Trailerfest

Last week was Bikefest, an annual event on the Island where yuppies from all over with too much disposable income trailer their high end, mostly Harley scooters down here and act naughty for a few days, before returning to points north like Dallas, Houston and San Antonio to resume their comfortable three bedroom, two point five kids, nine to five lives as investment counselors, bankers, lawyers and other assorted boring corporate thieves.

The men don leather vests, adorned with many stainless steel chains, baubles and other assorted goodies that they think make them look tough and macho, and the women go braless, or worse yet, wear faux leather (wouldn’t want to offend the PETA members out there). Mostly they cruise up and down Padre Boulevard, a distance of something like three miles, trying to look and sound cool. They go from bar to bar drinking heavily, drinking many pina coladas and manhattans, and for the adventurous, straight shots of rot gut Jose Cuervo tequila. If they get especially lucky maybe their pre-menopausal wives will even lay a bit of pussy on them when they go back to their digs at the Sheraton, Raddison or other condos and hotels which generally are booked to capacity for the event.

The silliest thing I saw during the entire episode was a guy in shorts and Birkenstock sandals riding a fully dressed Road King. I was looking for a bumper sticker strategically placed on his fender that said something like “Visualize World Peace”, or maybe “Keep Austin Weird”.

Most of these ignorant fucks don’t even ride a bike, except on weekends, when the weather is just right….for them it’s a status symbol thing- something to take the place, or be added in addition to their Lexus’, Rolex Oyster Perpetual watches, Armani suits and Louis Vitton purses. Each bike polished to a showroom glitter, right down to the slick tire treatment. Heavy graphics on the tank and fenders, a gazillion dollars worth of chrome and steel. Trailer them to, and trailer them from the event in air conditioned “Wells Cargo” trailers.

The majority of “rally attendees” shouldn’t even attempt to ride iron of this size; instead they should stick to mopeds and little Vespa scooters.

We were staying in the Miramar, hoping to close on a house, so I was keeping the Shadow out in front, under a cover to keep the corrosive night air off of the thing. It’s hard enough to keep it clean and corrosion free when you ride everyday as transportation, and I had to leave it outside the front of the lab, exposed to the sun, sand and salt. All week long people were slowly populating the place as the frenzy of trailerfest got underway. The Miramar went from being a ghost hotel to a fully loaded parking lot for bikes, trailers and designer harleywear yuppies.

On Saturday night we decided to go and check out the Bongo Dogs who were playing one last time down at the Wanna-Wanna. I didn’t want to leave the Shadow parked at the Miramar, with all of the stupidly riding yuppies adjacent to us, so I decided to ride down to the bar, take my chances there. Due to some logistic problems, there was no one to watch the twins, so we decided to take them along with us, D and the girls took the jeep.

The Wanna-Wanna was rocking pretty good, and there were lots of yuppies in glittery steel and leather talking trash and trying to look mean. It was about ninety degrees, so leather is the first thing that gets peeled off when I get done riding. Not so with these folks, it's like a uniform. A sea of writhing sweating zeros some still even wearing their half gloves, cultched tightly around drinks in styrofoam cups, eyeing the vacuous women in halter tops, nipples erect in the hot evening air, excited by the thought of getting banged by someone that's not.

We ran into the Gib and his girlfriend out alongside the joint in the sand, and drank a few rums, and listened to the band from a picnic table in the sand on the beach, watching the show within. Later we migrated under the palapa as the drunken yuppies began to vacate, having had their fill of frozen margaritas and gin and tonics. The girls danced, with tambourines in hand to the approval of Joey Tamayo et al, and after many rumbalibres myself, I even got out on the dance floor, scooting my new big black boots along the floor to the salsa beat of tunes like Cuando la Luna and Aya por Aya. A good time was had by all, and by around twelve fortyfive the Dogs had ceased, and we prepared to go home.

D and the girls loaded up and headed for the house, and I started the Shadow, swinging my leg over the familiar saddle, heading off south down Gulf Boulevard, just enjoying the night air and the soft rumble of the engine. About halfway to the turn, two big old hogs with yuppy riders, complete with “old ladies” on the back blew a stopsign right in front of me, and careened out onto the road. I locked up both brakes, fishtailing for about thirty feet or so. As I swerved around them, I raised the single finger salute and muttered “fucking idiots”. It doesn't bother me if they want to crash their bikes by being stupid....but don't take me out.

The next day, early, before these same sort of jerkoffs were out on the road, I rode the Shadow over here to LV and put it in the garage, where it remained all week while we moved in. I had no desire to mingle with a bunch of wannabes.

On Thursday, long after the last of them left, I fired up the bike, and went for a cruise down the back road, 511. Approaching the bridge over the Resaca at Bayview, I passed a Sporty tooling along from the other direction, a guy with a woman on back. We both saluted, the salute of respect this time.

I’m sure he was glad they were gone too. The road belongs to us again.