A Wasted Life in Motorcycle Shops: Dead Heroes

Not entirely wasted, per se, but a far cry from the life I had imagined for myself. One living and riding and documenting motorcycles and their rides in the pages of Bike magazine or Schiller-era Fast Bikes or Performance Bikes in the UK. Riding knee-down alongside the now long-gone Gus Scott and Ronnie Smith on Fireblades or pulling wheelies with Shakey and Jimarillo on 916s in the South of France.

...Instead I was treated to a life behind a dusty Parts Department counter slinging spark plugs in between flipping through pages of the aforementioned hallowed British motorcycle magazines on a Yamaha bar stool.

After fifteen years in the motorcycle retail industry I can say now that I appreciate every moment that's come to pass. While I anticipated the (prospected) coming fortunes of being a bike journo in England, I lived out everyday with abject apathy for my current life. I was simply passing the time until I could get to Peterborough or London and make a name for myself. I'd have my own column and be sent to exotic locales to test the hottest new bikes and people would sit back and say wow, that was a good story...now I've got to go for a ride!

...Instead I made a name for myself here at home as the oft-inept Parts guy who crashed motorcycles in his spare time. But I am going through some hell of a renaissance currently, spinning in a whirlwind of deja vu. It all started much like this back in the late '90s. Now, with Ellicott City Motorsports, I'm enjoying myself like never before. Sure, the temple-twitching headaches come as standard in every Parts Department in America, I'm just enjoying myself like it's 1999. I'm riding again; obviously I've mentioned this before. I'm only drinking less.

I've experienced a breathtaking range of emotions in these shops, from jubilation at purchasing that 1999 R6 in Cycle World to staring down a half-severed right foot at the ankle behind Pete's Cycle in early 2007. The utter shame of blowing lines in a Service Department bathroom certain mornings, and the thrill of kicking some old man and son's ass with Alan Nelson one chilly evening. Working for various Baltimore-area motorcycle dealerships has changed my life, for better or worse. I have become a motorcyclist, tried to my damnedest to leave it all behind, and come back again.

My born-again infatuation with these magazines has reacclimated me to the motorcycling community of 2013, but has also served to make me awfully nostalgic. I have this burning and yearning, intensely passionate desire to write for these publications - pick one - but I am riding on a straight, boring and lonely road to futility in between two cul-de-sacs and I know it. It's quite apparent. There's an underlying shame to all of this, which is I am still dreaming and not achieving.

I DO NOT LIVE IN ENGLAND

This one simple fact will most likely keep me from working for either Future or Bauer Media Group and it's all really shitty honestly. I don't have Fagan's scythe-like prose prowess and I can't match Gary Inman's dramatic tone. I've often tried, unsuccessfully, to emulate Dan Walsh's epic, cultured and angst-ridden style (without the anti-American sentiment, mind you). Rupert Paul, one of my favorite Bike contributors, is done after a decade and now solely with MCN Sport, has an uncanny ability to speak right to the reader - in this case me - and pluck you from your reading chair (or toilet) and plop you right in Blighty.

Full disclosure: I'm not fast, which is my primary reasoning for undertaking some serious riding schools this coming spring (see California Superbike School). So, as you can clearly see, I'm far from spectacular and would make an illogical choice to ever be a paid staff writer/motorcycle journo, especially one who would need work visas among many other things to be sure. I believe in order to be approved for a work visa in the UK I must be qualified and capable of performing a job better than anyone else applying for said position, especially those native to England. Just wouldn't make a lot of sense, would it, to bring in some yankee because he has a heaping of desire and a motorcycle license? And yet these pangs are still there, beating away inside my chest like some obligatory motorcycle engine metaphor. I suppose I'll have to be content with reading these books and settle for being a fan. Which is all well and good, but not quite my idea of success.

Or perhaps not.

I think it's fair to say I'm going into training mode. I'm going to relearn how to ride a motorcycle, fast. I should complete a couple of schools this coming year (see also Schwantz School and Texas Tornado Boot Camp). There was a time when I thought I was a spectacular writer. And then I sat on a vampire novel I had started in 2003 that only up until recently had I edited/revised. It's plain to see the drug-induced haze I was in at the time. What then gave me goosebumps with excitement after a particular scene came together was now embarrassing, sorrowful realization. I'm not half the writer I thought I was.

But for all of the dreaming I have done the motorcycle shops I've worked in have always provided me with small comfort. I worked around motorcycles everyday. There were test rides galore and I still felt like I was in the same industry as my heroes, albeit on a very low ladder rung. Think WERA club racing to MotoGP. Shane "Shakey" Byrne went from being a largely inconspicuous but extremely talented road test editor to multiple British Superbike Champion. His success is now legend. Luckily for me I have always looked up to Shakey. I have a hell of an inspiration for measure. I'm (re)starting a bit late, but better late than never...

Texas Adventure

Adventure. That's the reason I began this blog, to document adventures, both away from Baltimore and here at home. And that's what drew me to motorcycling as a kid. Now my idea of adventure is changing, shifting towards travel. Ewan McGregor and Charlie Boorman's Long Way series fascinated me - I couldn't get enough. There are travel stories all over some Ducati forums I follow from time to time, including one guy's trip coast to coast on a Panigale. While my financing and career is a bit more conservative, I am still motivated to travel by motorcycle across the country. One day around the world. But, baby steps first.

My recent trip to Indianapolis on the 748 changed things. This is something that will not be a fleeting fad I'm going through. No, I have been developing into this person, this motorcyclist, since I picked up that first issue of Dirt Bike magazine at the 7/11 down the street when I was 8 years old. I was attracted to the noise, the smell, the wind in my face and the speed of riding on two wheels. And I liked riding farther and farther away from home. The barely containable excitement welling up inside me, eager to explore a new city or town - so like home, yet different. The faces change, their accents, and always the food.

While a trip across the country will take some time and planning for years in advance, and physically training for as well, I can continue to build up my saddle tolerance and experience smaller trips in the process. So I'm tentatively planning a return trip to Texas. Austin will once again host a round of MotoGP in 2014, and I plan to be there.

Route to Texas from Baltimore

1500 miles and over 22 hours. I'll give myself three days of travel, which will see me ride through Virginia, Tennessee, over the great Mississippi River, and Arkansas. Into Texas and down I-35 past Dallas I'll then arrive in Austin (via Ducati Austin, of course). The highlight of this trip, however, would be the Texas Tornado Boot Camp with Colin Edwards and his crew of Yamaha TT-R sliding instructors in Montgomery, just east of Austin and above Conroe, Colin's hometown. It should be held a couple of days after the MotoGP race for four days.

The boot camp is an instructional on how to control a motorcycle with less than optimal grip. Regardless that I'm too old to begin a career flat track racing, the school will help any motorcyclist learn to ride a bike better. And what I've realized the past few months with the Ducati is that I'm far from just rusty - I'm downright paranoid. I've lost whatever confidence I had, the five-year absence taking its toll on me to the point of trepidation when I put my head down and pull the bike on its side.

The opportunity to ride with Colin Edwards, hmm, how do I put it into words... This is the guy that put on one of the most amazing shows I have ever witnessed in road racing: Imola, 2002. World Superbike. Troy Bayliss (on the Ducati 998F01) and Colin Edwards, head to head - winner takes the championship. After swapping for the lead oh about half a dozen times, the American finally beat the Australian, and I swear it was the only time I've ever, ever rooted against a Ducati! There's a very good chance I pull a Bieber-fan and lose my cool in front of an American legend. He could have sat back and settled in behind Bayliss, second place was good enough to win it all, but his instincts threw caution to the wind and won the race and the gold. #Champion.

Locking bars and sliding bikes with Colin Edwards is worth the price of admission alone, but the opportunity to re-learn how to ride a motorcycle again and come away with some very real skills is priceless. Now I have every intention of putting something together for Sideburn magazine, Bike contributor Gary Inman's project centered on flat track racing and inspired motorcycles.