The Beginning: Part Deux

The Beginning: Part One briefly mentioned my great friend E. R. Sprague and a little shout out to him. I quickly switched to a back story and never came back around. By then it was 2 a.m. on Friday morning and decided to instead of fix it, I would call it part one and follow it up with a part deux tying it all together.

This is part deux.

Five years after that accident and I hadn't touched a motorcycle since that day. Partly due to my friends feigning for my safety and not letting me touch their bikes, but I think they were truly more worried about their bikes. My fascination with motorbikes didn't change at all. I can't say that I was passionate about them yet, but they certainly hadn't left my mind. For my senior project, which everyone had to do to graduate high school, I made an extreme sports video. Truth be told, I video taped a lot of extreme sports that year but never learned how to put it all together.

At this point, five years later, is when I ran into Eliot. R. Sprague at my new job. I knew several people at this place before I started, and one of my good friends James told me, "You'll get along great with the guy that sits here. He hunts, and rides motorcycles." Truth be told when he got back from vacation and I did meet him I was very intimidated.

Some how over that next year we became friends. He bought me a cordless drill and shop light set for my birthday and started to ensure I had all the things I needed to be a man out on his own. One day while at his house for lunch I noticed he had a big dirt-bike in his garage. I didn't ask about it. Simply took note and muddled along. I believe he told me it had a broken frame, and consequently he had also broken his foot at the same time. I think.

Throughout that year, James, whom had introduced me to Eliot, and I started looking at buying motorbikes. I was mostly just dreaming, although if I had had any money I probably would have bought new, and I think James was just dreaming to. At least he was after his girlfriend found out about it. She wanted none of that! Too bad really, I think he would have been a lot of fun to ride with.

I think one of the things that solidified it for Jen, James' girlfriend at the time and now wife, was when James, his friend, and I went down to the local Honda shop because his friend wanted to test drive the new 600F4I. Twenty minutes later, after wondering where he went for a joy ride at, he rolls up missing 1/2 the fenders, a bloody arm and a bent steer bar. He rode home that night with the same bike. Not sure if it was due to feeling bad that he had wrecked it, or if he just loved it that much regardless of the fact that he just wrecked it. Either way, Jen was fanatically against bikes at that time. Exit James, enter Eliot full throttle.

It wasn't a few months later that I started looking at craigslist and simultaneously noticed that Eliot was riding a motorcycle into work. It wasn't the dirt bike I once saw in his garage, this was different. This was a 1982 Honda CB650. It looked old, and tired, and not at all like the bike I envisioned myself on (at the time a 97' Honda Magna 750).

It wasn't but a short time later after seeing Eliot do some performance upgrades to it that I started to fall in love. A few more craigslist ads and a two hour lunch later and we rolled back to work with my own 1982 CB650. What I was thinking I have no idea. I had just received a large birthday gift from a relative after a family deal had gone through. I had no endorsement, had never ridden a street legal bike before, wasn't even sure where I was going to park it.

The bike was as old as I was. It was not at all what I had envisioned starting out on. But immediately I knew it was my long lost brother. My twin. Separated at birth. But that was just the beginning.

You Are My Hero

Yesterday;
Gray;
Cloudy;
Hot;
Funny;
Smiles;
Laughter;
Too much food;
Graduation;
My Lady;
My bike;
My hero;

It was a busy day. Attending an event of the religiously organized only to hear a kid scream while a man in a goatee was pouring out edification, all the while..me...wanting to sucker punch a 20 something female in the face for gabbing on about the kid screaming while a man in a goatee was pouring out edification. This isn't the religiously organized event for me.
From there, a stop, for gas, a bottle of water...why'd you drink it all?
Over the St. Johns bridge the Willamette was wonderful, serene, wet, but the sun was trying to sneak through.
We stopped, with great anticipation at the honda shop in Beaverton. It's a bit large for my taste, but the guys seem to be helpful. I purchased new riding gear, black, retro-reflective. I told my wife all I need is a Katana. She asked, "whatever for?" I said, "So I can be a biker ninja!" She laughed, and said she loved me.
While at the store I stopped to look at this. My hero, my love.
The quality is great. Endorsed by some very high end athletes, and the price is very reasonable. I'm curious to know how quickly the batteries charge, and how much real recording time one can get.
This would be the perfect addition to the trip, beyond the other camera I will be obtaining.

Nathan Wide

R: Nate, I hope you saw the "interview" I did with your brother. Same style. Feel free to answer them any way that you like. You can be serious, or nervous, or just down right wacky. The idea is to give our readers an idea into who we are, or who we want them to think we are.

R: Cool?

R: Okay, here we go


R: So Nate? Nathan? Natey? Frank? What do you prefer to go by?

N: Usually people call me Nathan, and sometimes Nate. That's about it. Not too exciting. Maybe the trip will be a good place to receive a nickname.

R: Cool, so I guess we should start by asking who you are, and why I'm doing an interview with you?

N: I am Nathan Trueb. I'm a musician who lives in Portland that likes all things vintage, including motorcycles.

R: Okay, so that's cool and all, but really, in the big scheme of things...who are you? I mean as it pertains to the universe.

N: Dust in the wind... right? Did I get it right?

R: So I think everyone knows what this trip is and where we are going. How'd you get hooked up with me and Eliot for this trip. I don't even think I know how you got roped into these shenanigans..

N: Eliot definitely coaxed me into going. We were hanging out welding a statue of a large-mouth-bass and taking copious amounts of Peyote, and it hit me... my whole life has been leading up to this trip. Oreo, his pet chicken, squawked in a way that spoke volumes of knowledge, knowledge from the future, and that future involved three things: hot springs, men, and fried trout. That's when I knew.

R: Wow, okay men and fried trout eh? Not my thing but okay... so what is your goal for this trip? Anything profound or are you just coming to ride bikes and drink beer?

N: I hope to discover a part of Oregon that has not yet been discovered. I've been trying to bone-up on my cartography skills, and I've also read Sun Tzu's, "The Art of War", 7 times... just in case.

R: Whats your lady friend going to do while you are gone? Are you going to call her while you are gone?

N: She will probably be hard at work fixing a hole where the rain gets in. Yes, I will call her, as my service allows.

R: Ha, leave the lady to do the mans work huh?
So the other day we were hanging out at the.barrage, and you were wearing cut off jean shorts. Whats up with that? Are you trying to make some sort of retro statement or something?

N: I actually hate wearing shorts. I don't know if it's due to some traumatic experience that I have repressed, but what I do know is that I would rather where cut-off jean-shorts than any other kind of shorts, and I have no idea why.


R: Okay, switching gears here. We're on the road-trip, and the world ends, or at least life as we know it. No phones, cars stop working, but motorbikes still work. We have to stick together or die. What do you do? What skills do you have that keep you alive?

N: Funny you should ask. I'm an expert with toddlers, and I am working on a shot that gives friends the flu... as a joke.

R: Also, are you wearing underwear...

N: ... ...

R: no..? weird, but okay.


R: So hows your music career coming? Tell us more about that?

N: I am making a living playing and teaching and that is more than I
could ask for. My favorite part of my music career is making music
with the band Aaron and I started called, Tango Alpha Tango. We are
always recording and playing live, which is really great. The only
thing that we haven't done much of is get on the road. I feel like I
was one of the few people made for a life on the road. I love
traveling in vans/buses around the country playing music. It's what I
hope to do. A lot of musicians that "make it" always complain about
life on the road... I don't think I would be one of those people.
Maybe that's another reason why this trip sounded so appealing...
because I have never done a road trip with motorcycles, camping, and
fishing, etc.

R: You are really taking some time away to come on this trip then, you could be
writing music or practicing. Is this going to hurt you going into the
summer, or do you think ti's going to help?

N: It will help. It's always a good thing to "take a break" from the
monotony of life. Often times when I'm forced to do that, like going
on a trip like this, I come back to music, and my instrument with a
very fresh approach, and new ideas. Of course, I'm sure we'll have an
acoustic or two, so I won't be completely removed, I guess.

R: Can I play the mouth harp in one of your songs?

N: No. Well, maybe, what do I get out of the deal?

R: Umm....you get to have me play the mouth harp in one of your songs....nevermind?

R: Do you think you'll figure out how to plug motorcycles into your next
album? either in lyrics, artwork, or as an instrumental? I have to say,
throwing some motorbike in somewhere might give you a bit of street cred!

N: Not sure if there will be any motorcycle references... you know the
last album had a line,

"I heard from the man who reads the polls,
That you still had a motorcycle of a soul"

From- "I Have Stopped Thinking About You"

R: Cool, well I'm hungry, and you're kinda boring, so whats one last thing you
want to say to all of our hip followers?

N: Well, just so you know I'm watching you, literally. Right this
moment. And no, you don't look good in your wife's heels.

R: Haha, well that's great... Well thanks for your time Nathan. We'll look for you on the road!

Number Four

The Stock CB650 I mentioned yesterday needs some work. Now, I don't mean it won't ride, or even that it won't ride well. She is just crying for some love. In all this Pacific Northwest winter blunderness I think she may just want to curl up next to me and R2 (my cleverly nick-named, kerosene furnace, named for it's subtle resemblance of the Star Wars Icon), and spend a little time together.

For example; tonight I spent 3 hours sitting on my cooler.It is one of those nifty tail gating coolers with cup holders in the lid that fits a cool can of Pabst smoothly. In one cup holder sat just that; a cool can of Pabst, smoothly. In the other: roughly 50 Q-Tips. Between the two on the lid sat my Ryobi shoplight. The one with the large battery and a swivel head, provided to me almost four years ago by Eliot to a young-man in need of a hobby. On the floor in front of that was a small Tupperware with just enough mineral spirits to cover the bottom of the container.

I spent those hours taking a single Q-Tip, dipping one end in the mineral spirits and scrubing ferociously at the number 4 exhaust header opening, turning the Q-Tip around and wiping off the grease and grime. Followed by a nice smooth sip of Pabst. Repeat 50 times and you've cleaned number four fairly thoroughly and a little around the whole.

All in all, a pretty romantic evening curled up by my CB. And of course completely worth it to spend a few days on the Owyhee casting a fly after a 3 day ride with the best of friends by ones side.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Two Wheels And A Fly Rod

It's started. "Possibly the best trip ever."
Currently: two bikes, both 1982 Honda CB650's. One Cafe, One Stock.
Destination: Scenic views of barren roads and supple rivers.
Hope: Two more motorbikes and a Tail Vehicle.