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Bike Week 1997 (aka: Geezers on Bikes)
by Thomas Day |
Every
year, since I moved out of Colorado, my expedition to the
Steamboat Springs Vintage Motorcycle Week gets a little
tougher. Last year, I flew to Denver, borrowed a friend's
Honda Hawk, and nearly missed my flight home when my luggage
fell off of the Hawk in the middle of traffic on I-70,
spreading my belongings and plane ticket all over Colorado.
This year, I decided to ride the whole 2,400 miles. Next
year, I may try walking. My bike is a '92
Yamaha TDM, which is a weird cross between a crotch rocket
and a dirt bike. It's probably the closest thing Japan will
ever come to importing a Paris-Dakar style bike to the US.
Out of some weird allegiance to my dirt biking past, I put
dual-purpose tires on the bike this past winter. Because of
that strange heritage and hardware, I actually hoped to do
some real cross-country touring this trip. Some people do
not get wiser as they get older. Because I had a
few days of vacation to burn up, I left for Denver early
Sunday morning, September 7th. Steamboat's Vintage
Motorcycle Week was September 10 to the 14th. The start of
my planned route was diagonally across Minnesota, via
highways 169 and 60, to Sioux City. Early in the day I
passed the Mennonite settlement of Mountain Lake, MN, where
there is a "phone museum" and other exciting attractions.
I'd always thought of Mennonites as hardworking, honest
types, but this place had to be their equivalent of a
Florida swamp real estate scam. There is no no mountain and
no lake, as far as I could see, anywhere near Mountain Lake.
I have a new sort of respect for Mennonites. I stopped in Heron
Lake for my first fuel stop. I discovered, by drenching my
bike and feet in gas, that the fuel shutoff was defective.
With the helmet and ear plugs in place, I nearly dumped two
gallons of gas on the ground before I noticed I was creating
a Super Fund site. From here out, I did my trip
documentation after filling the tank. It didn't surprise the
lady at the counter though. She said, "that side don't
register, this side does," when I told her about the screwed
up pump. I kept an eye on the mirror, as I left town, half
hoping for a mushroom cloud to compensate me for the wasted
fuel. Just south of
Worthington, I tailed a yuppie in a Range Rover who showed
no fear of Iowa's CHP. He got me through that mind-numbing
state in record time. I stopped at an interstate rest stop
in Iowa where an old lady with a highway department uniform
told me "I used to be in the bidnez worl', that's why I'm
workin' here." I thought she meant the business world ruined
her life, but she was just working for the exercise. Go
figure. Just south of Sioux City, I hooked up to highway 77
and to some even less regularly maintained roads.
I used to live in
north eastern Nebraska and I mistakenly thought that gave me
some ability to pick my way across the state. I ended up on
a newly graveled road, about 10 miles north of North Bend,
that was terminated by a large crane and a missing section
of road. When I stopped to look at the construction damage,
my wheels sunk past the rims. My next short cut took me
though about 5 miles of really deep gravel and sand. By the
time I escaped that desert riding experience, my front
fender had a 3" hole pecked into the back side and my chain
picked up about an inch of slack. After relocating
asphalt, I picked up 30 at North Bend and headed west. I
failed the "will to live" test and stopped for a hamburger
in Columbus, NE (Actually, I figured that ought to be the
safest place in the US for a beef-eater, after that city's
most recent 15 minutes of fame.) Making up for lost time, I
stuck with 30 to Grand Island and jumped to I-80. By the
time I got to Gothenburg, NE; 630 miles from home, I was
wiped out. I stayed in a truckers' motel that night and set
the alarm for a 5:00 AM takeoff. Poor road
maintenance almost bit me in the butt this morning. I had a
low rear tire and thought I'd developed an oil leak when I
stopped in Julesburg, CO. The tire was low, but OK. I washed
the engine and discovered the oil leak was just chain lube
that was heating up and dripping off of the engine cases. I
promised my self I would watch my oil level and temp gauge
carefully for the rest of that leg of the trip, just in
case. I managed to hold to that promise all the way to
Denver, about 120 miles. Later in the trip, my failure to
extend this pledge to the whole journey would haunt
me. By noon Monday,
372 miles later, I was in Denver. You can't see the
mountains until you are about 55 miles from the city.
Mountain cloud cover suddenly becomes mountains and the air
seems cooler and fresher. The last 50 miles into Denver seem
to go quickly and the horizon's view is terrific.
When I stopped, my
butt hurt. My kidneys were falling out in chunks. My bike
needed about 10 hours of serious maintenance. Being the high
tech, serious maintenance guy I am, I lubed and re-tensioned
the chain, put duct tape over the hole in the fender, washed
the bike, checked for loose hardware, washed my laundry, and
hung out in a bar until Wednesday morning. We intended to get
to Steamboat by noon so we could catch a little of the dirt
track speedway racing in Hayden that afternoon. We've made
that plan five years in a row. Like the other years, this
year we didn't get to Steamboat until 1:30 PM, our trip
schedule was sabotaged by several coffee, fuel, and meal
beaks. Some of the group, including me, thought the lodge's
hot tub looked more interesting than another 100 miles on
the bikes. Those who stayed watched the clouds cruise the
mountain tops and drank beer. Those who left got to Hayden
just as the last of the racers were leaving and got caught
in a short rain storm on the way back. I try to make each of
my millions of mistakes only once. The next day, I
went to town by myself because none of my group was all that
hip on the trials event. This is the sport with which I
ended my 15 year off-road competition career. In fact, the
years defined as the end of "vintage" were state-of-the-art
just before I quit trying to luck into a trophy. Every once
in a while, Steamboat makes me reconsider my constant fear
of knee injuries and I think about buying a Bultaco Sherpa T
or a Yamaha TY and doing a little cherry-picking. This is also the
day where the "geezers on Beemers" subtitle for Steamboat
really becomes appropriate. There seem to be an incredible
number of retired executives, military officers, and other
non-working class types doing the vintage-bike gypsy tour.
They live in 40' luxury campers and tow
bike-trailer/workshops that make my garage look puny and
unequipped. A few of them even have trophy wives in tow.
Since most of these guys are pretty near my age and I don't
have any of that stuff, I try not to make too many
comparisons or I'll get discouraged. I really get a
kick out of seeing how many ancient bikes have been modified
for trials. I didn't even know BSA or Greeves made a 125 or
that anyone was riding trials pre-WWII before my first trip
to Steamboat. This is like a dirty, live-action museum with
some dirty, active museum caretakers riding the exhibits. It
rained a little about 10:00 AM, just enough to send me back
to the bike for my jacket. As soon as I had two arms full of
stuff to carry, the weather got hot and I spent the rest of
the morning sweating and grinding dirt into all of my body
parts. I don't know who won, probably some geezer with a
collection of Beemers and a Yamaha TY in like-new
condition. Friday is vintage
motocross day. Another of my favorite events. Again, I was
up and out before the rest of the group. I spent the early
morning walking through the pits, taking pictures, listening
to experts talk about the history of various, long-dead
motorcycle manufacturers. It's still hard for me to
reconcile Rickman, Bultaco, Ossa, Norton, BSA, and the rest
of the deceased as being not only dead, but long dead.
Seeing these bikes back in their prime, sometimes much
better than prime, is a lot of retrospective fun. Speaking of
deadends, three other TDMers showed up for Steamboat. We
belong to an Internet mail list for our bike and some of us
have been writing each other for a couple of years without
ever putting faces to names. I recognized a couple of the
guys by their bikes. The actual races
are almost anticlimactic. It's always a kick watching Dick
Mann win. He was a Baja hero of mine when I was a kid. He's
still heroic at sixty-something. Dave Lindeman, a Denver
fireman, put on a good show in the Open Twin Expert class,
dueling and beating Rick Doughty's zillion dollar
Rickman/BSA on a cobbled up Yamaha XL650. But lots of the
actual races are pretty boring. There are wads of timid,
over-forty wannabes who barely turn their bikes on in the
straights and come to a lethargic near-stop at every corner.
The race to the first turn is often more humorous than
exciting. Everyone is so concerned with avoiding contact and
a crash-and-burn that they barely make it to the turn, let
alone work for a decent position on the other side. In the
bulk of the races, there is rarely more than two half-decent
racers. Fairly late in the
afternoon, the races are over. We cruise the streets of
Steamboat, looking at bikes we will never own. This really
is a BMW convention. I doubt there is a bike BMW ever made
that isn't represented here. Seems like there are more
Harleys this year, too. Maybe that's why the local paper
doesn't have a single word about the events. In years past,
I could read about what I'd seen the previous day in the
local rag. Not this year. There must be several thousand
bikers in town and the only mention of motorcycles was when
a local biker got smacked by local cager. It's not like this
is a pack of Outlaws, tearing up the bars and defiling local
women. A pair of women, climbing out of a Jeep Cherokee on
their way to lunch, asked one of my buddies if we were a
"biker gang." He told them, "Yeah, after our nap, we're
gonna take this town apart!" That's about the speed of
everyone at Steamboat. Sedate. Old. Mostly intent on finding
a good restaurant and a decent hotel. I guess we still found
a way to scare them. I didn't cruise
much Friday night. We really did find a great place to stay
and I headed back, well before dark, to sit in the hot tub
and watch the clouds and the mountains flare and fade in a
crimson tinted sundown lightshow. Beer, a good book, a hot
tub, and tired, old aching joints really go well together.
If a local female stripped herself and jumped into my hot
tub, I might have defiled her but I'd have more likely been
pissed that she got my book wet. I bought my beer at the
Clark Store, so I didn't even have a chance to think about
trashing a bar. I'm a pretty poor excuse for a biker, I
guess. Saturday is
vintage road racing and the first opportunity we have to
look at the concourse. We buy pit passes, which are $20, and
head for the pits. I'm not much of a connoisseur of street
bikes. In fact, I never paid any attention to street bikes
at all until I'd been riding and racing for almost 15 years.
I still don't really know one cruiser or crotch-rocket from
another. I don't much care about cars either. But there are
some really neat, loud noises coming from the pits and one
of my friends has a great time describing all the bikes to
me. I lecture on the dirt bike days, he does the street day.
About two hours
into Saturday, I got bored. This is a terrible thing for a
"reporter" to admit, but I'd have rather been riding than
watching. When I fell asleep and lost track of where the
rest of my group had gone, I decided it was time for me to
hit the road. I'd planned on leaving that day, anyway, and
it seemed like the time to do it. I wandered around the
course for another hour, trying to find everyone, with no
luck. I stuck a note on a friend's seat and started getting
ready for the long ride back to Minnesota. Sunday is the
modern road race. I have been going to Steamboat for 6 years
and I've never stayed for the modern road race. My
justification for leaving early is that I can watch modern
crotch rocketing any weekend during the summer and I never
do. Why blow a good day of riding watching someone else have
a good day of riding? Like all the years past, I left on
Saturday and missed the really fast guys. They'd just
discourage me, anyway. The real reason I
wanted to leave early was that I wanted the extra riding
time so I could go back the long way, through Wyoming and
South Dakota. I retraced my trip into Steamboat back over
Rabbit Ears Pass. About 30 miles east of Steamboat, I turned
north on Colorado 14. This is one of the prettiest roads
I've traveled in Colorado. It's a neat combination of
mountain plains and ranch land. The road isn't particularly
twisty, but it does curve its way through a beautiful
section of the Rockies. The road is well maintained and
completely unoccupied by cage or cop. I made good time to
Walden, where I picked up 127 and continued north to
Laramie, WY. The scenery
doesn't stop when you leave Colorado. Good roads and great
views all the way to Laramie, where I copped out and took
the freeway (I80). After 300 miles of awesome two lanes, I80
was a complete bummer. But I stuck to it to Cheyenne, where
I swapped freeways and took I25 north to Wheatland. I spent
the night in Wheatland, at another truck stop. Leaving
Steamboat early allowed me to knock off 250 unproductive
(destination-wise) miles before I seriously head for
home. The actual route I
took from Wheatland to Deadwood is up for discussion. I know
I stayed on I25 for a few more miles to Wyoming 160. I know
I swapped off of 160 to 270, because I had breakfast in
Lusk, WY. I'm not sure I stuck with 270 all the way to Lusk,
though. A good portion of that trip was on dirt roads. I
mostly used the sun as a compass and tried to keep going
north at every intersection. I popped out of the last
section of dirt road on highway 85, just a few miles south
of Lusk. I had been on reserve for about 30 miles when I
filled up in Lusk. I'd like to tell you 270 to Lusk is a
terrific road, well worth traveling, because it is. I'd like
to tell you that I strongly recommend this route for the
scenery and adventure, because I really enjoyed that aspect
of the trip. The fact is, this is a route that requires a
great suspension. The road (the real road, not the dirt
road) is heavily traveled by farm equipment and is pretty
rough. The TDM ate it up, but a crotch rocket or cruiser
would deliver a severe pounding. You decide. Leaving Lusk, I
forgot to reinsert my ear plugs. Good thing. I heard several
nasty noises and pulled over for a maintenance stop. You'll
probably notice that I haven't mentioned maintenance since
just before I pulled into Denver. I hadn't done much since
then. Another brain fart. The older you get, the more of
them you'll have. I discovered the front fender had a new
hole, this one on the front, from poor tire-to-fender
clearance and flung gravel. I pealed away pieces that were
touching the tire and "fixed" that problem. I also
discovered my chain was really wearing out fast, probably
due to the offroad portions of the trip. It was actually
hanging up at spots as they passed over the countershaft
sprocket. I bought a can of WD40 and thoroughly cleaned the
chain. I lubricated the chain and made some more promises to
myself regarding maintenance. The next section
of the trip was sort of frightening, considering the
condition of my bike. There is next to nothing between Lusk
and Deadwood, 140 miles of nothing. There are some towns
listed on the map, but they are barely bumps in the road.
Some of them aren't even that. But I took this route because
I was bored with the trip across Nebraska and Iowa, so I
figured it was worth continuing. Not that I had much of a
choice. Wyoming is a great
state. I suppose every state has a motto. Nebraska blabs
about some mystical "good life" that no visitor or resident
has seen any sign of. Iowa yaks about "liberties" and
"rights" and parks a cop on every road to make sure no one
ever even dreams about freedom. Colorado's "nothing without
providence" is totally meaningless. But Wyoming is the "big
country" and you don't have to look far to find real cowboys
just like the one on their license plate. Some of those
cowboys drive farm trucks on highway 85. I only saw four
vehicles on the road between Lusk and the South Dakota
boarder. All of them were doing 90+ mph and they all waved
when they went by me. I would have stayed with them, but I
wanted to live through this section of the trip with chain
intact. There is nothing, in any other part of this country,
like the concept of "safe and reasonable" as a speed limit.
It almost makes me feel like an American. Out there, Mamma
Government is in short supply and nobody misses
her. The weather
totally cooperated. From the beginning of this day until I
hit the plains, just west of Wall, SD, the sky was clear,
the temperature was in the low 70's, and the wind was
nonexistent. South Dakota's Black Hills are a national
treasure. South of Deadwood, 85 winds through the hills like
the best Rocky Mountain highway. There are miles of twisty,
narrow highway that parallels beautiful streams and cuts
through wooded valleys and farm land. I could take a summer
long vacation, traveling the roads of the Black Hills, and
never grow even a little tired of it. I made it to
Deadwood in one piece. Stopped for gas, lubed the chain,
washed the windshield, checked the tires, and thoroughly
inspected the bike. Then I walked to the Deadwood Historical
Society museum and wasted an hour looking at the coolest of
western history. There are Harleys all over Deadwood. It's
only a few miles from Sturgis, which must account for all
the heavy iron. I still hadn't
eaten when I left Deadwood. I was making, and having, such
good time that I couldn't convince myself to waste any of
the day in a restaurant. Slightly north of Deadwood, I
struck interstate and there I stayed until Minnesota. Once
you pass Wall, the home of Wall Drug, there isn't much to
say about South Dakota. Every diddly-butt town has some kind
of tourist trap. None of them are worth stopping for. It's
not just that there's nothing to see in those towns, there's
nothing to see in that part of South Dakota. It's just miles
and miles of flat, boring plains. Most of the state's rest
stops are "out of order," probably to force travelers to
waste time and money in the state's tourist traps. I stopped
for gas at Wall, Chamberlain, and Sioux Falls. There isn't
much more to say about the space between any of those
cities. The wind was
killer, once I passed Wall. It was 50+mph and I felt like I
was making the world's longest right turn. 420 miles of
right turn. I wanted to make Sioux Falls by nightfall, but I
was forced to take a stretch break every 50 miles. My arms,
back, and butt were going numb and the road never seemed to
end. I swear that some of the mileage signs increased the
distance to Sioux Falls as I drove east. The only break in
the monotony comes a few miles before Chamberlain, SD. The
Missouri River valley almost instantly changes the scenery.
It takes you from flat, barren plains to green rolling hills
in only a few miles. The river is awesome, especially after
200 miles of desolation. It's as wide as a lake and as blue
as an ocean. Unfortunately, 10 miles east of Chamberlain,
I'm back in a windy desert. That evening, 650 miles from
where I left that morning, I pulled into Sioux Falls and
headed for a Super 8. The next morning,
I tried to sight-see in Sioux Falls but failed to find any
interesting sights. I left town at about nine and headed for
home. I repeated the original leg of the trip by exiting I90
at Worthington and take 60 to 169, through Mankato, and on
to the Twin Cities. I got home a
little after noon. I popped the cap on a beer, filled up the
hot tub, and fell asleep dreaming about high mountain
passes, unlimited speed limits in Wyoming, and gorgeous
snaky roads in the Black Hills. I woke up, sweating, later
that night when the dream turned to wind blasted, straight
and boring South Dakota interstate dotted with hundreds of
Iowa Highway Patrol cars. M.M.M.
Six
of us left my friend's home for Steamboat Wednesday at about
8:30 AM. We were probably the weirdest collection of
motorcycles on the highway that morning: a Yamaha TDM
(mine), two Honda new Magnas, a '78 Kawasaki Scepter, and an
'83 Yamaha Venture. After a few miles, we strung out across
the highway in a several mile long "touring pattern."
Steamboat's
vintage traps are almost all easy enough that a good rider
could zero out on a street bike. 
Yamaha
orphaned the TDM after importing it to the U.S. for two
years (1992-93). Most of us have done a lot of little things
to personalize our bikes and it was fun getting to see the
mods I'd been reading about. Everyone got a good laugh of
the state of my front fender and the general condition of my
bike compared to those whose owners, intelligently, avoid
dirt roads. We experienced our "fifteen minutes of fame"
when another biker recognized us as "those guys who met on
the Internet." We took pictures, talked for a couple hours,
and headed in four directions for the rest of the weekend.
The
other two dozen geriatric cases are nothing more than track
obstacles when the fast guys start lapping them. The upside,
for me, is that I regularly get pumped about buying an
Elsinore and stealing a trophy. The downside is after making
a couple of deep knee squats, I remember why the majority of
the riders are going so slow. Getting old is hell. The body
can't even remember how to do what the brain told it to
do.
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