If I was Calvin and Hobbes was a tall green bike

The expression on the Fly-fisherman’s face was priceless. Descending out of the forest, I noticed him from a distance. I had been navigating the deep woods for about an hour and a half and this gentleman was the first sign of evidence that civilization was near.

As I idled down the game trail that followed the banks of the river, approaching the fisherman, I noticed that his attention was fixed squarely on me and my bike. He stood there knee deep in the river, in the classic pose of a fly-fisherman; wearing waders and a fishing cap with various feathered tackle orbiting around his head, stabbed into the brow of what must’ve been his lucky hat and sporting a pair of wide rimmed polarized glasses, the kind with the blinders on the ear stems to discourage any raw light from distracting his vision.

The closer I approached, the more focused his stare became. I must have been a rather peculiar sight in my own right, heavily dressed in my riding gear. To the average Joe, it probably appeared like I was dressed more for snowmobiling than I was for trail riding in the middle of July.

Idaho is one of the few states left that doesn’t have a helmet law and a large majority of the motorcycling public appears to still ride without them, so the sight of me wearing a helmet is good enough to merit a second glance in this neck of the woods. Add to that my black riding jacket, armored pants, boots and gloves; I can’t imagine what thoughts were running through this fellow’s head. Nevertheless, he was the best source of information that I had to steer me back towards something familiar.

I don’t know if Fly-fisherman spook that easily, so I tried to make my body language appear calm and friendly as I dismounted the bike and took off my helmet and gloves. Unzipping my jacket as I approached him, I attempted a sincere smile and asked if he was having any luck.
“Nah, not anymore, it’s getting too hot; I’m about ready to call it quits.”
When I asked what fish he was after.
“Anything that’ll strike” was his reply.
Then as smoothly as I could possibly ask the question, I inquired “Where am I and where can I find the nearest town?” There was a brief pause before he answered, “Your on the Central Fork of the Snake, Grangeville’s that way about uh, twenty miles or so.” Pointing his right hand due west, down the trail in the same direction that my bike was aiming.
“Stay on that trail and you’ll find your way up to the highway in a few hundred yards.”
I thanked him and then walked back to the bike and pulled out my point and shoot digital camera and took a few shots of the river and my bike trying my best to look the part of Clark Griswold and not like Charles Manson. The fisherman never took his eyes off of me.


I stowed the camera, took a quick swallow of water from one of the bottles in my saddle bag and put my helmet and gloves back on. Starting the bike, I very deliberately let the clutch out nice and slow so as not to disrupt the rocks on the trail and gave the fisherman one last wave. He returned the gesture and for the first time since my arrival, turned his eyes away from me and back to his river.

The highway was exactly where he said it would be and in no time I was heading west on a very twisty stretch of narrow two lane asphalt. The suspension compressing and rebounding in the turns, I smooth clutched the gears as I approached the apex and rolled on the throttle as my big single thumped her way out. This was a complete change from the style of riding that I was practicing not more than 15 minutes ago. The serenity of the shade in the forest canopy and the conservative nature of caressing the bike on the game trail for the past hour or so were now interrupted by maintaining proper lines through tight first and second gear curves and concentrating on staying ahead of the bike to avoid any unpleasant surprises on this unfamiliar stretch of road; A sudden shot of caffeine in an otherwise mellow herbal tea.

The plan was to ride back to civilization, regroup, and then find some equally interesting places to ride. That was the plan until I came to the fork in the road.

Where the road veered to the right was a wide stretch of friendly looking two-lane highway, complete with centerline stripes and comfortable broad painted shoulders on both sides, the sign in the center of the fork with the arrow pointing to the right suggested that this was the way to Grangeville. The road to the left was a menacing and narrow piece of asphalt that shot straight up and disappeared almost immediately around the base of the canyon wall, an ominous yellow sign warned motorists, “10% grade ahead.” The arrow for this road pointed at a 45 degree angle up and to the left and read simply enough, “Mt. Idaho”.

I don’t know what the expression on my face looked like, but I imagine that it was something similar to the contorted evil look that Calvin wore as he snuck up behind Suzy with a slush ball. I was suddenly up to no good and I think that my bike knew it; playing along like a veritable Hobbes, ready to pounce like Tigers often do! Before I knew it I was pushing on the left side of the handlebars and tapping down a gear or two with my left toe to accelerate up the abrupt grade. The suspension compressed a couple of inches as we attacked the base of the mountain and we were off. I won’t bore you with too many of the details of the next twenty miles, all that I can say is that my helmet was filled with superlatives and primal grunts and childlike squealing. I could sense the frustration from my G.P.S. as it tried to keep up with me and the bike, it almost appeared to be begging me to slow down, counting off the altitude in hundreds of feet not in the usual five’s and ten’s that it usually does; I honestly think that it was out of breath by the time that we reached the top of the grade, gasping for air, or 1’s and 0’s in this case (binary humor).

For almost two hours beyond where I met the fisherman, I rode along an endlessly twisting road and during those two hours, I met only one vehicle. The farther I rode, the more cautious I became of my riding; the gift of my solitude could quickly become a bitter curse of a lone rider should I wander off course and into the woods. I didn’t know where this road led; it was a beautiful ride though. An assortment of Conifers and Deciduous trees crowded the side of the narrow road creating a variety of texture and color in the forest; occasionally a marsh would appear, letting my eyes stretch a bit, eager to find some big game out among the tree line. I saw nothing. Not today. Not in this heat.
The time to make a decision was getting close, I knew where I had come from and how to get home by taking that route, but the adventure would be missing if I turned around and followed that course; I had plenty of fuel to press on, but how much further? Another twenty miles down the road and a countless number of turns later, I was given a choice.

I came to a T in the road with an interesting sign. The sign that pointed to the left read, “Riggins 62 miles”, the road was a continuation of the same road that I had been traveling; a beautiful smooth stretch of lonely asphalt. The sign that pointed to the Right read, oddly enough, “Riggins 28 miles”, it was not paved, instead it looked to be a well maintained forest service road. I had more than enough fuel to turn left and stay on the asphalt that would probably ensure that I would arrive there comfortably within an hour or so; then again I was riding my KLR, one of the main reasons for purchasing this bike was to take me down these forest roads and into the unknown. With the sun cresting its highest point in the sky and a long way from home, I had to make a decision........



A while after completing this ride, it occurred to me that I never did find Mt. Idaho. Somewhere in my wandering, I had strayed off course and missed any further road signs leading the way. I googled it this evening to learn more about this place, Mt. Idaho is a place that I will return to as a destination.

Ride Well

E.T.

Evening Ride

I took an evening ride last Sunday after the strongest portion of the summer’s heat had faded. An hour or so of sunlight remained as I headed east from my house, aiming my bike for the nearest dirt road. The first portion of the ride would be brief as I made my way to the top of one of the smaller bluffs that overlooked the Palouse.

Preferring the view from the top of the hill, I decided to stop and wait awhile to see what display the sun might provide that evening. There was a haze on the horizon, a blend of smoke from distant fires to the west and wheat dust stirred up by an army of farmers harvesting their crop.

From an intense yellow into a deep crimson, the sun spilled its colors into the sky and over the rolling countryside. Rows of grain swirling in a slant of light, a serpentine maze around the rolling buttes; the scent of ripening wheat carried on the warm summer breeze.

To the east, a full moon rose out of the silhouetted mountains of the Idaho panhandle, contrasting in the fading twilight with the rolling hills of Washington State in the foreground.

Resting there on the tender slope of a recently harvested hillside, staring at the side of the world, I fixed my eyes west; over countless knolls and valleys and imagined the places that I have been; out there just beyond the horizon. The Cascades, the Olympic peninsula Mts. Hood, Baker, St. Helens and Rainier; veritable giants, all of them out of sight, but clearly visible in my minds eye. From my view on this diminutive butte, my imagination needed little help to visualize those distant places, places that I wish to visit again and definitely with my bike.

There is little moisture in the air out here and with no cloud cover to trap the hot air; the triple digit temperatures from earlier in the day began to drop. Time to ride. I stayed on the dirt road that I was on to where it ended at an unknown highway. This happens a lot out here in regards to losing ones sense of place. There are only a few landmarks to navigate by and when they are out of sight it can be anybodies guess as to where I might wind up. I have become familiar with some of the roads out here, but I am still a stranger to many. When that happens, I ride until I find something recognizable, a grain elevator, a farm, or perhaps an occasional road sign that will point me towards something that I might know. I love discovery, getting lost is something that gives me very little discomfort; I remained lost that evening for about another thirty minutes or so until my mystery highway intersected with one that I knew well.
I followed that road home.

The heat was stifling last weekend, too hot to enjoy riding in the middle of the day; that evening ride provided the balance that I needed to begin my work week on Monday. The drastic temperature change and rain showers that followed through the middle of the week provided the rest of that balance. Entering this weekend, things look perfect.

What to do.

Ride Well.

E.T.

A positive experience

I've been working on posting about a ride that I took into the wilderness of Northern Idaho a few weeks ago for a while now and have been struggling with keeping the post brief enough, and yet, trying to share all of the things that happened on the ride. I'm finding it rather difficult to write in about 1000 words or so of my 14 hour ride that covered over 100 miles of wilderness, and another 450 miles of some of the "blue roads" of Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington.

Instead, I have decided to break it down into a number of smaller posts like the one here about my experience with a man and his gorgeous Harley. Thinking back on this encounter from a month ago, I feel the world needs more people like this fellow.


He and I were directly across from one another at the gas pump, topping off our tanks; the white haired gentleman fueling his Harley, and me, with my Kawasaki. He rode a custom painted Road King with the hard saddle bags; a beautiful Pearlescent white covered everything, including the bags. Only a few select parts were trimmed out in chrome, well balanced, very well done! He was a large man, standing every inch as tall as myself only he had a solid 40 or 50 lbs on me. Frost white hair and goatee accentuated by a tan so dark he was almost a deep red; it was obvious that this guy had spent some serious saddle time on his bike.

As we fueled up, I could sense that he was staring me down from behind his biker shades. I tried to remain indifferent, but eventually gave in and looked away from the pump and over at him, from beneath his mustache I could see that he was smiling. Not the condescending type of smirk that seems so ubiquitous these days, but a warm one; one that looked like he was projecting himself onto my bike and riding away satisfied, yes satisfied! As he hung the handle back up on his side of the pump, he leaned a little closer in my direction and uttered three words that I have never heard come from the mouth of someone who owned a Harley-Davidson.
“I envy you.”
A blank stare was coming from my side of the fuel island, my eyes just blinked in disbelief.
“Come again?”
I had heard what he said, I just couldn’t quite understand why he was saying that to me, there was a part of me that was bracing for the punch line.
This time a little louder, he said, “I envy you.”
More blank stares.
“I love my Harley, but you can go almost anywhere you want with your bike.” I could feel the envy in his tone of voice, it was honest, genuine. As I hung up my pump, we rolled our bikes out of the way of the busy fuel station to talk for a while. He was from the south end of the state, Mountain Home, Idaho (Ironically, Mountain Home is not home to many mountains), and was up in the panhandle with the same intentions that I had, to ride over Lolo pass, he was coming from, I was heading towards.
He told me how he, like so many of us, grew up riding dirt bikes, moved on to a number of Japanese street bikes through the 80’s, and then made the step to Harley’s about 15 years ago, the Road King was his third.

We must’ve seemed like an odd pair standing there together at that gas station in the mountains of Kooskia, Idaho, the large white haired man in his black leather vest and white t-shirt and me, laden in all of my protective gear. We talked for about twenty minutes or so, exchanging various stories about the motorcycles of our childhood; at one point I decided to stow my cold weather jacket in exchange for my lighter, warm weather one that I had in my tail bag, he just kept smiling, too polite to mock me. Eventually we mounted our bikes and nodded our goodbyes to one another, we pulled out of the gas station simultaneously, he turned west and I went east; two similar individuals traveling in opposite directions.

Riding out of Kooskia towards Lolo, my thoughts turned to my youth and to the man on the Harley and his youth, to our beginnings. Recalling his childhood experiences, I imagine that we were probably both very much alike back then. Somewhere in our young adulthood I gravitated towards sport bikes and he went towards the Japanese cruisers and eventually the big American Iron. As I inch closer and closer to his age, I imagine myself riding on a German boxer, something that I have coveted since childhood..........Time will tell.

A few more miles out of Kooskia, I found myself growing impatient with the seemingly endless caravan of Motor Homes lumbering up and down the two-lane roads, gracelessly running in both directions belching diesel fumes, slowly listing back and forth on the narrow highway and casting enormous square shadows on the canyon walls, disgusting.

I made a right turn onto a dirt road and began to climb up into the mountains, going “Anywhere I wanted” as the man on the Harley explained before. Climbing higher, the road narrowed to a single track, up and up I ascended until I crested the mountain range and began my descent into an unknown canyon, hints of a river occasionally peaked through the forest.

Riding through the wilderness alone, I found myself thinking once again of my youth and then back to the present to where I was at that exact moment in the mountains on my big simple bike and grinning devilishly inside my helmet, grinning........ exactly like the man who rode a beautiful pearlescent white Road King.

Ride Well

E.T.