I emptied my savings account to buy a used Harley Sportster from my friend’s mom’s second ex-husband. (To be fair, they were still married at the time of the transaction.)
I’d spent the year after college splitting time between living at home and in my aunt and uncle’s spare room because it was closer to work. Despite my student loan payments, I’d managed to scrape together a couple thousand bucks. I’d just moved to a rental house in Mankato with Jake and one of my other college roommates. My job as an admission counselor at Gustavus was fun and new. I lived a 20-minute drive away. And I’d just turned 24.
Why wouldn’t I buy myself a Harley? I didn’t care if it was the smallest, cheapest, most uncomfortable bike they made.
Not to be outdone, Jake bought a used Suzuki Boulevard a few months later.
We were young guys on our own, making a little money for the first time. We had no real problems or commitments or major life stressors, though you never really recognize that at the time.
We called ourselves the Thunder Volcanoes.
I regret that we never had patches made.
On quiet weekends, we’d ride out west of Mankato on the Judson Bottom Road that rolls along the Minnesota River, head north to Nicollet and stop at Schmidt’s Meat Market, then glide east to Saint Peter. We picked up Rabbit Road along the river bottom, then followed the Kasota prairie past the stone quarries and back south into Mankato.
We strapped duffel bags to our seats, crammed clothes in a backpack, and rode up north to the Loon’s Roost. Neither of us had windshields, so the trip to the cabin was a four-hour endurance test with highway-speed winds to the chest and the backpack pulling you to the rear. Our traps and lats would be sore for days. A couple times we met up with Dahlke on the way to the cabin, buzzing in from intersecting interstates and merging in St. Paul like worker bees queueing up to return to the hive.
I roamed Minnesota’s driftless area in a ragtag group of big guys on little bikes, me on my Sportster, Dahlke on his old rebuilt Honda, and another buddy from high school on a cafe racer he’d cobbled together on his own.
We never ran into any Hell’s Angels, but I don’t think they would’ve given us much trouble.
Twice, Jake and I got stuck in bad, sudden downpours and were glad to ride away. Another time I went to the shoulder to thread the needle between the Jersey barrier and a no-look merger on Highway 100 west of Minneapolis. That was a fun one. It wasn’t till the highway opened up in Shakopee that I was able to unclench my jaw.
We were in a parking lot in Mankato once when a driver cut me off and I somehow avoided the accident but went over the handlebars into a grass median. Jake was surprised when I somersaulted right through it and popped to my feet. It was adrenaline, I guess, or muscle memory from those “falling lessons” as a kid at the local Taekwondo studio. I was fine, just shaken up. The bike survived with a scratch.
Still, I never got over the feeling that my boots, jacket, and vest were just a costume.
I don’t know why that is, but it probably made it easier to hang them up for good.
After those few golden summers, I found myself taking the bike out less and less. I’m not sure what did it, really. Maybe it was getting older. Could’ve been when I started dating Hayley. Our house is close to campus—it hardly seemed worth it to fire up the motorcycle for such a short trip to work. And let’s be honest, most likely my job had something to do with it.
The next thing I realized, my motorcycle hadn’t left the garage in five years.
I sold the old girl last year for less than it was worth, glad to see it go to a friend of a friend who knew how to fix it up.
I wonder if the other Jakes ever get their old steel horses running.
Probably not, both of them with young kids now and other things going on in life. It’s funny how your focus shifts.
I don’t miss it, really.
Maybe once in awhile.
You see, I used to snake a headphone wire up my jacket. I’d tuck in a single earbud and carefully put on my helmet. I had an old iPod shuffle so there was no picking the tune. But boy was there something to being out on the road on a summer day when just the right song came on, bugs splattering your helmet, feeling the grit of dust between your teeth.
It’s one of the greatest things in the world until a June bug hits you in the throat at 70 miles per hour.