Harley 72, Humor, and Cheery Vehicles

There is such a thing as too much efficiency. California is not meant to be a Sunny version of Germany under the Third Reich. Its about Farming and Tourism, not industry and efficiency.

On my drive home on Friday I followed a hipster on what I thought was a Harley 72 up East Main. Left side belt drive, narrow rear tire, larger diameter wheels. It's a new model that looks like a 1972 Harley Davidson. Kinda silly, and the guy nearly dropped himself on the pavement popping the clutch when the tire spun it to the right, but still, it was nice seeing a bike on the road with a narrow rear tire instead of a compensator fatboy tire. Now that I know it isn't that model after all, I'm very curious what it actually was, and wonder how cheap it will be when the current rider dumps himself on the road popping the clutch next time. It has more power than grip.

My feeling about bikes is 400 cc is just about perfect. Enough to get you to 80 mph, enough to pull the hills with traffic, enough to work properly as an Air cooled engine or better as a watercooled one, but not so much as to get you into trouble. These days your real world choices are higher pressure 250ccs or shorter stroke 650s to get you that displacement. They aren't actual 400s, scaled properly, machined properly for all the mechanical and chemical advantages. And that bites. A counterbalanced 400cc, properly scaled, would be so good you'd never buy another bike, right through the apocalypse.

And the apocalypse is interesting, way more than I ever thought. When I was a lad, graduating high school and increasingly paranoid about nuclear accidents and race rioting (Rodney King?) and increasing world terrorism, White Flight was the smart answer. Move into the boonies, setup a farm, grow crops to sell for taxes and essentials, return to a farm and cower in fear for the coming Golden Horde. That's what some of my contemporaries actually did. Others just threw up their hands and moved to Portland to retire.

No really. Half my high school graduating class moved to Portland, independently of each other. It seems they realized our home town sucked. Funny how that is. I wonder if they'll move back after the plague?

The apocalypse is most interesting because its so slow, most people think this is just how things are. They don't realize that schools weren't always death-match detention camps with students bombing the cafeteria or sniping each other or going First Person Shooter in their math class. That stuff didn't happen when I was a kid. We didn't have Wikipedia to help us learn things. We had to endlessly search and learn a lot of other stuff we weren't looking for. Now, wiki is so good schools are obsessed with citing references and plagiarism, not understanding that is a moot point and they've generation gapped themselves. You really can Just Fsking Google It. The answer is often there. Tends to make people lazy about remembering things, and helpless without data access, however. Super-Generalists like me are increasingly rare, but still not paid well enough to justify sticking with a company that undervalues us.

The apocalypse is reflected in inflation, laziness, and greed. This is probably how it was for the Anasazi too. Its not huge genocidal violence, though we do have disfiguring face piercings and tattoos in common use, but the hordes of motorcycle gangs seems to be composed of lawyers and trust babies, people with money rather than drug dealing cannibals wearing hockey masks.

We were taught to expect that, not smiling liars from the South or Rustbelt or Texas raping our Constitutional rights to enrich themselves. For the last 20 years, that's what we've gotten. That's apocalypse. As the Constitution falls apart from disinterest by voters too lazy or greedy or selfish to care as long as they have mass quantities and comfort and air conditioning, the youth are adapting to the post-American landscape. They're riding scooters and restored old bikes and living the Dream of the 90's, even if its really just poverty. Adapting to poverty is a real challenge. Adapting to poverty by discarding the marketing crap and base materialism the prior generation was so obsessed with is a major step. And finding humor in it.

I see these and think: why is California demanding such efficiency and safety from its vehicles when we could and should be goofy and have these instead? "It would hold up trafffic!" say the Angelinos. "So?" I respond. "Is Disneyland all about Efficiency and Traffic Flow or is it a major tourist draw?" They would have to admit I have a point. If the whole state got a sense of humor and operated more like Disneyland and less like Der Fatherland, we'd have more tourists and more money and jobs. If you want super-efficiency, go work on some factory-farm or get a job at Starbucks.

One of my coworkers, we'll call him Conor because that's his name, owns a fat-tired Yamaha V-star 1300. Monster cruiser with throbbing compensator engine. He says he's not compensating, but I point out that's what the bike says to everyone that sees it.

At least the Hipsters aren't riding Compensation Vehicles. They are happy to be on silly Mopeds, which interest me (wish I knew how to machine metal parts!) and old motorcycles without much power. Its not about power. Its about Vintage. These bikes are OLD. I'm amazed they work at all.

Conor and I want to put together a motorcycle ride at our company on a day off, all Vintage bikes rather than modern, and found ourselves wondering what people would ride, especially all the women we work with. They're all seriously individual so its quite difficult to figure that out. And one likes trucks rather than bikes so she'd probably show up with a Power-Master open top with a roll-bar.

Others would probably show up with Ural sidecars or Vespas. My direct coworker Kate would probably have one of these:

Mostly because these are cheap and efficient and she's a farmer. I like the terrain these work on, but I think I'd rather have something more vintage, with high pipes with heat shields on them. Like this Honda 350 Scrambler, only with the Disc brake installed.

Vintage, yet functional. And no plastic. Big enough seat to carry a woman on the back, rack under that, and able to run knobby tires if I raise the front fender an inch. The mirrors are functionally tall, not decorative. And the single round headlight and instrument cluster are sensible. All in all, a durable bike worth fixing up and keeping running forever. With good maintenance and engine rebuilds to replace worn parts it should last till all the fuel is gone, then accept modifications to run on alcohol. I like that. It will probably need a good alternator put in, and its signals replaced with LED versions. It won't be pure vintage if I do that, however. I'll have to ponder that once I actually own one.

An apocalypse where everybody riding motorcycles is going to work with a certain sense of style? That is not only sensible, but rather attractive. We need more cheerfulness. If we can't have motorized couches or potting sheds or garbage dumpsters, we can certainly embrace what the Hipsters already have: vintage bikes to replace our bubble cars and SUVs. Have some fritatta and fresh figs. Its all good.