Rummaging through my documents folder this afternoon, I came across this little piece from 10 years ago.
Splat!
The bug was a black flash against the Wyoming desert sky as it died in a juicy splash on the chin piece of my fullface helmet. I heard the impact and felt the wet spray on my lips and chin through the slit vents.
"Shit! That was a big one!" I thought, making a mental note not to lick my lips anytime soon.
I was, after a fashion, working on my insect collection.
Racing southwest across southern Wyoming at 90 mph, I was five days into a motorcycle vacation that had taken an ugly turn.
My 1991 BMW K100RS checked out fine at BMW Motorcycles of Indianapolis two weeks earlier. I'd spent more than $700 on a 10,000-mile service, brakes, a battery and a set of Metzeler radial tires. My exhaust system – the Achilles heel of the otherwise-reliable bike – was declared sound.
But I knew better.
This was the fourth stock exhaust bolted onto the bike since it was born in the Spandau Bayerische Motoren Werke plant in early 1991. The first died of broken welds on Colorado's harrowing Mount Evans in August, 1992. The second was replaced a year later when a bumpy Nebraska road shattered its baffles. The third broke welds on the twisty Kalmath River Highway in northern California in August, 1994.
I expected exhaust trouble on this trip too. A month earlier, I phoned BMW North America to propose a deal.
“Why don't you guys put me in a Staintune exhaust right now and save us all a lot of trouble? There's no doubt in my mind that this exhaust is going to break sometime during my three weeks on the road,” I suggested, knowing in my heart of hearts I was asking the impossible.
I was right. The testy reply of the BMW service representative made it clear that I had asked him to entertain a thought he just couldn't think.
The next call was to California BMW in Mountain View, Calif., the importer and U.S. distributor of the Australian-made Staintune systems.
Eli Ohlhausen assured me a shipment of Staintunes was on a freighter headed for Los Angeles.
“We should have them in about a week,” he said.
“Well, put my name on a 16-valve sport model, because I'm pretty sure I'm going to need one,” I said, wondering where I would be when I would have to call Ohlhausen next.
It turned out, I would be in Sturgis, S.D.
On the third day of my trip, two days after my 50th birthday, I pushed the starter button in the motorcycle parking lot of Mount Rushmore and heard the telltale sound I'd been dreading. I rode the length of the parking lot, pulled in alongside a station wagon, dropped the sidestand and dismounted to have a look.
I didn't even need my reading glasses to see the crack. There it was, right where I figured it would be, in the weld where the header pipe met the muffler.
“Sonofabitch!” I muttered to myself. “Only three days out and on a fucking Sunday afternoon. I hate being right about shit like this!”
I rode back to Rapid City, topped off the tank at an Amoco station at the south edge of town and continued on to the northeastside of town where I remembered a Wendy's from my visit in 1990 for the BMW MOA National Rally.
I fished my BMW MOA Anonymous Book from the tank bag, secured my helmet to the bike and strode inside.
My research was postponed while I chatted over lunch with a BMW rider in his 60s, out on a long ride from his home in Virginia.
After lunch, I stuffed a quarter into a pay phone and called Don Leonard, a local BMW rider. Leonard referred me to Lyle Crowser, whose Sturgis shop was the only BMW dealership in South Dakota.
After booking a room at the Thrifty Inn across the street from Wendy's, I called Crowser's home. Lyle was ill, but his son Joe assured me they'd be happy to help and to be on their doorstep when they opened the next morning.
Rising at 6 a.m. on Monday, I rode the 30 miles or so to Sturgis, presented my 11-month-old exhaust system receipt and sipped a cup of coffee while Joe Crowser ordered a replacement pipe from BMW North America in New Jersey. The exhaust would be rushed out via FedEx, Crowser said, and I would be on my way by noon Tuesday.
I took a room at the nearby Star Lite Motel and set off for a day trip to Devil's Tower. The cracked exhaust held together, despite about six miles of greasy clay where road crews had ripped out the pavement.
Tuesday morning, I was up with the sun and rode the 200 yards from motel to bike shop in seconds, hoping the exhaust would cool quickly and not keep the mechanics from the task of replacing it.
The minutes and hours ticked by and, when the FedEx driver passed the shop on his morning rounds, Joe put a tracer on my missing exhaust.
“FedEx says your exhaust system is on a plane that's grounded in Memphis by a thunderstorm,” Joe said, bravely fixing me with a friendly gaze.
“Terrific!” I replied, my voice heavy with sarcasm. “Mind if I use your phone?”
I keyed in my credit card number and the digits for California BMW.
Eli came on the line and I posed the crucial question: “Have your Staintunes arrived yet?”
“They just cleared customs in L.A. and I should have them inventoried in here by close of business tomorrow,” Ohlhausen reported.
“Okay. Put my name on one of them. I'm on my way.”
“Where are you?”
“Sturgis, South Dakota.”
“You're kidding!”
“Nope. I've already wasted two days over this and I'm not staying here any longer. I'll see you Thursday,” I said, hanging up the phone.
“Well, it may hold together. You'd have to break welds on all four pipes for it to disassemble itself,” offered one of the Sturgis BMW mechanics, being careful not to endorse the 1,400 mile ride I was contemplating.
“Wish me luck. I'm outta here,” I said, zipping my Hein Gericke TKO jacket and thanking the Crowsers for their hospitality.
I headed west into Wyoming on I-90, stopping for gas at Gillette.
West of Gillette, the sky darkened and lightning arced from cloud to earth. Seeing a wall of rain approaching, I switched on my emergency flashers and coasted to the berm. I dismounted and pulled my blue-and-blaze orange two-piece First Gear rainsuit from the lower compartment of the tank bag. I struggled against the rising wind and rushed to get everything buttoned up as the deluge rolled nearer.
Then, as the fat raindrops began to spatter my face shield, I swung my right leg over the saddle, kicked the sidestand up with my heel and thumbed the engine to life.
The rain grew quickly in intensity, covering the pavement with sheets of water.
“It's only water,” I silently admonished the slower drivers as I droned past them in the downpour.
But then I noticed the hail.
Little pea-sized bits of ice, bouncing off the roadway, then bouncing off of my helmet and outstretched arms and the backs of my hands and fingers.
“Oooch! Ouch! Shit, that hurts!” I exclaimed aloud and the icy little bullets stung me through the vinyl and leather.
I slowed to 30 mph, then to 20 mph, trying to minimize the impact while still hoping to ride through the storm as quickly as possible.
Up ahead, I could see brightness – the clear air beyond the storm – and I hung on as the BMW carried me toward it.
In a quarter-mile, I was clear of the storm, riding on rain-washed asphalt. I suddenly noticed the incredible fragrance of the freshly watered desert and I instantly forgot the splash of the trucks and the hailstones' sting.
“This was worth every minute of the discomfort,” I thought as I savored the intoxicating scent of the sage and other desert plants. “This is why I ride a motorcycle!”
I turned south on I-25 at Buffalo, riding into light showers as I approached Casper.
Gassing at Casper, I phoned ahead to reserve a room at the Days Inn at Rawlins, Wyo.
Even though I'd spent a night in Casper two years earlier, I wasted about 45 minutes searching the city's southside for Hwy. 220. Humbling myself before an Exxon station/convenience store clerk, I got directions and set out to the southwest in evening rush-hour traffic.
“This is one of those ‘leap of faith’ roads,” I thought, as the two-lane highway wound through empty valleys, flanked by grey mountains. Other than the occasional semitrailer truck, there was no prospect of help for at least 30 miles. This was one of those times you trusted your skills and your equipment.
With that realization, came an exhilaration.
“This isn't exactly bungie jumping or rock climbing, but it’s farther out on the edge than I normally live,” I thought, smiling at the prospect.
That was when the hapless, juicy bug made the fatal mistake of buzzing across Hwy. 220 at an unfortunate altitude of about 5 feet.
I grimaced behind my visor as I felt the wetness on my face. I pondered briefly about the seeming randomness of a universe in which a large insect could live a comparatively successful life, feeding on desert flower nectar or whatever bugs of his species ate, only to be sent to oblivion in an instant encounter with the helmet of a motorcyclist – a motorcyclist whose journey began three days and 1,700 miles ago and, until a few hours ago, had never intended to be on this road. Who could have imagined that this bug and this rider would ever have found each other in the Wyoming wilderness. Was it pre-ordained or was it random chance?
“What the hell's the difference?” I thought.
The afternoon overcast yielded to a golden sunset as I rode into Rawlins and, following the mini-map in the Days Inn directory, located the motel.
