The Endless Concrete Ribbon of the Cross-Country Highway

Dear BMW enthusiast,

The motor cycle is a constant challenge to a man; a challenge to experience the adventure of man’s command over the machine — direct and unadulterated. Wind, weather and road conditions must be tackled and mastered anew — on every single occasion. And above all, the machine —

You have chosen a BMW with its wonderfully refined, powerful twin cylinder horizontally opposed engine and shaft drive — “the greatest”, as our American friends might say. We congratulate you on this decision.

Our Owner’s Manual contains all the information you need to enjoy the unspoiled pleasure of riding this fine motor cycle, and also the care and attention needed to maintain the value of this precision machine. Please study the contents — in a very short time you will become familiar with the features of your BMW.

Now you can start to enjoy a quite exceptional experience: true riding pleasure — in dense city traffic, on narrow, winding mountain roads, and along the endless concrete ribbon of the cross-country highway.

Sincerely yours,

BAYERISCHE MOTOREN WERKE AG

I wish I could shake the hand of the man who penned this introduction to the 1976 edition of the BMW Motorcycle Owner’s Manual. We’d together partake in a nice Maduro and a glass of Scotch while discussing the finer points of Hemingway’s prose. All this, of course, after a long summer’s ride “along the endless concrete ribbon of the cross-country highway”.

If you’re a man and that intro didn’t strike a resounding chord in your soul, I’d start checking for a pulse. When I first read it, I got literal goose bumps on my arms and a tear of nostalgia in my eye for a period of time in which I’d never lived — born in 1980, I just missed this golden era of literary greatness. Never has a technical document gotten me so energized about the prospect of masculine adventure and the challenges of the open road.

“The motor cycle is a constant challenge to a man; a challenge to experience the adventure of man’s command over the machine — direct and unadulterated. ”

I’ve been a lover of BMW motorcycles for a long time. The brand is synonymous with adventure on two wheels, like the Land Rover is to four. They’re ubiquitous around the globe; from the cobbles of Europe to the desert sands of Africa.

My old friend and guitar teacher, Dr. Rod, a professor of music at Columbia International University, has taken regular summer road trips across the wide expanses of America on his Beamer for as long as I can remember. Early on in his adventures he began journaling on the road and posting his writing on Facebook. After developing a cult following, he adapted the written journals into a Podcast entitled, Caol Áit, or “Thin Place”, narrated by himself to the tune of music which he himself produces and records. Reading (or listening to) his stories about the trials, tribulations and triumphs of his trips into the wild unknown, and his reflections thereon, is enough to awaken even the most dormant of souls from slumber. These journals were the impetus for my desire to take a road trip of my own — a journey of self-discovery you might say. So in the summer of 2010 I purchased a ‘95 BMW R1100R off of Craigslist.

The bike was beautiful — an absolute dream to ride. Plans were being laid to ride out west from South Carolina to Oregon and back. I joined BMW MOA and started pouring over threads on adventurerider.com. I’d become entranced by motorcycle adventure culture. I ate up everything about it: the clothing, the gear, bike maintenance and repair, where to stay on the road, stealth camping, the whole bit. I was obsessed.

I sadly do not have a pictures of the actual bike, but here is one I borrowed from the internet. Please don’t sue me whoever owns it…

Then I met my now wife and daughter, and my desire to skip town and spend months on the road in solitude and self-discovery quickly waned. The bike got parked and covered in lieu of safer transportation, and needless to say, the road trip never happened. I eventually sold the bike in the name of good parenting, which was probably the right thing to do… right? To this day I ponder the possibility of that trip, how it might’ve shaped me into a different, more well-rounded and better man. But I digress.

Ironically, my wife come from a motorcycle family. Her father is a Harley man and she even had a Honda Shadow of her own when we met, which seeing her wield seemed to defy the laws of physics — big bike, small girl. But she was already planning on selling her bike before I came on the scene. Not many years after selling my R1100R, though, my father-in-law happened into ownership of a 1976 BMW R60/6. It was essentially “thrown in” on a deal he made for a Harley Super Glide. I don’t exactly know what went down in that transaction, but he came home with two bikes for the price of one. Ever since then I’ve had my lustful eyes on that Beamer and a hankering to “enjoy the unspoiled pleasure of riding this fine motor cycle.”

My father-in-law’s ‘76 R60/6

The gas tank was rust-laden, the carbs leaked, and the tachometer was shot among other things, but otherwise the bike was in good shape for a 40-year-old. It had such low miles though that I wondered where its patina came from. The bike seemed to have a story, one in which would never be told.

Randy, my father-in-law, tinkered with the bike over the years, fixing a bit at a time until it was rideable but not really “roadworthy”. He sealed the gas tank and rebuilt the carbs, put in a new battery and sorted out some electrical issues. The tachometer, though, is beyond repair and replacements are hard to come by and quite expensive.

All the while I would drop hints from time to time about how I’d love to have the bike. To make her my own and afford her some more years on the road, not cooped up in a garage amongst Christmas decorations and three generations worth of old bicycles. Despite my best attempts to bring her into my own loving embrace, she remains in the employ of my father-in-law’s garage with only the occasional bump around the “concrete ribbon”. Yet on every visit to my in-law’s house I take a peak in the garage at that old R60. I’ll sometimes throw a leg over, give the throttle a twist and reminisce about the slight but ever present sideways pull of that infamous horizontal boxer engine.

As of this writing, and with great chagrin, I remain motorcycle-less; a problem I hope to some day remedy, along with setting out on that cross-country adventure now that the little one is all grown up. But the point I want to make, the point of this ramble, is in the substance of that BMW Owner’s Manual.

Here, read it again, straight from the source. Let the words really soak in and permeate your soul.

This message is a call to action. A call to masculine initiation. A call to step out into the wild unknown and experience adversity, challenges, hardships, and to develop the grit and determination to overcome them and to master your domain.

In our modern era us men have become soft, squishy, gelatinous. We no longer suffer, and so no longer have the mettle born by suffering. Henry David Thorough famously wrote, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” The masculine heart is desperate for adversity, a challenge to overcome. But we seem to have overcome all the challenges of life and in turn have become weak. I myself am a victim of modernity. For years my heart and soul have atrophied from lack of sufficient resistance in life. I’d lost touch with the wildness that God bore every man with at birth. The Apostle Paul says in 1 Corinthians 16:30, “be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.” What happened to this message? Or better yet, happened to us?

This BMW Owner’s Manual has as much to do with maintaining a healthy life as it does maintaining a healthy motorcycle. It has sparked in me a new longing for adventure and adversity. It may not be behind the fairing of a motorcycle, but whatever the adventure may entail, it is sure to be “a quite exceptional experience”, “direct and unadulterated”, and fraught with “unspoiled pleasure.”