I love motorcycles, I have ever since I was a little kid. When I was a baby, I'm talking baby here, my dad literally zipped me up in his leather jacket and took me on a motorcycle ride...up to 100 mile per hour. I shit you not. Anyway... I awoke one Christmas morn to find a brand spanking new Honda QA-50 Mini-Bike sitting on the hearth. I was ten, holy shit! Thirty fuckin' four years ago! Once that bug bit me, I was infected for life. My childhood friend Giles and I would ride in the fields and woods after school. Problem was the land was owned by Swarthmore college and they were not too fond of two kids on mini-bikes trampling their flora and scaring their fauna, so they would come after us. Their silly little Cushman's were no match for us. We would intentionally lead the hapless bastard down some trail that we knew his glorified golf-cart could never handle. Few things in life are as funny to a ten year old or even a 44 year old for that matter than a security guard tipping over in a Cushman!
Years later, now in my 20's I was riding a Honda Hurricane 600 (later versions became known as the CBR 600) On my frequent back road blasts I met a few other aggressive sport riders, riding like idiots, getting chased by the cops and generally having the time of our lives. It wasn't long before I was taking my Superbike license test. The years I spent racing bikes were some of the best years of my life, and I've had some pretty damn good years! The group of us would meet up Friday evenings and load up all our stuff and drive to the track. The closest track was something like four hours away, so by the time we got there it was usually pretty late as before we could begin the trip we inevitably had to do some last minute work on somebody's bike. We would pitch our tents, literally, pitch a fucking tent. We did not have much money. Every dime we had was eagerly gobbled up by our bikes, if it was a good week we would send whatever guy had his girlfriend along that weekend, into a motel to get a room. Then six to ten of us would roll out the sleeping bags on the floor. This was much better than the tent thing. Heat/A/C, toilet, shower, we were living like kings We'd have a few beers and hit the sack. Saturday was practice and qualifying. Saturday night was full on party. I'm talkin' full on keggers then trips to the nearest titty or biker bar. Once the bikers learned that we raced bikes they embraced us as their own. If you have never partied till dawn in a biker bar, your missing out on one of life's strangest experiences, it is the antithesis of Norman Rockwell's America. I remember one night, there was a stripper so drunk that she made herself dizzy spinning round the poll that she puked all over the stripper podium. Bless her heart, she staggered up to her feet, wiped her mouth and finished the dance! Sunday mornings we would get up early and head to the track or if we were camping at the track, crawl from our tents, and crap behind a tree. How we managed to get up early and be all bright-eyed and bushy tailed is beyond me. But we did, week in, week out. Then we would race all day long, unless you happened to crash. Then you would spend the day trying to cobble the bike back together so you could make the last race of the day. After that last race we would pack up and head home. Back to the "real" world.
And so began the pairing of Motorcycles and drinking. It worked well, as we didn't actually ride drunk but the two seemed to flow effortlessly from one to the other.
Many years have passed. Now, racing Super Bikes at over 150 miles per hour is something I watch on TV. I still love motorcycles and I still love Beer but the two don't coexist very well. I do one at the total exclusion of the other. My yin has lost its yang. It's a bit of a pain in the ass, I'd love to ride more often but many, if not most of my excursions include a quick stop in to some bar, pub, brewery or restaurant. So more often than not, I take the car. Having a beer or two while still under the legal limit of .08 is a beer or two too many if you have 100+ horsepower weighing a scant 400 pounds between your legs (especially so if you have a propensity for doing stupid shit, as I do). Not to mention it is hard to buy and bring home anything larger than a pack of gum.
This got me to thinking. How about a bike with a side car? Big, slow and very hard to fall off. And they have storage! Now I'm on a quest to find a bike with a side car. Pretty quickly I find this Russian motorcycle company on the net, Ural (like the mountain range) which is basically a complete rip off of a 1940's BMW motorcycle save for a modern electrical system and Brembo brakes. The kicker is that this thing is two wheel drive! The potential for doing stupid shit is off the charts! One evening while I was online watching videos of these things on the beach, in the woods, in the snow etc... I stumbled on a video with a sound track that sounded to me like a Russian guy singing American style blues. I loved it! I had to figure out who or what this music was . Then it hit me, I have an App on my phone that "listens" to whatever music is playing and tells you who, what where and when about it. Would it "know" this Russian guy? Never, right? I tried it out and sure as shit it did! One small problem, everything was in Russian. Shit! Okay I can work around this. I copied the guys name and pasted it into the World Lingo online translator. Viola, I have his name with all the letters pointed in the right direction. I copied his name, now in English and pasted it into YouTube. Bingo! Russian blues. Lots of it, some of it is pretty good too. I've been hooked on it now for months. Give it a listen, there is a link below.
Though I have not bought the bike, it is on my "gotta get it, one day" list. You can get it from the factory in camo, all I'd need is a WW1 German helmet with the spike on top!
And that is how motorcycles and beer introduced me to Russian blues.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ewjRCFr20yw&feature=related
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