My dad and I found a 1981 Suzuki GS850 abandoned at an apartment we rented. It was in the front yard of an apartment we had rented in Avila Beach, California. The marine climate had corroded the bikes aluminum cases, there were rust blisters on the tank and all the chrome was gone. We got title for it and stripped all the fairing and sidebags off of it. I had gone into the military and my dad rode it out west for a while. He took it back east and one of his friends was using it for transportation while finishing school. When I got out of the miltiary, he called me and asked me to go rescue it form DC. I took my van down there and found the Zuke continuing to rust in a pile of leaves. It had been there so long that the front brake disk had fused to the pads and would not move. We stuffed it in the van and I took it back to New York. Surprisingly, cleaning out the tank and charging the battery were all that was needed to get the thing running. I found a knobby tire that fit and would use it to ride around the farm. When I started school at RIT, I put the Zuke on the road.
This thing was indestructable. I rode it back and forth between Rochester and Buffalo because it got pretty good gas mileage. In the summer of 1993, the family build a speculation house in Angel Fire, New Mexico. I'd had a really rough time at school and when spring quarter was over, all I wanted to do was get the fuck out of dodge. Literally, I drove my van out to the farm, used it to jump start the Zuke, strapped my bag on it and left. There was 87 dollars in my pocket and a full tank of gas in the bike. The Zuke and I campaigned 36 hours straight to Fort Collins, Colorado where my brother was living at the time. My helmet was an old full face helmet that had been converted to dirt riding and it had all kinds of chips in it because it doubled as a kickstand for the dirtbike. The face shield was missing, so all I had was a pair of welding goggles. To keep the whistling from driving me insane, I'd stuffed paper towels around the sides. Money was so tight that I had to ration stops at McDonalds and buying a pocket atlas to find my way.
After a couple days of rest with my brother the Zuke and I continued on to New Mexico. If you have ever driven south through Colorado, the main route is Interstate 25. It is a long desolate stretch of superhighway south of Denver. Averaging about 85 and got passed by a white Mustang convertable like I was standing still. A twist of the wrist, and I was right on his ass -- 115MPH. I'd slow down as we approached each overpass and accelerate when we were clear, looking back to see if there was a cop on the ramp. After a few of these, I looked over and saw the push bars of a state trooper to my left. He pointed at me and I started to pull over as he raced past to catch the Mustang. Thinking all was clear I pulled the Zuke back onto the road and passed the trooper and Mustang a couple miles later. The trooper pulled right out behind me and I knew the jig was up. He got out and told me to wait here and would be right back. After finishing with the mustang, the trooper came back to me and said "I could see that you were slowing down, I'll write you a ticket for failure to signal. Pay it by mail and you will not have a problem."
Six hours later, I was in Angel Fire. The tire on the Zuke was bald, there was a half a tank of fuel left and I was down to about 85 cents in my pocket. My dad laughed, because the first thing I asked is if we could go to lunch. That is the way to show up of a job. Broke, with the clothes on your back, then ask to go to lunch early.
After a couple of weeks on the job I asked the girl at the bakery out on a date. Her name was Deana Larkin and when I went to pick her up for our first date, she was under the truck changing oil with it up to her elbows. I was in love. Soon, Iwas spending all my time out at her ranch with the horses. We were going to go out to Camp Hopewell State Park in New Mexico. We got up in the morning and were loading the horses. Hawley, the mare loaded with no problem. Hawk, the stallion, got to the ramp and decided he did not want to go. Then Hawley escaped from the trailer. Deana gave up and I decided, fuck 'em, if they won't load, they won't rest. I got on the Zuke and chased them around the pasture . Every time the horses would stop, I'd ride over and chase them. Eventually, both of them walked into the trailer and I closed the gate. See Camp Hopewell adventure for that story. A couple days after we got back, I forgot to put the bike in the barn and Hawk kicked it over and chewed the seat off. When I came out in the morning, all the gas and oil had leaked out and he was chewing on a piece of foam with a look like that is what you get for chasing me.
I took a long weekend while working in Angel Fire and went back to Fort Collins to visit my brother Travis. He and a couple friends with street legal enduros wanted to go the the Colorado off road park located just out of town. This park is HUGE. There are a couple of motocross tracks and trails all over the place. There are a couple of petty good hill climbs and that was the first thing I hit on the Zuke. That 750 with 4 valves per cylinder had plenty of power to roost it's way up any hill. Then, I went around the trails the other way and would air over the top and land on the slope. People were lining up to watch me launch this piece of shit road bike off the cliff. We went over to one of the motocross tracks and I watched Travis and his friends pussy their way around the track. They couldn't even air the table top. WATCH this. I slammed the Zuke through the whoopdy doos. Nailed the berm around the turn and throttled it over the table top. The suspension would bottom out with a slamming on landing. It was awesome.
As late August rolled around I had to head back to New York for fall classes at RIT. I rode it back and for a couple more seasons until Mayela and I decided to move out to Oregon in 2000. I gave the bike to my step dad, because he used to have a Kawasaki KZ900 and I thought he would like riding it around. It still had the rest of the years registration and insurance paid.
Almost as soon as we moved out to Oregon, I had the opportunity to go to India to work for a couple months. While I was gone, Mayela decided she had found her niche in Eugene and that niche had no space for me. I moved down to the bay area in California to work for Labo America and had to take a business trip back to New York in October. Ironically, my job was to go back to Leica and help deal with some quality problems with the CME microscope. Even though I had been gone for nearly a year, people still recognized me immediately. Bob Atkinson and I were going out for lunch one day and ran into the new CEO. When Bob introduced me, he knew immediately who I was and was happy to meet me. The job was finished and I took the Zuke to Pennsylvania to visit a friend Jodi Martin. Since it was October the lucky weather was a blessing. The battery was dead and wouldn't hold a charge, but it push started pretty easily. When I got back a few days later I gave the Zuke to Dave Wilson, a co-worker from Leica. He took it apart to rebuild it, but lost interest and gave the basket case to a friend. I have no idea what happened to it from there, but, I'll bet it is still on the road somewhere.