Duck Duck Goose!

Riding season was in full-swing in the North East – I spent nearly every day with a helmet on – often driving nowhere in particular yet happy to have an excuse to go somewhere other than work and school. Light breezes, trees thick with dark green leaves shading the backroads from the summer heat, made for perfect afternoon jaunts that often ended in shivering late evening rides home. This was the kind of weather that made people buy motorcycles and my phone had been ringing a lot recently.

A friend called to announce that he was on his way over to show me his newest bike, a 1955 BMW R50 motorcycle. The bike had been completely painted Army Green, shade 44, which was contrasted only by the flat black tires, seat, footpegs, handgrips and a large black knob on top of the steering stem. My buddy, let’s call him Biff to protect the innocent, showed up on the R50 with a beanie helmet, black leather jacket, gloves and boots. The bike could be heard from several blocks away thanks to someone entirely removing the baffles from both tailpipes. From a nearby neighborhood I could hear the machine accelerate from each stop-sign to the next – backfiring on deceleration, clamoring onward in a complete racket. I nick-named his beauty the Backfiring Blitzkrieg.

At idle the bike would stumble, pop and shake in such a manner that it was mesmorizing to watch – the idle was set far too low, the jetting so rich you could smell unburnt fuel. The side-stand quickly vibrated its way into the hot asphalt of my dad’s driveway.

“Turn that pile off!” I demanded with a smirk. “Man, that thing is so freaking loud!”

The ill, short-term effects of riding such a beast were already showing as Biff yelled during the first few minutes of our conversation. No doubt, it was a cool bike and we had to take it for a ride. I dragged my 1979 Triumph Bonneville 750 out of the garage, removed the tie-wrap holding the clutch lever in, and fired her up. The clutch plates were so old and oil saturated that they would stick together, preventing the clutch from disengaging. This meant you could hold the clutch lever in, slam it in first and you would be moving whether you wanted to or not. The only way to break the plates free was to point the machine in a safe direction, blip the throttle really hard a few times and hope that each time would break the plates free before you made it to the stop-sign at the end of the road. The colder the weather, the harder it was to break free. The tie-wrap on the handlebar kept the clutch lever in during storage and helped to prevent the plates from sticking. The bike was aptly nick-named the Bonno-pile.

We were on our way, winding through the hills of suburbia, Biff out in front. We passed through a few towns and I got to watch heads turn as the BMW announced our arrival. At one stop light I could see two little old ladies with their handbags sneer in our direction. Biff repeatedly blipped the throttle, irritating them further. Our racing from stop light to stop light certainly wasn’t earning the sport of motorcycling any points that day. Regardless, this particular ride was one of my most memorable and one that Biff often recounts, even in our old age.

We cruised up a long winding hill that passed a pond. I could see up ahead some Canadian Geese quickly take flight alongside the road – they were no doubt startled by the noise of the BMW. We were traveling about 25 mph and one of the birds veered in front of Biff’s bike and landed smack in his lap. Biff lifted his left hand off the bars and dipped his body to the right to try and lose the bird, then he lunged left, regripping the bars and letting go with the right hand – trying to brush the frantic bird away. He kept his speed somehow and I could see wings flapping against Biff’s face, the force of the wind pinning the goose against his chest. The occupants of cars traveling in the opposite direction were pointing, laughing at what they saw as if some guy and his pet goose were out for a Sunday ride. The entire incident seemed to go by in slow motion and to this day remains one of the most bizarre motorcycle riding spectacles I’ve ever seen. My stomach hurt so much from laughing, eyes full of tears that I had to pull over where Biff had already stopped. The goose was now flying off in the distance.

Startled, angry, embarrassed, Biff yelled over to me “Did you see that shit?!”

“Oh I saw it, alright.”

Biff was in fact covered in bird shit.

“I saw it, but I still don’t believe it!”