sludgo’s Mile Markers: Mile 224

A week ago I was in the TT and rolled up next to a biker sitting at a stoplight. Three in the afternoon and hotter than blazes here in mid-August southeast Idaho. He was riding solo on a late-model Fat Boy—black on black. Was wearing what Hog riders all seem to wear: an unbuttoned leather vest over a tattered black t-shirt, leather chaps over worn and torn black jeans and a set of scuffed and scarred steel-toed boots. No helmet, of course, just a do-rag, but I saw a beanie-cap strapped to his rear pillion rack—in case he had to go to Oregon, I supposed. His face was mostly hidden by a bristly salt-and-pepper grandpa beard and his eyes were shielded by mirrored wrap-around Terminator shades. His skin looked thick and weathered and was deeply tanned, so deep it took a moment for me to see his arms were slathered shoulder-to-wrist with an ornate selection of tattoos. Flames and skulls and dragons and tombstones inscribed with initials and dates and symbols I didn’t recognize. He noticed me noticing him and gave me a big tobacco-stained snaggle-toothed grin then flashed me the peace sign. I flashed him one back and the light went green and he twisted the throttle and dropped the clutch and roared off to parts unknown. And as I watched him disappear into the shimmering horizon, somewhere inside my head Steppenwolf suddenly started to play.

“Get your motor runnin’…”

I snicked the Audi into gear. Pulled away from the light with a smile stretched across my face, recalling another hot August day back in ’08—the very beginning of my Biker Daze. My ride then was a new metallic-black ’07 Harley Softail Deluxe that absolutely oozed cool. Looked like a modern-day ‘50s Duo-Glide, dripping with chrome and rolling on spoked wheels wrapped with wide whitewalls. Had full fenders front and rear, a woven black-leather single saddle, a melon-sized headlight flanked by two driving lights up front and a wicked tombstone taillight out back. The only modern touch was its six-speed gearbox, hooked to ninety-six cubic inches of pulsing twin-cam Milwaukee muscle. It was love at first sight when I found it parked center-stage in the dealer’s showroom. Love at first listen too. Potato-potato-potato.

I gave myself a little chuckle. Remembered how that particular hot August day so long ago had begun with me and the Redhead meeting up with the rest of our crew—three other couples—at the truck stop out by the Interstate, all of us looking forward to a nine-day tour of the southwest. It was my first long ride and I’ll never forget the thrill I felt as we flew down the on-ramp toward the freeway, hearing all of that V-twin thunder echoing down the road behind us. Gave me goosebumps then and still gives me goosebumps now.

“I like smoke and lightnin’…heavy metal thunder…”

The ride was great for the first part of the day, but by two o’clock that afternoon temps had reached the triple digits. Worse than that, a vicious thirty-five mile-an-hour crosswind had picked up and was fighting me every inch of every mile. My arms and face were sunburned lobster-red and I was soaking wet with sweat, feeling tired and hungry and thirsty and as dirty and gritty as the blacktop whizzing by underneath us. It sounds awful, but as I look back on it now it wasn’t. The Redhead was holding on to me tightly, her arms wrapped securely around my waist while she cheerfully chattered away in my downwind ear about this and that and the other thing, singing silly songs and telling me how much fun she was having and what a great trip it was going to be and how much she loved me. To be honest, it turned out to be one of the best days of my life.

“Lookin’ for adventure…in whatever comes our way…”

I was fortunate to have plenty of those kinds of days on that bike. Some were just as challenging from a riding perspective (icy roads are a Bad Thing for a biker) but all of them were still pretty danged awesome. Unforgettable even. Like the time the Redhead and I froze our tails off tackling the Going-to-the-Sun Road on opening day while there were still six-foot snowbanks flanking the highway. Then there was the night we bedded-down in a cozy antique-filled hotel in the quaint storybook burgh of Ouray, eager for dawn to arrive so we could take on the Million-Dollar Highway. Then there was that slow, luxurious putt we made through Arches National Park. And that fabulous trip I took with all the dudes down the Oregon Coast into Redwood Country. Then there was the Banff trip. Banff. If you know, you know.

“Yeah darlin’ go and make it happen…put the world in a love embrace…”

But as they say, all good things must come to an end and when I finally closed my practice a few years back to embark on my largely uncharted journey into The Big Next I was saddened to discover the bike wasn’t fitting into the picture. I wasn’t riding it very much anymore and figured I’d be riding it even less once I moved to the more congested cityscape of New Sludgoville. Wasn’t sure I’d have the storage space for it at the McBungalow either and felt bad it was just gathering dust so I decided to let it go. Sold it right here on our favorite website to a cool dude from Los Angeles and have regretted it ever since.

That regret peaked recently when I was rummaging through some boxes of junk I had out in the garage and ran across an envelope full of old pictures of the blasted thing. Pics of it and pics of me and it and pics of me and the Redhead and it and pics of me and the boys and it. Clucked my tongue and shook my head with each passing shot, noting all the personalized tweaks I’d made to the bike during my fourteen-year stewardship. The 80-spoke wheels I’d swapped in. The upgraded matching H/D pedals and switchgear. The motor I’d had punched out to Stage II specs. The slash-cut Screamin’ Eagle pipes I’d put on. The optional detachable full windscreen I’d mounted. And all the other small detail bits I’d added like the H/D logo tire-stem caps and the H/D padded handgrips and the H/D conch-adorned saddlebags.

Sigh.

“Fire all of your guns at once and…explode into space…”

When I went to bed last night I couldn’t sleep. Was thinking about the bike. Again. Wondering whatever happened to it. Wondering if the guy I’d sold it to still had it. After all it had been over five years since he’d bought it and he could have easily re-sold it by now. But, then again, maybe he hadn’t. Just maybe.

I tossed and turned and turned and tossed then finally got up. Made myself a cup of decaf then walked into my office and sat down at my desk. Opened my laptop and searched my email archive and found the buyer’s e-address. Highlighted it and copied it then pasted it in a new window and started typing. Because nothing ventured, nothing gained, sludge.

“Born to be wi-i-ild…”