Two Wheels To There

Two Wheels To There

Two Wheels To There

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Pherther-Grams

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The mid-May weekend was looking decent, so Surtch Pherther, jonesing for a desert rip, would hit dirt again. He’d aimed to dark-wander with good tunes and smoke, but ride-tired and for the week’s work and a nightfall chill, was fine turning in early to breeze on the fly and nothin’ otherwise. The next morn, he tracked dawn up a near, near-familiar ridge for fossil-hunting and a sudden snake-watch after a biggun rattled itself know, and then throttled off for fuel, food, and a Bud at a state-line oasis, where he met two dudes who’d cycle-slogged two-hundred-fifty-ish miles through downpours and desert heat just to carve a glacier.

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The mid-May weekend was looking decent, so Surtch Pherther, jonesing for a desert rip, would hit dirt again.  He’d aimed to dark-wander with good tunes and smoke, but ride-tired and for the week’s work and a nightfall chill, was fine turning in early to breeze on the fly and nothin’ otherwise.  The next morn, he tracked dawn up a near, near-familiar ridge for fossil-hunting and a sudden snake-watch after a biggun rattled itself know, and then throttled off for fuel, food, and a Bud at a state-line oasis, where he met two dudes who’d cycle-slogged two-hundred-fifty-ish miles through downpours and desert heat just to carve a glacier.

Relations & Reflections, Motorbiking & Mudbugs – 2011.08.20

Published on June 1, 2015 by Ry Austin 4 Comments

Because motorcycling makes me feel like a kid again. It’s a predictable answer to an inevitable type of question, a type that riders rarely ask: They know that the experience, as skittish as a wild creature, eludes definition and that words often fail. To ride might be the only road to an answer: If the experience doesn’t take, an answer won’t be given. If it does take, a new rider will be born to pursue a passion that enlivens living–one possessed striving to possess the possessor.

It had been over five years since Surtch Pherther was–himself–born again, baptized by throttle into the Vespa sect of that divinely inspired Two Wheelers tradition, and much remained to be revealed to him—technically, socially, geographically, soulfully. Indeed, because motorcycling makes me feel like a kid again would have to do—for now…

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

“We’re going crawdaddin’,” hollered Surtch’s brother. “Who wants in?” The lunch-lazy camp stirred then squirmed then surged to life with kids of all ages wriggling into swimsuits and slipping into flip-flops, grabbing buckets and nets, and shouting “Shotgun!” and crying foul as they dashed toward the cars.

“I’ll meet ya there,” yelled Surtch, and he geared up, saddle up, and throttled off.

3-re_Kids in San Cosme Reservoir

He hugged the few curves on the paved road from camp (they squeezed him back, right in the adrenaline) and then caved to the lure of an unlocked DOT gravel pit, low-banking its scattered mounds and slow-going its small slopes of shifty cobble in a continuing bid for practice makes better.

Perfect riding skills, especially off road, seemed an impossibility to Surtch, and frankly, immeasurable—like judging artistic merit.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

From the gravel pit, he followed a faded two-track down to the pebbly beach and rode through the shallows half up to the hubs toward where his people were waist deep—splashing, laughing, crayfish net-catching—and closing in on buckets full. The scene flashed him back to a younger self’s first memory of wild water and a snippet of something he once-upon-a-time scribbled about it:

…I was four or so when my parents first took me and my siblings to wade in a desert river. We were headed home from camping when we stopped to try to squeeze out any lingering essence. The sun was setting, and damp river-bottom coldness was beginning to rise, which is typical for the desert—it can be blistering at noon, but frigid at midnight. I tiptoed through thin willows, purple-flowered tamarisk sprouts, and beds of coarse snake grass. The alkali sand, crusty and white, broke and sloughed beneath my little footsteps, exposing organic under-soil to which even the sparse salt grass clung fiercely. And all the while the Johnsie River just rippled, whispering its endless tale:

“I am a desert river and was dreamy in my youth. I only wanted to enliven difficult land, but of that I was deprived, doomed by the ages to dredge deeper and deeper until I flowed too far below any surface I could serve. I’m just a desert river—old and lonely—a thoroughfare for the evening breeze which to every spider delivers a fly. Look high, on the cottonwoods that dot my bank, higher than your reach. It’s where I wear my dry drift scarves and my deepest desire keep–to flood. Oh, just to flash once more. It’s when I’m at my peak.”…

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

Back at camp—nets tossed aside, buckets of creepy craw-dudes placed in the shade, flip-flops swapped for shoes, and swimsuits for dry duds—everyone had begun to slip into sun-stupor when…

“We’re off to hit a geocache,” hollered Surtch’s brother. “Who’s coming along?” And once again, as though on cue, the camp stirred then squirmed then surged to life with kids shouting “Shotgun!” and crying foul as they dashed toward the cars.

“Okay, man. You lead,” yelled Surtch, and a few minutes later, a few miles down from camp, they rolled to a stop on the hillside shoulder of a wide curve in the reservoir road. The kids goofed in the nearby brush while Surtch’s brother briefly consulted the GPS before pointing to a rocky outcrop on a low spur.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

Up the gentle slope, through winding paths defined by giant, pungent sagebrush and impenetrable wild rose, along vague trails left by critters small and large, and safely past a stunning wasps’ nest sculpture, Surtch and his brother led the children. At last they scrambled the final bit onto the spur and then strolled out to its small point overlooking San Cosme Reservoir.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin
Secret North American Vespa Factory

The kids spied the cache, traded trinkets, marked the booklet, and for a while everyone gazed upon the glimmering water below. Surtch repressed an urge to ask them for their thoughts, a query that seldom delivers anyway, and never in the moment: Most folks reserve the real stuff; impressions require digestion; and words—those imperfect tools for imperfect beings—often fail.

Oh, to be able to channel my child self, thought Surtch, to know his untainted impressions. Then maybe I’d know if I’ve grown, know if this bizarre, existential experience has been worthwhile so far.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

Evening—calm, cooling, barely cloudy—was upon them upon their return to camp, so they lit a fire and soon they had a blaze. Amid the banter typical for fireside dining, Surtch politely declined his brother’s offer of boiled, um, freshwater lobster (a flattering name indeed) in favor of applesauce, beef jerky left over from lunch, and instant red pesto pasta. As night took hold, the children one by one yawned their ways to their sleeping bags and the adults followed suit until just the two brothers remained at the campfire.

“I was surprised when you showed up on Escape Artist,” said Surtch’s brother, with a knowing smile. “I had expected you to ride in on a new machine—something orange and sporty maybe?…” Surtch just chuckled.

In silence thereafter they watched the final flames die, the mound of orange coals cool and shift, the last few sparks rise and twist, and–curling smoothly around sky-pillar pines–the smoke waft like sacred incense in a grand, roofless cathedral.

To Surtch, this was the only religion that had ever made sense.

Filed Under: Escape Artist, San Cosme Reservoir Tagged With: brother, camping, family, flow, johnsie river, quotes, religion, wandering

To Embrace a Lent Rhythm – 2011.07.30 / 08.06

Published on March 15, 2015 by Ry Austin 2 Comments

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

“Every future has a beginning, and I must start sometime if I’m going to learn this.” Surtch Pherther loathed truisms. Yet for nearly two years he’d been repeating relevant ones as a sort of mantra. Or rather, he’d been repeating them when clarity of thought permitted, when he wasn’t squinting from deep inside the mindquake’s murk, his eyes straining for signs of light.

He was as cautious to declare the quake’s brutal occupation nearly over as he was uncertain about its pinpoint beginning. Superstition, as well as uncertainty, informed that caution: He wasn’t so reckless as to proclaim “evicted” until his precious mind was again well-fortified to keep another quake at bay, or at least strong enough to fight like hell.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

As a verb, as an action, “fight” had been all but erased from his vocabulary, and as a noun, as an object, it was severely faded. It is sheer cruelty when actions are stolen before their objects, when one can still know where he’d rather be, but no longer possesses the vehicle to get there. “Fight” without being able to is like placing water beyond a thirsty man’s reach, like cutting a barred window into the wall of a lifer’s cell.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

Time is supposed to heal all wounds, but that can occur only if enough time, a subjective variable, follows the wounding. After all, the passage of one’s time can be ceased too easily, impulsively.

In some respects, time seemed slow for Surtch, and always in short supply. He suspected that was true for most. His dear sister and dear brother had recommended re-engagement, and sure, he needed that, but not as mere diversion: Surtch wanted engagement activities as gappers of distance. He couldn’t control time, but he sure as hell could try to fill it, and enough magically amplifying activities crammed into a span could relegate a bleak bookend further into the perceptual past.

Such pseudo-intellectual language intoxicated Surtch, or had once-upon-a-time. The question, and his top concern now: Could it help to restore him?…

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

For Surtch, riding pavement on the Vespa he’d owned for over three years was second nature from the start: There’d been no learning curve with twist-n-go. Well, none aside from the embarrassment early on when, with a few new garden hoses strapped to the back rack and seat, he’d lost control of the throttle in Home Depot’s crowded parking lot.

Yeah, that’s right–lost control – of his scooter‘s throttle – in a lot teeming with testosterone…

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

His first dual-sporting-on-dirt hurdle was psychological and somewhat cartoonish as well: his hyperawareness that a freakishly tall, 450 pound internal combustion pendulum was swinging beneath him erratically, and his sneaking suspicion that it harbored a secret desire to ride him through the gravel and dirt, rocky ruts, and mud.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

Surtch knew the sensation he was seeking, had ridden with it briefly on that gently bounding and dodging road through the Wapiti Hills on his first two-wheeled foray into the remoteness, an outing that ended in a ridiculous spill: Surtch with a bloody nose, a throbbing leg, and sorely wounded confidence; and weeks-old Escape Artist with some minor cracks and scrapes. He had nevertheless scented the game.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

He recalled a younger self that grew up skiing with his dad and siblings. In the steep-n-deep, magic moments would happen, but not through his efforts: It was as though the sought sensation wasn’t the commands that he sent down through his legs to the skis and snow, but a lent rhythm that rose from the living earth through its deep powder to him, a naive recipient.

It would occur for a few turns or for half a run and then recede. It was difficult to describe, but he knew when it happened and that it was as the goal. Surtch also remembered that it seemed to despise being discussed.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

It was like that passage from Kerouac’s Big Sur:

“…I remember that frightening thing Milarepa said which is other than those reassuring words of his I remembered in the cabin of sweet loneness on Big Sur: ‘When the various experiences come to light in meditation, do not be proud and anxious to tell other people, else to Goddess and Mothers you will bring annoyance’ and here I am a perfectly obvious fool American writer doing just that not only for a living (which I was always able to glean anyway from railroad and ship and lifting boards and sacks with humble hand) but because if I don’t write what actually I see happening in this unhappy globe which is rounded by the contours of my deathskull I think I’ll have been sent on earth by poor God for nothing…”

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

The last thing Surtch wanted to do was bring annoyance to Goddess and Mothers. But Kerouac had understood–and it remains as true and at least as crucial–that there must be witnesses. Otherwise, there is no possible testimony. Otherwise, it’s as though nothing exists, as though nothing occurs.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

We cannot borrow rhythms, thought Surtch–that’s a power we don’t possess. They can only happen, or be lent–by the living earth, the humming cosmos, or the Almighty itself. What’s left to us is to recognize the rhythms and embrace them if we can.

We might be adrenalin addicts, dosing up on that fine line between here-for-now and gone forever; might be throttle jockeys, testing grounded flight at high revs in fifth and sixth on highway tarmacs; might be lean-freaks, teasing the tenuous threshold between grip and slip while feeding our craving to carve – those – curves; might be rhythm fiends, moved by that mesmeric tango between throttle control and a rising, falling, dodging road.

One thing’s for sure, though… We are like eager youths, desiring the seductive ways and skillful touch of the next thrilling sensation.

Surtch Pherther at Two Wheels To There: A motorcycle blog by Ry Austin

Filed Under: Escape Artist, Fur Trap Ridge Tagged With: cairn mountains, flow, quotes, solitude, the mindquake