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#1
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Today at 12:48 AMI pulled Lucy up and onto the narrow concrete porch that fronted the motel and tied her tarp down. There, under the overhang, she was partially sheltered and I could see her through my room's picture window. Perhaps three minutes after closing the door on the dust devils in the parking lot, the rain began in opaque slanting sheets and hazelnut-sized hail pelted down in a snare drum of noise on the metal roof. There are few things so blissful as to be dry and safe and sheltered when storm rages just inches away. With Lucy parked just outside the window, shedding rain and out of the worst of the weather, country music videos on the television, and a can of chili for dinner eaten cold with a spoon, I was content.
Breaking The Limit Karen Larsen p52
Breaking The Limit Karen Larsen p52
#2
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Apr 21, 2026, 12:26 AMA tiny woman, sitting with her husband at a sparkling white Formica table onto which sandwiches had just been deposited, stood up.
"C'mon, honey, I'll take you down to the pump and you can use my card."
"No, I'm interrupting. Please, sit down, finish your lunch, I can wait."
"No, no, it's not going anywheres. C'mon, I've done this for others before, and I can certainly do it for you." Pat was in her late fifties with twinkling green eyes, carefully arranged hair, green slacks, and a white sweater so spotless it glowed in the misty afternoon light. At five feet three inches I towered a good head above her, but she seemed a woman who, for whatever she lacked in stature, more than made up for it in warmth and kindness. At the pump she ran her card through and we talked about her part of Kansas and my desire to see the country as I ran a little less than two dollars' worth of gas into Lucy's tank. I asked if she had ever done any travelling around the States.
"No," Pat said. "I'm not one of those travelling folks, going here and there. I like it here, the furthest I been away from Logan is Colby, and I don't want to go anywheres else. Some people they go here, they go there, but me, I like to stay home, and I've never really wanted to go and see... you know... the Grand Canyon... or Las Vegas." The pump stopped. I screwed the cap back on the tank and reached for my wallet.
"Now you put that away," Pat said. "What is it, all of two dollars? I'm not going to take that from you." She wished me good luck, told me to be careful, stepped back into her white Cutlass to drive up the street to where her lunch waited. I pulled my driving gloves back on, watching her taillights and thinking about the people who spent years, and sometimes their entire lives, searching the world for what Pat knew she had in Logan, Kansas: an understanding of place, a sense of belonging.
Breaking The Limit Karen Larsen p46-7
"C'mon, honey, I'll take you down to the pump and you can use my card."
"No, I'm interrupting. Please, sit down, finish your lunch, I can wait."
"No, no, it's not going anywheres. C'mon, I've done this for others before, and I can certainly do it for you." Pat was in her late fifties with twinkling green eyes, carefully arranged hair, green slacks, and a white sweater so spotless it glowed in the misty afternoon light. At five feet three inches I towered a good head above her, but she seemed a woman who, for whatever she lacked in stature, more than made up for it in warmth and kindness. At the pump she ran her card through and we talked about her part of Kansas and my desire to see the country as I ran a little less than two dollars' worth of gas into Lucy's tank. I asked if she had ever done any travelling around the States.
"No," Pat said. "I'm not one of those travelling folks, going here and there. I like it here, the furthest I been away from Logan is Colby, and I don't want to go anywheres else. Some people they go here, they go there, but me, I like to stay home, and I've never really wanted to go and see... you know... the Grand Canyon... or Las Vegas." The pump stopped. I screwed the cap back on the tank and reached for my wallet.
"Now you put that away," Pat said. "What is it, all of two dollars? I'm not going to take that from you." She wished me good luck, told me to be careful, stepped back into her white Cutlass to drive up the street to where her lunch waited. I pulled my driving gloves back on, watching her taillights and thinking about the people who spent years, and sometimes their entire lives, searching the world for what Pat knew she had in Logan, Kansas: an understanding of place, a sense of belonging.
Breaking The Limit Karen Larsen p46-7
#3
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Apr 20, 2026, 12:52 AMThe metal grating that formed the roadbed of the arch was like that of the bridges that I had driven many times before across the Delaware River between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, but the span was longer, and not flat. I can understand why bridge builders like metal grating: it's relatively cheap, strong, and will not collect pooled water, or ice and snow, like solid surfaces. The problem with metal grating, however, is that its rough corrugations pull the wheels of motorcycles from side to side. It's an unnerving feeling to have a bike shift unbidden beneath you, and for a moment, coming over the uphill slope toward the apex of that bridge over the Mississippi, I felt the hairs rise on the back of my neck as Lucy slid toward the guardrail. In the shift of the bike one must consciously control the instinctive reaction to set a foot down hard to correct an unexpected sideslip. I know people who have done this on metal grate bridges and have had broken ankles to show for it. Feet on the pegs, feet on the pegs. The words ran through my mind, a self-repeating mantra, and I tried to consciously relax and let Lucy run between my hands, guided yet loose, slow enough to keep control, yet fast enough to keep a driving forward momentum. We passed into Iowa without incident and I stopped to take a picture of that Mississippi River bridge: the divide between the eastern and western United States as well as a tiny personal victory.
Breaking The Limit Karen Larsen p30-1
Breaking The Limit Karen Larsen p30-1
#4
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Apr 19, 2026, 03:22 AMThe man behind the register had steady eyes, brown skin, and a sweet smile. He took my five-dollar bill and, looking through the window at the bags on Lucy, asked me where I was going. I almost didn't believe the unnatural squeak of my own voice when I heard the word "Alaska". Two minutes later, out on the pavement by the pumps, I was wedging my water bottle between the T-bag and the backpack when the attendant appeared.
"Here," he said, pressing a tiny tiger-tail keychain into my hand. "You should collect something from each state that you go through." He cast no judgement on my destination or choice of vehicle and in that gift, a promotional Exxon key chain, and the small suggestion to gather mementos along the way, was the implicit statement that such a journey was possible. My mind quieted and my confidence returned as he shook my hand and wished me luck.
Breaking The Limit Karen Larsen p11
"Here," he said, pressing a tiny tiger-tail keychain into my hand. "You should collect something from each state that you go through." He cast no judgement on my destination or choice of vehicle and in that gift, a promotional Exxon key chain, and the small suggestion to gather mementos along the way, was the implicit statement that such a journey was possible. My mind quieted and my confidence returned as he shook my hand and wished me luck.
Breaking The Limit Karen Larsen p11
#5
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Apr 18, 2026, 07:54 AMIt was on the way back to campus that I saw a motorcycle parked on someone's front lawn with a sale sign tucked between the handlebars and the windshield. I pulled over and walked across the grass to look at a piece of machinery that somehow had just started a song playing inside my mind. She was a Harley-Davidson 1200 Sportster, red with chrome accessories, black leather saddlebags and seat, custom straight pipes, a peanut tank, and less than three thousand miles on the odometer.
I wrapped my right hand around the throttle and immediately realized that this motorcycle was something I recognized. Maybe she could teach me - as Rosie had taught me - love for, and connection with, a region that was not my own. Maybe this motorcycle could, as Rosie had done years ago, open a whole new landscape of thought and motion.
Lucy, as I came to know that Sportster, did all of that and more.
Breaking The Limit Karen Larsen p3
I wrapped my right hand around the throttle and immediately realized that this motorcycle was something I recognized. Maybe she could teach me - as Rosie had taught me - love for, and connection with, a region that was not my own. Maybe this motorcycle could, as Rosie had done years ago, open a whole new landscape of thought and motion.
Lucy, as I came to know that Sportster, did all of that and more.
Breaking The Limit Karen Larsen p3
#6
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Apr 17, 2026, 05:34 AMI walked a fine line as I taught. I loved my classroom and my students, but it was often mentally exhausting work. On the bike, however, out there with Rosie between the fields and the forests, I could leave the restrictions of my classroom behind. Out there, with four hundred pounds of machinery humming beneath me, my thoughts would center on what was immediate - the road and the surrounding environment - and my mind would relax and renew. Out there, hundreds of miles of secondary road riding later, I came to know, and to love, a region that was not my own.
Breaking The Limit Karen Larsen p xv
Breaking The Limit Karen Larsen p xv
#7
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Apr 16, 2026, 01:54 AMDriving a motorcycle is a sensual, visceral, and immediate experience. It's the blast of air parting in an almost physical way around your body. It's the feel of heavy steel machinery between your thighs and knees as you move through turns, running a good road on a clear warm morning. It's the taste of wet grass, deep woods, damp riverbanks, and freshly cut hay that finds its way to the back your throat. You know and experience what is around you and feel the very sensation of motion itself, in a way that you never can behind the wheel of a car.
In a car you drive a road, on a motorcycle you feel it. On a motorcycle every rise and dip, every change in surface or cant, every turn and straightway, is a temporal and physical experience. In a car you are enclosed, removed from what is outside by the machinery that moves you. The windshield, the air-conditioning, the heater, the radio, the upholstered cradle of your seat, the locked doors, the surrounding frame, they all separate you from the reality of the road and weather. On a motorcycle the machine and the environment are an integral part of the experience. As you come home in the afternoon, the sun touches your shoulders with great warm hands. Somewhere in the middle of a long day of riding - especially on curves, where lean and torque, body and bike angle, gravity and speed, determine the physics and the line of movement - the machine becomes an extension of the body, a melding of what is human and what is mechanical.
Breaking The Limit Karen Larsen p xii
In a car you drive a road, on a motorcycle you feel it. On a motorcycle every rise and dip, every change in surface or cant, every turn and straightway, is a temporal and physical experience. In a car you are enclosed, removed from what is outside by the machinery that moves you. The windshield, the air-conditioning, the heater, the radio, the upholstered cradle of your seat, the locked doors, the surrounding frame, they all separate you from the reality of the road and weather. On a motorcycle the machine and the environment are an integral part of the experience. As you come home in the afternoon, the sun touches your shoulders with great warm hands. Somewhere in the middle of a long day of riding - especially on curves, where lean and torque, body and bike angle, gravity and speed, determine the physics and the line of movement - the machine becomes an extension of the body, a melding of what is human and what is mechanical.
Breaking The Limit Karen Larsen p xii
#8
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Apr 14, 2026, 02:08 AMWe finally reached the garage. The owner was there and so was the motorcycle. I paid him storage fees and rolled the bike out to put on the rack. The motorcycle weighs 450 pounds. It was not an easy thing to lift and fit in the back but we did it. It fit very snugly against the rear of the Corvair. The Corvair's engine is in the rear and so was the motorcycle. Standing beside the car and looking at it was a sight to behold. It looked like it was ready for lift off. The front end of the Corvair barely touched the ground.
We piled in the car and drove it about a quarter of a mile. There was very little front tire contact with the ground. The car seemed to seesaw between touching the ground and being air-borne. This would not do. We turned around and went back to the garage. We took the motorcycle off and put the rack in the front of the car along with the motorcycle. I sat in the front seat and stared at the motorcycle which was eye level with me. I couldn't see over it. This would not work!
This was surely a comedy of errors.
Those Were The Days Edward Walls p122
We piled in the car and drove it about a quarter of a mile. There was very little front tire contact with the ground. The car seemed to seesaw between touching the ground and being air-borne. This would not do. We turned around and went back to the garage. We took the motorcycle off and put the rack in the front of the car along with the motorcycle. I sat in the front seat and stared at the motorcycle which was eye level with me. I couldn't see over it. This would not work!
This was surely a comedy of errors.
Those Were The Days Edward Walls p122
#9
LD Ride Reports / Re: How not to ride a SS1600
Last post by Biggles - Apr 13, 2026, 11:50 AMHow could THAT happen? You did everything right, and missed by a measly 9 clicks. Just don't seem fair.
But that's a nice stream-of-consciousness account, and as you philosophically recognise, that ride, capped by the inspiring night was what it was all about, not a certificate to file among the others ridden with less uplifting experiences.
But that's a nice stream-of-consciousness account, and as you philosophically recognise, that ride, capped by the inspiring night was what it was all about, not a certificate to file among the others ridden with less uplifting experiences.
#10
General Discussion / Re: From the Library
Last post by Biggles - Apr 13, 2026, 11:40 AMI changed buses in Buffalo, New York and the next stop was Reading, Pennsylvania. I slept all the way through the ride and was still groggy when I got off the bus at Reading. There was a bus loading to go to Allentown and me and my crutches with the bag went over to the Allentown bus. Unbeknownst to me it was Sunday morning.
The bus was packed with passengers. They were all silver haired church ladies. As I shuffled down the aisle after awkwardly getting up the steps with crutches and bag, all eyes looked down to the floor or out the window. They were as afraid of me as I as of them. Fortunately there was a mafia looking guy down the right side of the aisle who gave me eye contact and motioned that I was acceptable and I could sit next to him.
Those Were The Days Edward Walls p117
The bus was packed with passengers. They were all silver haired church ladies. As I shuffled down the aisle after awkwardly getting up the steps with crutches and bag, all eyes looked down to the floor or out the window. They were as afraid of me as I as of them. Fortunately there was a mafia looking guy down the right side of the aisle who gave me eye contact and motioned that I was acceptable and I could sit next to him.
Those Were The Days Edward Walls p117