There are worse places to hang around for a couple of days than the Bikernet,com Cantina, tossing back icy cold Coronas followed by shots of JD. And Sin Wu gives a heck of a neck massage. I was waiting for the Heavy Duty magazine tour group to fly in from Australia, some 60 guys and gals with Sturgis and Milwaukee in their cross hairs, eager to sample the night life as well as having a strong desire to sample every beer brewed in the US.

I wandered out into the garage to found Bandit fiddling around with some old piece of junk up on the lift.

“Whassup Bandit? Trying to salvage a part or two from that junk heap before you tear it to bits and toss most of it out?”

He stood up, raised himself to his full height - which is six- foot twenty-seven or something - and his eyebrows seemed to rise even higher.

“I’ll have you know Doctor Bullshit, that this bike is firstly, not junk, and secondly, belongs to Billy Lane who’s flying here in a day or so to ride it up to Sturgis.”

“Seriously?”

“Yup, seriously, he’s riding up with Scott Long. Now hand me that wrench or get outta here, I’ve got a bit of fine tuning to do.”

I pulled another Corona from the fridge, popped the top and walked around that old Harley several times, thoughts tumbling through my mind like leaves in a fall gust. It’s close to 1500 miles from Bikernet HQ to Sturgis, with deserts to cross, mountains to climb and long, long stretches of straight road.

That’s a fair haul on a modern bike, with a big cube OHV donk, a comfortable seat and suspension front and rear. And Billy was gonna attempt it on an old Flathead which looked like it had seen far better days? Hell, the bike was older even than Bandit … There was absolutely nowhere to carry any luggage. There was no way to mount it on the skinny rear fender behind the rock-hard solo seat. How the hell was he going to carry even the minimum gear required for such a trip?

I tried again. “Hey Bandit, you’re not pulling my leg are ya? You’ve done that before as you well know.”

He looked around and I shriveled a bit under his steely gaze.

“For the last time Doc, Billy Lane, yes that Billy Lane, the famous custom bike builder who could have ridden any one of his collection of bikes has chosen to ride this one – it’s his favorite.”

Well all I could think of was that I was glad Scott Long was riding up with Billy ‘cos I was sure it was a trip that would end up on the back of a pickup and breakdowns in the desert aren’t high on my list of favorite activities.

The next day the phone rang and Bandit’s countenance darkened as he listened to the caller. Frowning, he hung up and cast me a sidelong glance before strolling over to where I was sitting. Now if he looks big when we’re both standing – and he does – you can imagine how he looks when I’m sitting down and looking up at him.

His voice boomed down at me from the stratosphere: “Doc, Scott can’t make it. He’s had to cancel at the last minute. Do you have someone else who can lead your group?”

I could see where he was coming from. As it happened, Tex Hess one of our magazine staffers, was due in with the group. And as an old Mississippi boy (all tall drawling Americans get the nick-name Tex in Aussie, despite where they hail from) he was well suited to negotiate the roads and freeways of this wide land.

With more than a few misgivings I said, “Okay Bandit, count me in.” Hell, I thought to myself, it could turn in to be quite an adventure. Of course the cynic’s definition of an adventure is: ‘something, that when you are home by the fire, you wish you were out there having; and also something, that when you are out there having, you wish you were back home by the fire’. Or the air con in this case. Whatever, I was in.

Billy flew in the next day and we picked him up from Long Beach airport. We threw his not inconsiderable luggage into the back of the Sin Wu’s car and headed back to Bikernet where Billy was anxious to check over his bike before he did anything else.

A couple of minor adjustments, a Spectro oil top up, some refueling and Billy reckoned the bike was “good to go”. I still had my doubts, but who am I to question the bike’s owner, especially one who’d logged many a mile on it including a trip from Florida to Half Moon Bay and back to LA a month or so previously?

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