Tires, Hip Hop, Guerrilla Warfare 


etc. 

I was getting the Daytona serviced this morning and waited in the reasonably comforatable lounge (good coffee, comfy sofa, stacks of bike mags). I was almost done with "Where You're At" by Patrick Neate. I highly recommend this book. If nothing else, it made me think about the impact of American cultural hegemony, what it means to "keep it real." It also opened my eyes to the depressing conditions where hip-hop culture has grown up in Cape Town and Rio. The chapter on Rio, favelas and the violent rituals of the Funk dances is worth the price of the book.
The service was taking a little longer that I or the service manager had anticipated (need tires to pass inspection, needed some fuel mating clips replaced that they had snapped off by accident). I pulled out my other book, ("Guerrillas" by Jon Lee Anderson - sort of like the other but about armed rather than cultural conflict) and started reading. An Austin motocop who had brought his APD issue R1150RT in for warranty service (siren makes his left turn signal blink) sat down in an easy chair near me. We chatted for a while, the subject not straying far from motorcycles.
The cop's bike was fixed first, so he signed the forms, geared up to get on the bike. He hopped on just as the kickstand snapped. He and his bike tumbled over, nearly colliding with a customer's K1200LT (a very large bike). He struggled to get the bike back up, the K1200 owner, once assured that his bike was o.k., helped. The cop hoisted his R1150 on to the centerstand, walked back into the shop. Casually waving the broken kickstand around, he muttered, "Don't you hate it when this happens?"
The cop needed additional assistance getting his bike off the centerstand.
So there you go.  

Posted: Thu - October 28, 2004 at 08:50 PM           |

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