I got a notice in my mail box the other day saying that everyone had to have their vehicles out of the under ground parking area by 8:00AM this morning as the cleaning crew was coming in with their chemicals, solvents, high pressure, hot water, steam throwing, thing-a-ma-giggie to get rid of (a long) winters’ worth of dust and exhaust.

– so around 7:00AM I went down to fire the bikes and move ‘em outside for the day.

The VFR (sport bike) fired easily, it had been started last month for a few minutes so it didn’t complain. Key on, 1/2 choke, punch the starter button, and we’re ready to go.

The Maxim (cruiser) was a bit of a different story, she’d been sitting all winter with no gas in the tank or the carbs, and it turns out that her battery had let her down while sitting on the shelf over the winter. A battery charger was clipped on, and a can of hi-octane went into the tank (noth’en but the best for her says I), and with the petcock on prime to get fuel into the bowls, I walked around her with a soft cloth wiping the thin film of dust that somehow always seems to make it under the tarp no matter how good a job you try and do when you cover up for the winter.

With the choke on full I hit the starter button and she rolled over for the first time this year, and almost caught first try…. thumb off the starter and key off I lit a smoke and talked to her about the snow that was melting and the ice was going out of the rivers and streams, I told her how the roads were drying and the salt would soon be washed off them, and how new life was awakening outside the garage door, and that we soon soon be a part of that.

Then I hit the starter button again.

This time she caught on two, just enough (much like a she bear in the spring being pestered by young cubs, eager to get outside and experience the world) to rumble out a complaint about being woken from her winters sleep before its’ time to go. She knows this isn’t the real thing, she knows we’re not gonna be out on the road from sun up ’till sun down for a few weeks yet, and she’s not the type of bike that enjoys a short casual ride… if you’re not willing to give her at least 300 kilometers don’t pick up the keys, she ain’t gonna be happy.

I turned off the key to let the fuel flow a bit longer, and the battery to charge a bit longer. I lit another smoke and walked around her again with the soft cloth getting rid of a few bits of dust I’d missed the first time around, and told her about the cleaning crew (with their chemicals, solvents, high pressure, hot water, steam throwing, thing-a-ma-giggie to get rid of (a long) winters’ worth of dust and exhaust that was coming into her space in an hour or so) and the fact that I simply could not (alone) push her big, beautiful, frame up the ramp and into the outside parking area where she would be safe from it all.

I hit the starter button again and she roared immediately into full wakefulness with all four cylinders firing in perfect order, the petcock went back to normal, the choke went to the halfway position, and she sat there, contentedly rumbling away, glaring out of the corner of her headlight at the new kid she had just discovered idling away beside her.

Say what you will, but I know, that she knew, that if she hadn’t started I would have tried to push her up that damned ramp to get her away from the chemicals and solvents, and regardless of how much she may have wanted her rest, she wouldn’t do that to me.

With both bikes parked outside (under a tarp of course - they say it’s gonna rain and maybe even snow) I went up to the apartment, washed up, and headed for the bus stop for the daily 1/2 hour ride to work.

There was an older woman from the first floor (right over the garage it would seem) of my apartment building there, and while we were waiting she asked me, while looking at the cloudy sky, if I’d heard the thunder earlier…..

I grinned and said “That weren’t thunder mam, that was me.”