Reflections on The Poker Run

Peterson's Harley of Miami got the 44th annual Poker Run in the bag last week and I watched the motorcycles leave town on Sunday morning. Like every other event or happening in Key West, the motorcycle ride is a way to raise money for charity. Oddly enough these wild hogs paired up with the Rotary Club. This is how you raise money for diabetes research:

Once upon a time city leaders helped dream up summer events to fill the void of low income season. These days low season seems to last two months and even then the run up to Fantasy Fest gets loud motorcycles while youngsters spent last week hunting for the traditional middle and school coffin, an event that marks the burial of youth and the emergence to manhood. That it involves roaming gangs tossing eggs is not supposed to be a measure of maturity.

I like to ride my motorcycle, or my scooter and I have done for almost half a century, but I'm not fond of Poker Run. Partly my disdain is owed to my iconoclastic nature, but partly too the riders themselves are hardly here to make friends. They are loud, they are happy and their joy comes from playing scary revel for a weekend before they go back to being accountants and tradesmen and air conditioning techs. Useful skills all but this weekend their greatest skill is pissing off bystanders. And it's a shame.

It's a shame because I don't like being lumped in with them. I'm not a "biker." I ride a motorcycle but that doesn't define me. I have come to realize that decades of riding have defined how I like to travel. When I travel I am a motorcyclist whatever the means of transport. To me riding a motorcycle isn't like driving a two wheeled SUV. Part of my joy riding is making progress as I see fit. My goal is to not get in anyone's way, which seems simple enough.

I don't wear high visibility clothing, I don't expect others to look out for me. I have no expectations when I'm on the road. I assume texting is more important than driving so I ride with that expectation in mind. The idea that people texting will notice a yellow vest seems unrealistic to me. It seems apparent that at least, is one belief shared by the poker riders and myself!

I read  about people who want motorcycles to lose their manual gearboxes which I find to be an odd thing.  To me the fun of riding lies also in the skill of riding. My car is an automatic because I don't have much interest in making the thing go. My Ford Fusion is reliable, comfortable, well equipped and simply needs to be pointed in the right direction. There is no skill in changing gears on long straight highways and there isn't much cut and thrust in traffic with a four door sedan equipped with ABS, sunroof, leather and satellite radio... and two cup holders I think. I don't use them much. Yet some people look for ways to attach cup holders to motorcycles which I find very odd. And lots of people like scooters without gears. I have a Vespa with no gears and I find it okay but not involving. Like my car. I prefer my geared old Vespa when it isn't seizing. Or my indomitable  2007 Bonneville, five speed gearbox, 93,000 miles and running fine, thank you.

So I stand on the sidelines and I feel like a survivor from an era that doesn't much exist anymore, a place where riding a motorcycle wasn't thought of as a lifestyle but "fun." We got a buzz from learning to ride well, from the cut and thrust of traffic and taking corners at speed from being rebels in how we rode not how we dressed or how we staggered. I watched the Poker Run go home in sedate groups roaring along obediently between cars, about as rebellious as you would imagine weekend warriors to be. I guess I am another old fart  looking over my shoulder and glad I lived and learned to ride when I did. Damn the cupholders and automatic gearboxes! Though modern riding clothing is quite comfortable and effective, even in black.

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Eight Bells For Phil Peterson

From The Keynoter this story of an interesting man. Not everyone in Key West loves the Poker Run with the loud mufflers etc...but there's no doubt Peterson's Poker Run has contributed to local tourism. Not to mention selling a ton of motorcycles!

Phil Peterson, founder of the Key West Poker Run and a South Florida biker icon, dies at 91

BY HOWARD COHEN

Miami HeraldOctober 3, 2015 

One would be hard-pressed to find a greater biker icon in South Florida than Phil Peterson, who opened his first Harley-Davidson shop on Duval Street in Key West in 1954.

Peterson -- founder of the Key West Poker Run -- grew his Harley dealerships to main locations in Cutler Bay and Miami Gardens, as well as shops that sell Harley clothing and gear at Bayside Marketplace in downtown Miami and the Dolphin Mall in West Miami-Dade. Peterson's also maintains a Key West presence.

Peterson, born in Green Bay, Wis., on Feb. 24, 1924, died at his Miami home on Sept. 25. He was 91. 

When Peterson moved his family to Key West, his priority was not the weather or fishing, he once told the Keynoter.

"Key West had a Navy base with a credit union and a lot of sailors who liked motorcycles," he smiled.

Peterson meticulously recorded names and hometown information from customers coming to his Key West shop, "even if they just came in for a can of oil," he said. "Then when they came back, I knew their names and could ask how things were back in wherever."

Shattering stereotypes and supporting charities will be a part of Phil Peterson's legacy.

"There are several sides to the biking community," said John Birk, a biking enthusiast who has written on the subject for cycling magazines. "Most people hear of the Hell's Angels but the average biker who buys a Harley is a college grad who makes $85,000 a year. He always wanted the reputation of bikers to be good."

Peterson lived by example.

"He was well respected in the motorcycle community," said Birk, a friend since he bought his first Harley from Peterson in 1965. "Anybody who rides a bike ... knew Phil Peterson.”

Indeed, as Peterson's family wrote in an obituary, "Phil was an icon as a Harley dealer in South Florida for the past 60 years. He did not swear and he had no tattoos. He favored a white straw hat when not in his motorcycle helmet."

The Phil Peterson Key West Poker Run has endured for more than 40 years, and its beneficiaries include the Diabetes Research Institute at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine and the Key West Sunrise Rotary Club. The motorcycle Mardi Gras, as his son Drew Peterson once called the event, featured Peterson, into his 80s, leading the way on his Harley.

He also sponsored the mainland Toys in the Sun Run for the Joe DiMaggio Children's Cancer Caring Center and numerous American Red Cross blood donor drives.

In 2006, when Peterson expanded his Cutler Bay showroom by moving into a former Circuit City, he marked the occasion with a black tie and blue jeans fundraiser for the Women's Alliance, an organization that provides career training for low-income women, and for Chapter 2, a used clothing store in Miami's Overtown neighborhood.

"I'm heavy into charities and I'm glad to see my sons and daughters-in-law following along," Peterson told the Miami Herald in 2006. "The more people we can help, the better off everything is."

After a childhood spent on the cherry farms in Wisconsin, he enlisted in the Navy in 1942. He served in combat on destroyers in the Atlantic and Pacific as a machinist's mate first class. At 14, he met the woman who would later become his wife and fellow rider of 67 years, Charlotte, in the Peterson family cherry orchard.

The lure of cycles proved stronger than farming, however, especially as Peterson gazed longingly at free-spirited teens who rode their bikes along the dirt roads outside his childhood home. After a period of racing on the circuit, Peterson opened his dealership in Key West. The Miami Gardens branch followed in 1965.

"I've loved motorcycles since I was a little kid," he said in a 2006 Herald story. "I love the freedom."

Peterson is survived by his wife, Charlotte, and their six children, Josephine Robbin, David Peterson, Jan Peterson Adelson, Dan, Drew and Dirk Peterson; nine grandchildren and five step-grandchildren.

Memorial donations can be made to the St. Rose of Lima School, Phil Peterson Memorial Scholarship Fund or the Diabetes Research Institute.

A few images from my blog:

Poker Run or V Twin Lemmings

It's lemming weekend in Key West:

I find, thanks to the abundance of information on the Internet, that in real life lemmings do not actually throw themselves into the ocean, en masse, off cliffs. However in popular imagination the label "lemming" carries a negative connotation, and like 'em or not, the lemmings have been massing in Key West this weekend. For merchants, who are the backbone of our tired tourist economy, Poker Run is an economic boost at a time of year when visitors are flagging and hurricanes are strengthening. So the residents of the city suffer hundreds, perhaps thousands of motorcycles to come roaring onto the island and make noise, clog streets and allow their riders to strut their lack of imagination.

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In labeling these poseurs as lemmings I know I am denigrating them and I find myself doing that not because they are unworthy tourists, or feeble spenders, but because they aren't motorcyclists worthy of the name. And that's a minefield I have laid out for myself, sure, but "lemming" is a label that just won't get out of my head as I watch them rumble around town in our blinding white sunshine.

They ride large bright expensive machines, almost all of them Harleys, many many of them too impractical to ride to Key West, and the big v-twins come to the Keys on trailers so their owners can rumble down the Overseas Highway at 40 mph free from the cares of road grime, road dirt or road aches. And to my purist "motorcyclist" way of thinking that is pretty feeble.

As the rider of a modest Vespa (pictured here: my wife's even more modest 150), I am not exactly in a position to put myself at the head of a pack of "motorcyclists" but I ride a lot. I fear I ride many more miles than most of the lemmings. I know this because mileage is not something one covers wobbling around on a showroom clean motorcycle, daily riders need to know how to ride, turn, deal with traffic, slow down, stop and start without wobbling stalling and generally riding like a putz, to use a term my Jewish wife would understand. Key West downtown looks like a carnival ride, not a gathering of road-hardened motorcyclists.

Many people who don't ride Harleys despise the machines themselves but don't count me among their number. The Harley Davidsons that come out of the factory are fine machines and I've tried my hand at riding them, and propose to rent them again in the future as they are quite enjoyable and surprisingly fast. However to see them kept and polished as toys instead of a means of getting around, or even as a way of life, is a shame to me. Harleys don't light my inner fire as other machines do ( Vespas, Moto Guzzis, Triumphs for example) but they do the mundane job of transporting people very well and with flair too.

I wish Poker Run (a worthy fund raiser by the way) attracted a real variety of riders, people with motorcycles that are truly interesting, unusual machines ( I saw one classic Triumph all weekend), machines worthy of inspection that would turn Duval Street into an outdoor bike show, not a backdrop for some gruesome Urban Cowboy leatherette backdrop.

I guess watching these weekend warriors dress up in fancy dress and ponce about on the Highway abusing these thoroughbreds and treating them like lap dogs, plain pisses me off. Hell, I need to find something more worthwhile for my ire!

Vespa Blues Part Two

I called the main mechanic in Ft Lauderdale and spoke with Joe at some great length. He's the chief mechanic for all three Vespa stores owned by one man between Palm Beach and Miami. I wanted Vespa Miami to take the scooter to him in the first place, an idea they agreed to but never followed through on. So, back I go on my next day off, Monday morning at O-dark-thirty, with the Vespa strapped back in the trailer... for another go at fixing the wretched thing. I really can't even begin to sell it like it is now. I keep hoping someone really can fix it and allow me to feel good on it once again. This electronic marvel is beyond my abilities to understand and perhaps that in itself is a weakness. Fuel injection, pollution re-breathing equipment, ignition CDI etc etc...marvellous and incomprehensible.

Yesterday Vespa Miami promised me they had ridden the scooter long and hard on surface streets and the freeway, yet it was obvious to me the idle was low and there was a pick up hesitation around both 35 and 60 miles per hour. Plus the dreaded vapor lock in the fuel cap was instantly evident- a loud hiss when the fuel cap was unscrewed. I removed the gasket to allow air in and I disconnected the battery to see if that would re-set the computer. The scooter then ran a lot better. This morning I zoomed in to work, hitting 85 miles per hour ( on the speedo) in the wide open reaches of the Saddlebunch Keys. It was exhilarating, though annoying, because I knew something wasn't quite right.

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As soon as I hit a red light at Stock Island, 20 miles from home, the engine died and there i was in among cars, in the dark with a dead scooter. It looked a bit like this, a picture I took on a previous commute: I'm a cautious man by nature and I had set off a little early for work so I had time in hand to bleed the fuel line and re-start the female dog, and arrive at work perfumed with 93 octane and a really bad attitude. Honestly, it was scary having the engine stop without warning in the middle of traffic and I am not normally a fearful man.

What's worse is that its bike week this week and Key West is crammed with poseurs on shiny Harleys ( and a handful of crotch rockets) all running perfectly, and though my idea of Hell is spending time with riders-with-attitude, I can't help but feel doubly annoyed to be reminded all the time of these people riding happily around town.

Whats more is just that I am plain annoyed. I no longer trust the GTS and am angry that I have to sell what is a great piece of machinery. When it runs, that is. My wife is livid and she doesn't want me risking my life or limbs on a scooter that dies suddenly. She knows I like to ride fast and she knows I am often to be found passing cars and I love the joke of the unexpected-"where did that moped come from?" implicit in my red buzz bomb outrunning complacent cagers, but...I hope to god Joe can tell me something so good and reassuring on Monday that I will be able to sweet talk my wife for"yet another go..." but it looks grim.

Why a Bonneville if the Vespa has to go? Well, its a classic like the Vespa from a classic company. Its relatively small and handy and performs well, by my standards. With almost 40 years in the saddle (since I was 12), I have come to value ease of use, light weight and simplicity in my ride. The Vespa ably covers the first two but substitutes comfort for simplicity, a compromise that suited me when things were running well. I'd like an air cooled, valve accessible ride if this isn't going further on the Vespa. I have considered a BMW of older years,perhaps a 1997 850 or 1100, in the R series, but I like the Triumph's looks and size better. Plus a final drive belt is available after market to replace the horrid chain.

Why the Bonneville over the other models? The America/Speedmaster are cruisers and I dislike sitting with feet thrust forward, its hard on the tail bone and impedes proper control of a speeding motorcycle. The Thruxton? Ooh yes but I'm too old and paunchy for clip ons anymore, though the Thruxton best resembles the MV Agusta and Moto Morini of my youth... The Scrambler? I burned my inner legs too often as a kid on scramblers with high pipes. Plus the Scrambler doesn't carry saddle bags real well either. The Tiger is too tall, as is the gorgeous 750 triple and the other Triumphs are too, dare I say it? modern.

I am trying to put a good face on a bad hand Piaggio and Fate have dealt me, and I keep hoping for the best. beside what do I do with the name of this blog that I chose originally for what was to be an experimenting i was sure i wouldn't enjoy. Key West Bonneville? Bonneville Chronicle? Southernmost Bonneville?How does one change the name of a blog anyway? I need my Vespa...