By Joe Gresh
This is a story that happened long ago. Four of my dirt riding buddies decided to take a street bike trip out to Trinity Site in New Mexico where the first atomic bomb was tested. Trinity is open to the public only a couple days a year as it’s on a military base.
I can’t remember if this story was published in Motorcyclist magazine or anywhere for that matter. It popped up doing research for an upcoming Big Bend Park trip. Here at ExNotes we are environmentally woke so recycling stories is part of our shtick.
Hondo, Texas, 7:00 p.m., 103 degrees. I’m riding the long way to the site of the world’s first atomic bomb blast in New Mexico for a little fellowshipping with the Sons of Angioplasty. The SOA are a computer-generated, disgracefully aging MC gang best known for their exploits on two-stroke dirtbikes. Besides, Tourmaster sent along some nice motorcycle gear so if nothing else I have cooked up a reason to mention their products twenty or thirty times.
The Sons of Angioplasty ride an erratic collection of motorcycles. Gary’s riding a giant Honda Valkyrie, Vance has a KTM 990, Deet a WeeStrom 650, Greg’s on his brand-new Yamaha FJR1300, me and Dave ride Kawasakis (a KZ900 and a ZRX1100). The riders differ less than the bikes: we are nearly the same age and are all monotonously white.
Speaking of cooking, when you’re talking dangerous flammable devices I’ve found it’s safest to go home-built. Fabricated from two beer cans and burning denatured alcohol, the Penny Stove (google it) cast its spell on me with the irresistible promise of something for nothing. Three tries, 27 hours of computer research and a 6-week stay at the Betty Ford Clinic later I managed to assemble a working burner.
So there’s another reason to ride, I needed to go camping in order to use the beer-can stove. An expensive sleeping bag was ordered to complement a new 3-man dome tent. I’ll not mention the brand names of products purchased with my own money: we don’t want finance to influence my reviewing.
West on Highway 90 out of Hondo it only gets hotter. I’m wearing the mesh portion of a four-layer, supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, Tourmaster jacket. The mesh flows air so well my ears pop when I remove the wind resistant outer shell. Tourmaster’s hell-for-warm Overpants are less breezy. I leave the long side zippers all the way open, pale, skinny legs lie exposed as the pants flop around like two drowning kittens in a gunnysack. You heard that right, I said drowning kittens in a gunnysack.
South from Marathon, Texas Highway 385 leads to Big Bend National Park. Full of rugged mountains, this out of the way park begs to be photographed. I swing a hard left onto Basin Junction Road then climb 4000 feet into the Chisos Mountains. The temperature drops a degree. I’ve been putting in long days on the green motorcycle that begins with a “K,” so this nearly deserted mountaintop will be my first attempt at camping.
Chisos campground uses the honor system: enclose 14 dollars in an envelope, poke the envelope through a slot in a brown steel pipe. Seems simple enough. I’m filling out the envelope, these friggin’ Tourmaster pants are really warm. Sweat runs down my legs into my boots. My Cessna-print boxers are sopping wet, clinging. Flies strafe my head then light, bellying up to my eyes like regulars at Club Moist Eye. I dig around my wallet, scream in agony and find two fifties and a five. In desperation I plunder the complex pocket system of the magnetic tank bag for hidden bills. Hmmmm, no money: that’ll cost Cortech a star.
I bungee the loose gear onto the motorcycle and we climb higher up the Chisos to the visitor center and the Chisos Mountain Lodge, complete with clean, air-conditioned rooms and a nice restaurant. I book a room, take that stupid camp stove.
From Chisos to Presidio, there’s fabulous Farm-to-Market Highway 170. This beautifully convoluted road parallels the Rio Grande river and the Mexican border. You’ll need to bring ground clearance on this desolate stretch; expect roller coaster first gear turns and lonely canyon views. I wish I could tell you about the tires I bought. They worked great. After Presidio, a straight shot north to Marfa then up into the Davis Mountains.
If you are in the market for a 360cc, twin cylinder, two-stroke Suzuki jeep, look no further than Fort Davis, Texas. The town has cornered the market on these little go-anywhere beasts. I can’t stop though, I’m meeting the SOA in Socorro, New Mexico.
Group riding involves group dynamics and with six riders punching waypoints into 6 navigation machines routing becomes exponentially more dramatic. Leaving Socorro in the cool morning air, bikes carom from the motel parking like pin balls each following his private GPS plot. After a brief reconnoiter the Sons of Angioplasty school-up and ride towards White Sand Missile Range’s Stallion Gate.
Trinity Site is ground zero for The Church of the Bell Ringers of the Apocalypse. The Site is located on a military base and open to the public just two days a year. Trinity marks the precise spot where our modern world began in 1945 with a flash of light seen for hundreds of miles and a demonic roar heard all the way to Hell. Suspended 100 feet above the ground in a steel tower, The Gadget, a plutonium atomic bomb, released the equivalent of twenty thousand tons of TNT, excavating a radioactive depression and forcing the ancient Gods of War to relinquish their sovereignty.
The lineup into Stallion Gate this fine October day is long. Soldiers walk the auto-line explaining military base rules and taking extra time to warn motorcycle riders about free-range Oryx as the antelope-sized animals tend to charge motorcycles. “Stay in the convoy and you’ll be fine.”
Seventeen miles in we come to a circular fence. Corny looking yellow “Warning Radioactive” signs straight out of a 1950 sci-fi movie are spaced along the fence. Souvenir vendors sell A-Bomb t-shirts, A-bomb hamburgers, A-bomb key rings and scads of unrelated alien swarf.
The outer fence surrounds an inner fence where a stone plinth marks the exact spot of the explosion. Stubs of the steel tower legs lie exposed along with a construction covering a portion of undisturbed ground. An inactive Fat Boy bomb sits on a trailer; people sit on it and take photos. The main pit has been filled in over the ensuing 67 years. Intense heat from the explosion created a new kind of radioactive green-glass named Trinitite. Despite the fill, bits of Trinitite can still be found poking out of the ground.
I don’t know what to feel here. I geek out on the technology and the incredible effort plus the pure blind-huevos it took to light this sucker off. Some scientists involved in the project were betting the bomb would ignite the atmosphere and destroy all life on earth but gruesome photographs of flash-fried Japanese bodies and ghostly human shadows eternally cast onto concrete were the ultimate result of that Herculean effort. Hell, I reckon the Japanese would have dropped A-bombs on us if they had them.
Trinity Site is not easy to visit. I’m impressed with the size of the crowd that has made the pilgrimage. There’s a tour bus that takes you a few miles away to the farmhouse where the bomb was assembled. It’s a plain looking stead for such a fiery history.
From White Sands we make tracks for Carlsbad Caverns but Dave’s old Kawasaki fries its voltage regulator in Cloudcroft. Luckily it’s downhill to Alamogordo. Finding a generic regulator has messed up our schedule. The jury-rigged voltage regulator is hot, putting out 16 volts at full chat. Dave installs a voltmeter and by unplugging the regulator at regular intervals keeps the Kawasaki’s battery topped up nicely.
Now we arrive at the caverns late. The last tour has gone and a crisis of leadership unfolds. Gary and Dave want to go west. The nearest motels with vacancies are 40 miles north in the town of Carlsbad. The SOA are getting irritable, groups split off grumbling, there’s talk of mutiny. This whole atomic trip was my idea and it’s falling apart. I shuttle between rival camps and manage to get a quorum on watching the evening bat flight. The millions of flying rats put on such an impressive show we all agree to return tomorrow for the cave tour.
It took an act of congress to gather the SOA at Tina’s Mexican in Carlsbad for our final lunch together. The SOA are a bull-headed bunch and we were itching to strike out on our own. Too much togetherness breeds contempt. Vance and Deet ride east to Oklahoma and North Carolina. Dave, Gary and I head north.
What’s that smell? Riding down the road at 70 MPH I check my bike, something is melting. The smell is stronger near Dave’s KZ. Is that smoke? I flag Dave over, his rear wheel bearings have seized and the axle is spinning in the swing arm adjusters causing paint and chrome to burn.
There are no parts for an old KZ in Roswell New Mexico so AAA picks up Dave’s bike leaving Gary and me to ride in the rain to Moriarity, New Mexico. 2:00 a.m., Dave rumbles up in a U-Haul box truck with the Kawasaki strapped inside.
We split the next morning, Dave in the big U-Haul to Idaho, Gary on the only slightly smaller Valkyrie to Washington state. I ride to Los Alamos then hang a right to Florida. Even though we get on each other’s nerves, I get the feeling The Sons of Angioplasty will ride again. When, I can’t say but after carrying that damn stove for 6000 miles I never did get to cook anything.
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Interesting tide.
I don’t think you can rightfully claim environmental wokeness when you have been so supportive of Chinese motorcycle manufactures that belch out some of the most polluted contaminants in the world.
But I am glad you had a good ride .
Kudos to the Valk.
Interesting ride.
I don’t think you can rightfully claim environmental wokeness when you have been so supportive of Chinese motorcycle manufactures that belch out some of the most polluted contaminants in the world.
But I am glad you had a good ride .
Kudos to the Valk.
Riding different bikes with different optimum cruising rpm’s and gas mileages and comfort levels over so many miles has got to be a challenge .
Especially when you really don’t know each others riding habits previously . Congrats on making it work as well as you did .
I would leave beer cans to beer .
But then that’s just me
Excellent reprise of an old story, whether previously published or not. More like this would be fine.