Pegasus Ain't Got Nothin' On My Mule

Well. I always did want a pilots license - and a motorcycle is certainly cheaper than a plane, no?

We had just come off of a 6 hour ride along the nile from a town called Sohag, where we had stayed in what had to be the dingiest hotel of the trip so far (not counting Emad's fine establishment). The ride itself was spectacular - everything I had dreamed it would be. The images seemed to have been lifted straight off of the pages of the Egyptian history books I had read as a child - within the nile floodplain houses of mud and palm bark sat like islands in a vast sea of unrequited greenery, the rectangular plots bordered by palm tree collonades. Beyond this verdant strip, which in some places stretched for several kilometers on either side of the nile, there was nothing but the desert - a desolate, lifeless land. The contrast was amazing to me - one could easily see how a civilization could develop, and thrive, in this land - an incredibly fertile strip of land proteced from the encroachment of others by a massive, desolate, moat of sand and rock.

And so, when we arrived in Luxor, towards which it seems I have been striving for much of my life, I was in a daze (certainly, the heat may have contributed, but nevertheless). We found the Amon Hotel easily enough - it was off a quiet side street in a place called Al-Gezira - in Luxor's west bank and just a quick ride from the storied nocropolis of Thebes. The owners generously allowed us to park our motorcycles within their garden - Tyson and Tom easily rode their bikes up the stairs, through the gate, and along the path to the designated parking spot. I had other plans (unbeknownst even to me, as it turns out). I lined my bike up carefully, asked T-Bone if I should gun it, and let 'er rip. My plan (if only that were true) was to launch my bike 5 feet in the air, do a somersault, wheelie through the doorway, and do a skid stop on the terazzo flooring, and put Tyson's and Tom's earlier stunt-work to shame. I managed to do only the first and third of these stunts. How, you ask? First, a milk crate should be placed in front of the stair and be driven over twice to weaken it to the point of collapse. Next, you should have a history of gunning the throttle whilst climbing curbs, using a heavy clutch to control all that power. Finally, you have to have a bum knee and feel the need to overcompensate for it in order to prevent a dropped bike. With all these factors in place, the final collapse of the milk crate will engender a sudden release of the clutch, and the concomittant transmission of all that power to the rear wheel just as your bike is in the perfect position for a launch. When you finally land, you should be in a monster wheelie, heading towards a very narrow doorway at some 40 kph. Hopefully, the panic-stricken photographer until recently occupying that space has by now realized your plan, and vacated the doorway. A very surprised Tyson certainly did, but stuck arond long enough to capture my moment of unexpected glory.

Actually threading the doorway, as I recall, was a very conscious manneouver, necessitated by the presence of a very solid brick wall. I can remember using my body weight first to help guide the bike through, and once inside, again to avoid a potted plant and statue, which were both just inside and to the left of the door. Unfortunately, the trajectory engendered by these movements aimed me directly at the corner of the far wall - my attempts to thread the bike between the corner and an adjacent pillar were only partially successful here. Buffy's tire and fender just missed the wall (I was on all 2s again at this point), but the right side of the fairing and the right engine guard both hit. As a result, when Buffy came to rest, her fairing had collapsed on the right, and her right engine guard was bent back far enought to have caused a dent in her gas tank. The brick wall bore the marks of this unfortunate meeting as well, as did an advert for a local balloon excursion company.

Surprisingly, apart from this she was in perfect working order - even the headlight emerged unscathed. Indeed, a few hours at a local mechanic's with a vise grip sorted out the bent steel, and Buffy was good to go. Perhaps even more amazing is that her erstwhile stunt-man driver, bum knee and all, dismounted his bike with narry a scratch. My knee was in no way aggravated by my climbing the curb this time around, as planned. As for the hotel - the staff spurned all my attempts to pay for the damage. I wonder whether the spectacle of my entry may have inspired their generosoty - perhaps they made a deal with Tyson to acquire his by-now famous picture. Certainly, in my travels around the city that day and the next, I realized that I had aquired a certain noteriety - "You driver of moto through door!"