Editor’s Note: It’s time for a pause from the four corners saga. This is a piece for northern riders whose bikes are nestled snugly in their riders’ garages.
– Marlow
Most American riders outside the deep south and west coast have an offseason, when old man winter and polar vortexes make them put up their bikes for a spell. For many, it is a time to do long deferred maintenance or bolt on that special goody that’s been sitting on their workbench. Others use this forced time off for planning next year’s rides.
When the leaves are off the trees, the first snowfalls and accompanying salt dumps dirtying their favorite roads, most just brace for another round of inactivity and long motorcycle winter blues.
Sure, it would be cool for northern riders to live in one of those places where one could ride year round. The novelty of a Christmas morning blast through the Arizona canyons would not wear off quickly. But riders in warmer climates will never know the unbridled ecstasy of that first spring ride, after all the weeks and months of waiting and dreaming. Nor will they know the depth of northern riders’ winter motorcycle blues. It’s a form of PMS – aka Parked Motorcycle Syndrome. Symptoms include pacing back and forth in the garage, irritability, headaches, and nausea. Prolonged exposure to PMS can drive sufferers insane.
The annual forced sabbatical from motorcycling only makes one more appreciative of those perfect summer days where the traffic is nonexistent and the pavement beckons us interminably onward.
So in that vein here are several motorcycle winter blues songs for my fellow northern riders.
Motorcycle Mountain Man Blues
Motorcycle mountain man
Let me tell where you’re bound
Drinking too much winter whiskey, Lord
You’re gonna hit the ground
When you spring ride around
With a bike under your hands
Not respecting mountain road
Well, you’ll die where you land
Motorcycle mountain man blues
Got him down low
He could die in the morning
But no one would know
That his time had come around
His body they’ll find on
Some roadside south of town
Having one last good time
Motorcycle mountain man gonna crumble
And fall from the sky
Before that scooter of his
Runs outta rubber on its tires
If he dies, Lord, please dont weep
Dont weep and dont mourn
Dont weep and dont mourn
Just remember where he’s gone
Loves his black-n-silver scooter
Never did him no wrong
Never slow to start in the morning
It runs all day long
Chromed up bikes
Bring nothing but pain
Take all you spend on em
Leave their riders only shame
Mountain roads, Lord, he rides
Like a long holy train
First winds of spring
Will see him again
In his farewell to the blues
Chrome plated misery he’s known
Mountain motorcycle roads a calling
Calling its riders home
Motorcycle mountain road blues
Got him down low
He might die in the morning
But no one would know
When his turn come around
His body they’ll find on
Some roadside south of town
Having one last good time
It’s plain to see, the sun won’t shine today
Riders ain’t in the mood for sunshine anyway
Sitting still, biker men go insane
Not gonna stop cold rain
Gonna ride out on their sweet machines
A swallow comes at night singing sweet dreams
They know in an instant just what she means
Dont wanna feel like they could die
In rockin chairs as life flies by
They’ll brave north wind on their sweet machines
Stars hang high above, the ocean roars
The moon comes to lead em to new shores
There’s crystals across desert sands
And the waves, they take their hands
Come spring they’ll ride their sweet machines
Day’s full of rain
Sky’s coming down again
Riders getting tired
Of these same old rainy day blues
Same old song
Well it won’t be long
Before they’ll be pulling on
Their flyin boots
Flyin boots
Until they’re pulling on
Their flyin boots
Spring’s only started
Summer roads yet to be sighted
Fall’s just a feeling
That they just can’t lose
They’d like to stay
Maybe ride another day
Turn muddy spring floodwaters
To ocean white and blue
Flyin boots
Flyin boots
Dreaming of pulling on
Their flyin boots
Summer mountain moons
Forever set too soon
Being alone
Is all the hills can do
Alone and then
Black silver Harley sails again
And they will ride in
Their flyin boots
Flyin boots
And they will ride in
Their flyin boots
Above icy roads Milky Way stars float
Above riders in town homes.
Tell us, train whistle,
With all your woo-wee grief,
what we can give.
Dear Lord of all the roads
what are we going to do?
Street lights, xenon blue, and pale
As the homes of men, tell us how to do it how
To withdraw how to penetrate and find the source
Of the power you always had
Of the roads around, and the sleep of dreaming men
Now as we ride the night
You ride with us we know simplicity
Is close to the source that sleeping men
Search for in their home deep beds.
Country roads look on and help. Tell us, freight train,
Tell us in a voice of the sea as it lifts,
Hundreds of miles away, a deep roar
Like the profound, unstoppable craving
Of riders for their wish.
Love, road time and the moon
Imagine a motorcycle
Old fashioned and black
Running down a blue highway
Passed cars fade back
Their destinations close by
Its rider looks out onto the fields
The clouds are grey
It rained last night
His seat is wet, and so is the road
Does he have enough fuel?
The road is so long
Five gallons of high test, and 150 miles to go
If only he knew anything about math
Shades of grey are all that’s left
It’s not so hard to crash this thing
But thanks to the men who serviced the brakes
His training should cover this
Strength and depth of road experience matter
When he’s in the middle of the road
Moon and star beams firing all around him
The motorcycle is his spaceship
It’s no imaginative feat
Before he realized, he was flying
His wheels escaping the ground
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