oldjohnr

[oldjohnr]

IN APPRECIATION OF THE BMW G310GS

Through more than 60 years and over a half-million miles “behind bars” I have owned many motorcycles, from 50cc through 1200’s (including one of nearly every version of the BMW GS, from the R80 up until the water-cooled) though, for all that time, I have had a predilection for small bikes. In the mid-1960’s, when I started riding, a 250cc motorcycle was considered a serious machine, particularly…

[oldjohnr]

Working It Out

I am retired now, for more than a dozen years, , past the midpoint of my 70’s, contenting myself with motorcycle travel and writing things like this blog. In what seems like a very long time ago, I have had two careers, both in what I considered to be helping professions. Prior to becoming “professional”, I held a variety of jobs, including picking up shingles on a roofing job site when I was…

[oldjohnr]

SOUVENIRS

Many years ago, on a motorcycle trip in Europe, I went walking at dawn through a small village in the French mountains. My path took me through the cemetery where I saw that most of the gravestones read “Souvenir”. It took me a moment to realize that it simply meant “remember” . I like to take things from my journeys that will spark a memory, but I don’t want a thing that sits on a shelf. At…

[oldjohnr]

AT THE DEALERSHIP

(In an earlier post, “ Working for the Man”, I described a job I had in Ashland while attending the community college there. I still needed to work for my living when I went to the big city.) Arriving in Lexington in the summer of 1968 for my last two years of college, I got a job in a warehouse loading trucks on the afternoon shift. I loaded crates of groceries into tractor trailers and…

[oldjohnr]

MAY 2000, PART TWO

(We left our travelers, damp as usual, getting off the ferry from Ireland back into Wales.) At Fishguard we disembark in the usual rush of vehicles out into the rain. There is a Harley on the boat with us, an “older“ man perhaps my age with a young woman companion a couple of decades his junior. Their bike is loaded heavily, and he is struggling to make some last-minute attachment on the back…

[oldjohnr]

MAY 2000 IRELAND. Yes, there is rain.

It is still winter-like in Kentucky, not good conditions for long motorcycle trips. I’m shut down for a few months due to some “senior maintenance” surgery, so I thought I’d go back to my archives and drag out an old trip journal. Since it’s soon to be St. Patricks Day, here is a trip to the Emerald Isle. May 11,2000. We are on the plane, finally seated after several rather hectic work days…

[oldjohnr]

HOBBY? I DON’T THINK SO

Some folks describe motorcycling as a “hobby” and others as a “lifestyle” decision and some as a sport. Those who have never ridden a motorcycle do not understand why anyone would do it. They see it as unreasonably dangerous, many consider their presence to be an unnecessary nuisance, lumping all of the myriad kinds of bikes and riders into one amorphous category. Popular media, movies, TV…

[oldjohnr]

FIVE DECADES, ONE RESTAURANT, COUNTLESS STORIES

In Lexington, Kentucky, the Harrodsburg Road Frisch’s restaurant closed, presumably permanently, on Wednesday, December 11th, 2024. With it went a tradition going back nearly 50 years. What became the Bluegrass Beemers began with three men meeting at that Frisch’s in 1975 after they had taken a motorcycle trip together to Myrtle Beach, SC. That initial group consisted of Tom Sutherland, his…

[oldjohnr]

The Next Generation

In 1923 BMW began making motorcycles (yes, they made them before they made cars) using shaft drive and the “boxer” twin engine with horizontally opposed cylinders. The design, and the quality the company insisted upon, became iconic, making the machines legendary for their quiet, efficient long travel capability. One can still see in today’s versions the direct lineage back to those…

[oldjohnr]

BARBER VINTAGE FESTIVAL 2024

Months of anticipation, then the night before, just the waiting for Wednesday morning. I will be riding solo on my BMW G310GS down to the Barber Vintage Festival near Birmingham, Alabama. This is the second time that the BMW Motoraad Days will be held there, so it seems appropriate to take one of their machines. My grandsons Ian and Stuart, who are still working for a living, will be coming down…

[oldjohnr]

PASSING THE TORCH AT 2024 VINTAGE DAYS

The AMA’s Vintage Motorcycle Days event had been a staple item on my calendar since the first one, held at the old headquarters in Westerville Ohio more than three decades ago. I followed the event through its various venues, eventually ending up at Mid-Ohio racecourse in Lexington, Ohio where it has been for many years now. It is one of the largest gatherings of its kind, all about vintage…

[oldjohnr]

OHIO CODDIWOMPLE (or, “Not All Who Wander Are Lost….but I might be”)

August 28, hotter than the hinges of Hades, but of course we are going to take a ride. There is a Moto Guzzi dealer, Cadre Cycles, brother-in-law Jay has discovered in Blue Ash Ohio, about 90-something miles from our Kentucky homes….and we are sure, being retired old guys riding motorcycles, that we can double that amount to get there. We met in Paris, at 9:15, then to get northwest we…

[oldjohnr]

WORKING FOR THE MAN

This is a completely true story, except for the names, but parts of it may sound like a badly written TV sitcom. It felt that way at the time, too. 1967, early spring, my second semester in the local community college underway and I needed a job for school expenses and to support my motorcycle addiction. I had worked on the sorting line at a local soft drink plant, done clean up work for…

[oldjohnr]

NORTHERN EXPOSURE

July 4th, but the only fireworks at this early hour of the morning are from Mother Nature, bringing the storm that will last, we are told, through at least the first several days of our trip north. Brother-in-law Jay and I are traveling today through Indiana and then tomorrow, Michigan, to catch the historic coal-fired Badger Ferry over to Manitowoc Wisconsin. There may be storms over the lake…

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West Virginia Coddiwomple

In our behavioral psychology classes, we learned of the early experiments on white rats in which they would learn to operate a lever in their cage to receive a treat, some sugarwater or a food pellet. The rats would press the lever until sated, then go off to find other ratly occupations and amusements. Later, when the scientists became more sophisticated, they could implant electrodes into the…

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NOT EXACTLY AS PLANNED

Brother in law Jay and I decided to take an early April excursion to get one in before things got summer-busy. Back in January we picked the second week of April because that would be at the end of his convalescence for his knee surgery and before my wife’s surgery at the end of that month. “Senior Maintenance” happens often for us septuagenarians. Of course that would then turn out to be the…

[oldjohnr]

1990 WESTERN EUROPEAN TRIP

August 30, 1990 Brenda and I flew to Germany in 1990, our second visit to her brother Jay who was serving there in the US military. On our first trip, a year earlier, we had borrowed his BMW R65 for a few days and went coddiwompling around Germany. This time a plan had been made for us to rent a bike and the three of us would take a more extended tour of western Europe. As is typical with us,…