Mondaugen's Miscellany

Conversations with Priscilla

My trip with Priscilla from Santa Fe to Chicago began with a ceremonial oil change.

To note, for 43 year old Harleys, Priscilla was a lucky girl: she had landed in the hands of Dave Crosby, who not just took care of her, but helped her recover from an abusive childhood. In 1979, she started life as a stock FLH, traded hands a few times before a mason bought her. He drank too much, thought of Harleys as penis extensions, and hotrodded her with a big bore kit, oversize cams, S&S carb, fancy paintjob, etc, but offered her nothing he couldn’t brag about: no stiffer clutch to handle her greater power, no lube for her swingarm, no checks on her spoke tension, no maintenance. He’d ride her hard and put her away wet.

After a few hard drops and other misadventures, the mason traded Priscilla for drinking money. Dave locked eyes with her at a Dealership, and thought she’d make a great gift for his wife Faith. It was only after he got her home that discovered her many “issues”, and realized no part of her wasn’t in need of rebuilding. After major efforts, he got her into enough ruddy health to make her rideable, if not reliable. In this state, and with strict injunctions to beware of her, for multiple reasons, Dave let me buy her.

I fully understood unreliable bikes. My first was a 1991 Jawa 350 named Snake. Snake’s homicidal streak was wide, deep and long. Snake had one saving grace — a lack of power. He had an uncanny delight in seizing his front disc brake, if for a fraction of a second, at high speed. But high speed for Snake was 40-50mph, and getting there took a while, so I was rarely there. Snake threw me once, at about 10 miles an hour, and no harm but scuffed pants and dented pride resulted. In time, we learned mutual respect, and I survived.

Priscilla, on the other hand, is a different beast. A twist of the wrist, and 93 cubic inches of fuel air explosion dislodges snot back into my skull, makes my asshole pucker, and makes my eyeballs flatten, squish and hurt. Jolting forward, she clatters and vibrates so hard that I can’t keep my feet on the footboards. The noise from her straight pipes jangles consciousness. Unlike modern Japanese or German bikes that snap your neck from the acceleration but offer no difference in feel between 20mph and 120mph, Priscilla announces speed with an airhorn and a baseball bat. You notice. That’s the ol’ pepper, boy! At speed, our mortality becomes apparent and immanent. Priscilla also looks the part, more Road Warrior than weekend warrior. Thirty years of oil leaks and road grit remain intact, giving her patched parts a dingy, dark patina. Her tank and front fender are a faded peach color with black pinstriped swirls. Her tank emblem is from a ‘58. She has a plain black rear fender and leather saddle bags. She looks mean, though the peach-colored tank winks playfully. You will think twice about throwing a leg over her.

The day before I set out, Dave and I changed her oil, a final tweak to ensure her smooth running back to Chicago.

I noticed her tail light was out. Thankfully Dave had a spare, and we fixed her in five minutes. I packed a range of probable tools, spare oil, extra nuts and bolts, spare plugs, extra clothes, a rain suit, a tent, a sleeping bag, a ground pad, and three water bottles. I checked the map — hot and dry through the great plains for the next several days. Dave would ride with me for a few hours on the first day, watching and smelling for any major issues. He would be my 24/7 Roadside Assistance Contact for the whole trip, always at the end of the phone.

Dave’s offer of help was most appreciated. Still, it led to ambivalent thoughts. There is a pleasure in being out there alone on the road, with no backup plan, just one’s own wits, knowledge, and experience. I expected Priscilla to throw troubles at me, watch how I responded to her, and prove to her I was a worthy rider. I didn’t want someone else to make problems go away for me. It’s the grown up version of I can do it myself, mom! The greater pleasure, however, is in the sharing of friendship. Dave’s 24/7 Roadside Assistance was not a burden on him, but a joy to be a part of Priscilla’s and my adventure. Frankly, problemsolving is so enjoyable, saying “I got this on my own” is childishly selfish. So while I looked forward to overcoming the unexpected challenges the road led to, I also looked forward to sharing them, discussing them, and learning from Dave’s solutions.

 

That morning, we got up, breakfasted, and packed the bikes. Faith asked me to send Dave home soon as he hadn’t slept much (a long Covid effect), and he wasn’t 100%. Dave and Faith’s dog Dillan, a sweet and formidable Malinois, set the Kong of Assistance on Priscilla’s right footboard. I halp! We started motors, let them warm, contemplated the road ahead. Setting out to the nearest gas station, fifty feet out the driveway, I feel my left footboard fall away. We turn back to the house, unpack, and work on the repair. A bolt had sheared off, and a second was loose. We found replacements, and got her footboard and crash bar secured. This was the kind of break that would not have been easy to fix on the road. I’d have had to ride to a hardware store with no easy way to shift, holding my left foot up in the air, or tucked on my back peg. Priscilla was saying she didn’t want to leave Santa Fe, needed a few more minutes in Dave’s yard. Frankly, I suspect Dave had spoiled her considerably, with new wheels, new rear fender, new rear lights, probably a motor rebuild, who knows what else. But she was also being kind to me, snapping that bolt so close to Dave’s shop, where it was an easy fix.

Back on the road, we ride into the late-morning desert, bright sky and growing heat. Mornings like this out West have a particular feel: a lovely, easy warmth that makes me think of The Eagles songs “Peaceful, Easy Feeling,” and “Tequila Sunrise.” The traffic isn’t bad, and I look for my stride. Dave follows, listening and sniffing, probably judging my riding too, but he’s too gracious to comment. I keep Dave in my right hand rear view mirror, and hang a bit too far left in the lane for my comfort.

I am adamant to avoid highways and tolls. Thankfully, the highways in New Mexico have a secondary road feel to them, with little traffic and endless open space around.

Road trips on old bikes are a particular type of experience. In a car, you are insulated. On a new bike, you trust nothing will go wrong mechanically. On an old bike, your focus must include the bike's status at all times. Is that a new noise? Is that a new vibration? Is that dripping oil new? You look down as you ride to see if anything is dangling. You check oil levels and bolt tightness every fifty miles. You find problems and make decisions about what they mean. Was that bolt loose because it’s coming loose, or wasn’t tightened fully before? Will oil on my rear tire sidewall affect turns? On the first day, the mental strain of riding an old bike is heavy. You still carry the mental churn of daily life, the usual worries and concerns of life. However, your thoughts must focus on the general awareness necessary to ride a bike well, and through a world of careless car drivers. All this at once makes for a busy brain. But after a few hours, by the early afternoon, the mental chatter of daily life fades and you stop thinking about work, focusing on the road. The second day, you and the bike become one, so to speak, and you stop thinking about the rattles, sounds, and other worries. If something goes wrong, you will know from that peripheral vision part of thought and senses. Your mind empties in a lovely way, the periphery of thought occupied like a focus on breathing in mediation. By the third day, I will ride for long stretches without a single notable thought in my head.

 

Around noon, we ride through Las Vegas, NM, soon to have no municipal water supply. The West is burning and it is easy to see. Down a side road, we stop for coffee in an old Adobe building. The interior is brand new, decorated in fancy New England style. A Mormon girl at the counter gives us coffee and bean burritos with a smile. The coffee is excellent. She explains that a local (billionaire) rancher built the coffee shop, mainly for him and his local friends.

At Springer, NM, Dave and I part ways. He should have headed home earlier, but had too much fun riding together. Priscilla is running fine, though losing oil from her primary case a bit faster than we’d like. It’s a joyful, but hard parting. I wish he lived closer to Chicago.

I hit the road alone, and my head clears even more. I am no longer looking for Dave in my rear view. I move to the center of the road. So begins a pattern of riding for 50 to 70 miles, stopping for a stretch, gas, bolt and oil level checks. My ass begins to hurt in the same familiar places. My arms, hands and feet get used to the vibrations. It feels like being home.

The hills to the West of Springer (and mountains of Taos) fade in the mirrors as the Great Plains open up. The groves of trees thin out, and vast stretches of dry grass field stretch around in a flat 360 degree horizon. Desolate is the key word. Little towns poke up now and again—a few ramshackle buildings, closed businesses, the remains of a gas station, a few trees—but mostly the road is straight through the desolation. And it is hot. I can feel the sun on my black jeans and black leather jacket. I am not sweating for the wind, but I know that if I stop, I will fry. I am glad for the sunscreen Dave gave me for my nose, the only exposed but of skin, through the windscreen of my helmet. The road is feeling less Eagles’ Peaceful, Easy Feeling, and more AC/DC’s Back in Black.

Over 65 mph, the the vibrations are so strong it is hard to keep feet on the footboards. Like trying to stand on floor sander. I find a way to wedge my right foot between the crash bar and a bolt I added to keep my heel from sliding off. My right is less slippery, the gear shift linkage seems to keep my foot in place. I ride about 60 mph. The world goes by.

Priscilla stutters and starts to run on one cylinder. There is not even a shoulder on the road. I look for a tree to pull under, but there is none. I keep going. Put grumble putt grumble putt grumble putt grumble, Priscilla loses speed.

Up ahead I see a stone monolith that reads “Welcome to Oklahoma!” and I pull along side of it, Priscilla gasping out one last cough. Well, now I am in a pickle. The afternoon sun is fierce. I take off my helmet and jacket and put on my sun hat. So begins the problemsovling. Ok girl, what are you saying?

First, I take a long drink, emptying a water bottle. Second, I note that the monolith has shade on the back side. It is the only shade for miles. I take off all of Priscilla’s bags and push her behind the monolith. First problem solved. Two water bottles left.

Bad gas is my first guess. I had just fueled up a few miles back. I drain the float bowl, maybe water, add an octane booster if the misfiring is from low octane in their high-test tank, and think on it. But it can’t be. To confirm, I begin to check the plugs when I notice the green neutral light is hardly visible. I check the headlight and it won’t go on. So.

It’s not the gas, it’s an electrical issue. Near-dead battery. Why?

I take off the seat and check the battery with my voltmeter. I get numbers I can’t understand. 18 out of 50? Is that low or high? It must be low because the lights won’t go on. Voltmeter on the fritz? Am I reading it wrong? The charging system is likely out, so time to chase leads. Maybe a simple frayed wire, maybe a faulty ground. The voltmeter does seem to show accurate resistance, so the hunt begins. I follow the leads from the battery, one by one, and come across a slightly loose plug from the rectifier into the case. It looks melted. My heart sinks. I clean it off and push it back in place. I take readings that show a constant connection to positive, which is puzzling, and take pics of the plug. I send them to Dave for advice.

Then I wonder— if I can’t get her going again, which is seeming likely, considering melted wires and no battery, who is going to come pick us up on this lonely road? Who do I call? Google "Oklahoma Panhandle Motorcycle Tow Services"? There’s a campground about 5 miles up the road where I could crash, but pushing 800 lbs of bike and gear that far is a bit of a stretch. I drink half of my second water bottle thinking things through.

Dave replies with tons of advice, places to look and check, and offers bringing his truck to come get me, bless his heart. I know he just wants to join the fun, but he has work at home. He’s also exhausted. We debate options for solutions over the phone. He tells me to throw out my defective voltmeter, and get a real one in the next town. I decide it must be the rectifier plug, and maybe, in spite of being melted, a patched connection could last. I clean the plug, gently bend the wires into place, push it all back together and try to start her. Priscilla starts no problem and idles beautifully. The headlight comes back on. I let Dave know he can go take a nap, no need for roadside rescue, that the loose and melted rectifier plug was the problem, and that my patch is holding. For now. I am amazed at how simple the fix was. Dave is amazed at how simple the fix was. Thank you girl, for not stranding us. You just wanted to check how clever we were.

I load Priscilla back up, ride down the hot road feeling cooler and cooler and happier and happier every minute. I find a supermarket in a tired old town where I stock up on almonds, beef jerky, and other hard tack road food. I buy a Cobb salad and a can of coconut water. Guzzling the coconut water outside, I feel my shriveled body expand back to health. There are chunks of coconut in it. I spit the first one out thinking it’s a cigarette butt or a bug that got in during the canning process. But on recognition, I chew them down.

Freecampsites.net has recommended a lovely place a few miles off my road, close enough to roll in just at sunset, allowing enough time to get the tent up before nightfall. The heat has settled and the riding is a delight. We are back to Peaceful, Easy Feeling.

The directions take me down a poorly maintained dirt-gravel road, and I end up in the middle of a parched, cracked, sloping cattle field, not a person or campsite in miles. The strong smell of cowshit is in the wind. If someone camped there, well, good for them. Lumpy, hoof-pocked ground on an angled field, with no “permission” to be there, fertilizer in the wind, and no water spigot to replenish was too much. If I couldn’t find better, I’d hit the nearest Walmart parking lot.

Back on the road, I come up to Rolla, KS, and find a Corner Market on the edge of the town. At the counter inside, I ask the clerks if they know of a nearby campsite. They say they’re pretty sure I can camp in the town park, just three blocks down. I thank them kindly and go to investigate. At the first intersection, I see a Sheriff’s truck, so I wave him down. I’d rather have his permission than the Corner Market ladies’ goodwill. He tells me that Yes, “under normal circumstances”, people can camp there. I take that as permission and thank him, and promise not to light any fires.

I go three blocks down and get lost. There is a pool and a tennis court, but no park. I stop and ask two kids playing basketball where the town park might be. They are super friendly and point me the way with great detail, better than the ladies or the Sheriff. Maybe kids today aren’t so bad.

The park has picnic benches, fire pits, a shelter without walls, and a cinderblock building with toilets. No one is there. Hallelujah.

Wearing a headlamp in the gathering dark, I set up camp on damp grass. I eat my Cobb salad at a park bench and listen to the trucks rumble past on the highway. I call my wife Dinah and let her know I’m ok, and we talk our days through.

A large man walks out of the darkness, a small boy following him. My quietude is ruffled.

“Excuse me. Could I get a hand with my Gator? I got stuck.”

“Sure.” I put down my fork and follow the pair into the darkness, where I find a Gator ATV with its back wheels stuck in a drainage ditch. The boy is smiling at me, and I ask him if he likes the adventure of riding in the Gator.

“Yes!” he says and jumps in the passenger seat.

I push while the large man hits the gas, and they get out of the ditch.

“Thank you!” He says, and off they go.

Priscilla tucked and locked right next to the next, I lie on top of my sleeping bag in the warm night, unwind my back, stiff from the day’s ride, work in earplugs to make the truck air brakes just a bit more distant, and fall asleep like a little kid.

An amazing and lucky day done.

—

In the morning, I get up, use a washcloth in the cinderblock sink to make myself feel human, eat some jerky, and check Priscilla. She has no oil in her primary. Strange. I put a half liter in. Examining the gaskets, the usual source of leaking, I find everything tight. Strange comes back into my head, as the problemsovling kicks in. I have lots of oil, and can get more. So no big deal. But what does the leak mean? What is leaking and why? What are you trying to say now, girl?

I get on the road. The road is cool to the point of cold, beautiful and barren in the morning light. I have not a thought in my head. My senses just take in each detail of landscape, road, traffic and Priscilla sounds and shakes. I am not aware I’m taking it all in. It just happens. This is why I ride.

At the first gas station, I put more oil in the primary. At the second gas station stop, I put more oil in the primary. At the third gas station stop… the leak is getting so bad the left side of the rear tire is slick with oil. I’m worried a left hand curve will send me into the weeds. I text Dave’s 24/7 roadside assistance number to troubleshoot. I check the drain plug, and it’s tight. I check the blocked original hose, and it’s a wee bit loose, but not enough to piss out oil at a rate of a half liter every 100 miles. I’m thinking to take the primary case off and reseal, and scout gasket goo at a local truck stop. Where else could she be leaking from? The seal around the drive shaft? Dave replies that she can’t lose that much through the driveshaft, but there are no other holes to leak from. For a backup plan, I book a uHaul from Kansas City to Chicago, as that’s the nearest city with a 15’ truck. It’s still 200 miles from where I am, so I get on the road with a long way to go yet, probably into the night. Are you giving us a mystery leak because you don’t want to ride any more? Or are you testing our cleverness again?

North of Topeka, I pull over about 5pm for gas and another dose of primary oil. I am worried about riding into Kansas City at night to a closed uHaul place, where I will have to “check in” using my phone. What if it doesn’t work? What if I can’t get Priscilla up into the uHaul without help? Will I reenact one of those Failblog videos of the idiot riding his bike up a plank to have the edge of the truck bed catch the bottom of the bike, bring us to a screeching halt, before bike-and-rider tumble over sideways onto the pavement? I need a tape measure to measure distances, angles. I don’t have one. Will my headlamp battery last? Can I find local “youts” to offer $20 to help me push her into the truck? Will she let me figure out the oil leak instead?

In the gas station, for the first time on the trip, a Harley enthusiast approaches.

“Hey! Nice Shovel!” he says from 50 yards. He is about my age, white Fu Manchu mustache, sleeveless Harley T shirt, deep tan, bandana, sunglasses. S he calls out, he is climbing out of a dually truck that looks as beaten and aged as he looks. The man knows shovelheads at a distance, a good sign in my book.

“Thanks!” I call back. He comes over and we chat while I take off the primary case.

“You ride?” I ask.

“Some” he replies. Another good sign. He doesn’t try to impress with a long list of all the cool, expensive motorcycles he owns and rides. Instead he tells me how his wife has cancer that came back, how he used to ride with her, and how much he loves riding. His name is Justin.

“What’s the problem?”

“Leaking primary case. I can’t figure out from where.”

“I know a guy. Not far from here,” he says. “He might be able to help.”

“ANew Harley Mechanic?” I ask, doubtfully.

“No, old,” he stresses, and I trust him that much more.

“I’ll give him a shout,” and Justin picks up his phone.

“Yeah? What’s the problem?” a gravelly voice asks me over Justin’s phone. I explain everything.

“I’d look at it tonight, but it’s Friday, I done started drinking. Don’t put bikes up on stands after I been drinking. But if you bring it over, I can work on it in the morning.”

“Sure, thanks. Know of a place I can camp?”

“My backyard is fine, if you like.” I accept.

Justin says he’ll guide me to Dave’s shop, just a few miles away. I follow, feeling like I have a new and better plan than a uHaul 200 miles away. I have a pleasant smile in my head, for this is the adventure: who you meet, the unexpected places you go, where the road takes you.

I have friends who think this is crazy. Camping in parks? Accepting help from strangers? Sleeping in strangers’ backyards? Riding unreliable motorcycles through desolate places? They’d never do it. Too dangerous. Too uncertain. A snarky voice in my head wants to say what are you afraid of, life? I often joke “Uh oh, people” because in most circumstances I would rather be alone, or with loved ones. Modern city life grinds us together in horrible ways, bringing out the worst in our tiny, largely commercial interactions Do you want fries with that? Have a nice day. I get just as snippy as the people I fault for being snippy. But the vast majority of people are good and kind at heart. Serial murderers, narcissists, assholes, are rare, and even they can have good sides. So I trust in a basic underlying human nature. I also trust my gut. And Justin did not churn my gut in the least. He was as straightforward as a compass pointing North.

We arrive at Dave’s shop, a simple steel shed with a little sign, “81 Kustom Cycles” over the door. It is set on a patch of cracked dry brown land, surrounded by bean fields.

Dave comes out, beer bottle in one hand, cigarette in mouth, flashlight in the other hand, He says hi, and gets on his knees, and looks up around Priscilla’s chain.

“Wasn’t what I was looking for, but I can see up into your primary case here. Chain ate a hole in the case. Likely the reason why you’re losing oil. I don’t weld aluminum but I bet I could figure out a fix tomorrow for it. Likely a 6 hour job.”

A man with a giant bushy beard comes up behind Dave and says “I got a case that would fit that bike. Trade your for the one you got, and some cash. Lemme know in the morning what you want to do”, and he gets in his car and drives off.

Dave starts talking about old bikes, asking where I’m from, where I’m headed, about Priscilla.

Justin moves to leave, and I thank him deeply for getting me to Dave’s shop. “No problem. Never leave a biker on the side of the road.” A favor I won’t forget.

Dave and I go into his shop, and I suck in my breath. Next to the door, an utterly gorgeous mint ‘46 Knucklehead sits next to an utterly gorgeous mint ‘47 Knucklehead.

“I call those parts bikes. ‘Cause no two parts on them were ever originally together. I get the parts at meets and make the bikes out of them,” Dave explains with a chuckle through his cigarette.

“Don’t mind Ziggy. She’s a rescue. A little skittish. She’ll bark, but won’t bite.” The sweetest brown dog comes up and I give her pats on the head.

Looking around more, I see three pristine motors on his bench, a knuckle, a panhead and a shovelhead, lined up as if on display.

“Don’t rebuild motors myself any more. I got a guy who does ‘em.”

On a stand, there’s an early shovelhead, the seat on a post. It has the original air cleaner on it. Original early 70’s paint with rainbow striping.

“Rare bike that.” Dave explains. “One owner. Lives nearby. Put 30k miles on it. Only changed the oil. I’m rebuilding it for him. Think I’ll isolate the primary case. There wasn’t any metal coming out of it into the oil tank. Oh, the emblems on your bike are from a ‘58. If you like, I’ll give you $100 for each of them.” Dave proceeds to tell me tales of his work and his life for the next hour and a half, and I dwell on every syllable -how he started out with a shop at 19, fielding nitrous drag race. Then he worked as a race mechanic with Vance and Hines for a few years. Then he started this restoration shop. Left Vance and Hines because he hated airports and having to travel everywhere. I look around at hundreds of photographs of drag bikes, shaking hands with famous people, women with saucy smiles hanging their tits out of tiny bikini tops, trophies and other memorabilia. I feel as if I’ve stumbled into a major Harley holy site.

“Not much I haven’t already seen, kinda boring now,” Dave opines about his work. I fear he will stop working.

“Where’s your apprentice?” I ask.

“Nobody’s kicking down my door. Do I have to find one? My nephew was around for a while, but then he got married. I’m not such a good teacher anyway. Nobody asks good questions,” Dave rambled on. I wanted to apprentice with him. A rush of sadness hit me as I realized I’m watching the slow death of an exceptionally talented mechanic.

Dave shares a tomato from a friend’s garden with me. I thank him deeply for his insight into Priscilla’s problem, and wander out to set up camp before dark. The ground is hard as rock, cracked from drought. I wash my head and armpits with his garden hose, settle into a dinner of beef jerky and almonds, drink down a gallon of chalky Kansas well water.

I text with Santa Fe Dave and bring him up to speed. He is as agog as I am over what I stumbled into. The primary case hole isn’t a roadside fix. Dave says he will come to Chicago to pull the primary case with me. He wants in on the fun so much. I wish with all my heart he could be here in 81 Kustom Dave’s shop. Santa Fe Dave would boggle.

I call Dinah to let her know I’m safe and alive, and we talk our days through.

I fall asleep to the sounds of wind through the bean field, distant highway, and Ziggy’s occasional bark.

Another amazingly lucky day done.

—

I wake up to a red rising sun lifting through yellow-leafed beans. Dave told me it hadn’t rained in 120 days. I wash and eat and pack Priscilla up.

81 Kustom Dave had explained that if I used sticky chain oil, I could drive home with no oil in the primary case. Santa Fe Dave agrees that it could work, with the worry that the plastic adjuster block could melt. I sit with Priscilla for a moment and ask her what she wants. Did she bring me to 81 Kustom Dave because she wanted a rebuild from an expert? No, she says, not really, though that would be nice. I brought you here for his sticky chain oil hack so you can get me home. You’re going to rebuild my primary case and get to know me a whole lot better. It’s a deal.

81 Kustom Dave gives me directions to good motorcycle shop twenty miles North of Topeka for a particular brand of chain oil. I thank him deeply for his help and ask if I can offer him anything, which he politely declines.

Dan’s Cycle is a rare shop. A mix of new bikes and old ones for sale, including a 60’s Guzzi and some Hondas from the early 70’s. I explain what I’m looking for to the clerk, and who sent me.

“Dave? Well, you couldn’t have stopped in a better place,” the clerk notes. “He’s like the very best old Harley mechanic in the 50 states. He’ll give you good advice. He’s a good guy.” I take two bottles of PJ-1 blue chain oil and head back to Priscilla. Best in the nation? From the look of Dave’s shop, I have no reason to doubt it. A national treasure a few miles North of Topeka, KS, and Priscilla takes me there. Thank you, girl.

I get back on the road with a sense that everything is now working just fine on Priscilla (just don’t melt the plastic block!), but with worry that that other factors are shifting against us. The ride has been hot, but rain and cold are coming up. The clerk at Dan’s Cycle Shop told me a line of slow-moving thunderstorms were coming in around 1pm, that I could likely skirt them if I keep going directly East. However, if I strike North through them, stay a night in a motel to dry out, I could follow in behind them, dry, all the way to Chicago. This seems a sound plan, so I take it. I make a reservation for a Motel 6 in West Des Moines, IA that the clerk recommended. The Motel 6 clerk warns me that I must call by 6pm to cancel, or will be charged for the night. Des Moines is 260 miles away, a reasonable distance for a day’s ride.

Spittle hits my helmet as I leave Dan’s, though it’s only 9 am. I head East a ways and find a gas station with a roof to get my rain gear on. I check this and that on Priscilla and all seems well. The rain starts, then comes down in buckets. I decide to dally to avoid the worst of it, figuring it’s a passing shower.

A farmer towing a big cattle trailer pulls up to the opposite pump. He gets out, and starts fussing with the trailer wiring.

“What’s the matter?” I ask.

“No trailer lights! Can’t figure it out!” He replies.

I debate getting involved. I have a long road, through the rain, to get to Des Moines, and a dry, recommended motel room.

“Can I help?” I offer, timidly.

“Could you check if I have break lights while I hit the pedal?”

“Sure.” I go stand behind his trailer. He has no brake lights.

“Damn. What could it be then?” the farmer asks the wide world.

I’m involved.

I begin the curious social problem of figuring out how to be helpful with a total stranger. I don’t know what he knows about electrics. More than me? Less than me? I don’t want to add to his irritation, but don’t want to let him flounder. It’s a delicate ballet of letting him problemsolve, but trying to help, without touching anything. I feel a bit like Santa Fe Dave on the other end of the phone.

He checks the fuse box in the engine compartment, and replaces a few blown ones. There is a fuse for the left hand turn signal, but not the right hand one. There is a fuse for the brake light, but not the general lights. It’s confusing.

He buys a can of carburetor cleaner in the gas station shop and sprays the trailer wiring plug with it, hoping to clean out any crap that might have collected.

“Could you check if I have break lights now?”

“Nope, no lights.” I call back to him.

To get the trailer electric plug apart, he needs a tiny screw driver, and doesn’t have one. I happen to have one in my kit, so pull out Priscilla’s tools. I also pull out my defective voltmeter, which I had not yet replaced.

“You got everything in there!” the farmer exclaims.

“I need everything to keep her going!”

He pulls apart the plug to find five of six wires have pulled away from their terminals. None of the terminals are color coded, so which one goes where is a mystery.

My heart sinks, for now I can’t leave him with an electrical mess, taking my defective voltmeter and tiny screw driver with me. So I reconcile with the fact that Des Moines will be unattainable. On the other hand, I feel I’m paying forward Justin’s, 81 Kustom Dave’s, and Santa Fe Dave’s generosity within less than 24 hours. Never leave a bike, or a farmer's trailer, on the side of the road. It’s just a question of where to stay. I still had battery power in my phone.

“This one says the black is the brake light. This other one says it’s the brown.” The farmer looks up several trailer wiring diagrams online. They offer some, but not any definitive help.

I start checking for voltage and continuity at each terminal while he plays with the controls. He wires up the plug based on what I tell him each terminal does. But because the plug is backwards from the terminals in the truck, he gets most of the wires in the wrong place. So we wire the plug once, and get turn signals, but no brakes. Then we get lights and brakes but no turn signals. Then we get…. Finally, we draw maps in a notebook and walk through each, and Eureka! His trailer has all the lights working right. I use some of my zip ties to keep the plug in place, as he broke off the wire lock in frustration earlier.

I thought to ask if I could stuff the bike in his trailer, hitch a ride to Kansas City, and stay out of the rain; it was a hoot of an idea, an adventure in itself, but then I recalled the whole point of the trip. In any event, he was late for his grandson’s football game.

“My name’s Dave. Can I give you anything for your help?” He looks at me with the most sincere look of gratitude.

“Of course not.” Because of course not. I chuckle at the thought of telling him he owed me money for helping. Farmer Dave smiles, says Thanks with the most sincere look in his eyes, leaps back into his truck, and squeals a tire getting back on the road. Having pushed back selfish instincts, and seen the benefit to another person so clearly and directly, left me in a mood to pin a medal on myself. In the meantime, the rain had stopped. Mostly.

The ride towards Kansas City got rainier and colder the closer I got, until it was mid to low 60’s and pouring by the time I hit the city limits. My rain suit kept me warm at first, but slowly it showed its limits. Little leaks here and there started to add up. The velcro collar around the neck tore out its stitching the third time I tried to take it off.

I put my magnetic tank bag into a black garbage bag to keep it dry. That worked well, until the wind caught a corner of the garbage bag and yanked the tank bag out of my lap and right off the bike on the right hand side. It rolled to an on-ramp lane. I pulled Priscilla over and ran back, watching cars woosh towards me in the rain. I got to the bag, picked it up and walked back along the shoulder. No one had driven over it. While the plastic bag was torn up, nothing was broken inside. Just one granola bar was shattered to dust. What kind of luck is this?

The sticky lube solution seemed to be working fine. No smoking primary. No melted plastic. I stopped worrying so much, but faithfully lubed the chain every 70 miles.

The map said to follow I-35 through Kansas City and straight into Des Moines. I followed the map. As I got closer to the city center, the semis got thicker, the spray off their tires came more often, the idiots who didn’t see me more common. Trying to merge back onto the highway from a gas stop, I found cones limiting the road to one lane. I sped up to fit between two cars, but the one behind wasn’t having it and sped up to cut me off. He went past on my left with inches to spare. I swerved right to avoid him, then saw I was headed straight for a cone. I swerved back left just in time, the cone top snapping my knuckles hard, but not enough to destabilize Priscilla. This is, I believe, one advantage of a heavy bike. I doubt the impatient driver realized that he nearly killed me, nor did he look at the middle finger I gave him as he sped off. I rode on.

Reaching Kansas City, in heavy rain, I discovered that I-35 simply comes to an end, with an “exit now” sign. I exited, and found myself in the poorest part of Kansas City. I stopped in the parking lot of a Restaurant Supply Warehouse, pulled out my cell phone to try and make sense of the map, but my fingers were too wet to make the phone work. Pulling at dry cloths from my tumbled tank bag, a row of children stood nearby and stared at me, as if I were alien dropped from the heavens. I tried to say something through my helmet, but it was garbled and they didn’t reply.

I found on the map that I had to take the exit for the highway going East to St. Louis first, then choose another highway going North to some other place, then another exit for a route West to get to I-35 North again. Thanks, Kansas City, for the total lack of rerouting signs.

Back on the road, the rain grew dissipated and the temperature dropped. I pushed on. Maybe I could make it to Des Moines after all, not until 8 or 9 pm, but that was all right as long as I stayed warm.

In Bethany, MO, I stopped for gas, and noticed my hands were shaking with cold. This was not good, as warming up inside wouldn’t last too long once back on the road. I checked the outdoor temp and it was low 50’s. I had 103 miles to go to Des Moines, and was not going to do it without the mental fog of cold. Years earlier, I had nearly killed myself pressing on when I was cold and wet, getting so mentally confused that I forgot what the kickstand was for when I came into a gas station, ending up under my bike on its side. That was one mistake I would not make twice.

Then I noticed my headlight was out. Both high and low beam. No riding into the night, then. Santa Fe Dave had already sent me a twelve-page wiring diagram/explanation of Priscilla’s electrics, but I would not read it with shaking hands, in the dark.

It was 5:50 pm. I called Motel Six to cancel my reservation. They put me on hold for five, then six minutes... “Wow, you just made the cutoff. By two minutes. Canceled with no charge, Sir. Good evening.” The Motel 6 clerk was impressed with my fine timing. I was too.

I ask the clerk in the gas station if they were to stay in a nearby motel, which one would it be?

“Last time I was in the Family Values,” a young lady with lots of earrings and purple hair said, referring to the motel just outside the gas station, “they had like cockroaches and bedbugs and shit. Not good for business.” I got the impression that she wasn’t referring to the Family Values Motel business. An older woman who seemed to be her supervisor looked at her hard, then recommended the Super 8 across the highway. “That one’s better.”

Riding over the the Super 8, I got stuck behind a brown Dodge Caravan from the early 90’s that seemed lost, and reflected that state by driving at 11 mph, across lanes, blinker on, blinker off, blinker on, brakes on constantly, and mostly in my lane. Instead of roaring around them, I just slowed down and let them figure it out. They eventually turned into the Super 8, and I suddenly had a horror that they were looking for the same last room that I was. The Christian in me died at that moment and I parked Priscilla with speed and walked into the lobby well head of them. I had zero appetite for roaming Bethany for another motel, hands shaking, no headlight. I hoped they had reservations, or were lost and drove back out of the parking lot, or were picking someone up, and that I was doing them no harm.

There was no clerk at the desk, so I called the number indicated on the hotel phone. Then an older couple walked in and stood in line behind me, probably from the brown Caravan. We both waited, awkwardly, silently, for the clerk to arrive. When he did, there were apparently plenty of rooms. My selfishness abated, my Christianity returned. I chatted up the old couple. They were heading from Des Moines to Branson for some good vacation. We talked about the weather, all the fun that could be found in Branson. They were friendly and didn’t seem to bother that, while they drove first into the parking lot, I got to the desk first. They told me it would be clear skies tomorrow, and my ride should be better. I thanked them for that.

The room like manna from heaven. I have not taken such a long hot shower in years. They had a washer-dryer down the hall. I put everything in the dryer, wearing only my plastic rain suit up and down the hall to get there and back. Children in the hallway would see me coming and turn around. I thought about mock-growling at them, but smiled and laughed instead.

On a bed t hat felt like it was made of feathers, I slept like a child, once again grateful for the simplicity of the road, the people I met and helped, the people who helped me, even the couple heading to Branson, from who I kind of took help.

Another amazingly lucky day done.

I woke to clear blue skies, not a cloud in sight. It was 50 degrees outside, but the promise of a brilliant, 70 degree ride day ahead. I was near jubilant.

The Super 8 had a breakfast nook. I decided to make waffles. But who the fuck knew I had to spray oil all over the thing before putting the batter in? I made a horrid mess that would not come out of the iron with the plastic knife at my disposal. I scraped, scraped, to no avail. No one was at the desk. I left the mess, and had a bowl of raisin bran instead.

Packing up Priscilla, the rain drying off her with the rising sun, I had a good feeling for all that would come next. Looking at the weather, with a major depression sitting over Chicago for the nest two days, and reports from Dinah that our basement had flooded with sewage, I felt the call to be home sooner than later. I decided that we’d ride to the edge of the rain, to Tennessee, IL, pick up a uHaul there, and drive the rest of the way into the city with both me and the bike dry. I reserved a 10’ truck with a trailer, which I was sure I could get Priscilla on, but figured I could switch to a 15’ truck with a ramp if conditions suggested I could get help getting her up the ramp.

The road East out of Bethany, MO is an utter motorcycle delight. Seldom-traveled country road through rolling hills, not super curvy, but past the most beautiful, quiet farms. Northern Missouri is now a favorite realm for me. “Trump 2020” painted on the side of a collapsing house, and a “Let’s Go Brandon” flag in front of another spoke to our political divide. Country and City have never misunderstood each other more. I rode along in peaceful equanimity, and was happy.

Rolling into Tennessee around 4pm, I got into a debate with Priscilla. The skies were clear, the weather lovely. What if we camped one more night, Priscilla? Then, Monday, tried to get a bit closer to the bomb cyclone over Chicago before renting a truck? Maybe even riding through a little cold rain as a last step? Three inches had already come down, how much more could there be? I flipped a quarter, heads we camp — and the coin tumbled through my fingers and landed squarely on Priscilla’s transmission tails up. She had spoken. Let’s get home.

Brent, the uHaul rental guy, was friendly. I asked if I could get a hand pushing the bike up the ramp into a 15 footer, and he said sure. So I asked him to change my rental to a 15’ truck. No problem, he had three 15’ trucks on site. While he did paperwork, I got Priscilla’s bags off her. Then Brent pulled the 15’ truck around and put her rear wheels into a drainage ditch. That made the ramp nearly horizontal. I simply rode her in, strapped her down, and set off to Chicago as the sun fell towards the horizon. I’d be home by 10pm.

The first annoyance was to discover the fuel level was 5/8, not “full” as Brent had told me it was, and as the contract said when I glanced at it. Oh well, got tricked. A few extra bucks on gas was no big deal.

The second annoyance was that Google maps sent me down thirty miles of the very worst pothole-filled roads in rural Illinois—the worst roads I had seen all trip—just to get to the highway. I had to slow down to 25-30 miles to prevent Priscilla from jostling loose from her straps. Every bang and rattle felt like an insult to her.

Then, reaching the highway, the car shenanigans started almost right away. Worse than on a bike, Fuck the Truck seems to be the attitude of many cars, especially Jeeps, BMW’s and muscle cars. Diving in front of me, speeding past and nearly cutting me off. It was relentless, and only got worse the closer I got to Chicago. Road annoyance turned to sparks of anger turned to a conscious effort to avoid rage. I was no longer on a serene motorcycle ride, but right back in the mixmaster of modern city life. How it grinds us together in horrible ways, bringing out the worst in our tiny interactions.

Though the clouds were utterly spectacular, imposing, dark and beautiful, it did not rain when the weatherman said it would. In fact, it didn’t rain once driving into Chicago. At first this pissed me off, as I likely could have ridden even with the cold temps. But the closer I got to Chicago, the happier I was to be in the truck. Twenty miles out, the idiots came out in full force. Cars would come from behind at fifty miles over my speed, cut across my nose three lanes to peel around another slower car. I thought Fuck, if one of them hit me on the bike from behind, I’d be toast. Large sections of the highway had no shoulder. I figured if I had a problem with Priscilla, there’d be nowhere to pull over, or even get out of the way of the mayhem. Were she to stumble and need work, we’d be sitting ducks in a bumper car hall.

The truck and I lumbered home, Priscilla quiet in the back. Arriving, after a huge hug with Dinah, we put the end of the ramp up on bricks and I rode Priscilla down and into the alley without a problem. You're home, girl.

Then the real shenanigans started. I looked at my contract to find Brent had changed the dropoff location to a store way out of town. I called UHaul to change it back to the location I had chosen, only 15 minutes away. It was 11 pm, I was exhausted from the road, and I apparently called a uHaul help line on another planet, as our conversation tended towards the unreal.

“You want to change the dropoff location for your 10’ ruck rental?”

“I don’t have a 10’ truck. I changed it to a 15’ truck.”

“You mean the one from Kansas City?”

“No, I canceled that rental. I’m trying to return the 15’ truck I rented in Tennessee, IL.”

“Oh, no. You have a 10’ truck out from Tennessee, as well as one from Kansas City.”

“No, I don’t have a truck out from Kansas City. I don’t have two trucks. How could I rent two trucks? I never picked that one up. I canceled it. I did pick up a truck in Tennessee, IL. I made the reservation there for a 10’ truck but changed it to a 15’ truck. I have a 15’ truck I am trying to return. Please help me return this 15’ truck….”

“You don’t have a 15’ truck, sir. Let’s forget about the one in Kansas City. You have a 10 truck from Tennessee, they can be hard to tell apart.”

“No I don’t have a 10’ truck.”

“Fine. Read me the number on the side, then sir.” The clerk sounded more tired than I was.

“DC 1899.” I spoke carefully into the phone. I hear a pause.

“Oh. Oh. Shit. You do have a 15’ truck. That’s a 15’ truck number. How the….” I hear the clerk say, with some awe in her voice. “That’s not right. No. No. That’s not good.”

“Are we on the same page now?” I ask.

“Oh no, sir, we’re way off page on this one.”

I look at my paperwork. It says 10’ truck. Fuck. The first time I don’t read the paperwork carefully, I get the wrong truck, with the wrong gas, going to the wrong drop off location.

I begin to panic. They’re going to charge me with theft… taking the wrong truck from the lot without Brent’s permission…. They’re going to melt my credit card.

“Can I just return the 15’ truck I rented, pretty please, and we’ll call it good?” I ask in my smallest voice.

Over another hour, after speaking two two clerks, we come to the understanding that uHaul understands nothing of what is going on, and will ask Corporate to get involved, and contact me within 3 business days. Corporate can’t be good. All I have is the truth on my side, little evidence for it, and I know how little that counts today. This is asshole puckering of a bad kind, unlike acceleration on Priscilla. The exhausted clerk gives me a new place to return the 15’ truck that I should not have, and Dinah and I make good on that.

We get home around midnight, and collapse asleep. It is good to be home, though the smell from the basement is pretty strong.

Another amazing, somewhat lucky day done.

—

The next day, I get a call from uHaul Corporate. The fellow is apologetic, kind, listens to my story, and immediately offers credits towards future rentals. He says he will look into any surcharges that might be in the system, and erase them. He says he hopes my experience isn’t reason to give up hope on Uhaul. You could have knocked me over with a feather.

I think we've all come to expect the “I gotta fuck you before you fuck me—that’s how to get ahead in life” attitude in business, if not in relationships of every kind. We recently dealt with a refrigerator repairman, an old customer, and a corporation that used that approach to business with us. To solve something that wasn't perfect and clear, they aggressively put themselves first, and left us with a large bill for nothing.I hate this approach to business and life, but accept that it’s part of human nature. I have that little voice in my head too— call it “being guarded” combined with “getting ahead” — it pushed me to jump for the Super 8 check in counter in Bethany. But the more I can recognize it, and ignore it, the better. Had that couple gotten the last room in the Super 8, I would have done something else, and it would have been fine in the end. The better me would have waited patiently behind them at the Super 8 desk, to see what fate dealt.

That Corporate uHaul didn’t take that approach is exceptional, amazing, and really speaks to hope for us all. They could have said Ha! We have a contract that you signed! We can totally screw you! And they likely could have, charging who knows what penalties and fees, and I would have been helpless to fight them and their team of lawyers. But they didn’t. I mean, I have yet to see my final credit card bill… Until then, though, even the very end of this trip looks blessed in ways I could hardly have imagined starting out, knock on wood.

Where the Enfields Roam (All parts)

1

Peter looked away.

Was it nerves? Was he thinking up another lie? I hadn’t come down this hard on him before. I was wary over his reaction. But mostly I was hopping mad.

“You fix motorcycle by Friday!” I said giving each word stress for effect.

“Yessir. No problem sir.” It was Peter’s standard reply, which I had heard perhaps thirty times a week for the last 12 weeks. I brushed it past and increased my volume.

“Friday I come! I take motorcycle Friday! Got it? I take motorcycle fixed or not! Got it? I bring rope! I tow it by car! I take my bike! Got it?” I used the simplified English Peter used to make sure he understood. But perhaps all he heard was the white customer’s anger.

“Yessir. No problem sir. Fix Friday sir. You come Friday. Is 5 o’clock ok?” Peter stared right at me with earnest eyes, sounding a bit like a humble waiter in a restaurant. Would he ask me if I wanted sugar and cream next? I had handed over the bike for an engine rebuild at the beginning of December. It was now the end of February. Peter had promised the bike would be finished on every Friday since the beginning of January, yet had not produced it. Always one more thing needed fixing. In early January, he just needed valve stems. Then it was shims. And last week it was a main bearing. The motor seemed to be getting less-built with time.

“All you say are lies, lies, lies, Peter!” Yes, I knew the local culture required him to tell me what I wanted to hear. But when the hell was I going to get my bike back? Couldn’t the man simply tell me the truth about the bike? If he couldn’t get parts, couldn’t he just tell me?

“Yes sir. Sorry sir.” Peter looked away, genuinely ashamed.

“I take bike whether fix or not. This Friday. I come 5 o’clock.” I was determined to get it back from him, perhaps find another mechanic who didn’t lie so much. Perhaps one that could fix it in less than a year.

“Yessir. No problem sir. Bike almost done. Just one thing finish. Bike done today. Test bike tomorrow. You take bike Friday. No problem sir.” This new detail was oddly reassuring. I knew better than to trust what he told me, having been fooled a hundred times before. But Peter seemed to have a plan. Maybe it was the truth. Maybe I would get my bike back on Friday.

I left Peter’s shop worrying that I had been too sharp with him. Gosh, if I got the bike back that Friday, I could spend Saturday morning riding on the back roads. Jeannette would come along. We could picnic. Monday I could drive the kids to school, and they adore that. Oh dear how lovely that would be. I really needed it. The office politics at school were raging and I needed a break.

Later that afternoon I bumped into Sasi, Peter’s parts dealer. He asked how things were. I told him I was taking my bike back on Friday. Sasi told me that wasn’t possible. Peter didn’t have the bike any more. A fellow on the other side of town had the bike, or what was left of it. He had disassembled the entire bike a month ago and sold many of the parts, especially the ones that were hard to get. As Peter owed this guy money, Sasi didn’t think he’d give what remained of the bike back to Peter any time soon. And Peter had a 4000rs. deposit from me.

That evening I cruised Travelocity for cheap tickets home.

2

Much of Kodai’s first-time Western staff come to India expecting “exotic” and “interesting.” They imagine colorful adventures and delicious new foods. They prepare themselves for large insects, tropical diseases and a scarcity of toilet paper. They think it will all be so cool that the third-world horrors will pale in significance. Perhaps the horrors will even be interesting. I certainly did.

And many Western staff run screaming only after a short stay. The novelty wears off and the unusual becomes strange. Garbage is everywhere, it stinks and nobody cleans it up. The Hindu penitents marching with skewers through their faces or hanging from hooks through their flesh are simply blocking traffic. You get cheated by local businessmen. Smiles cease to be friendly and become inscrutable. Then culture shock sets in which is when there’s something that just ain’t right about the country. Some come to this conclusion after only a few days. Others take a few years. A few learn to live with it, even enjoy it.

While we haven’t run home yet, it’s not that we haven’t wanted to. The kids miss home terribly at times. Especially around holidays I feel lost, cold and unhappy. On Thanksgiving I would much rather be back in my sister’s living room having a dysfunctional-family argument with shouting, arm-waving, tears and irrational recriminations than have another delicious dosa at the Hilltop Inn.

What attracts us to India would make a long list. What drives us out of our minds would make a longer list. But for now we have a balance, and it’s weighted more heavily towards India. The challenge to living here is maintaining that balance. Yes we wobble when it takes 15 minutes to drive the 500 feet between the school and my house because a series of bus, car and truck drivers are using the road to talk, park, make a u-turn, eat lunch, play marbles with their children and perform many other activities except dive on the appropriate side of the road at a constant and rational speed. But the balance is restored on every hike through the amazing hills, and over every gin-and-tonic watching the evening light fall on Kodai lake from our verandah. But most especially my balance is restored when I take long rides on my Enfield around the hills. I love to ride my motorcycle in India.

So when I nearly lost my Enfield to a perfectly nice mechanic named Peter, I lost my balance.

3

Soon before we came to India, a nice lady in the Human Resources department sent us an email. It seems that she and her husband, the school pastor, were leaving Kodai a bit sooner than expected. He had a motorcycle for sale, and needed to sell it quickly. It was in great shape and he wanted only 34,500 rs. (about $800). As I didn’t have a good idea what bikes should cost in Kodaikanal, I figured I could trust him, being a pastor and all, and bought the bike, sight unseen.

The bike was an Enfield 535 Lightning, built in 2000. It had a cheesy 1970’s cruiser look. I would need aviator shades, open shirt with gold chains around my neck and a blow-dried haircut to look the part while riding it. But I tried to look on the bright side. I tried to find a bright side. Perhaps I could sell it easily when I got there.

Motorcycles are critically important to my imagination. I dream about them. I ride them. I ride them in my dreams. I dream of riding them. Some of my most enjoyable moments have been spent on motorcycles, from touring Europe on a Czech 2-stroke, to high speeds over American highways on a Japanese V-4, to trail riding on a beaten down dirt bike. I was really excited at the prospect of the lovely oddities of single-cylinder British-Indian engineering. Instead I was getting low-rent Eric Estrada. I kept up hope about selling it.

Internet research revealed that it was the biggest Indian manufactured motorcycle, with the largest displacement and most horsepower. Brand new it put out a whopping 25 hp. Most lawn mower engines put out more. And the bike was heavy—Harley heavy. Looked like I’d be pushing it up hills.

About a week after we arrived in Kodai, a friend of the pastor’s, Dhan, left the bike at my house. The initial impression was, well, anti-climactic. I had expected an ugly bike. What I got was a dirty, rusty, and broken-down ugly bike. The rear license plate mount was dangling by wires. The instrument panel didn’t work. Neither did the headlight. And the float bowl leaked gas everywhere. It had over 60,000km on the odometer. Most importantly I couldn’t get it started. I knew how in theory. I had started many motorcycles in my day, and repeatedly so. This particular bike had the combination of a compression release and a kick-start. No Top Dead Center indicator, but perhaps it didn’t need one.

I kicked it with choke on. I kicked with the choke off. I kicked with the compression release on. I kicked with it off. I timed my compression release with the kick. I ignored it entirely. I tried to find TDC by feel before I kicked it. I kicked it on the beaches, in the towns, in the countryside, but nothing made a difference. It didn’t even sputter. After an hour of this—made all the more humiliating because I knew someone had started and ridden it to my house—I walked back inside on a rubber leg. I sat down in the living room and thought, wow, India is really exotic, unusual, and interesting. Then I had several beers.

Later, I pushed the bike into the covered shed and confirmed all intentions to sell it.

4

I put a notice in the staff lounge. I spread the word. Just asking what I paid for it. My motivation to sell wasn’t simply the ugly aesthetics and non-running condition. I’ve kept bikes like this before (with the intention of improving both states). Complicating the issue was the fine art of driving in India. Frankly, I was terrified of setting out on the roads. Walking along them was dangerous enough.

When we first arrived, the drive from Madurai airport to Kodaikanal confirmed that India was really exotic, unusual, and completely insane. Our driver passed everything marginally slower than him on the congested roads without waiting for an opportunity. He just passed when he caught up. If there was an oncoming vehicle smaller than his car, he didn’t blink. I was their job to get out of his way, in effect to get off the road. But if the oncoming car was bigger, then he would slow down and duck back into his proper lane just in time. At no time did we follow a car in front of us. We were either passing one, had just passed one, or were about to pass one. We just-missed head-on collisions with oncoming traffic at least five or six times a minute during the entire 4-hr. long drive.

Our diver wasn’t unusual. Everyone passed everyone constantly. As we would pass a truck, an oncoming car would be trying to pass another in oncoming traffic.
Blind corners didn’t slow anyone down from passing. When not visible, drivers would honk to indicate they were there. Trucks would pass trucks on blind corners while motorcycles would try to pass the passing trucks. I watched the impossible happen time after time as people survived these maneuvers.

Driving in Kodai was compounded by the hills. The roads curved quite a bit and in places were very steep. One particular road is so steep it really could be stairs (for the Bridgewaterites in the audience it’s much steeper than old abandoned Allen Rd. that connects Hut Hill with Keeler). One road coming up out of the gas station in the center of town offers such a sharp rise that long buses scrape off sections of their bumpers if they navigate it at the wrong angle.

My American background was another huge problem. Like the British, Indians drive on the wrong side of the road. Years earlier I rented a car in England for a week. Sure enough, one sleepy morning I pulled out onto the right-hand side of the road, and nearly hit an oncoming car. I was very afraid of making the same mistake here.

So the Enfield gathered a bit of dust. It was just as well, as life was very complex our first month here.

5

Moving abroad to teach in a boarding school is not a simple task. New country. New culture. New job. New school for the kids. New foods. New home. New acquaintances. No friends or family. Every day was a “challenge” in the best and worst sense of the term. We would all arrive home in the evening, exhausted but with great stories. In many ways, I simply didn’t have time to fool with a cantankerous motorcycle.

A month or two into the term, I took up Dhan’s offer to help me with the bike. He had an Enfield, had driven them most of his life and knew them well. He came over and looked the bike up and down. He then got on the bike, waved his hand mysteriously over several parts, muttered a few guttural incantations, kicked it over slowly three times, then kicked it with vigor. The motor sprang to life with a low, slow and almost-sonorous thud-thud-thud-thud-thud, firing perhaps twice a second. The sound was not quite authoritative Harley, that aggressive V-twin bark. The sound was certainly not high-whine Japanese, but something altogether different. I wasn’t too familiar with British bikes, so I figured this is what British singles sound like. The sound wasn’t bad. Nothing offensive. But it didn’t have any flair, either. This was not sexy Italian V-12. It was far more clothes-pins-on-me-trousers-so-the-Missus-don’t-get-upset-with-grease-stains.

Mixed in with the exhaust note was a horrendous clatter from the valves, as if someone was playing the spoons on a linoleum countertop. Idling, the bike vibrated like a coin-operated Supermarket kiddie-ride. I sighed.

Dhan shut the motor off and launched into a long description of all the things I needed to do to start an Enfield. It seemed that I required an advanced degree in Enfield Mechanical Engineering. Without such a degree, I should always park it at the top of hills. In fact, it was preferable to ask random passerby’s until I found one with a degree in to start my motorcycle for me, rather than attempt it myself. I took as many mental notes as possible, and Dhan seemed confident I’d learn how with a few months of practice. But there was a catch.

“Oh, your TDC meter doesn’t work. That’ll make starting the bike really hard,” Dhan says.

“And where might this TDC meter be?” I had looked all over the bike for such an indicator and found none.

“Oh, your voltage meter does the job before the bike starts. Except it’s broken” was the casual reply. Good to know.  I figured the voltage meter didn’t register anything because the bike was not running and had no voltage. “So you have to learn to feel when the cylinder is reaching TDC before firing instead of TDC when expelling exhaust.” I saw. My leg would have to learn some new tricks. “And the valves are noisy. You should get them adjusted.” I was about to say “No shit Sherlock,” but remembered I was in a different cultural setting, and my humor might not be appreciated as intended.

And then Dhan looked over the bike again and asked that fatal question.

“How much did you pay for it?” I told him. Dhan didn’t blink before saying “That’s too much. The bike is worth about 25,000 rs. If you want to sell it, you should ask about 20,000 rs. I think that’s what you’ll get for it.”

I sighed.

6

In due time I learned the intricate process required to start an Enfield. Part of the problem is that the starting process is not static. It changes with the weather. It changes with the quality of gas you get. It changes with how clogged the carb is. Did I mention the bike had no fuel filter? It had no fuel filter. Whatever junk made its way into the tank burned in the engine, if it ever got there. The carb would go through periods of poor idle, then fast idle, then no idle, then back to a good idle. I figure much of it had to do with the logjam of rust, dirt, leaves and twigs that made their way from the gas tank to the jets. Once I took the carb apart and poured dark brown liquid from the float bowl. Mostly rust, I hoped.

Starting the bike without a TDC meter was indeed difficult. I’d push the motor through its cycle slowly until I found what seemed to be the compression cycle. Then I’d apply the compression release. Then I’d give her a good solid kick. “Ftuff” was the usual reply, though occasionally accompanied by a backfire strong enough to break my ankle. Five times. twenty times. Fifty times. It was exhausting. My right leg grew noticeably stronger and larger than my left. But one magical kick somewhere in the series would spark the bike to life, and off we’d go thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.

On the positive side, the bike was solid on the road. Perhaps a bit too solid, as lithe and lively it was not. The acceleration was close to non-existent. A twist of the throttle made the thud-thud-thud a magnitude louder, but accompanying acceleration suffered a long lag. Occasionally I’d have forgotten I’d accelerated by the time the bike sped up. The extra speed would come as a surprise. Thankfully though, the bike had a solid front brake—a retrofitted disc. Most Enfields have front drums that weren’t designed slow the bike down. They were designed to give your hand something to do while you crashed. Some previous owner of my bike took this badly, and had a disc fitted to the front wheel. I thank him. The bike also had a working horn. Horn and brake, I discovered, were the two most essential items to drive in India. Without them you’re lost.

Personality-wise, the Enfield was really hard to place. I kept looking for a good nickname, and none even registered as a maybe. To start with, I couldn’t figure out if my Enfield was male or female. Italian sports cars are female in my mind. They’re sexy, expensive to run, temperamental in their running habits and enormous fun. A Toyota pickup truck, however, is very male: mechanically dependable and completely boring. My Enfield was definitely very 1970’s male in feel, but there was something vaguely feminine about it. There was something also fundamentally annoying about the bike, though why I couldn’t quite pin down. So I held off with a nickname. Other bikes have been very easy to nickname.

Years ago I lived in Slovakia, just after the Iron curtain fell. I bought and rode a Jawa 350, 1990 vintage. First-hand I learned the many horrors Socialism had inflicted upon Slovak engineering skills and the Slovak spirit. I learned to appreciate Harley-Davidson quality control. I learned to appreciate my electric company’s customer service. I learned to appreciate the West.

That Jawa 350 earned the nickname Snake. The name’s from a horse in a favorite book that would try to kill his rider at random opportunities. My Jawa would malfunction or jettison essential parts at very inconvenient moments—on mountainous hairpin turns, in rush-hour city traffic and at high speed. Once while trying to overtake a truck on a highway at night, I heard an enormous bang then lost all power, including my lights. I had to drift back along the truck in the passing lane to swerve behind it and reach the opposite shoulder, as there was only a guardrail to my left. Invisible and without power with cars fast approaching from behind, the trucker bizarrely decided to move into my lane. Only through several insane and impossible emergency maneuvers did I avoid death. Once on the shoulder, still doubting that I had survived, I checked over the bike from stem to stern and found nothing wrong. No sign of explosion or fire. I started her with the first kick, lights back on, everything was fine. And so she earned the nickname Snake.

My homicidal motorcycle would earn his name over and over again. In the first months of riding, Snake’s front brake seized solid on a curve, the clutch went miles from home, the accelerator cable snapped, five sets of plugs fouled, numerous nuts and bolts fell off while riding. I also discovered the oil drain plug had been fitted in the factory with stripped threads. It’s a miracle I survived Snake’s repeated attempts on my life. I sold her to a perfectly nice fellow. She promptly dumped him on a hillside. He put out his back permanently. I think we both got off lucky. 

My Enfield has yet to earn a nickname. Perhaps my limited Western brain simply can’t fully digest what has been a very Indian motorcycle experience—not in a pejorative sense, mind you, but in the sense that the experience has been unique and, I feel, only possible in Kodaikanal.

7

Thud-thuds-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud
Clackkity-clackitty-clackkity-clackitty-clackkity-clackitty

When in a good mood, I would tune into the exhaust note. When in a bad mood, I’d tune into the valve noise. Sometimes I would follow the logic and wonder about the many sides of my bike’s personality. And I would cringe that I hadn’t taken her to a mechanic yet. The trouble was I didn’t know a good mechanic and I didn’t speak Tamil aside from a few words of general greeting. Other Western staff had used a fellow named Peter, but I wasn’t sure where I could find his shop. I was too timid to ask, when it came down to it, because I wanted to sell the bike, not pour money into it. But I had no buyers. Not even a nibble. Yes, I was being stubborn about the price. Perhaps that was the problem. But nobody even expressed interest in buying the bike. So I rode it.

Eventually, I took the plunge and started to ask around about bike mechanics. I got two references, one to a Dinan and another to a Peter. Dinan didn’t speak English, but Don his friend, did. I could work through Don. Peter did speak English, but Dinan would pick up and deliver the bike, so I went for Dinan. I thought to test Dinan with simple things first, before ordering a whole engine rebuild.

Dinan welded back my license plate frame, got the headlight working, repaired the float bowl leak for about 45 rs. And Dinan picked up the bike and delivered it back. I was elated. It was too good to be true. I wanted to go and thank him personally, but I didn’t know where his shop was, he didn’t speak English, and Don didn’t seem to feel there was a need. So I left it alone.

We’d been in India for a good six months at this point. Learning Tamil had become a quest, complete with insurmountable obstacles. There was no Tamil teacher at school. The two Tamil teachers recommended by friends were unavailable. I bought books and studied them. When I would practice with our ayah, Philomena, she would listen then laugh.

“You learn wrong Tamil, sir” Philomena would tell me.

“Wrong Tamil? But the book says…”

“Book not right, sir” Philomena would laugh.

“So how do I say…” and I would ask her. Philomena was very helpful, as she would tell me three ways to say something. I would try each. She would laugh at each. I would try again and she would tell me I shouldn’t say it that way.

“Don’t say that, sir.” Philomena would correct me.

“Then what way?”

“Not that way.” Philomena would continue to correct me.

Learning Tamil from Philomena always left me knowing less than I had at the start. My books were all wrong, as they taught Tamil that was spoken fifty or a hundred years back. This older Tamil seemed to be as distant from modern Tamil as Shakespeare’s language is from our own. I still persevered with Philomena, and picked up a few words.

I’m sure my confusion with the language exacerbated the situation, but it seemed every time I asked Philomena for the Tamil numbers, or some phrase, I’d get a different answer. I’d write them down, and they’d be right one day and wrong the next. Perhaps Tamil was spoken differently every day of the week. I tried asking for numbers only on Mondays, but still got different answers. Perhaps on Mondays she would give me the accusative case, and on Tuesdays I’d get the nominative. I really couldn’t make head or tale of the muddle.

I also tried to pick up words and phrases from Tamil faculty at the school.

“No, no, your ayah say all wrong,” Hadden told me. And Hadden gave me yet another series of words for Tamil numbers. Despair started to set in.

“Don’t bother trying to learn Tamil, it’s impossible,” the wisdom of a 20-year faculty veteran rang hollow in my ear. I really didn’t want to be ignorant Western staff. But I was too busy to study Tamil full time, and too weak to pick it up as I went along. I sighed.

8

Two days after Dinan fixed the float bowl, it started leaking again. I got Don to call Dinan about it, and added a valve job to the order. Maybe Dinan could quiet up the valves.

A few days after Dinan picked up the bike, Don told me he could fix the valves. The pushrods had worn down so much they needed extensions. The extensions were available in Madurai and Dinan would get them soon. I said yes please, get them fixed. A week later, Dinan dropped my bike off at the school. I started the bike up to the same valve noise. The float bowl still leaked.

Next I found out where Peter’s shop was and took the bike there to see if he could be of any use. I asked him to change the oil, fix the carb and fix the TDC meter on the instrument panel. As Peter spoke English, it was really easy to deal with him.

“Yes sir. No problem. Go buy parts in Madurai tomorrow. Fix day after. Come back Friday.” So I came back Friday, and sure enough I had a working TDC meter and clean oil. Gas was not pissing out of the float bowl. Peter had even cleaned the bike up some. I was elated. It was too good to be true.

Next I asked Peter if he could fix the valve noise by rebuilding the top end.

“Yes sir. No problem sir. I fix top end.”

“How long will it take?”

“Oh, one week to get parts, pushrods, seals. One week to fix. Two weeks maximum sir. No problem.” Peter seemed thoughtful when he said this. It seemed reasonable enough. I left the bike with him and went on winter vacation.

9
The school’s winter vacation lasts about six weeks, from the middle of November through the beginning of January. It’s high tourist season in India since the monsoon is over, but the high heat of April and May have not yet arrived. You can travel around without being soaked to the skin or burnt to a crisp.

So off we went on an extravagant bus tour of India, from Kodaikanal through Bangalore, Goa, Hampi, Ellore, Ajanta, Hyderabad then home. While a marvelous trip worth every dime and every trouble, we arrived back exhausted.

I found Peter had returned my bike already, stored it in a friend’s garage. My heat leaped. I started her and heard the same sack of silverware noise from the engine. My heart fell.

The next morning I found Peter.

“Did you fix my bike, Peter?” I asked not-so-innocently. I knew the answer, but wanted his reasons why he didn’t fix the thing.

“Yes Sir. Bike all fixed” Peter said with a smile. What was he up to? Did he really take me for a complete idiot? Was he joking? I waited for a “just kidding” but didn’t get it. Or did he really rebuilt it and make it just as worse as before?

“No Peter. Bike not fixed.” I opted for a literal response, hoping to avoid confusion.

“No, bike not fixed.” Peter stopped smiling and agreed.

I wondered if I said the bike was fixed, he would agree with me again. And then if I said again it was not fixed, he’d agree with me again, and how long we could keep it up. But it was too early in the morning to descend into farce. I opted for the straight-faced literal approach:

“Why you not fix bike?”

“Bike needs pushrods. Needs whole engine work. Whole top end needs work.” Peter explained what we both knew two weeks ago. Now it was getting funny. He doesn’t do any work on my motorcycle for two weeks because he needs to confirm what I asked him to do before I left?

“Yes, yes. Rebuild whole engine. That’s what I asked you to do two weeks ago.” It was déjà vu all over again.

“Sorry sir.”

“Please rebuild the top end. Whole engine. Top end. Here.” I pointed to the portion of the engine in question, as I had done two weeks earlier.

“Need many parts” Peter was complicating matters by observing the obvious. Was he after money to start?

“You need money to start?” I felt like I was falling into a trap, though an inevitable one.

“Parts cost maybe 2000 rupees. Labor 1000 rupees more. Fix bike in one week, all done. Tomorrow I go Madurai buy parts. No problem.” I gave Peter 3000 rs. in exchange for a promise to fix my bike in a week.

“No problem, sir. I bring bike to your house when done.”  I left with a sense that perhaps we were finally on the right track. Now I just had to wait, and pay the remainder on delivery.

Walking back up the hill I thought about it. A complete upper end rebuild for about 3000 rs. was a pretty good deal. $75 to rebuild a motor? You couldn’t touch that in the States. Flycutting the head would cost $125 and up. Wait. Was he going to flycut the head? I sincerely hoped he would. But also I figured that when in India, you just let things happen. There were enough motorcycles on the road to attest to some competence in mechanical matters. I’d leave him the job of quieting up the pushrods, getting the valves to cooperate and all.

10

School started in early January, the skies celebrating the return of students with bright cold blue hues. It was the start of the true dry season. Perfect riding weather. And my bike was in the shop.

My kids were even less patient than I. I had taken them to school every morning on the bike, Isaac sitting on the tank in front and Josephine on the back. Isaac’s feet weren’t long enough to reach the rear pegs. He also enjoyed the full force of wind in his face. And there were the instruments to read. He’d report on how fast we were going and what obstacles were on the horizon. At first Josephine clung to my back with a grip of steel. But in no time she balanced herself so well I’d half expect to turn around and catch her reading a book as we rode to school. Thankfully, though, she’d always have a hand on the seat edge.

“Dad, when are we getting the bike back?” They would both whine in the mornings, facing the terrible prospect of a slow, ten minute walk to school instead of a two minute magic-carpet ride over empty roads at 7:30 am.

I also found the walk annoying. It wasn’t the effort or the speed. It was the lack of a bit of fun every morning. Riding three on a bike (or four, as Jeannette sometimes came with us too), is quite enjoyable. You feel snug all pressed together—an adrenaline version of curling up on the couch and watching TV as a family.

The return trip was one I didn’t miss. By 5pm, the roads were clogged with traffic and tourists. While we never got about 15kph, the danger of hitting someone or something was very real.

Tourist towns are driving nightmares anywhere in the world. One in three cars have just arrived. The drivers are so happy to look around at the sights and search for parking that they lose any road-awareness skills they may have possessed. In India, we have all these problems in addition to the usual crazy driving and road-use habits. In Kodai, no lanes are ever maintained. People drive wherever they see fit. They drive super slow. They speed up and slow down without explanation. They stop in the middle of the road, blocking all traffic, while someone gets out and looks for something in the trunk. They try to turn around on small one-lane roads, blocking everyone for a quarter of an hour as they try to figure things out. And they park at odd angles in the oddest places because they can’t find parking anywhere else. Cars do this. Small buses do this. Large buses do this. The horns are piercing loud and constant. Add to this a wide assortment of cows, stray dogs, street vendors, unattended small children on bicycles and families eating their lunches on the roads and the traffic snarl makes the Gaza Strip look restful and safe.

The traffic is particularly bad around the lake, where the roads are barely two cars in width, steep and with very sharp curves that most buses can’t navigate. And of course, all the tourist buses want to park on the lake. The municipality has made some effort to keep them away by erecting huge steel I-beam height-limiters, about 6 ft. off the ground, right at driver-eye level, even below. The trouble is that these huge I-beams are generally bent like pretzels three or four days after they’re put up. Cars, trucks, buses: Everything hits the barriers. I’ve seen cars hit them at 30 kph, scraping ten suitcases right off the roof rack. While visually amusing—an explosion of underwear, kids toys, toothbrushes and saris—up into the air then all over the road—I sympathize with problem. I wouldn’t wish that kind of accident on any tourist. So I never laugh. I just smile quietly.

The height-limiters then bend and sag down closer to the ground, and only let through kids in strollers and crawling adults. So of course groups of tourists get out of their buses and work-gang style completely demolish the barriers, pushing them to one side. Then we get the huge buses stuck around the lake again. Finally, the municipality erects makeshift barriers out of logs, roping the ends to street lights and telephone poles. These come down five, six times a day. It’s a mess.

I almost forgot to add: High tourist season is when the municipality digs up and repaves the main roads. They have done this every year since we’ve been here, as the paving jobs aren’t particularly durable. At any given time, several of the roads around the lake are closed (though this doesn’t keep the cars, trucks and buses off them after they get under the barriers). And they often pull up the fresh pavement onto their tires as they drive over. By pavement, I should specify: the pavers mix boiling tar with small stones in a tumbler, then spread the black Rice-Krispy-Treat-like stuff over the road with rakes. Occasionally there’s a roller that flattens things a bit. That’s it.

Driving a motorcycle through this mess is both dangerous and not very enjoyable.

But the weekends? Outside of town? The mountain roads outside Kodai are largely free of cars: only the occasional truck making deliveries, the occasional local bus, and the occasional motorcycle with twelve people on it going to or coming from work. Lovely riding opportunities. A massage for the soul.

11

After three weeks, I determine that it’s not pestering to stop by Peter’s shop and ask how things are going. The kids ask every morning when the bike will be back, for their trips to and from school. I’ve missed two weekends in a row of leisure and am feeling greedy. It’s now nearing the end of January. I want my bike back. Peter’s a week off his own schedule. Something must be up. I will ask him just that, in a friendly, non-confrontational way. I even plan my banter and questions.

I walked down the hill to his shop after school.

“Yes sir, bike not finished. Tomorrow finished. No problem sir. Parts hard to get. Not my fault, sir. Parts hard to get. 535 parts hard to get. Bike finished tomorrow. No problem.”

I listen hard, trying to hear what he really means. No Parts? No problem? Finished tomorrow?

“Peter, what’s the problem. Why bike not finished?” I can only come up with an open-ended question. In my heart I know Peter won’t explain anything better than he already has.

“Parts hard to get. Bike finished tomorrow. I bring bike tomorrow. Will you be home 5pm?”

“Yes, I’ll be home 5pm. I’ll wait for you then. Thanks.” And that was that. What else could I say? You lying sack of fertilizer? I walked back up the hill to school, found the kids, and walked home with them.

12
Tomorrow comes, goes and so do several more tomorrows. Time for another visit. Perhaps this time I should be a little more angry.

Peter sees me coming down the hill, and continues working on a car engine. There is a large air filter in a canister lying in the dirt. It’s rather bashed up. One end has bits of sheet steel torn out with pliers. Bits of dirty paper filter litter the ground around it. It looks like an animal has been trying to tear out the tender meat in the middle. He seems to have tried, unsuccessfully, to get an old filter out of the canister, and totally wrecked the canister in the process. I begin to question Peter’s skills as a mechanic.

“Yessir. Sorry sir. Engine needs oil seal. I go Madurai tomorrow. Buy oil seal. No problem.”

I walk back up the hill to school and decide not to think about the bike for a whole week. A watched pot never boils.

13

“Yessir. Sorry sir. Oil seal not available here. I go Madurai tomorrow. Buy oil seal.”

“But Peter, you said last week you buy oil seal in Madurai. Tomorrow you go?” Is there genuine surprise in my voice? I can’t tell any more.

“Yessir. Sorry sir. I go tomorrow. Parts hard to get. Not my fault, sir.”

I have the distinct sense that I’m being lied to, and not particularly well. Perhaps it’s because he’s given me the same story as last week. Perhaps it’s because his story contradicts previous promises to “fix bike by Friday.” I wonder if this is special treatment for the foreigners, or if the locals also get the same run around. I begin to worry that Peter is not planning to give the bike back at all. Let’s see how long I can string the White man along. Then I’ll tell him “bike gone.” He can’t go to the police, who are totally corrupt. Ha ha…. The paranoia grows as I walk back up the hill.

At school I bump into Vasant, the Student Activities Coordinator and a fellow Enfield enthusiast, who asks how the rebuild is going. I tell him.

“So much problem man! Tcha. You should have called me. 535 parts are easy to get. The factory is in Chennai. Tcha. What’s up with Peter? These guys always screw people around. Me too. You just have to be firm with them. Look, I’ll come along and sort it out.” I decline his offer. This is not what I need, a Big Brother to beat up Peter for me.

Don later informs me that 535 parts are in fact hard to get. Enfield doesn’t make the 535 any more, and so don’t stock the parts shelves as well as they should. His theory is that Peter may be mad at the school, and is taking revenge out on me. Revenge?

Peter used to run a garage on the school campus. He performed maintenance on school vehicles, worked on faculty cars privately, and took in other customers from the town. After ten years of this set up, the school suddenly realized that a) he wasn’t a school employee, b) he hadn’t paid rent on the shop for ten years and c) he had to go immediately because he just had to go. So Peter was kicked out of his shop. If this was revenge, why innocent little me?

“Well, I wouldn’t worry so much,” Don tried to put a shiny face on the matter. “Peter’s generally a nice guy. He doesn’t often screw his customers. He may just be waiting on the job. Sometimes they take the deposit you give them to finish a job. Then to buy parts for yours, they have to wait until someone else gives them a deposit. So you just gotta wait.” Often? Wait? Don’s alarming analysis mixed with his laid back attitude was an object lesson in surviving India from Western perspective. But I was not listening to him in that capacity. I heard that Peter hadn’t even started work on my bike. I could have been driving it all along. But was Don right? Was Vasant right? Was Peter right? What kind of .

14

Several more weeks of visits to Peter produced a long list of new parts that were needed, from pushrods (I thought we already spent two weeks on those?), to gears, to oil seals and I forget what else. The final straw was the rings.

“Tomorrow I go Coimbatore and get rings. Bike all done. Bike all together now. Only rings. I go tomorrow get rings.” Peter was smiling. It looked all the world as if he was relieved that the end of a long motorcycle ordeal was near. His smile cheered me but I felt like a fool. My anger at being given the runaround for so long had been rising.

“Peter, if bike not done Friday, I get very mad.”

“Sorry sir.”

“You have my bike 2 1/2  months. This is too long. You say ‘Fix Friday’ every Friday now for 2 1/2 months. You lie to me Peter.”

“Sorry sir. Bike all done sir. Tomorrow I get rings.”

“Yes, as you’ve said all along. But I don’t believe you. You fix bike now.”  In my heart I felt the bike sliding away, out of my grip. I hadn’t even seen it in three months. Peter kept it in his “bike shop” at an undisclosed location over near the parts dealer, Sasi. I wanted it back. Perhaps I could rebuilt it. Buy a few tools, borrow  few tools. I could work on the terrace in front of our house. Flycut the head? Well… Torque wrenches? Hmmm. It was not a good option, but I felt the only one.

Another Friday went by, no bike. Then I hit Peter’s shop like a ton of bricks and demanded my bike back by Friday even if he hadn’t built it. I went back on Wednesday and shouted.

It was later that day I found out from Sasi that he didn’t even have my bike any more.

15

It was about that point that during one of my public lamentations, a friend offered another friend’s bike to borrow until I got mine back. This friend of a friend was out of town and had made a general offer. I accepted without the usual Wasp hesitation.

It was a really clapped out “Classic” Enfield 350. It was the smaller version of my bike, but with those lovely 1950’s lines. I fell in love with the looks. But it was in bad shape. The muffler was close to non-existent. The full-throated single boomed so loudly, my wife said she could hear me start the bike at school and chart my progress home. Either the paint was the color of rust, or the rust was the color of paint, it was hard to tell. The front brake was a drum with the light touch of a silken glove. Thankfully the rear brake worked well. The big trouble was that the horn didn’t function. And the motor made horrible clunking noises as I sped along. Starting it didn’t require the compression release valve, as there was very little compression. But it started. It ran. It got me around.

I took a day off work, arranging for a sub to take my classes. In the morning I dropped the kids at the bus then headed out of town. Within 20 minutes, I found a lonely mountain road truly in the middle of nowhere. I stopped the bike, and just listened. Nothing but the sound of birds. I climbed a rock face and sat watching the clouds roll by. I listened to the distant monkeys fight. I greeted the local women carrying water on their heads as they walked along the road to their villages. My trifling Tamil phrases impressed them to the point of big smiles. I got back on the bike and explored some more. The road would be wreathed in clouds one moment, then clear the next. The valleys and peaks surrounding offered the same drama. The bliss of riding with no particular place to go is one of the great joys of life. I found my balance again. India was beautiful.

16

“Dinan has your bike now. Peter brought took it over to his shop in baskets on Monday. Not much left, but Dinan figures he can get it together in a few days.” Don and Vasant had made further inquiries, perhaps some threats, on my behalf. There was movement on the bike project now.

I felt like a bereaved spouse being told his wife has been brought, in pieces, to a bush-doctor’s hut. The Voodoo promises that the dead will be brought back to life rang hollow in my ears.

“How many parts missing?” Don didn’t know. But the big ones were still there, head, gearbox, frame, wheels, etc. That sounded like good news.

“Oh, Dinan needs the keys. He doesn’t have the keys.” I had given Peter the keys.
“Peter says he doesn’t have the keys.” I sighed.

Three weeks later, I came down to Dinan’s shop to find my bike “finished.” Dinan had just gotten the job done, largely without nonsense and delay. The bike looked lot like my old bike, as I remembered it, except for the new horn, handlebar grips and other assorted parts that never made it out of Peter’s friend’s shop. Dinan started the bike right up. It ran. The motor sounded strong, though there was an incredible scraping sound coming from the gearbox, like a spoon run over rough concrete. New gears fitting together, I supposed. On second thought, perhaps a few missing.

I drove it up the hill from Dinan’s shop, 12,000 rs. poorer for the parts and labor. I looked down to see gas dripping from the carb. The front brake had a new scraping noise that wasn’t familiar. But as the engine warmed up, a familiar sound came back to my ears:

Thud-thuds-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud-thud.
Clackkity-clackitty-clackkity-clackitty-clackkity-clackitty.

Same old valve problem. But the bike was running. I had it back. For the most part it hadn’t been stolen. The wind was in my face. I was joyful.

A sad story you say? No real resolution? Ah. You want your fiction to end pinched with an airtight seal. Everything neat and tidy. That gives you hope. But I’m happy, sorta. So you should be too.

Motorcycling in India

The Royal Enfield website is very snazzy. There’s lots of flash animation. The glamour shots show super-cool long-haired dudes riding their Enfields into desert sunsets, alone on perfect roads, not a house or cop in sight. The bikes themselves gleam in antiseptic perfection. You can spend a lot of time comparing features on the site and never get bored. You can even change the color schemes on particular bikes to check out the exact one you want. You really want one of these bikes. The site is the product of cutting–edge information-age technology and savoir-faire. www.royalenfield.com

On close inspection, though, the bikes themselves speak a different language. All Enfields have push-rod single cylinder motors fitted in rigid frames. Most of the bikes are kick-start. Most sport drum brakes. All the wheels are spoked. No overhead cams. The displays are analog. The clutch and brake are cable operated. The bikes are cutting-edge 1950’s technology, with a few innovations from the 70’s. No titanium. No alloys. No Ohlins. OK, so the bikes are “retro,” you say. Yes, but not for nostalgic reasons. The bikes simply haven’t changed in 50 years, nor has their name. The major model was the Bullet back then, as it is now, in two engine sizes, 350 and 500. This might seem odd, but do not forget the Hindustani Ambassador, modeled on the Morris Minor. They still make them in India and people still buy them—a lot of them.

So this is Modern India. Website technology from 2006 selling motorcycle technology from 1956. This country has one foot ahead of the rest of the world and the other, well, someplace in the past. For a simple Western mind like mine, the time differential is hard to bend around. In fairness, the US has Harley Davidson—a company that also makes motorcycles using largely 1950’s technology. But Harleys are consciously retro. Behind the image, though, it is possible to find modern touches, such as starters, disc brakes and belt drives. Not so with Enfields.

So of course I bought an Enfield sight unseen, which wasn’t as much of a mistake as it could have been. It belonged to a former staff member, and he seemed honest enough. The Enfield was not new, mind you: it’s a 2001 Lightning 535 with 59,645km (about 34k miles) on it, which is an enormous number in any country, but in India it’s astronomical. Considering the roads and driving habits, it’s a minor miracle any machine makes it past 1000 miles. But my bike starts. It runs. I get places on it. And I love it to bits, except for the styling.

My Enfield looks like some mid-1970’s department store designer’s idea of cool, or a bad interpretation of 1970’s Harley police-cruiser. It has big swooping handlebars, an up-tilted gas tank, gray metallic paint, yellowing plastic Enfield badges and a stupid little windscreen that does no good whatsoever. I feel like Eric Estrada on the thing. Maybe I should buy a pair of aviator glasses and blow dry my hair. The teeth, well, I just can’t go there. Other Enfields around town have a range of styles and additions, such as huge crash bars and huge horns. Bullets are also generally scruffy from endless use. Finding a minty bike is nearly impossible.

Riding it, however, is decidedly different. It’s almost fun, in the same vein as driving a Big Wheel would be. It brings back memories, both the good and bad.

First of all, starting an Enfield is not a simple task. With an advanced degree in the Mysteries of Enfield, it sometimes takes a single kick. However, for the uninitiated it is both impossible and highly dangerous. Kick after kick after kick gets you nothing except another chance at a backfire. And 535cc single cylinder backfire is nothing to sniff at. When the Enfield backfires, it propels the kick-start lever backwards at high speed with huge amounts of torque, launching you in a somersault over the handlebars and onto the pavement in front of the bike. With a broken ankle and bruises all over, you will lie there and just weep in frustration. Then the bike will fall over sideways.

So as an owner, I was initiated into the starting rites of the Enfield. The first Keys of Knowledge is the location of the compression release lever, below the left handlebar grip. The other great Key of Knowledge is so ingeniously hidden, that it is a credit to the High Priests of the Creators of the Mysteries of Enfields. I dare to reveal it even to the uninitiated: The Ammeter doubles as a Top Dead Center indicator when the kill switch is in the off position. This may have been a common feature on singles from the 1950’s, but I was born in the late 60’s. Ammeters tell you if your battery is charged, so it is simply not intuitive for me to look at the ammeter gauge to figure out how to kick start the motorcycle. But there you have it.

The starting ceremonies begin with turning the key on, but leaving the kill switch off. You then slowly push the kick start lever through a cycle until the ammeter needle pushes all the way to the right, then drifts back slightly. Now the piston is just past TDC. You then delicately flip the kill switch on. You then engage the compression release lever, and poise your foot on the kick start. Then you simultaneously kick start and release the compression lever. If you hold the compression release too long, the engine won’t start. If you let it go too early, you almost ensure a backfire. Nevertheless, as a safety measure you get your foot off the lever as soon as you complete the kick. If the bike starts, you’re lucky. If it doesn’t, then repeat starting process as necessary.

During my initiation into the Mysteries of Enfields, however, my guru discovered a small problem. On my bike, the ammeter gauge does not double as a TDC indicator. I’m not sure if it’s broken, or Enfield just didn’t put it in my model for some perverse reason. Either way, my ammeter gauge just bounces randomly as I push the kick-start around. So how do I start the bike? Well, my right leg is now much more muscular than my left, if that answers your question.

Once started, the bike asserts itself as sui generis. This is nothing like anything I’ve ever heard, but admittedly, I’ve never heard a big single before. Harleys offer a deep, masculine, aggressive V-twin note. Ducatis produce a civilized yet aggressive and beautiful growl. Hondas and other Japanese bikes make a muffled higher-pitched whirr. My two-stroke Jawa 350 made a sound like exploding silverware in a sack being thrown down a stairs.

Enfields make an odd kind of noise. It reminds me more of a sewing machine or a small steam engine than a motorcycle. There’s a chuff-chuff-chuff with spinning gear noise at idle. A flip of the wrist turns the sound into a thumping bopbopbopbopbopbop from the exhaust and a clunky “chlachlachlachlachlachlachlachla” from the motor. The first time I figured the valves, gearbox and everything else needed serious adjustment, but it seems that all Enfields sound like this. The Enfield is more Wallace and Gromit than Mick Doohan and Carl Fogarty.

Engaging first gear feels and sounds like a very heavy forger’s die has dropped into position, a “crrrrrrrCLUNK” that causes a jolt through the whole motorcycle. Perhaps my clutch is out, but again I have the feeling this is simply the way Enfields work.

On the road, the bike is heavy but well mannered. Enfields are at their best in the low and low-mid range revs. At high revs, the motor threatens to shake every nut and bolt off the frame in some grand cascade behind the bike. Ten seconds of high rpms are also enough to numb hands shake feet off the pedals. And the sound is simply awful. So I keep it at low revs.

Enfields are heavy, very heavy. A friend here tells an anecdote T-boning a scooter on his Bullet. The scooter driver had pulled out right in front of him by accident, and they collided at a good 15 mph. Nobody was hurt beyond small pavement scrapes, but the scooter was thrown down the road and bent severely. The Enfield was unscratched, not even the front tire flattened.

At low speed, the motor always seems just one “bop” from stalling. And it does stall quite easily. There’s a slow hairpin curve over cobblestones on my driveway. Going up it safely requires a speed slower than the motor can handle comfortably in first gear. I’ll drive up it “bop…bop…bop…bop…” feeling forward thrust with each “bop,” but losing it right afterwards. Then all too often I get “bop…bop…bop…cough, wheeze, stall.” Then I have the enjoyment of trying to kick start it on a curved incline, one foot on the brake, the other on the kick start lever….

In fact, my Enfield seems to enjoy stalling. It’s happened once or twice when I’ve throttled down after noticing an oncoming bus aiming at me, then attempt to throttle up fast to avoid the bus, which has sped up to hit me. “Bopbopcough, spit, wheeze, ka-POW” with a backfire bringing everyone’s attention to my plight (Look—a Whitey on a stalled Enfield), drifting ever slower with the bus coming head on, honking continuously, which in Tamil road manners means “your move buster, my steering wheel doesn’t function for smaller vehicles.” Bump starting is simply not an option as it is more difficult than kick starting it. Releasing the clutch with the motor not running simply locks the rear wheel and “SCRRRRRRREEEEEEEEE” we go into a slide that brings the bike to a full stop in the middle of the road. The compression on a 535 cc single is, well, huge. I’ve tried bump starting in every gear, from first to third. In third, the wheel simply turns a little before locking. And even at 15 mph my rear tire doesn’t have the traction to spin the motor. I think it’s one of the few vehicles in India that has tread on the tires (the previous owner was most certainly from the West). Then I try to recall the kick-starting ceremony in the midst of traffic. Let’s see, first I turn the kill switch off….Thankfully, the oncoming bus has always decided not to hit me in the end.

Upshifting the Enfield is a pleasure. The gear action is easy and smooth—though the brake is on the left, and the gear lever is on the right, and it’s first up and four more down. As a hapless Yank, this is all backwards for me. Early on, more than once did I upshift from second to first, or hit the brake instead of shifting. Now it almost seems natural, as does driving on the left-hand side of the road. But Enfield gearboxes have tons of false neutrals. That is one annoyance.

And the build quality of the Enfield? A friend here, who has ridden his Bullet all over India, had this to say about them: “You know, they say men think about sex on average every 6 seconds. Well, when you’re on an Enfield, you’re thinking ‘what the hell is going to break next’ every 6 seconds. It’s the very essence of the Enfield riding experience.” And so far only my taillight has fallen off. But I don’t think about it too much. I have run out of gas twice, but always uphill of the gas station. God loves me.

But where do I go on my bike in Kodai? Well, from home to school, and from school to home almost exclusively. I can’t afford to go further with gas at $3.78 a gallon. My kids absolutely love to go to school on the bike. My son sits in front and my daughter behind me. And we don’t have helmets. Sometimes my wife joins us, making four on the bike. All of you readers in the US now have either swallowed your gum or spat out your dentures in disbelief. “That’s unsafe!” you say. Well, in the US, I never would have done this. But I guess we’re going Indian. Very, very few people wear helmets here. Families of three, four, five and six get onto single motorcycles and gad about happily, without helmets. I don’t even know where to buy helmets. And it’s only a ½ km to school. And it’s fun. Our driveway is a peculiar hoot, seeing as the steepest part is covered in loose rocks the size and shape of baseballs. Never a finger on the front brake, I still get front wheel slides and sideways shifts as I roll over some of the larger rocks. With the whole family on the bike, it can get interesting. I guess we’re crazy. But it’s fun.

Motorcycling in India is a marvelous thing. Simply put, there are as many motorcycles on the road as other vehicles. So (almost) everyone is an enthusiast. Just as in the US, there are safety conscious riders who have helmets and gear, but they’re not the overwhelming majority. You don’t get suspicious and judgmental stares when it’s revealed that you ride a motorcycle or allow your children on it. My daughter has several friends who also ride their dad’s motorcycle to school. It’s fun when we pull up together at the staff parking lot.

The bikes available in India are all small cc. The Enfield 535 is the largest displacement bike available. Most are 125’s and 250s’ and 350’s. They have marvelous names such as Yezdi, and Rajdoot, and Bajaj. Suzuki and Honda also have a presence marketing their wares as Suzuki Maruti and Hero Honda. While there are a lot of bikes, their technology is all largely older.

The most beautiful part of motorcycling here is, of course, the ladies sitting on the back. They all ride side saddle, the ends of their colorful saris trailing in the wind. Almost every bike has a special rear-wheel guard, step, and hand hold for the ladies. The guard keeps their saris from catching in the rear wheel. The handhold is generally an oval ring towards the front of the bike. I had no clue what they were at first, and still use the one on my bike to hold my laptop. My wife refuses to ride side , though I haven’t given up.