Of Bikers and Gliders
Mom, Dad, and I decided to spend Labor Day weekend riding motorcycles and watching wagon races. On Saturday morning Dad and I carefully steered his big Kawasaki Nomad up the ramp of a borrowed motorcycle trailer and tied it down. We had already used an improvised ramp to work my smaller bike up over the front of the trailer into the bed of Dad’s pickup. Once we had the bikes secured we and our luggage crowded into the truck’s super cab and we took off.
We ate lunch in Morrilton some miles west of Little Rock. After lunch we parked the truck and trailer in the lot of the motel where we would be spending the night and unloaded the bikes. We checked out the bikes and stocked the saddlebags with water and other items we might need. Then we put on our helmets and safety sunglasses and rolled out onto Highway 9 heading south.
At Oppelo, a couple of miles south of the Arkansas River, we turned west onto Highway 154. In the distance I saw the eastern end of Mount Petit Jean rising like the prow of a ship over a sea of rolling hills and fields. Soon I would face my first ever ride up a steep and winding mountain road. I went over in my mind everything that Dad had told me about mountain riding. Gear down, so there would be plenty of power. Don’t let the bike stall on the side of the mountain. If you start to fall, give it more gas. “Your throttle is your best friend.” I spread my fingers to let my sweaty palms dry before getting a firmer grip on the handlebars.
We headed into the first of the sharp, steep turns. Dad held up three fingers so that I could see them over his and Mom’s shoulders. He was shifting down to third gear. I followed suit, remembering as I did so that our bikes were not geared exactly the same. I might have to use a different setting. Several times that day I would find myself having to use my own judgement.
Having prepared for the worst, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the climb up Petit Jean posed no problems. The road was not as bad as I remembered it from my last car trip up the mountain. Within a few minutes we were up on Petit Jean’s broad, mesa-like summit. We turned up the short access road to the Stout’s Point overlook. We had been seeing bikers all day, everywhere we went. There were several at Stout’s Point. I took a photo of our own bikes against a backdrop of trees and empty sky to prove that we had made it.
The views of the Arkansas River valley from Stout’s Point are among the finest in the whole state. Unfortunately the atmospheric haze that afternoon made conditions less than ideal for scenic photography. I took only one view, from a spot near the reputed grave of the legendary Petit Jean herself.
I walked to the nearby remains of the old “College Lodge” to see if that would make a better photographic subject. There is something about stone ruins that makes them look ancient, even when they are less than a century old.
From Stout’s Point we headed west across the mountaintop, passing the Rockefeller Museum of Antique Cars, the lake, the air strip, the old stone building where the mountaintop community’s children once went to school, the campgrounds, visitors’ center, lodge, and trail heads. On the western end of the mountain we paused at another, less scenic overlook. Then we followed the highway down into the valley. This was my first serious mountain descent on a motorcycle.
At Centerville west of the mountain we turned north onto Highway 7. As I ran through the gears to get up to highway speed I caught a strong scent of fresh-cut grass from a roadside yard. Something about the scent and the shifting of gears triggered a rollback of over thirty years. Suddenly I vividly recalled myself as a child sitting astride the gas tank on Dad’s Honda 450 as we rolled down a green country road, watching Dad’s wrist as he rolled the throttle, hearing the click and changing engine tone as he shifted gears. Now I sat on a bike going through the same motions, feeling a part of the family motorcycle riding heritage. I felt so glad and thankful for my family, and for this chance to ride this day.
A few miles up 7 we came to the old Arkansas River port of Dardanelle. My earliest childhood memories are of Dardanelle—of the high school football team’s tyrannosaur-like “Sand Lizard” mascot, of the church and parsonage where we had lived, and the chicken houses where some of our friends made their living. Most of all I remembered Mount Nebo looming above the town. Nebo was our destination.
I knew that the ride up Nebo would be much steeper and sharper than the road up Petit Jean. Mom and I were not sure we wanted to try it. Dad insisted that we at least check out the road. So we headed up, toward the ten-mile-per-hour hairpin turns that rose higher than a cyclist’s head in just a few yards. As we approached the first really steep turn Dad held up a single finger. In first gear I found that my bike could climb the steepest part of the worst turns as easily as a squirrel scampering up a tree.
We had no sooner reached the top of Nebo when we saw hang gliders soaring over head.
Hang gliders have flown in Nebo’s thermal updrafts almost since their sport was first invented. On a good day a skilled glider pilot can soar for hours. We watched two of them circling in the thermals, along with buzzards whose ancestors had been doing the same thing long before any human ever tried to fly.
The overlook where we watched had a steep, grassy bank that fell rapidly toward steeply wooded slopes. To our right we saw Nebo’s smaller neighbor, Jones Mountain. Far below in the valley lay the field where the gliders were to land. When one touched down it looked like nothing more than a dot.
Among the spectators we saw a hang glider pilot who had decided not to fly that day and was packing up. There were several other bikers. We also saw several members of the local Mennonite community in their distinctive nineteenth-century clothing watching the gliders. As we returned to the parking lot we met a Mennonite girl in dress and bonnet gliding along on inline skates.
The trip down the mountain seemed less steep than I had imagined it would. I felt in full control of my bike the whole time. Back in Dardanelle we rode around town for a bit, glimpsing the church where Dad has pastored and cruising a bit down at the river front park that had been put in place since our day.
As evening came on we returned the Morrilton the way we had come. This meant riding up and down Petit Jean again. I did not worry this time. Dad had proven once again what a good motorcycle teacher he was. He had had confidence that I could handle the mountains. After riding safely on Nebo I had that confidence as well.
We got to Morrilton comfortably before dark. There we parked and secured the bikes and trailer and ate supper in a nearby Mexican restaurant. It had been a great day.
