bs0410-4

Boxer Shorts October, 2004 - 4 of 4

Why All Saddles Should Be Sprung

by Bruce Henry

Bruce Wes Barter had told me he uses a kidney belt on trips. I never considered doing that until the homeward leg of a recent ride to Minneapolis after having done 8K miles in the prior three months (small change to many YBers.) I started to sense disintegration of the innards as though continuing to ride would turn the midsection into porridge.

What aggravated it was frost heaves or whatever are those transverse ridges in the roadway, periodic or occasional, one 'runs into' on any longish ride. The bike's suspension can't handle them. Bang! ... Boff!

Neither can the cushioning of the seat, no matter how soft it is. It can't compress fast enough. A deeply padded seat is no better over bumps-at-speed than a thinly padded rigid pan molded to the tush.

Suspended saddles, i.e., ones with articulated mountings, can react fast enough.

At Larz 2003 I met another geezer who appreciated the /2 (erroneous appellation, I know. I mean Boxers produced 19XY to 1968, last models preceding /5 s) Denfeld or Pagusa suspended thick rubber-on-a-frame saddles whose support rails hinged up under the tank and cantilevered over a Silentbloc (fat chunk of rubber). Those perches isolated riders to an incredible degree from all road shocks. It was night and day: I switched back and forth between sprung rubber saddle and fixed bench on an R50US; only settled on the bench because I needed a pillion and was too cheap to 'spring' for the fender pad.

It seems seats fixed rigidly to motorcycle frames became popular in the wake of universal adoption of swingarm rear suspensions, perhaps rationalized by the fantasy that the bike suspensions would adequately substitute for saddle springing, making redundant the extra layer of articulation.

It is far from redundant. Why do most motorcycle cops, and Sonny Barger, use sprung saddles? Simple. They're wimps.

Brad Barrus Rides Out to Spokane and Takes the 9,500-Mile USA Perimeter Loop Home

Brad I rode to the BMWMOA rally in Spokane, Wash. then continued on; circling the United States in 23 days on my 1973 R75/5. The trip started near Plymouth, MA (where the Pilgrims landed) with a route west to Chicago and northwest to Fargo, ND. Tiring of the interstate slab, I found route 200 in ND and rode it through Montana to its end in Idaho.

The BMWMOA rally was a hoot. I spent a lot of time in the shade of the Airheads tent; lounging on the comfortable living room furniture during daily temperatures in the high 90s. Airhead Dale Blanchard listened as I lamented that classic Airhead events at such venues as Death Valley, Salton Sea and Black Rock City were too far from my New England homeland. Dale graciously offered me an Airhead wooden nickel minted by the late Gary Hanson for gift offerings during the Burning Man. That wooden nickel traveled with me through Death Valley, the Mojave Desert and beyond the Salton sea. Washington Air marshals Dennis and Karen Withner were most accommodating hosts who provided coffee, barbecue lunch and evening snacks for all visitors to the Airheads tent. The Withner's recommended I travel to the Olympic peninsula where I saw the emerald green moss covering giant Sitka spruce trees in the temperate rain forest of Olympic National Park look like Shrek's backyard. I also saw the damage caused by over 100 catastrophic ice age floods which washed away all top soil across the channeled scablands and gouged out the Grand Coulee.

Riding south along Oregon's pacific coast highway, the mountain ridges which run perpendicular toward the Pacific shore provided numerous lookout opportunities to see Oregon's wide sandy coastal beaches; truly a world-class view. Crater Lake's ancient Mt. Mazama and California's Mt. Shasta and Lassen Peak are but three of many volcanoes resulting from the Pacific tectonic plate thrusting beneath the continental plate.

One trip highlight occurred at the Imperial dam near Yuma, Arizona where I camped beneath a solitary tree and received a midnight visit from a family of wild donkeys; braying loudly as they ran down from the surrounding hills to my tent and munched noisily on the tree's hanging pea pods. I made a long, wet run across New Mexico and west Texas. The hospitable folks at BMW Ft. Worth let me use their air-conditioned shop and tools to change the oil on my iron horse.

The Louisiana slab was like riding in a tunnel through the trees then I headed northeast along the Natches Trace scenic parkway in Mississippi. The Alabama and Tennessee crossing was celebrated with a candlelight MRE dinner inside my tent vestibule during a heavy rainstorm atop Mount Pisqua on North Carolina's Blue Ridge Parkway. The following night's camping adventure found me rafting on my Thermarest mattress on a soaked tent floor in a rainstorm near Scranton, PA. The grand finale in southern Vermont was a biker's banquet campout with the Dead Horse Motorcycle Club.

oops and the /5 The /5 ran flawlessly for the trip duration. I developed a bad case of monkey butt and tired wrist during the 9,500 mile journey but otherwise enjoyed the bike's comfortable ergonomics and light weight until the end of this great ride.

My travel light philosophy meant no camera but postcards were collected. Supplies included eight MREs, a complete alternator, rectifier, multi-meter, points and some centerstand springs (used no spares). Spare clothes included a rain parka, wool sweater, jeans and underwear.

This was my third (and longest) cross-country tour. I most always ride alone because it affords me the most freedom (and I can make navigation errors with impunity :)). BMW riders ride alone because nobody else wants to ride as fast or as far as we do!

I've been riding motorcycles for 37 years; starting at 11 on a new Honda Mini Trail 50. On Aug. 25, I'll turn 48. My R75/5 is preferred over my R1100RS for loaded touring due to the airhead's light weight, comfortable ergonomics and engineered field serviceability.

A resident of Kingston, Mass., Brad Barrus has been a mechanical engineer for 26 years. He maintains GE boiling water reactors at the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station. Photos by wife Lisa.

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