d like, but now I know exactly why. I also haven’t taken an unplanned trip across the centerline in two years.

People with natural ability are often dismissive of the pursuit of perfect technique. For them, the moves come naturally and the results flow as if by magic from some hidden inner wellspring. Often these same people make perfectly miserable teachers and coaches. I remember learning how to shoot Olympic Trap, another one for the list. The man who taught me the basics had freakish hand-eye coordination. But once we got past the basics about holding the gun properly, getting set-up, and calling for the target, there was nothing he could offer that helped. All he knew was what I knew: I missed more than I hit.

With all that background I actually have a couple of bits to offer about motorcycle riding and technique.

1. Good technique is the foundation to good and safe riding. I can think of other disciplines where this is true, but only at the highest levels. For example, there are lots of people enjoying themselves out on the golf course while employing bad technique from set-up to follow through. Even on the pro tour knowledgeable eyes spot serious flaws in technique that are overcome by superb skills and natural ability. Those people don’t beat Tiger on Sunday, but they get around and make a good living doing it.

I don’t think the same thing is true about motorcycle riding. Bad technique is a crash waiting to happen. It’s just that simple. This is manifestly true as we get older and slower. It is by the grace of whatever we hold dear that riders of no skill and knowledge make it down the road and back safely.

Out past technique is the promised land where you can do the thing you’ve been practicing with artistry and grace and with no conscious thought. But unless you’re preternaturally blessed, there is no route there except through learning, practice, more practice, and someday mastery.

2. You can’t learn what you need to know from a book. I know, I tried. Despite my abiding interest in technique, I find myself equally suspicious of coaching and training. I can’t really say why as I make my living doing things that sound just like that. Maybe it’s psychological scaring from all those lessons as a youngster. Maybe it’s a deep seated loathing of being seen as less than superbly competent. Whatever. When it comes to something as inherently dangerous as riding a motorcycle on the street, self-taught is a luxury without recommendation. Almost everything about riding a motorcycle is counterintuitive and/or counter to our genetic programming.

We have millions of years of genetics wired to how fast we can walk or run. There’s nothing in there pre-programmed for processing life at 70 mph. In fact, most of our instincts work against what’s needed to anything at that speed.

Genetically we are predators. We have eyes on the front of our heads, just like the big cats. When we see something we want (to eat, to mate with, etc.) we lock onto it to the exclusion of everything else. Our brains do the zillion computations necessary to get us to that target, or to get whatever it is we’re throwing or shooting to the target. If you’ve spent more than an hour on a bike you know how useful that programming can be. You also may know the problems it causes when you become fixated not on where you want to go, but where you don’t want to go.

3. Seemingly little things matter. The more I ride, particularly under controlled conditions, the more I learn how big a difference very small changes make. For example, two days ago at the track, I experimented with relaxing my pectoral muscles while in a turn. I know that sounds weird.

To back up slightly, I was working on getting my body lower and further inside the bike’s centerline by getting my head more down and inside. To do that I had to also move my body back about two inches in the saddle. Once there I found that I could relax my outside arm even further so that it draped on the tank. Literally, just relaxing my outside pec relaxed my arm and the bike would instantly take a tighter line. Wow! What happens if I do the same thing with the inside pec? Same thing?

Vision is another example of this same point. Starting with any book you read or class you take, you’ve been hectored about keeping your eyes up and looking through the turn . . . without any real sense of what that might mean. It turns out there’s a huge difference between looking through the turn and picking out an entry point, apex, and exit point before you initiate your turn. Your brain processes the information in completely different ways. In the first instance, the signal is, “We’re going generally that way.” In the second, the signal is, “We’re going exactly from here, through there, to over there, now make it happen.” And it does.

After one session riding control the other day, a fellow rider came up to me and told me he had been following me the last couple of laps and it had really helped him a lot. I asked him how.

“Watching you, it was like you first got your body completely set to go through the turn and then you took all your awareness and threw it through the turn to where you wanted to go. And then you went there.”

Besides feeling massively complimented I thought it was an interesting way for him to describe what he saw or sensed . . . that idea of moving 100% of your awareness down the road, particularly in technically demanding turns, is the essence of good cornering. In practice, it looks only marginally different to an observer–your helmet is raised up a couple of degrees and turned more and sooner–but the effect on your confidence, stability, and control are like night and day.

Like Water Falling

That same day I was giving some riders some last minute coaching before we went out for the last session of the day. The fear of anyone teaching or riding a track-day is that tired riders will lose their minds, stop concentrating, and wad up their bikes minutes before they pack up for home. It happens like that on the last ski run of the day. So I was counseling people to relax, be smooth, and concentrate on using just one skill from the day.

“Stay focused. Just pick one thing.” Speaking now to someone particular, I said, “For you, just make it about keeping your arms loose and your elbows pointed out. If you do that, that means that your upper body is relaxed, your body will be low and inside the bike’s center line. Your head will have to be turned. It will all happen if you just focus on that one thing . . . soft arms.”

That’s when she said it.

“That’s easy for you to say. Watching you ride is like watching water fall. You’re just so smooth and effortless out there.”

In my mind, I’ve got buckets more learning and honing to do. But for the technique freak in me, there couldn’t be any higher praise. If she only knew.

Tags: motorycleriding, technique, Lee Parks, Total Control, Puget Sound Safety, midlife rider, Bret Tkcas

I’ve been wading through what I previously described as the “canon of motorcycle literature,” a term and list of my own creation, for various reasons, not the least of which is that it feels important to hear the voices and imagine the vistas. These books were written with an eye on an audience and perhaps even a payday, but first and foremost they exist as a necessary part of the author’s journey. The fact that they make it past a publisher and onto a shelf is more a comment on the publisher than anything else. But to my point: They’ve been written, they’ve been published, and I want to honor the whole of it.

To that weighty set-up, let me add more. I say this with no disrespect, but motorcycle-journey books finds their primary audience with aficionados . . . if you’re not keen on bikes, you’d never know about these books much less read them. An obvious exception is Prisig’s break-out book, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, a book, depending on your point of view, that has very little to do with riding motorcycles.

Jupiter’s Travels falls into another category of books completely. Yes, the motorcycle figures prominently in the sense that it’s the mode of travel, much as Rocinante is the hero’s vehicle in both Don Quixote and Travels With Charlie, both literally and figuratively. But in all cases, it’s just the vehicle. While this is arguably true of plenty of other motorcycle related books, the sweep and depth of Ted’s story and storytelling move Jupiter’s Travels into a special class of literature that anyone interested in journeying should read.

The short version of the long story follows standard journey fair. Ted feels compelled to load up a motorcycle, in this case a Triumph, the last of the wounded British lions, and use it to travel down Europe, over to Tunisia, across the top of Africa, and from there to South Africa. In an echo of the Shakleford expedition to the South Pole (beginning as WW I commenced), Ted steps off in the lee of the ‘73 Arab/Israeli war. Not the best time to be riding through Arab-Africa.

This first part of the trip occupies a big part of Ted’s story telling as perhaps it should. I’ve never ridden Ted-miles, but I can tell you from experience that the first part of the trip always seems to contain the real emotional, spiritual, and even physical depth for the rest of the journey. Themes are established. Tones are set. Precursor experiences are laid in like new hay.

In the final acts of a long trip, your attention to the richness and detail of the moments and miles flickers and flees. In the first miles, days, or weeks, you notice and catalog everything. Once you turn for home, you focus on finishing . . . which could feel like a good or bad thing just depending. As you head out, your focus is on the wonder of it all. On the way home, you wonder if you really got what you went for. You worry about hanging onto what was special. On the way out, everything has the capacity to be special, to be revealing, to tap some existential root that’s lay dormant.

Ted’s journey continues, after an interregnum at sea, in a Brazilian jail . . . his journey, not his forward progress. If Jupiter’s Travels weren’t a journal and instead was written as a piece of fiction, this would have been a necessary opening to the story’s second act. Heroic literature requires a wrenching test of the traveler’s intentions, fortitude, and commitment. While the trial is often framed in terms of the end goal, it is truly about the hero’s sense of self. “Why are you really on this trip?” “What are you looking for?” “Do you not know that what you seek is already inside you?”

Once again mobile, Ted works his way down through Brazil and ultimately, in another echo, this time of Che Guevara’s adventures, up the western side of South and Central America, to Northern California, there to pass a pleasant season communing and falling in love.

Based on how the book opens–with the story of how Ted came to be called Jupiter in a town in India–you would expect that the spiritual and mechanical axis of the book would turn on his time in India, which in my reading it really doesn’t. By this time in the telling, the story has taken on a quicker pace, an urging along that tracks the turmoil and doubts that often accompany the turning towards home. In classic heroic literature, this is the point where the hero faces a test bigger than actually winning the obvious prize . . . going home and facing people who didn’t travel; integrating the new learnings with the old doings. You never get the sense that Ted found the depths he was looking for in the epicenter of new age yearning, which is not to say that he found nothing in India.

Finally, Ted turns home; actually it’s more like a gallop. The miles through the various ‘Stans disappear in a flash of paragraphs where before pages barely did the job. And then, just like that, the roar of the Triumph is quieted for the last time. The years of packing and packaging an entire life into the confines of what could be carried on a bike no sane person would have ridden further than the next town over were finally at an end. We readers have the benefit of experiencing the entire sweep of the enterprise in the few days it takes to read the book. Reading Ted’s closing stanzas, you feel how hard he struggles to remember the opening verses of his epic and what they meant against the wildly conflicting emotions of finally being back. In much smaller ways, any of us who have headed out with the thought of finding something, vs. simply seeing stuff, know the feeling.

Tags: TedSimon, Jupiter’s Travels, Long Way Round, Long Way Down, Robert Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, Don Quixote, Travels with Charlie, John Steinbeck, Che Guevara, Motorcycle Diaries

When I first got my FJR, those lovely factory-spec side cases along with a tank bag seemed like more than enough space to accommodate whatever I might want to take with me on a ride. Coming from a Ducati Multistrada, they looked cavernous.

As the miles rolled by, my tank bag became overstuffed with all manner of flotsam to the point that I decided to add a small Givi trunk. There, surely that should do it. Tank bag for the little stuff I would need during the day (including a water sack with sippy tube). Side cases for clothing. Top case for stashing pant and jacket liners. Maps went either front or back, just sort of depending. Tools invariably went in the trunk (dumb place). Life was, once again, well ordered and nicely arranged.

But like Boyle’s law, stuff expands to fill all available space. The tipping point was my planned epic ride. I’m a notoriously light packer so two weeks on the road shouldn’t make that much of a difference, but the specter of spending time with clients along the way, perfectly nice people who wouldn’t appreciate the smells of the road and further expected me to show up with computer and such, once again rang the “more storage please” bell. So off I went to Seattle Cycle Center in search of something I could perch on the pillion.

Actually, my first stop was the local BMW dealer, there to spy a very spiffy looking waterproof item that looked positively regal, including the logo-induced princely purchase price. Then I went over to SCC where for less than half the pesos, I picked up what seemed like a made-to-order Deluxe Tail Bag by Tourmaster.

No question the BWM item was nicer, but for my pinched pennies, here’s what I got.

The bag attaches with two stout, crossed bungie cords outfitted with right-sized plastic hooks. On the FJR, I hook the back pair to the Givi rack and the front to the passenger foot peg stanchions. On my Aprlia, it’s the same idea up front. In back, I hook the bungees together under the tail section.

One thing I discovered during a rainy portion of the ride is that the wind will find everything. In this case, I didn’t notice at first that there was a synch cord on the rain cover. This oversight was made apparent to me upon glancing in my mirrors to see this wild flapping thing where my tail bag should have been.

I’m off to the track tomorrow, so I’ll find out if the bag does anything weird or wonderful on my Aprilia. I doubt it will.

So to summarize, it’s a stout, usefully-sized and shaped, high-quality piece that’s nicely priced. Although it says tail bag, I found it just dandy as a low profile, non-talking, non-eating, gear swallowing pillion.

Here’s what Tourmaster has to say about their bag . . .

• Built-in bungee cord mounting hooks that hide away when not in use
• E-Z access top-loading two-way zippered main compartment
• Angle-mounted shoulder strap for carrying comfort
• Heavy-duty nylon construction
• Reinforced carry handle
• Four exterior pockets
• Tricot interior lining
• Mesh front pocket
• Reflective Tour Master logos and Jaquard webbing
• TPR zipper pulls
• 21″L x 12″W x 10″H

Tags: DeluxeTail Bag, Tourmaster, FJR 1300, Yamaha, Ducati Multistrada, BWM, GIvi, Motorrad, Seattle Cycle Center

After wearing all-black for a year I decided that being seen is good so back to Wayne and the crew I went, this time for a 3/4 length jacket in high viz. Over my black air mesh pants I look like a proper British moto-coper.

Besides the eye-popping color, the obvious difference between my new jacket and the all-black is the fabric. The all black is made of an open kevlar mesh that is rougher to the touch and definitely flows more air with the liners out.

The high viz is a blended fabric that has a much softer hand (relative). Beyond that, there are some detail differences in venting and sleeve straps, but the two jackets are otherwise similar.

The big attraction in my book is the fabric. Here’s what the cycleport site has to say . . .

It’s 10 times stronger than leather and less than half the weight. The world’s first all season 3/4 length Ultra II Air Mesh Jacket that will take you from -20F to 85F with optional two part zip in Aero-Tex liner. Remove the liner and have a fully breathable jacket or pant that will take you from 60f to 120F. You don’t need two or three different riding outfits for different weather. The Ultra II Air Mesh Kevlar jacket is great for any weather.

The new Ultra II Kevlar Air Mesh material has the highest tear strength of any motorcycle jacket ever made! 500 Denier Cordura (the best material companies use for overall construction will tear at 22lbs). The Air Mesh Kevlar material tears at 1260lbs!! Take your body weight and multiply that by the speed on a motorcycle. All the other nylon jackets and pants made can tear at a low speed tumble! If the best material of all other synthetic jacket/pants tears at 22lbs. imagine how poor the seam strength is! No other leather suit or synthetic suit has proper seam strength. Cycleport Safety Lock Stitches all of the construction seams that will provide more than 2000lbs. of strength

Those are big numbers and big claims, both of which I took seriously after my sliding adventures. At the present time, I’ll just take Wayne’s word on the performance under stress. I’ve gone sliding in leathers at 40 mph or so and came up with little damage to show for it . . . me or my gear. I like it that the kevlar gear is even stronger.

I speced my Air Mesh with the single layer liner (no insulation), extra reflector strips, and the new optional Quad layer-Armor, all of which adds heft to the tariff. It’s less than Rukka and on par or maybe a bit more than Aerostich gear, the other two obvious choices. I figure gear is lots less expensive than body parts. FWIW, cycleport backs the product with a big time guarantee: IF YOU EVER CRASH IN THE ULTRA II AIR MESH KEVALR JACKET AND CYCLEPORT/MOTOPORT CAN’T REPAIR IT WE WILL REPLACE THE JACKET FOR FREE.

The shakedown cruise for my new kit was a ride to Tubac Arizona and back, a journey that would last two weeks, 3800 miles or so, and see temperatures from the low forties to 106 . . . a pretty fair test. My observations . . .

It’s heavy. The jacket and pants each weigh about 5.5 pounds with liners in. Lifting them is an effort. Walking around in them is done purposefully. None of which bothers me. All that weight is due to all that armor, triple stitching, and heavy duty fabric. It’s serious gear. The good news is that the weight seems to disappear once on the bike. In fact, the mass of the jacket gives the impression, if not the reality, of providing some extra support over a long day in the saddle.

It’s visible. People that I rode with all comment that the jacket is a real retina burner. They joked and poked and smiled and smiled. That’s the idea.

All day comfort. I mentioned that during the trip I saw a temperature swing of 40 degrees. I saw that in one day! With gerbing heated gear I find the jacket comfortable down into the mid 30s. With jacket, liner, and thin and heavy poly pro, I find the jacket comfortable down to the forties. With the liner out and just a tee shirt, I was good into the low 90s, even a bit higher for short periods of time. Above that, I added in a techniche evaporative cooling vest and an aerostich evap-o-dana and was good to 104 four hours. The jacket doesn’t flow as much air as the black version does due to the differences in fabric, but it does a decent job.

Weatherproof: I spend a day in pissing rain and two barely out of it. It works.

Storage. There are more pockets on and in this thing than you can imagine. I was afraid to use them all out of fear that I’d never remember where I put everything. There is a lot of storage!

Fit and Finish. Everything on the jacket just flat works. All the zippers are big and beefy. Everything is ticked and tied . . . no loose ends. It’s a quality piece of gear. There is little more annoying than getting halfway into a big trip and find that some part of your gear has decided to pack it in . . . failed zipper, seam come undone, that sort of thing. Other than picking up the inevitable road grime, the jacket is just as it was when I pulled it out of the box new.

Everyone brings their own decision criteria to a purchase like this. I’ve looked at a lot of gear, and in my book, the cycleport gear maxes the scale on crash protection, usability in a broad range of conditions, and quality. It’s not the snappiest looking kit by a long way, it’s heavy, and it’s expensive . . . all trade-offs I’m happy to make.

Tags: CyclePortUltra II Air Mesh Kevlar Jacket, Rukka, Aerostich, gerbing, techniche evaporative cooling vest, evap-o-dann, midliferider

Long way down … Mike Carter takes in the spectacular views of the Valley of the Moon in Chile from a precarious vantage point. Photograph: Julia Sanders

I watched them ride along the corniche, headlights blazing through the swirling dust and the fading light. I started counting. I’d been alone in Arica, an out-of-season beach town on the Chile/Peru border, for over two days. Counting motorcycles felt like great excitement, all things considered.

There should have been 10. There were just eight. By the time I’d left the beach and walked back into the hotel lobby, the riders, caked in grime and sweat, were presenting their passports to reception in the careworn manner befitting those who’d been on the road three weeks.

“Where are the other two?” I asked a man.

He looked tired. “Crashed,” replied Brian, for that was his name. “In Bolivia. One hit a police barrier. Almost decapitated. Ducked just in time, but smashed his sternum and two vertebrae. The other one hit a vicuña. Broke his shoulder and his arm. Both repatriated.”

Decapitated. Repatriated. Now there’s a couple of words.

Tags: Chile, Globebusters Tours, Long Distance Riding, Peru

I started wearing Furygan leathers last year. I bought them for several reasons.

* A friend was wearing them and I thought they looked good.
* They fit my shape and build well.
* I had read about them in a British motorcycle magazine.

Later I discovered that the importer, a man named Keith Ellis, lived about three miles from me. We got together over coffee to talk shop and swap stories.

Kevin: How did you decide to get involved with importing motorcycle gear?

Keith: I worked a number of years in construction, excepting about four years that I took off and went back to school, got a Philosophy degree. Not a lot of job opportunities there.

Working construction, where my job had evolved into managing a general contractor, I found that there were a few things that were inherent to job that that I was uncomfortable with. So I began looking for away of making some changes. I got to where I was only working 50 or 60 hours a week doing construction.

Kevin: Only?

Keith: [Laughing]. This is apparently more free time than I can be trusted with. I actually thought at first that I wanted to open a shop: a motorcycle shop. In the process of working out a business plan for that, I realized I was horribly undercapitalized for that type of venture. But I had made contact with some different people, because I wanted to find interesting products that other people didn’t have. For example, I made contact with the folks at Furygan. I made a trip to Germany to the INTERMOT show and met with them. We pretty much just agreed that we’d give it a try and see what happened. So I made a decision to start with apparel.

Kevin: So you had no background?

Keith: No, other than as an enthusiast with friends in the industry. I had some capital and I’m seeing a change in the U.S. Market. There are more people traveling on two wheels and maybe it’s just me, but I also started seeing more people who are really interested in wearing appropriate gear . . . but maybe not as interested in wearing a really flashy piece of protective gear. I thought I saw an opportunity in the market.

So I was looking for something that was high quality and nicely styled; something that crossed the line between protective and causal gear. Furygan is a good fit for me, and I for them, I think. They’re trying to expand, to push their company into new markets. We’re hoping to grow together here.

Kevin: How did you find out about Furygan?

Keith: Actually by reading European magazines.

Kevin: So you sort of settled on Furygan and you e-mailed you cabled and you called them? You said something, “I want come over and talk to you?”

Keith: Actually, what happened is, I contacted them via e-mail and they said, “Yes, we’re interested,” and we did almost no initial e-mail negotiation. I simply went to Germany and sat down with them.

Kevin: That’s just so cool . . .

Keith: There were some other people that I was meeting with as well, but pretty quickly I settled in with Furygan. So I spent at least two days, pretty solidly, talking with them about what it would be like to work together.

About Furygan

Kevin: What’s the story with Furygan? What’s their history?

Keith: It’s actually one of those really interesting European business stories. The founder of Furygan is Jacques Segura. The Segura family was in apparel manufacturing. In 1969, they opened a division that was focused on motor sports.

Jacques’ brother was put in charge of the new division. I don’t know all of the details other than they say that Jacques took exception to that decision, and that resulted in a lot of family turmoil. So, also in 1969, Jacques started Furygan.

He started with gloves, which is G-A-N-T in French. So, the name is a contraction of Fury and glove. The ending “T” was dropped leaving “Furygan”. The logo, with the Panther . . . the Panther was the symbol of Jacques paratrooper unit in World War II. He chose it in a wounded pose to express how he felt about his dealings with the family.

He manufactured high-end gloves and actually sky diving leather helmets to start with. He went pretty quickly into suits and, actually, in the mid 70’s he sponsored a lot of world-class riders, Patrick Pons, Christian Sarron, Agostini when he was on the number 1 plate at Yamaha. In ’77, when Steve Baker became the first American to win a World Championship, he was wearing Furygan Leathers.

Kevin: That is so French.

Going to Market

Kevin: How are you going to market?

Keith: It’s my intention to add some new apparel products. I added Motto Bike Wear, a Kevlar lined jean from Poland, this spring. I do have a couple of hard part manufacturers that I’m talking with as well to diversify a little bit of what I have. And, yeah, and continue to try to offer what I think are fairly unique and high quality products that might fill a different segment of the market.

I think this has been a real change in the way the American motorcyclist looks at protective gear in the last decade, and I do think that some of the larger brand, less expensive products that are out there have a lot of the responsibility and credit for that.

You know, it wasn’t that long ago that you had a choice between wearing just casual gear or really high-end, designated race sort of gear. Manufacturers have become really good at introducing products to the market that fulfill some basic requirements for riding gear that are more affordable and offer people some choices.

The flip side of that is that as we rolled out this gear that offered some protections but was much more affordable, we’ve seen the market go more and more in that direction. But now I think there’s an opening for some more high quality gear. Maybe it’s a consequence of my age. I’ve reached the point where I can afford a fairly nice and relatively quick motorcycle, and also realized that I had that opportunity because my ability to work was my best asset. And so, I also needed to protect myself as a rider.

There are parts of this country that when it gets hot you’ll see a guy with either no helmet, or a novelty helmet, and no shirt, and shorts and flip-flops.

Kevin: Yup. I remember riding like that when I was young and dumb.

Keith: I don’t know. I’ve just kinda reached a point where the first thing I think is “skin graft.” And I think that we have a lot of people now that are taking that attitude about riding and they want to be able to ride and they want to be able to be calculated about their risks. I may not always be the smartest rider but I understand the risks and I’m prepared for it.

Kevin: You go to shows? You’re calling on dealers? What are you doing?

Keith: I’m doing a lot of calling dealers. I don’t do a lot of shows. I have a website that’s badly in need of updating that I get some hits off it. The unfortunate thing is that I have yet to figure out what I feel is a really clean way to handle sizing and fit. Each of the jackets has a slightly different cut. The size is pretty consistent in the shoulders. But I need to get a good chart and a good way to find measurements for people so that they can consistently fit. It’s really my goal to have Furygan available to fit in person for each major metro area.

Kevin: Do you do any direct business at all?

Keith: If I don’t have a retailer close to somebody, I’m happy to sell retail.

Kevin: What kind of dealers are you looking for?

Keith: My initial thought was that the people who would be familiar with the brand would be more likely to be in a Euro dealer. In Europe, obviously Euro bikes are all over the place, and it’s not just the guys riding the expensive bikes that are buying Furygan, in part because they have a different attitude towards gear in the first place. As a British friend of mine says, it’s common to see a guy on a thousand pound ($2,000) motorcycle with 1500 pounds ($3,000) in gear. That’s because he knows it’s really easier to replace that $2000 bike, but, you know, it’s not easy to keep…

Kevin: Yeah. I’m the most expensive part of this thing.

Keith: Yeah. I’m the hardest part to replace.

Waxing Philosophical

Kevin: How old are you?

Keith: 39.

Kevin: So you’re sort of, at the beginning of the middle.

Keith: Yeah. Right about the time I got to be 33, 34, 35, I started to accumulate some assets. I had worked a lot and I had, you know, a grown up sort of life. One of the things that I realized is that regardless of the passion that I still have for some aspects of what I’ve done in construction, that the things that aren’t well suited for me create enough discomfort that it outweighs the things I’m passionate about.

One of the life changing things for me was my son being born. I have a 5-year-old son, which is, you know, usually the time when people cast off their motorcycles. I mean, everybody knows how many bikers you see that are getting married, having a child, buying a house, and selling their bikes. Well, I’d already done the whole marriage and divorce thing, then a committed relationship, and bought a house, and when my son came along, I really started to think about how it was that I was going about my life and recognized some things that had happened in my parents’ lives.

My stepfather, who I pretty much grew up with, had actually been a Motocross and Enduro racer from ’61 ‘till about 1976. He had a fairly bad crash that broke a leg. He told me that every time he started after that he thought about it, and that was why he quit racing.

But the year that he turned 50, he put together one of the old motorcycles and got involved with racing again. That would’ve been after I started to grow up and had moved out of the house. But I was able to watch the change in the entire family dynamic when my stepfather started to resume doing something that he really enjoyed. And I realized that I didn’t want my son to grow up watching me do all of the things that I felt like I was obligated to do without any passion.

Kevin: That’s a pretty big insight.

Keith: That’s actually one of the reasons for doing business with Furygan, a family owned company. I joke that I selected this product that was founded on resentment, but it was also founded on emotional passion. I think that they still carry a lot of that passion for riding into their apparel. And I want to continue to carry products that work to innovate and that work to bring that passion. I mean let’s face it, we can all take public transportation or ride bicycles, and that’s great, economically and ecologically. That’s a great decision to make, but, you know, I’m just not really passionate about it.

I had also reached a point in my life where I had some assets that I was willing to risk . . . that I was more willing to risk in order to build something than I was to, you know, go work as a lot boy in a dealership just to spend my time around motorcycles.

A lot of the market, particularly in apparel here, is very price conscious. But the fact is price has no passion. Price is about counting what’s left over, and so I really wanted to deal with products with passion. And thought there was an opportunity for a small distributor that was more “boutique” oriented.

Kevin: I’ve done a lot of interviews in this project that I’ve been working on, and there are two themes that come screaming out. There’s actually many, but two come to mind. One is, and you’ve mentioned both of them, there are a lot of stories like the one that you told about your step-dad. Connections between men and their fathers over riding. Another story that comes up in a really big way is the story of the first bicycle, often with a powerful connection to the dad, often who brought home some piece of crap, and in the process of transforming this thing…

Keith: Yeah, my first motorcycle was one that my stepfather assembled for me from the bikes that he’d never gotten rid of. I was 13, and it was a ‘69 Maico 125 Motocross bike, in a 250 frame because it was heavier…

Kevin: Yeah.

Keith: … and it was orange. And, to this day, I have a thing for orange.

Kevin: Of course you do. And so, he transmogrified this right in front of your eyes.

Keith: Yeah. I didn’t have the smoothest childhood in general, and my adolescent years were particularly problematic for anybody in very close proximity. In my early 20’s, I realized that I’d had some fairly big life changing experiences. I realized that I had an opportunity to redefine and rediscover my relationships, particularly and specifically with my family, and that as a young adult, I had the opportunity to make the decision to let everything be passed and to start fresh and to meet my entire family on equal terms as adults and to not worry about anything else that had happened.

Part of that ended up being my stepfather, and he and I obviously communicate regularly about motorcycles. That was the beginning. That was the little common thread that we had and that was the point to build a relationship from. And it’s been just a great deal of fun for me. I go ride in the dirt with him periodically.

You know, my son wants to ride. He said that this summer he wants to have his own motorcycle, which of course thrills me. I’ve tried not to put everything on it but he, you know, he watches and he knows.

Tags: FuryganLeathers, Keith Ellis, Furygan USA, Van Ellis, midliferider, best motorcycle leathers

I’m a fan of Suomy helmets. I like how they fit. I like how they’re made. I like it that they’re kinder to your head in a get off than anything carrying a current Snell rating (for more on this, see my essay on helmets).

For the past year or so I’ve been wearing the very high spec and high cost Suomy Extreme, a lid I like for its light weight and “look at me now” graphics. What I don’t like as well is the insanely difficult process of changing out a shield and the noise.

I recently picked up a flat black Suomy Vandal, a lesser but not less helmet than the Extreme. It’s built to the same specs as its big brother and features the same lush interior with easily removed and washed liner and cheek pads. From that standpoint, one of the best designs in the business.

During my ride, I experienced everything from pissing rain and mid 40s, howling winds, and blazing desert heat that topped out at 106. I rode in blinding sun, drab overcast, and total darkness. All in, it was on my head for 3700 miles, so a fair test I think.

What I like . . .

What I don’t like . . .

All in, a fine lid. I like it so much I bought another for my wife. Give it five stars.

Tags: SuomyVandal, Motorcycle Helmet, Snell, BCE, decision making, midlife rider, Suomy Extreme

Home, 288.8 miles

I opened my eyes at 5:45 this morning in a Holiday Inn Express, not feeling any smarter but happy to be on the last stretch to home. I pulled on my long underwear, loaded up, and left. Within a few miles I was off to the side of the road adding my electric vest and gloves. The Pacific Northwest was bent on reminding me of what I had left behind. It was 43 degrees.

Over the past two weeks I rode roughly 3700 miles. I didn’t keep close track, but I figure I averaged about 43 mpg, so that’s 86 gallons. I saw gas prices as low as 3.99 for unleaded on an Indian reservation and as high as 5.29 on a backroad in California.

I stayed in two B&Bs, one retreat center, one resort, and four motels. The motels were all roughly the same, but I paid between $59 and $139 a night for the privilege.

I rode on every conceivable kind of road under every possible condition but snow; from 15 mph in choking traffic in California, to 90+ across the high lonesome in Nevada. I bundled myself against 43 degree mornings and soaked my gear to survive 103 desert crossings, a difference of 60 degrees. On one day, from Flagstaff to Tubac, I rode through nearly that entire range.

I rode on interstates that were posted for 50 mph and 75 mph. Sometimes the same road was posted at 50 and later at 60, then back to 50, then 65, then 55, then . . . if there was a logic to all that beyond maximizing ticket revenue potential, I never figured it out.

At times on the ride I felt the utter bliss of being alone, no mental noise, just complete stillness as the bike stalked the far horizon. At other times, it was all I could do to find a single empty moment, my head constantly filling with phantom conversations, idle musings, things I might write, emails I might send, songs that wouldn’t stop repeating . . . I couldn’t shut it off.

I rode some of the most technically demanding roads I would care to ride outside the confines of a track. I filtered through commuter traffic in Orange County. I planned along for hours without having to budge the bars. I rode mountain passes and desert highways.

I smelled smells. In the northwest it was the pungent smell of pulping plants. In Lassen it was the sulphuric belching from deep in the earth. More than once I wafted along on the scent of fresh cut alfalfa. In Temecula, it was the sweet smell of fresh flowers, orange trees, and vines coming in.

I thought about all these things as home drew nearer. The trip that began many days and miles ago was now over. I wasn’t home yet, but I was done with the ride. The deeply meditative moments of the first few days had slipped into memory. The growl of the FJR as it clawed its way around yet another arching turn was somewhere in the past. I was ready to be home.

Tags: EugeneOregon, gas prices, speed limits, Flagstaff, Tubac, Temecula, FJR 1300

Eugene, OR 781 Miles

For the past three hours, riding the FJR had been a test of my endurance. I mounted up at 7:00 this morning in Bishop, CA. Twelve hours later, the only good thing I could think about my aching knees is that it made me not think as much about my aching back. I was also starting to feel light headed after all the miles and all the buffeting. I wanted to get off the bike but I also wanted to get just that much closer to home. I finally pitched it in at exit 195a in Eugene, Oregon, 15 hours and 781miles from where I had started.

I’ve been to Bishop once before, with riding pal Ron. That time we had arrived after crossing Death Valley. This time I arrived at about the same time after skirting the Mojave. I liked Death Valley better.

I love everything about rolling north out of Bishop early on a late spring day. There’s still a snap to the air. The Sierra rises up to the west and the Panamints do the same to the east. The Owens River Valley nudges against both. One of my favorite roads in the world is just north of here. In the back of my mind I’m wondering about heading to Reno or Carson City to get Rocinante checked out. The old girl has been clearing her throat since at least yesterday, eating up the miles but “aheming” every third beat. In the end, I decide there’s little that can be done, the bike is otherwise strong, so I will press on.

A few minutes out of Bishop a coyote sprints across the road. I see that as a very good sign.

Route 120 connects Route 6 to Route 395 by crossing over and through the Inyo National Forrest and then passing by Mono lake. It is the perfect antidote to the remorselessness of the Mojave. The road dips and bends, slithers and shakes. Despite her grumpiness, Rocinante digs in and we dance an energetic Samba around second gear switchbacks, third gear sweepers, and heart-in-your throat dips that are in some cases so steep, you can’t see the road ahead. Ahhhhhhhh-ooooooooh. Upppppppp-dooooooooown. The civil engineer who laid it out must have giggled himself to sleep every night for years after.

A bit further up the road I pick up route 89, the road I’ll travel for most of the day. It climbs and twists over Monitor Pass (8,314 feet) in another stunning display of road making and scenery grabbing. More than once I marvel that such a road is still available to ride in our increasingly nanny-esque state. The drop-offs on the downhill side are steep, deep, and sudden. There is no second chance.

I should but I don’t understand the attraction of bicycling over mountain passes. Everywhere I travel, from the Monitor pass road to Lassen, there are flocks of bicyclists grinding up some steep incline. Around Lake Tahoe the road is thick with them. Bicyclists and runners too. Maybe it’s the thrill of the descent. I know people who think I’m nutty to ride a motorcycle. I feel the same way about the peddlers.

I need gas and head towards Minden, Nevada. Cute town. I don’t know why people live there either, but unlike some of the grim Monopoly board housing out on the Mojave, the tree-lined streets of Minden whisper of a time long past. The whole place should be in black and white. But for the cars, it could easily have been 1950, complete with a parade that occupied the road I intended to travel.

Lake Tahoe is in many ways the Jewel of the Sierras. I’ve seen it over the years many times and it still takes my breath away. I’m peripherally aware that the health of the lake is in decline due to the pressure of humanity. As I motor up the east side, I share the road with bicycles, runners (what is the attraction of running on a two-foot shoulder while an endless parade of cars passes by), cars, trucks, bikes. The water is hashed by a flotilla of speedboats that rivals the Spanish Armada. Helicopters thwap the air overhead. Incline Village is packed. It’s madness.

I pick up 89 again at Truckee. For the next couple of hours my GPS persists in trying to route me back to Sacramento and from there up Route 5. I mean to take 89 across the state to Shasta and find myself stopping repeatedly to consult my map to make sure I haven’t gone the wrong way (easily done). Finally I switch the GPS to show a compass. I figure as long as it says some combination of North and West, I’m OK.

Passing NorthStar I pick up the trail of three Corvettes. Over the next 30 miles or so I see another 30 coming the other way. It was like a quickening. Later it’s Porsche 928s. And tons of FJRs. Now I know what sport cars dream about at night.

Last year, my pal Ron and I rode this same route with the intention of crossing over the shoulder of Mt. Lassen. The pass was closed that time and we were forced to double back and head towards Susanville. In our pique and haste we managed to attract the attention of the local constabulary just outside Sville. That ticket cost me more than $2,000 in legal fees, court costs, and traffic school.

This time the gods were smiling. The pass was open. The road is posted for 35mph, in this case, a very useful number to have in mind. The road is beaten into the side of the terrain, but only just. It would be a very brave driver or rider who could take most of the switchbacks at much over the posted limit. I kept Rocinante well in hand. My wet gear felt more and more like a liability as we continued to climb.

Once out of the park, the temperatures climbed back into the mid 80s and the road beckoned and called. We answered back and gave a spirited account of ourselves, me and Roci, finally stopping in McCloud for something to eat and the chance to clear my head. At that point I had been mounted up for ten hours.

Hwy 5 from Shasta to Eugene is actually a very pleasant road for an Interstate. The scenery is most agreeable, running from the high plains around Shasta, to the bucolic valley beneath Mt. Ashland in Oregon. There’s far less for the rider to do than on route 89, but by this time, I’m happy enough to hang on and let Rocinante do all the work. My body is speaking to me in stern tones, but I’m determined to put as many miles under my tires as I can before I sleep.

Tags: FJR1300, Bishop CA, Eugen OR, McCloud CA, Route 89, Mt. Lassen, Minden NV, Monitor Pass, Inyo National Forrest, Corvette, Porsche 928, Garmin Zumo, Ashland OR

Bishop, CA 300 miles

“Why do people live here?”

I find myself asking that question often on this trip. In Ely, it felt like a legitimate question in the sense that I was really curious. It’s a cute town in a rugged but beautiful corner of the American West. I really wanted to know.

Pounding up Hwy 15 from Temecula towards Bastow in order to escape the clutches of LA and its numbing traffic I asked the same question. More rhetorically this time as there was nobody to ask and I didn’t really care about the answer.

Later as I pounding up route 395 past Victorville, I asked nobody the same question again: “Why would anybody live here?” Here, in this case, is in track homes vomited out onto a featureless landscape hard on the edge of the Mojave desert. The names of the developments are ludicrous: Amber Valley, Pacific Lane, Willowbrook. They looks like someone emptied out a monopoly box all over the desert. It’s really grim on this 99 degree afternoon. Maybe it’s nicer in the winter.

What I do know is that I’ve done a lot of desert riding in the past two weeks and the site of cookie cutter houses lined up towards the horizon make less sense to me than the cows in the Imperial Valley. Based on the large signs advertising the opportunity to rent a brand new, never lived in house for just $995, I’m guessing I’m not the only one to hold this opinion. Noting is alive. There isn’t a hint of shamanic energies. There’s no vitality; everything is dead.

I’ve just spent the last three days burrowed into a lovely bungalow at the South Coast Winery Spa and Resort for the purpose of doing some decision quality training with a favorite client. Everything about the place was a little slice of heaven.The contrast between the lovely faux old country vineyard and the faux civilization clinging to the hard mojave soil is startling.

I’ve been back and forth on the route home from Southern California: Every route north has a significant flaw; each requires a trade-off. One possibility is to hew close to the coast, taking either Highway 1 or 101. People wax rhapsodic about the vistas and curvy asphalt, but not anyone actually trying to get anywhere. It’s Friday at 3:00 PM by the time I leave and the weather is lovely. There is no chance of maintaining the kind of pace I need in order to get home by Sunday night.

Inland is Highway 5, the main north/south arterial. I more dulling road I can’t imagine. It bludgeons you into submission in a car. Riding it on a motorcycle simply makes no sense. Friday traffic would just make it that much worse. So score a point for “most direct route,” and another for “high average speed” and take away ten for boredom beyond countenance. The point of riding a bike isn’t getting there, it’s what you get to see and do along the way.

Route 99 is moderately more interesting than 5 as it runs closer to Yosemite and the Sierras. It also goes through every town in the Central Valley. A possibility if I didn’t want to get home and were driving a 67 Chevy pick-up truck.

That leaves 395. From 15 North to Bishop it’s really not that much better than 99: No turns you notice, difficult passing, but a decent posted speed limit. Plus, and this is really the pay-off, the ride up out of Bishop includes route 6, one of my favorite roads in the West. So mark it down for adding miles to the trip, but give it make brownie points for getting me into something worth riding.

Somewhere along the way I became aware of a stumbling feeling, a hitch in my bike’s giddyup. The FJR has problems with fueling at altitude on a steady throttle, so it could be that. I’ve had the new ECU installed. I keep pulling in the clutch, and even cut the engine, to see if that could be the problem. It doesn’t seem to be.

Another possibility is something to do with the front tire. I don’t see a balancing weight on the wheel so I wonder if it has fallen off. The tread looks fine, so no flat spots that I can see. There is a Yamaha dealer in Reno which is where I’m headed so I may stop in there.

My night finishes in the Creekside Inn, in Bishop: a Best Western property. Unlike the wistfully named developments in Victorville, there actually is a creek here. It’s a fine enough property, made better by a lovely collection of Galen Rowell photos. I took classes from Galen some years back. Later, he and his wife were killed in a plane crash. His gallery is still here in Bishop. I liked him.

Tags: Barstow, Bishop, Temecula, Victorville, Pacific Lane, Amber Valley, South Coast Winery, Galen Rowell, Mountain Light Gallery