Harley Davidson by James Henderson
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It was like one of those logic tests at college: biking is all about freedom, America is the Land of the Free; the All-American bike is the Harley-Davidson. Conclusion: a Harley trip across the States, Live the Dream. So, California here we come--miles and miles of open road, wind in the hair, Sheryl Crow on the personal stereo, a steed like a runaway carthorse, off to get my kicks (on Route 66, where else).
I picked up the bike in LA. A Harley-Davidson Heritage Softail; it is a remake of the Hardtail rigid frame bikes and so it has an older, fifties style, with an acreage of chrome and huge round headlights and running lights, but it uses the best of modern technology in the belt drive, hidden rear suspension and 5-speed transmission. At 1340 CC, it is no sewing-machine on wheels. The V2 aluminium engine is bigger than many modern cars.
The Softail is long and low slung, like a horse at the gallop--it even has a seat like a horse’s saddle and studded, black leather saddle bags and so riding it I felt a bit like a modern-day cowboy. I fancy I even began to walk with a bow-legged swagger. It was a heavy beast to ride. I drove a tank once, just for a laugh. Cranking the Harley through the gears felt about the same. And throwing it into the corners wasn’t much different either. But it purred like a cat through the towns at fifty-five and then snarled like a tiger at the sight of an open road.
In the Mojave Desert the road soared off into the heat haze ahead, straight for miles and miles. The only other signs of human life were a couple of windscreens glinting in the far distance. Either side the mountains rolled by, reflected in the chrome of the headlight. The Mojave is so desolate and hot that General Patten used it to train his troops for North Africa. It was fearsomely hot in August. Even cruising at a smooth eighty (whoops, sixty-five) the wind flicked and lashed at my face like a bonfire.
Next stop was Las Vegas, which shimmered like a cartoon mirage in the desert: with the New York skyline and a pyramid of all things jostling the other thousand room theme hotels--Aladdin, Treasure Island and Caesar’s Palace. My favourite was Excalibur (4032 rooms), a mock-medieval fairytale palace where Maid Marians and Friar Tucks wandered about and kids waved rubbery swords of destiny at each other. There are even Lippizaner horses and a jousting show.
The gaming floors in Las Vegas can be measured in square miles: rows and rows of slot-machines that warble and occasionally clunk money out. Dean, a barman at Caesar’s Palace, was dressed in a ruff collar and bright blue tuxedo. He bobbed quickly from one customer to the next, serving or clearing up the bar. ‘Busy, tonight, you think?’ I asked.
‘Can’t tell,’ he said, ‘can’t tell. Never can. If I could, I’d be a winner, right,’ racing off to serve another beer to another customer.
It all seemed rather dreary to me, so many people sitting in front of slot machines for the whole night with an ice-cream bucket full of quarters, but who am I to be a sour puss in the face of such a relentless entertainment. And somehow, with so much innocent nonsense around (the Cleopatra barmaids and the theme Country music restaurants with square dancers outside), I never expected any sleaze. But there it was, inevitably, with special picture magazines handed out to you on the streetside and an easy phone number to remember: Call 796 NUDE.
It was a bit of a relief when the city receded to a shimmering mirage once again. Sheryl Crow said it all: ‘Leaving Las Vegas.. and I won’t be back’. My sentiments exactly.
Back in the desert I had an odd sensation of riding into a landscape. And what a landscape. The road swung and switch-backed left and right and mountains rose around me in extraordinary colours: vibrant orange, chocolate brown and faded magenta. I never thought that khaki could look so good. As we entered Utah (lid off and wind in the hair--there is no helmet law in Utah) dry storms flashed their forks of lightning in the distance, scratching the table mountains that stood vast and immobile like ranges of ragged teeth, pearly strata on rust-coloured gums. In Zion National Park, whole slabs a hundred metres across were ready to fall off and crash into the canyon floor, on their inevitable path to erosion. It is almost impossible to describe, but it so beautiful that you know that you are privileged to see it.
On the Arizona border, where there were canyons as deep as the vermilion mountains above, I was standing at a petrol pump, when the station was overtaken by a thunderous, almost threatening, roar. Ten bikes, all Harleys, cruised into the forecourt and amassed around the pumps. A couple of riders looked over at the Softail and raised an eyebrow and nodded greetings. We fell into conversation, about Harleys and about the dream.
‘It’s a mid-life thing’, said Jerry, ‘when you realize the golf course on a Saturday afternoon just isn’t working out. A group of us took to bikes. We’re on a hairy-legs tour this weekend. Got no women with us.’
It takes all sorts, I suppose. These guys were Harley fans to the core. They had all the kit; the bikes, the clothes. At the cash till Jerry pulled out his money, a wad of dollars in a gold Harley-Davidson clip.
They left with another tumultuous roar and the lady cashier turned to me and said:
‘Terrible noise, but you couldn’t meet a nicer bunch of guys.’
Route 66 has a fond place in the American memory. It was the first highway to link the east and west coasts. It cam to be known as the Mother Road because so many people used it to head west, in search of the Californian dream. It was a brutal time. During the thirties and forties thousands and thousands of displaced farm-workers from Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas migrated along it. Many starved and died along the way, others simply had to settle where their vehicles broke down. And some who made it were simply turned away when they reached the Californian border.
Much of the old Route 66 has been overlaid with newer, more modern roads (mostly by Interstate 40), but original sections of the old Route 66 do remain. Arizona has 160 miles of it, studded occasionally with one-street towns that still have the air of the old-time 66. The broken-down gas stations and motels speak of the better times, but they are evocative of the era and there are still enough cafes and diners to make a good tour.
In the small town of Seligman, we had a prodigious breakfast at Lilo’s Cafe: eggs over-easy, hash-browns, sausage and bacon and a vat of coffee. Taking a walk to work it off I came across Larry Murphy, a Route 66 enthusiast who moved to the town to be nearer the source of his pleasure. He drives a white Thunderbird, over thirty years old and in near mint condition. He remembers travelling Route 66 when he was a child and tells of his father breaking down on ‘the road’.
‘I like old things. That’s right. Cars and such. Except you gotta keep yer whisky old and yer women young,’ he said, in a passing reference to his wife, who is thirty years his junior.
‘We spent our honeymoon in Las Vegas’, he said, ‘and that was kinda fun. We stayed at the Excalibur and did the show, with the jousting and that, and where you have to eat just with your hands, like they did in the old times.’
Bikers are a community of course. Each time another rider sped by we would exchange a slowhand greeting. On a twisting, turning section of the Road in the mountains I was overtaken by a Sportster.
We met up again in Oatman. He was a Vietnam veteran, hair down to his mid-back and trusty denims and he called himself Rough (from rider). Oatman was once a gold-mining town, but now it make its living as a theme Wild West town, where cowboys stage mock gunfights in the street. They even do gunfight weddings for you: cowboys drag the bridegroom off, but he’s brought back by the Sheriff with a rope around his neck and delivered to the bride(!). A good start to married life, anyway. In the Motherlode Restaurant a Western band was playing, taking off Michael Jackson’s ’I’m Bad’ with their own creation: ‘I’m Fat...!’.
‘It’s kinda hookey, I reckon, this place’ said Rough, ‘but it’s kinda fun too.’
He waved goodbye with a roar and a spray of gravel from the roadside and sped off home to Kingman.
I was headed the other way of course, into California, across the Mojave desert again and then through the extended suburbs of Los Angeles, to the very end of Route 66 in Santa Monica. Cheryl Crow said it all again: ‘All I wanna do is have some fun... till the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard’.
I’ll have to admit that it wasn’t actually dawn when I reached the very end of Route 66, where Sant Monica Boulevard reaches the Pacific Ocean. In fact the light of day was fading with the sundown, but as I cruised the boulevard, the city spun by either side in the chrome of the huge headlight: the tall palm trees, the smart houses of Beverly Hills, billboards for jeans and Farmers’ Insurance and then down on the beach, the joggers and rollerbladers who played on the seafront.