Some days you get more than you bargained for....

Adventures of a Biker Librarian

Dirt bikes were all the rage in the 1970s. Some were pure off-road machines. Others were “dual sport” bikes—geared and otherwise modified for off-road use, but equipped with headlights and turn signals to make them street legal. Among the more popular of dual sport machines was the Honda CT-90, known in the United States as the “Trail 90.” This little bike resembled a cross between a motor scooter and a very small motorcycle. Its 90-cubic-centimeter engine was geared to deliver enough torque to deal with mud, steep upgrades, and other obstacles. If a wheeled vehicle could go somewhere, a Trail 90 could get to that place. Intrepid Japanese riders are said to have ridden their “Hunter Cubs,” as they were known in Japan, all the way up Mount Fuji.

Many American riders in the 1970s got their first riding experience on Trail 90s. Older riders sometimes appreciated them as well. My father recalls an afternoon many years ago when he and some friends and family who lived near an oil field explored the field on Trail 90s. He learned only at the end of the ride that the group’s guide had spent much of the afternoon lost among the maze of access roads.

A church member of ours used a Trail 90 as a utility vehicle for a time. She was a very small woman who did not let either her small size or the withered arm with which she had been born keep her from becoming an accomplished outdoorswoman. The Trail 90’s lack of a manual clutch lever—it shifted entirely with the left foot—enabled her to ride the bike one-handed.

When she moved on to a four-wheel ATV, the bike became the ride of a friend who taught college biology. This rider did not let her status as a noted academic and naturalist make her feel embarrassed to ride that little motorcycle wherever she wanted to go. I can recall seeing her putt-putting down the highway with it a few miles from the college where she taught one day in the 1980s.

The Trail 90 had fallen out of favor with North American riders by then. They were the exception. People kept riding them just about everywhere else in the world. The CT 90 was, after all, a member of the Honda Cub family that had started in the 1950s with Soichiro Honda’s Super Cub. Honda’s insistence on first-rate engineering and quality control made these tiny 50-cc machines stand out from the pack of small motorbikes providing basic transportation in postwar Japan.

The original Super Cub was the beginning of the Honda line of motorcycles, automobiles, and eventually even executive jets. By 2017 100 million members of the Cub family of all types had been made. This does not even count assorted Third-World copies. Most of the little bikes weren’t used as toys, either. They’ve served commuters, couriers, motorcycle taxis, mail carriers, and even serious load haulers the world over.

The Cub series headed back into the American market a few years ago with two new models—the 125 Super Cub and the CT-125 “Trail 125.” The former was an updated, slightly beefier version of the 50-cc Super Cub, itself still in production. The Trail 125 was likewise an updated successor to the Trail 90. Each motorcycle was styled very much like its predecessor.

I developed an interest in them as soon as they were announced for the American market. A combination of popular interest and COVID-era supply chain issues has made them hard to come by. It took trips to multiple Honda dealers in different cities just to see a 125 Super Cub in person. The dealers haven’t been able to keep them in stock.

A friend of mine that I know through the local Rotary Club got lucky and managed to find a Trail 125 at a regional dealership. I got to see it a few times when he rode it to Rotary meetings. Recently he found a (slightly) bigger machine. Having noted my almost embarrassingly obvious interest in the Trail 125, he asked whether I would be interested in buying it before he tried putting it on the market. I checked it out and snapped it up.

I’ve been riding it for about a month now. A 125 Super Cub’s gearing for highway use makes it a little faster than the Trail 125. The latter can’t quite run double-nickels for sustained periods (Or at all, if you’re going uphill). On the other hand, the Trail 125’s more rugged construction and larger fuel tank may make it a better choice for a rural area with few fuel stops and rough roads. I’ve been happy with it.

While it would be very foolish to try to ride the bike on a crowded expressway, you can in principle go pretty much anywhere on it, just like with its Trail 90 ancestor. Trail 125s have been ridden off-road all the way across North America. They’ve been ridden all the way to Point Barrow at the northernmost tip of Alaska. I took mine on a 240-mile round trip to see my parents over the Fourth of July holiday.

Neighboring counties contain a number of back roads and back-road communities that I’ve been meaning to explore for years now. Now the Trail 125 gives me a good excuse to do so. Last Saturday I decided to make my first such expedition.

The region’s largest town is located a little under an hour’s drive to the west of our town. That’s going by the most direct highway route. I’ve often taken a scenic route that involves some back-road running. Saturday afternoon I started out on this familiar back-road route.

My first rest and water stop was at a little country church. I parked underneath a shade tree and spent a bit of time stretching my legs and taking in the rural quiet. Nobody passed on the road the whole time I was there. It was one of the few truly beautiful afternoons that we’ve had so far in this stormy summer. I stood for a bit and watched the fleecy clouds drift across a fine blue sky.

The little brick church’s dedication plaque said that it had been built in 1976. An uncle of mine was building churches around the state around that time. I peered through the glass doors at the main entrance. The dim auditorium looked cool and inviting. Its pews, paneling, and other décor reminded me of the little rural churches where I had grown up. It looked as if the place was still well-kept. A poster on the door indicated that they would soon host their annual Vacation Bible School.

I rode from here through two backroads communities to a third that sat on a substantial highway. From here it would be only a few miles into the big town that was my eventual destination. This time I crossed the highway onto another county road and started seeing territory that was new to me.

Soon I found myself passing by an area of oil fields. The fields have declined in productivity over the years. I saw old tanks and sites with no working pump-jacks. It was the same region where Dad and friends had ridden the oil fields on Trail 90s all those years before. Did I happen to be close to where they had ridden? It seemed I recalled him saying that they had been near a town some miles farther west.

I visited a public river access that I had never seen before. It had no facilities beyond a boat ramp and welcome public restrooms. Not a soul was there. I did see a vehicle with a boat trailer parked at the bottom of the ramp. I heard a boat motor running in the distance. It was otherwise a peaceful scene. The sky seemed cloudier now.

About three miles away from the river access I found my first working pump-jack. Oddly enough, it was clanking away only a stone’s throw from a well-kept community cemetery. Nearby was a small lake that I had thus far seen only on a map. Though it was hard to tell from the map, I suspected that I might find a road that I could follow to a nearby town.

Sure enough, I found my road. It was a narrow paved road that followed the top of the lake’s levee. At one point I passed over a small dam with boats on either side of it. Quite a few people seemed to be out in this area.
From here I came into the town I was trying to reach through the back way. The town had been the site of a fairly well-known published sociological study in the 1980s. I had read the study some years ago. I wondered whether any of the study’s subjects still lived in the houses that I passed. Like so many small towns, it appeared to have seen better days.

From here I picked up a proper highway with two lanes of traffic going each way. My bike couldn’t handle this road’s sixty-mile-per-hour speed limit. The passing lane meant that I didn’t need to worry about possibly stacking up unhappy motorists behind me by being a slowpoke. This was good, as I found myself getting passed by quite a few vehicles.

What really got my attention at this point, though, was the solid bank of dark clouds sweeping in from the west. The forecast I had checked that morning had indicated no serious chance of rain until late that night, either in my town or in the area I was now riding through. I had trustingly failed to bring my rain gear with me. I could have kicked myself for putting that much trust in a weather forecast during such a wild and stormy summer.

I ran on to the intersection with the region’s principal highway and turned onto it. This divided highway had a sixty-five-mile-per-hour speed limit and was technically an expressway. I knew that on Saturdays the traffic was normally light. I in any case only planned to stay on it for a couple of miles until I reached the exit for the big town’s Main Street. I kept glancing anxiously at the sky. Should I light out for home and hope to beat the storm getting back, or go ahead with my original plan of eating supper nearby?

I decided to take the exit and head for downtown. Drops began spattering my helmet’s visor as I approached the old business district. I quickly searched my memory of the nearby blocks to recall the nearest likely shelter. In another minute or so I had reached a big carport where a corporation kept some fleet vehicles. I figured that nobody would mind if I took refuge there.

The shower broke right after I pulled in. It lasted only a few moments. The sky remained threatening. I’d often while out walking encountered a momentary shower such as this as a preliminary to a real rain. I waited for a time and heard no further drops rattling on the carport’s metal roof. I decided to try for the restaurant where I’d hoped to have supper.

By the time I reached it, a couple of miles away, another shower was breaking. It stopped again when I pulled into the restaurant’s parking lot. I parked in the semi-shelter of trees overhanging the edge of the lot. The riders of a big V-twin motorcycle and trike had already done the same. I wasn’t the only biker who had gotten caught out this evening! My whole bike probably weighed little more than the engine block on either of these machines.

I probably would have enjoyed my rice, chicken, sushi, and banana pudding more fully had I not sat at a window seat. My flavor savoring kept getting distracted by my observations of heavy bouts of rain outside. At least there appeared to be no heavy winds, and no lightning. Maybe my strategy of waiting out the rain during supper would work?

I found it necessary to wait near the limited shelter of the front entranceway for over half an hour after paying my bill. The rain kept reviving just as it seemed about to peter out. Moderate rains often seem to help restaurants draw business, and there were plenty of people coming and going. Chivalrous husbands braved the rain to fetch vehicles to pick up their wives near the entrance. New arrivals dashed in, laughing at their dashes through the rain.

I wished that I could laugh. The lack of high winds and lightning would make the ride home less dangerous. But weather fronts tend to move from west to east, and home lay an hour or more to the east. I was almost certain to ride through at least some rain on the way home. I also didn’t dare wait too long before heading out, or I risked getting caught in both the rain and the dark.

It occurred to me that I might find rain gear at a Wal-Mart located very nearby. Even a basic poncho, if I could arrange it right, would keep part of me dry. This would reduce the risk of hypothermia—a real risk, even in summer, for a soaking wet rider exposed to the slipstream. The situation now seemed a little more hopeful. If only it would soon stop so that I didn’t get wet just trying to get to the store!

I headed to my bike when the rain finally stopped. The riders of the other two machines had the same idea. They were both women, and both looked rather more like stereotypical bikers than I did. They said that they actually welcomed the cooling rain after the hot day’s ride they had had. The local biker event they had planned to attend that evening had been canceled by the weather, so they were heading home. They lived to the west, where the rain had already presumably passed. We told each other to say safe and got on our way.

At the Wal-Mart entrance I was startled to see a guy I knew. He had often worked on our library’s security systems. He jokingly commented on my being in the wrong town. I explained my situation. He kindly told me to call him if I had second thoughts about the ride home, and said that he could give me a ride. This was a very kind offer, as he and his wife were heading home in basically the opposite direction of the one I had to go. I told him I thought I could make it.

As expected, Wal-Mart did not stock proper biker rain gear. It had the next best thing in the form of inexpensive but good-quality Frogg Toggs rain gear for hikers. A suit of these would keep me mostly dry. I had a choice between men’s sizes—long enough, but too big around—and youth sizes that weren’t too big around and had just about enough length.

By the time I’d gotten my gear and refueled (0.73 gallons for 77 miles of riding), the sky had mostly cleared. Still, I knew I was likely to catch up with the weather on the way home. To minimize the risk of getting caught by faster-moving traffic in the rain, I decided to return via the longer backroad route. Once out of town, I found a place to stop and got my gear on. It was already starting to look rainy up ahead.

Bikers must always keep an eye out for road debris in the best of times. That goes even more in the wake of a storm. I encountered only two easily-skirted branches in the road. My rain gear mostly kept the spray from wet roads off of me. I did not run into any actual rain. Would I make it all the way home without catching up with the weather front?

About ten miles out I saw lightning to the south. That was unlikely to pose a problem. Then I saw more flashing in the distance, directly ahead. It was getting darker. If I ran into an electrical storm before getting home, I would have no choice but to pull off and try to find any shelter I could. I still had sections of road to travel where potential shelters were few and far between.

On the edge of town, I began to see ominous signs that the power might be out in town. This was the second time this summer that I had come back to town in the evening to find a power outage. This time it at least did not seem as extensive as before. Unfortunately, my end of town, as usual, seemed to have the most extensive blacked-out streets.

I swung by the library. It showed both no power and no sign of storm damage. My nearby house showed the same. Another night of trying to sleep with no air conditioning and no fan! Ironically one of the things I had hoped to do in the larger town I had visited that evening had been to run by a home improvement place and price emergency generators.

I couldn’t feel too down, though. I had arrived home safe and (mostly) dry, after facing what for a time had looked likely to prove a hairy situation. It was time to give thanks to God for making it home safely after all.

The power came back on at my house later that night. Others in the area had to wait another day or so. Soon things were back to normal. I hope in a few weeks to take another exploratory ride to the backroads of nearby counties. This time, regardless of what any forecasts say, I plan to have my rain gear with me.

This read like a movie-script. Your writing is always evocative and descriptive, but this made me feel as if I were watching a short film. I'm glad you got home safely.

Thanks for the praise, Simon! It may seem cinematic, and I may have redacted names and place names for privacy's sake, but I promise you it all happened like I said it did.

I rode just over 130 miles that day. That's the most in a single day on that bike, so far.

I road it to church last night. A boy I know there insisted on coming out into the parking lot and watching me take off on it when I went home. He has some cognitive issues, and has a way of getting fixated on things that catch his attention.

Okay, my bike's a recent Trail 125, but it looks quite similar to Reiko's older CT-110 here--same color, approximately the same size:





Reiko shows up a little big here in proportion to her ride. Since I'm taller, I probably look about that size in relation to mine. These are LITTLE bikes.

I rode mine approximately 150 miles to get home for the Fourth of July last week. And rode it back again, by a somewhat shorter route, Sunday evening. And rode a bit on Saturday. Probably about 300 miles all told. I can average about 40 miles per hour or so riding mine. I burned not quite three gallons of gas all told. It was a lot of fun, especially on the curvy sections of road.

That actually does sound like fun. I've never ridden a motorbike in my life...but it does sound like fun.

I recently got another riding jacket, which I had been needing. It has a little story behind it.

One of my uncles, Dad's older brother, died last year. Last time I was home visiting, I went to see his widow. A few weeks ago, my aunt gave Mom two of his jackets. One was an old work jacket, to give to my brother to wear while he works with his livestock. The other was a motorcycle jacket, for me.

It's more or less a men's version of this:


https://www.cyclegear.com/gear/bilt-tec ... s-jacket-1


It's high-visibility, with armored protection at the shoulders and elbows. The idea is to protect the wearer from road rash in the event of an accident. It's meant for warm weather, so it gives little wind protection. I'll have to wear something else underneath for warmth when I need it. Since my uncle's jacket is a bit big on me, I should easily have room for another layer or two beneath it. We were fortunately similar in height and arm length.

I never did get to ride with that uncle. Now I have something of his with me when I ride.

Rode out to that larger town again on Saturday afternoon. I explored some more back roads out that way. I covered about 140 miles altogether.

In town I found the downtown closed for one of their frequent local festivals and concerts. It was kind of awkward. I went by Goodwill and found an interesting book, and went to supper. Even though I went to supper earlier than usual, I was still overtaken by darkness on my way back home. This will probably be my last really long ride for the season.

The "new" jacket was fine. I did stop on the edge of town on the way home and put a sweatshirt on underneath it. Somebody honked at me as they sped by on the highway. I think it was somebody I know who recognized me there.

I'm pleased you got your Uncle's jacket - and that you went for a ride in the dark. I've never ridden a motorcycle but doing so in the dark sounds weirdly enjoyable to me.

Don't ride at night through a river bottom during insect season. It was as if the bugs were being sprayed at me from a fire house! I had to clean the bug detritus from my face shield as soon as I got home. One of the best arguments for wearing a face shield.

Evenings on a motorcycle can be beautiful. As with everything else, you pass through the scene with nothing between you and your surroundings. However, I don't make a regular habit of it, since the darkness does create an additional level of hazard.

I've taken the bike out for a couple of brief spins on unseasonably warm winter days to keep it limbered up. Now I've begun riding it to church on Wednesday evenings again. It feels good to be out and around again. Shouldn't be many weeks before I get a chance to take some more substantial rides. I'll need to be sure I'm fully up on the maintenance first.

A couple of weeks ago, I took a couple of vacation days to go visit family for my birthday. I spent most of the first day going out of my way to a big city a couple of hours away to go by a couple of bookstores I only get by maybe once a year. While driving around the city, I got overtaken by a lone sport biker. Wait, was that a woman riding that bike? Or just a guy with really long hair in back? You don't see women riding around that often, even on unusually warm early March days.

I found myself behind the rider for a number of blocks of stop-and-go traffic. The rider was not trying to weave in and out or split lanes, and was handling the awful pavement well. The conservative and sensible manner in which the bike was being handled tended to confirm my woman rider theory--guys on sport bikes like that are very often young and foolish. Finally I got close enough to determine that she was indeed a she. Go, girl! Too bad I was in a car and couldn't give her the left-handed "ride on" wave that bikers exchange when they meet on the road.

Well, at least you got see a kindred spirit in action.

Rode to a neighboring town yesterday to visit with a colleague at her library. Face-to-face meetings with library colleagues are something we don't get often, so I made an excuse (I took her some important paperwork that I could have just mailed--but what's the fun in that? And hey, you never know what might happen with the mail!) to engineer one. So I not only got to ride on a beautiful day, I got to do so while on duty.

It was my first long (ish) ride of the season. The little bike performed like a champ. Hit 57 miles per hour at one point when I wound the engine out! Needs a good washing and some chain work before I try a really long ride.

That sounds idyllic.