Taking a break from packing and hauling to reflect on this photo of me on my fourth motorcycle, taken about this time of year 25 years ago.
I believe my son Steve was the photographer - his brother Sean had started his freshman year at Indiana University a couple of months earlier and was in Bloomington.
This is my first serious BMW motorcycle, a graphite gray 1981 R100RS, and it introduced me to the world of transcontinental touring. I'd had three other bikes - a 1970-something Kawasaki KE185, a 1971 BMW R50/5 and a 1978 Kawasaki KZ650, working my way up the displacement ladder from 185cc to 500cc to 650cc and finally to the full liter.
In its day, it was the coolest looking motorcycle in the world. At least I thought so. Because of U.S. restrictions, the speedo only went up to 85 mph. Above that speed, you consulted the tachometer and interpolated. I know I had it above 115 mph on U.S. 50 in Nevada, riding with Tim and Linda Balough to the BMW Motorcycle Owners of America national rally at Laguna Seca racecourse near Monterey, Calif. That was the next summer after this photo was taken - July, 1986 to be precise.
I was never the same after that trip.
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