Looks like you can own a piece of Easy Rider - Some of Peter Fonda's own memorabilia is up for auction.

And sure, that's pretty cool. A more iconic piece of late sixties counter culture you're unlikely to find. But I'm left wondering who's going to fork over a a hundred grand to own a piece of that image, to hang it in some multi-million-dollar mansion, admired by the kings and queens of hollywood or silicon valley.

The word irony comes to mind.

Still, I saw items about this auction in BoingBoing, and SFGate, and My first thought was the chopper - which isn't for auction.

My mother used to save things like old christmas wish lists, and she recently ran across several from my childhood. You can imagine the things on them; GI Joes, 'Major Matt Mason' dolls. Hot Wheels and SST racers. Weapons, of course, knives (which I usually got), guns (which I would get if they were BB guns), and machines guns (which I still vaguely hope Santa will leave in my stocking). But the one thing that was always there - always - was chopper.

My god, I wanted a chopper. I used to dream about roaming the highways in leather, my motorcycle one of those absurdly raked, over-chromed monsters like I'd see from time to time roaring down the main streets near my house. My aunt used to date bikers, and I desperately hoped for a ride on some snarling monster of a bike (though when we visited, her boyfriend tended to have a truck full of harley parts (always pronounced as one word, harleyparts), and never a running bike one could actually ride.

I can't say that absurd chopper lust has ever gone away. I recently watched Ghost Rider with my daughter, and all I could think (other than wishing the film were better) was I want that bike. No, not the cartoon skull-and-bones one, the real one, the one they called grace (which I can't find a decent picture of, anywhere). The one that looked just like the Captain America bike. "You need a bike like that," Ruby said to me, after the movie was over. And I agree with her.

I watched the above-linked intro from Easy Rider - a film I haven't seen in years - and it brought bake all that silly, boyhood notion of the wide-open road, and the tragic, doomed hero. And you know, that's part of the appeal, I guess. Because who can separate the image of that flag-striped machine, from the aerial shot, flames on the side of the highway. Pointless, random, manifest destiny.

Or maybe, you know, I just need a shiny new toy.

I sat at a light, and watched a girl on a motorbike.

The bike was yellow; the girl was in leather, jeans. Her booted feet looked like a child's, tiny black leather boots.

She passed me in an intersection as I waited for green, and then I tried to catch her; in my huge gray truck, it was hopeless. But I tried, ran a light to stay with her, passed my stop.

Her helmet was decorated, neck to crown, in sparkling stickers, whorls and flourish and little stick-on gems. It was a helmet a little girl would imagine on a princess, should a princess ride a motorbike; perfect and elegant, yet child-like.

I lost her at the next light, carving between cars on her fleet little yamaha; her black braid trailing behind her in the wind. I never got a look at even the sliver of face a motorcycle helmet would show, only a pair of mirrored shades, no more.

I turned my truck around, a great tire-screeching arc, and went back to my errand.

This is the song I dialed on my iPod as I drove away.

Fuck.

This is a friend of mine - or used to be, hadn't talked to her in a couple years. Old 'net friend from motorcycle newsgroups; a gifted violin player who played in local celtic bands.

LIVERMORE - The Alameda County coroner's office identified the motorcyclist killed when a dump truck ran over her Tuesday night as 44-year-old Leigh Hussey of Berkeley.

Authorities were investigating late Tuesday the circumstances that led Hussey to inexplicably lose control of her BMW bike about 7:20 p.m. and slip under the back axle of a yellow dump truck on westbound Interstate 580 near North Livermore Avenue, Highway Patrol said.

Hussey was crushed by the truck's two rear tires and was then thrown to the right hand shoulder, Highway Patrol officer John Pabst said. She was pronounced dead at the scene from massive trauma.

http://www.contracostatimes.com/mld/cctimes/14596956.htm

While she wasn't a close friend, she's a close friend of several of my friends. And I don't even know what to say. Other than, you know, ride safe people.

How Not To Do It - Group motorcycle ride gone horribly wrong.

Via BoingBoing, of course.

Ok this has to be shouted.

I DROPPED MY MOTHERFUCKING BIKE in the MOTHERFUCKING PARKING LOT.

There. I feel better. Well, ok, no I don't.

Because, you know, I DROPPED MY FUCKING BIKE.

God I hate when I do this. And I drive a big plastic monstrosity, a trophy 1200 (That one ain't mine, but mine's just like it, or was until just now when I DROPPED IT!).

It's the classic one. Kick stand wasn't quite down and I let go.

The damage is mostly cosmetic, with one busted turn signal (which is of course like a hundred dollar part -- fucking british import), and a friendly co-worker helped me get it back on two wheels so I didn't blow by back picking it up, which I have done before with other bikes.

But christ. Just what I need to start my evening...

[made with ecto]

Ok, so last weekend I took the top off my jeep.

I know what this means. Every time I take it off early, in April, the rains come back soon as the top's off.

Every. Damned. Time.

I did it anyway.

So then today I added a scoff; I rode my bike and talked about how nice a day it was. So of course, it's about to rain and me without my foul-weather riding gear.

Remind me next year, ok? Top on until may.

It's too fucking nice today in sunny Silicon Valley to be at work. My third-floor office (Yes, office, I'm no cubical-dweller) window mocks me with this fact.

I rode to work this morning on my big green Triumph, and had the best morning I've had in a couple of weeks. Coffee in my veins, sunshine and the smell of spring, almost summer.

Oh, to keep going. I took the long way to work just because it's so nice, so beautiful. I wanted to keep going, just ride, just go and go. Ride west, to the sea, and then turn south.

Or find some tramp steamer, ride aboard, work my way across the ocean, and ride off someplace with palm trees and warm beaches.

The horizon calls me. The road calls me.

Go.

Who's with me?

Ruby, my six-year-old, reminded me of something today.

"Daddy", she said, "You promised we could see if my legs are long enough."

And of course I had. The rule has always been, when you can get both your feet securely on the rear pegs, you can ride on the back of my motorcycle.