—Mars Bonfire

—§—

Three days a week I walk down a shady, tree-lined street to Lobo's Gym. A few weeks ago, a couple of bizarre machines were parked there. They've not moved since.

Pictured above is one of them: a chopped Yamaha. We've all seen lots of chopped Harleys, but I've never seen a chopped Japanese motorcycle before.

Somehow it just doesn't seem right. Harley-Davidsons reek of attitude—even stock machines do. When chopped, they're the ultimate bad-boy ride. Japanese bikes, by comparison, are like family sedans: sedate, unremarkable, well-mannered. Chopping one is like dropping a Chrysler hemi into a Nash Rambler—kind of cool, but you get no respect.

The other machine is a Volkswagen trike: a vehicle that can hold its head up at any chopper rally. Many years ago I knew guys who made these things. They bored out 1200 cc VW engines and improved the timing and aspiration until the horsepower tripled. And since the trike weighed a third of what the original car did, the horsepower-to-weight ratio increased by a factor of ten. Dangerously overpowered, these things are.

In the States, you could never have driven this trike on the street. Those are straight exhausts, one per cylinder, completely unmuffled. The noise it makes must be shattering. Ticket city in L. A.

If it looks a little worn to you, that's because it is. This thing looked hot in 1987. But time and weather have been unkind to it. The flames cut into the steel floor plates look particularly forlorn. The parking brake lever is missing. The battery is gone. Scraps of electrical wire and pine needles litter various surfaces. It's no longer the pride of Jalisco.

Nor is the Yamaha bike. The seat and saddlebags are composting, sagging. Black plastic garbage bags are protectively draped across vulnerable components. It's rusty.

They're not the chick magnets they once were.

I wonder if their owner looks the same. Or if, like me, he looks a little sloppy, a little out of date. Forty years ago, Steppenwolf urged us to get out on the highway. These bikes would have been the way to go then, but today they are as dated as Born to Be Wild.

All I want anymore is a quiet dinner out with good friends and bedtime by ten. And to delay the inevitable decline. Better get down to the gym.