[Ducati] Confessions (part 3.5)

[Ted & Vicki Brisbine]

continued from the Yamaha chapter

After bailing out of jail, appearing in court, and pricing high-risk insurance, I tendered my driver's license and was back on a bicycle for the next three years. This gave me plenty of time to think about my next motorcycle.

Seriously German

There was, and still is, a whole other approach to this motorcycling thing. Some people actually look at the scenery as they ride, if you can imagine. Some even go on long trips to exotic lands. I had read about a certain odd-looking bike of uncommon smoothness and reliability. If your name was Danny Liska, for example, and you wanted to ride from Finland to South Africa, you'd want to be on a BMW R60/2. These things were famous for swallowing continents whole and asking for another helping. Danny and others like him made many such trips on the old /2. They would run forever on putrid, third-world gasoline and if they did break, you had a good shot at fixing them alongside the road. They weren't particularly sporty. If you're looking for a four-wheeled equivalent, don't think BMW 325. Think 1954 Massey Ferguson tractor. But I was tired of bikes that went out of style and got beat by the following year's new crotch rocket. I was ready to settle down and I wanted a bike I could keep for the rest of my life. Wasn't that a quaint notion - some vestige from the 18th century perhaps? When was the last time anybody made anything to last a lifetime? It might have been 1969 when BMW rolled the last of the /2 models out of its Munich factory. 

In the spring of 1973 I started saving for that very bike.  I placed an ad in the Seattle Times and got one response. I rode the bus to Seattle and was met by the owner of a nice example of the last Earls fork model. The old Beemers have a personality and mystique all their own. You have to be in the right frame of mind to fully understand and cozy-up to them. There is a kind of Zen consciousness and harmonic interplay betwixt man and machine, and when you hit the right frequency, all becomes quiet serenity and world glides by as if you were rafting down a lazy river on a warm summer day.

At the time I had dreams of riding my BMW to South America and Alaska. Before the year was out however, and for reasons I cannot fully comprehend, I was thinking of getting married instead. The next summer, while still kid-free, my wife and I made one very memorable trip through Montana's Glacier National Park and across Alberta. Something about riding a fully laden BMW up the Journey to the Sun Highway made me want to experience it from every angle. I wanted to stand by the side of the road and watch us chuff by, recording the sight in my memory. The bike was in its element. Men have long dreamt of places that they'd like to explore. Some very fastidious German engineers and factory workers helped make a lot of those dreams come true.

Throughout the seventies and eighties the Beemer and I traveled together and became the best of friends. I wish I could say we ventured far afield and explored strange lands but after that Glacier Park trip, Portland Oregon was as far away from home as we got. I always said that I could depart on any long cross-country trip with complete confidence that the BMW would get me there just as reliably as any new bike. I just never did it. Had to stay home and keep an eye on what those kids were putting in the garage. In recent years I've talked of selling her - being careful not to let her overhear or even read my lips. (Think HAL9000 in the movie 2001). Vicki says she's afraid if I get rid of the BMW, she might be next.

next is She Wore a Red Dress