lifestyle
jacktheriepe
I gave it the acid test. The seat felt
like two extra gigantic hands were cupping my butt, and I wasn’t even getting all the way back into the sad- dle. The plan was to meet riding buddy and general conspirator Dick Bregstein for lunch at the Himalayan Indian restaurant. He would be the first to admire my new seat. Only four miles away from the Hindi place, I wasn’t able to give the saddle a workout. The three traffic lights between me and the highway were all green and I never had to put me feet down at all. I barely had to slow down before parking the bike right in front of the restaurant. There is nothing like a bit of an
eye-opener on a short
run...Espe- cially in the last ten seconds or so. I barely remembered about being for- ward in the saddle when putting my feet down and found my toes strug- gling to find the pavement. This was still not an issue. Then I tried to get off the bike. My arthritis was such that I could bend my right knee one way, to get on, but I couldn’t move my
right hip in the opposite way to swing my leg over the new fat man wing to get off. It appeared that I would be unable to dis- mount the bike. Panic set in after six more tries. I attempted to call Dick on his cell phone. (He was sitting in the restaurant 20 feet away.) Dick uses Amish Cellular, which is one step above shouting. That didn’t work, so I started to blow the horn. A boy scout, who understood Morse code, ran inside yelling, “There is a man trapped on a motorcycle, who needs Dick to lift his leg.” The lunch crowd didn’t quite get the
meaning of this and started a small riot. Bregstein emerged with his signature
look of incredulity and confusion. He saw my face was as red as the paint on the bike and busted out laughing. “You really can’t get off the bike?” he asked. Dick popped back into the restaurant, to reappear with a camera and six of the waiters. “These guys are going to lift you off the bike while I YouTube the rescue,” he said. The biggest of the waiters weighed about
90 pounds. Their attempts to lift me off the bike were hysterical. Bregstein’s laughter was maniacal. I eventually maneuvered the bike parallel to the curb and used the
sidewalk to gain another four inches of dis- mount, which did the trick. Before heading home, I practiced braking and holding the bike upright. There was another bit of a trick to flatfooting the K 75 with this seat at full stops, and I had it mastered in no time. The arthritis was getting worse, leaving me with fewer options for mounting and dis- mounting. One of the guys in my club soon devised a portable step that I used for the next three years. For the record, the Russell Day-Long Saddle gets five stars in my book. Author’s Note — I have no business rela-
tionship with Russell Cycle Products and was not compensated for mentioning their name.
A Message From Jack Riepe — The new edi- tion of my book, Conversations With A Motorcycle, is hung up in production. There are problems with the sole illustration, a map. My publishing partners claim there is no place called “Doucheville” in New Jersey, and refuse to print the map that way. (I have former in-laws from Doucheville.) An update from my pub- lishing partner reads: “Dear Jack, Drink poison.” There are limited copies of the original book left. These are on the verge of becoming collector’s items. To order one of these, email your name, address and telephone number to
jack.riepe@gmail.com Please put “Order For Remaining Books” in the subject line.
My Russell Day-Long Saddle was made to the measurement of my butt and is the largest vinyl-covered structure in the world.
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BMW OWNERS NEWS September 2015
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