Carol & David's Excellent Adventures Part VIII - Partners - July '98 - David A. Braun Copyright 1998 First impressions; people look at your choice of vehicle and snap judgments about you. Some folks find motorcycles abhorrent. I can imagine that these same folks might feel similarly if you dated outside your own race or within your own sex. Some folks find the thought of riding a motorcycle attractive, but would not do it themselves. Similar, perhaps to the way they might be attracted to someone with a foreign accent. Even within motorcycling, people look at other's choices and just don't get it. For instance, I am not at all attracted to Harley Davidson; as I am not at all sexually attracted to men. I once went so far as to ride a Harley (which is more than I can say about that other "choice") and found that it cornered, in the words of my passenger, "Like a building." To cruiser aficionados, sport bikers, riding all hunched over, look like "a monkey 'in love' with football." For many bikers, motorcycles are sort of like sex partners, you see one and that is the ONE that you want. Nothing else, you think, will make you truly happy. OK, one or two rides might be worth the time, and might even change your mind. But still, if it is not the one, it isn't The One. You can try and show someone in a motorcycle buying state of mind comparison tests and literature from the motorcycle press. But, it will have about as much effect as telling your best friend, "You don't want him/her, she/he is bad for you." There are body parts at work here that just aren't brain parts (in both cases). When discussing this theory (motorcycles are sex objects) with my new friend Claude who was selling me his old bike at the time, he said, "YES! And sometimes you just want to change partners. There are some people who are promiscuous and some who are lifelong faithful, too." I guess that I fall into the faithful category. So, after all the bureaucratic and logistical hassles, I had my "new" 1996 motorcycle in France, for a price slightly higher than a new '98 (including rebate) in the USA. I left it untouched for a couple of days while I got some of the last details sorted out. The purchase transaction took place on a Monday night. The following Thursday was a bank holiday, Ascension. By the way, I would sure appreciate it if someone could explain to me who ascended to where. If it was Jesus, how come Easter was well over a month ago. I thought the story went... "and three days later he comes out and if he sees his shadow..." No, wait. Nazareth is near Puxatawney only in Pennsylvania. But really, how come there are about six WEEKS between Easter and Ascension? France has lots of Catholics. But no one I spoke with had a clue. It this a calendar thing? Did the Pope move the holiday so the church could get cathedrals built faster or something; kinda like congress moving holidaze to Mondays)? One of my own personal pet gripes about moving holidaze is that I used to get my birthday off from school when I was a little kid, cuz I was born on George Washington's Birthday, 22 February. However, in their infinite whizdumb, Congreff squished it up with Lincoln's Birthday, 16 February, combining it into President's Day, which can not and will not EVER fall on my birthday again since the third Monday can not be any later that the 21st, especially as long as we live in France. Where was I... Oh yeah! So, then it was May 21st (Armed Forces Day on at least one calendar, at least one year of which I know), I've had a "new" bike and the day off. I live in the Capital of the Alpes. The sun was shining and the temperatures fair. Hmm... Pinch me. First stop, l'essene. SEVENTEEN DOLLARS is about what it takes to fill up the tank, and it wasn't even empty. Punch me. I asked some co-workers how they stand the high gas prices and they just shrugged and said, "I guess we're used to it. You pay what you have to pay when you have to fill the tank." Buck a liter gas, like three-dollar coffees, are going to require several (huge) five dollar bouquets of flowers (flowers are one of few real bargains here) to help me get over. Take advantage where you can, and ignore it where you can't, I guess. The other day I got six bars of Toblerone chocolate, my favorite, for about $1.80. You can't beat that with a stick. I plan to take some of them to the gas station to munch while I fill up; so as to enjoy the true yin yang of prices in France. After a few fits, false starts and wrong turns trying to egress the warren in Eschirolles behind the gas station, I found the open road. My former two-wheeled riding partner and I had, oh, about seventeen years together over a hundred and twenty-five thousand miles or so. Granted, this new bike makes as much if not more power with 20% less displacement. But there are all sorts of differences to get use to. For instance, the turn signal switch used to be Left - CenterOff - Right. The new one is Left - PushToCancel - Right. Besides that, the switch is positioned so that I keep beeping the horn instead of mashing the turn signal, occasionally embarrassing. OK, so I made it to the mountains after about ten minutes ride on the Rocade Sud (~southern ring road). The speed limit is only 110 on the Rocade Sud. That's 110 kilometers per hour which equates to about 68 mph. The autoroute here is 130 kph or 81 mph. But most folks appear to believe that 150 (93) won't get them a ticket (though I've been told you can COUNT on getting away with +10%). Besides, revenue does not seem to come from motorists in the form of tickets for speeding. Remember, the gas taxes here make it cost over four times as much as it does in the USA. You speed, you burn lots of fuel. You are already paying. Why bother you with a ticket? In town is generally 50 (31) unless otherwise posted. When you hit the city limits, noted by the name of the town with a diagonal red bar across it, the national limit is 90 (56). But in the mountains, you don't need some guy in a Smoky Bear hat to tell you, "You done violated the laws of physics, Boy." You likely only get ONE opportunity to screw up when driving in the Alps. There are places where if you went off, you would have time to think you had actually learned to fly, before you abruptly found you hadn't. Someone told me that if you get done for more than 30 kph over the limit, you can be in serious trouble. When I asked what that meant, I was told, not only losing your license, but jail time. At least you'd have something to talk to Arlo about there on the Group-W bench... "What's your name?" "Arlo." "What're you in for, Arlo?" "Litterin'... AND creating a nuisance. You?" "Speeding." They have some oddball signs over here, by the way. One is a yellow diamond, surrounded by a thin black line, surrounded by a fat white diamond, surrounded by another thin black line. Of course, this one is canceled with its counterpart, the same thing with a fat black diagonal stripe through it. The sign (not the canceled version) means you are on the road with the designated right of way. Another sign is a white triangle with a thin red border containing a fat black X. This is a warning sign indicating a crossroad ahead, not to be confused with the white circular sign inscribed in a thin black circle, with a black diagonal bar across the whole mess. That one is "end of limit," referring to whatever was the last limit sign you saw (simply a black number in a white circle in a red circle). Anyway, I made it to the mountains. I found some curves. I rode the roads. That introductory ride was wonderful. Terrified of crashing my bike on our first outing, I took it easy, very easy. Rusty from a half-year layoff, I took it easy. Riding up to the ski station at Chamrousse was a blast. Getting above the snowline was something I had needed, from deep inside, for too long. The curves, the views, the chill, the adrenaline. I LOVE MOTORCYCLING! But, I found some things I didn't like about my new partner, compared to my old one. (And I anthropomorphisize that my new partner found some things about me that she didn't like compared to her old one.) For one thing, baby needs new shoes. There wasn't a whole lot of tread left on the tires and this did not instill a sense of cornering confidence (like I had with the old one, no matter the state of the tires). Although, upon inspection upon my arrival home, my chicken strips [1] were no fatter than Claude's. For another thing, I had little sense of what to do in case a roadside repair was needed. Which is to say, I knew for a fact that the toolkit was not adequate because it didn't even have tire irons and there was not even a place to carry a tire pump (both of which were OEM with the old bike). I had no schematic diagram. (I quit carrying a schematic on the old bikes because I generally knew how all the parts were connected and had memorized most of the color codes for the wires anyhow.) My electric vest was a critical component of my riding retinue in the Rockies for the same reason it would be in the Alps. But I had no place to plug it in, yet. The thing has a drive chain. I haven't had to lube a chain since my Ducati blew up at Talledega. I had to get a can of some sort of chain stuff. I found out my tank bag doesn't fit and never will. I have a huge, 45 liter, top case. But that won't hold a map where you can see it like a tank bag. And, of course, I'll need some saddlebags, too. So, I assembled a shopping list, of sorts. Major and minor components, with various levels of immediacy. There are many motorcycle shops in Grenoble. There are a few mail order places in France, too. But, unlike in the USA, the law of supply and demand just doesn't seem to work here. List price is apparently THE price, unless maybe it is just ME. By that, I mean that maybe they all see me as a foreigner, not a steady customer, and price to me accordingly. That theory fails to explain why there is virtually no difference in mail order prices, however. I suspect that it is going to be a while before this bike and I are truly partners. I'm going to have to take her clothes off (the plastic covers) and fiddle around under the "hood" a bit. I need to find the time to remove the gas tank and the fairing so I can see all the electrics and figure out how to wire in some electric grips (which I still have to get). As I said, baby needs new shoes, too. I miss having a garage. But I think that trading a garage in Colorado for instant access to the Alps will pay off in the long run. There will be more rides, lots more. --- [1] Chicken Strips: the part of the tire which has not contacted pavement. On a motorcycle, this is an indicator of how far the rider has leaned the bike over in a curve, or conversely, how much further the rider could have leaned it if s/he wasn't chicken. Most motorcycles CAN lean all the way to the edge of their tires. Many motorcyclists can not.