According to the Curmudgeons’ website, they are “a group of mature (ahem!) motorcyclists who like getting together, shooting the breeze and going for rides.  Street racers need not apply!”  They also plan several family-friendly club events each year, including camp-outs and attending the local Fingerlakes BMW Rally.   The Curmudgeons, as an official local affiliate of the BMW Motorcycle Owners of America organization since 1997, are also part of the network of riders helping riders.  “If you’re passing through and need a place to camp or someone to show you around, drop us a line,” offers the website.

The Curmudgeons may call themselves “mature,” but the average age of a Curmudgeon is around 47 years old.  The eight riders this morning—out of about 65 members—are an upbeat, raucous, wisecracking group.  Over breakfast the Curmudgeons discuss life after retirement, joke about their receding hairlines, and commiserate about their wives who nag at them for cluttering precious garage space with their multiple motorcycles.   Art Yaples, a white-haired former Ithaca High School science teacher and Driver’s Ed instructor, tells the group that he and his wife found a great motorcycle route on a road trip last weekend.  “Only problem was, we were on four wheels!” he chuckles.   The Curmudgeons nod with understanding.  I will soon learn some basic Curmudgeon slang: cars are referred to as “cages,” and “a big dog who likes to carve some tarmac” signifies an aggressive rider—known for his feats of skill and daring—who likes to ride along twisty, paved roads.

The Curmudgeons have given themselves the tagline, “Churlish people on cherished machines.”  While I wouldn’t call their friendly, PG-13 banter churlish, and “curmudgeon” is more self-deprecating than an accurate characterization of their collective group attitude, it is clear that these are guys who really love their motorcycles and the socialization that comes along with being an enthusiast.  Ted Brosnick, a talkative coordinator for Cornell construction projects with a son currently at the Engineering school, deadpans, “You know, they say BMW owners park their bikes in descending serial number.  They wear matching socks and underwear coordinated for each day of the week, too.”  The Curmudgeons crack up and Brosnick jumps in with another joke.  “A dirty, smelly hog rider pulls up next to a BMW rider.  ‘How did your portfolio do today?’ the BMW rider asks the Harley guy.”  

Hammer differentiates between the different “schools” of motorcycle philosophy, describing “Harley-Davidson folks” as those who are more into the image and marketing of motorcycle culture, and who like to cruise in big packs at roughly the speed limit, go somewhere, drink and then come back.  The Curmudgeons, on the other hand, “really understand motorcycles as well-designed machines.”

“Some of us are closet speed freaks,” admits Hammer, who could go on for hours about the beauty of a perfectly carved turn or the thrill of acceleration.  “It’s exhilarating to be in control of your own thing for the moment.  That feeling of ‘Yeah, I feel free.’  I’m doing what I want to do, when I want to do it. The speed is the thrill; it’s a rush.  A good blast really clears the cobwebs out of the old brain.”  Other Curmudgeons attribute their love of motorcycling to being in touch with the road and their surroundings, as part of nature.  “Some guys just like to cruise, relax, get some air and look at the cows,” says Hammer.  “We’re really not bad.  We shave; we take baths.  We’re far from some stupid motorcycle guy.  Everybody’s pretty open.”  

As if on cue, another BMW pulls up in front of Carl’s and from the booth window I watch a tall, gray-haired, bearded man in a black leather jacket saunters into the diner, helmet cradled in the crook of his arm.  The Curmudgeons greet the latecomer, Michael Todd.  “You know a seasoned motorcyclist when you see one because of the number of bugs on his jacket,” Brosnick informs me, while Art, Roger, Wayne, and the two Mikes nod in agreement.  Sure enough, Mike Todd’s jacket is spotted like a dirty windshield with ill-fated insect life.  When asked to describe his parents’ reaction when he first started motorcycling as a teenager, Todd answers in a slight British accent, “Well, it’s the dirty leather jacket stereotype.  It’s not how a proper English boy is supposed to be.”

Todd is the brainchild behind the Cayuga Curmudgeon’s official motto, “Hide your grandmothers!”  He has also taught at Cornell since 1973, as the Leon C. Welch Professor at the School of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering.  Todd earned his Bachelor’s degree at Cambridge and holds a Ph.D. from Yale.  Honors he has received include a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Sloan Research Fellowship, and the George B. Dantzig Prize in Mathematical Programming.  Todd says he enjoys the camaraderie of motorcycling, and has found riding companions among the professors and “computer nerd types” when participating in national academic conferences.  

Todd says that the students in his game theory class and his colleagues in Rhodes Hall are surprised when he arrives at his office in motorcycle gear after riding to campus.   In fact, he discovered fellow motorcycle enthusiast Graham Bailey, professor of computer science and mathematics, at an academic conference when both men donned motorcycle wear as they prepared to leave the seminar room.  Mike Hammer calls Bailey a “British crazed lunatic” who’s also a musician and practices Tae kwon do. Everyone in the Curmudgeons has more than one interest, and often their other hobbies are just as fueled by adrenaline and an appetite for adventure as motorcycling.  Todd, who says he flew a plane once but finds it “rather boring,” enjoys rock climbing, while Roger also races dirt bikes competitively.  Mike Hammer was raised by racecar-driving parents in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, became a competitive ski racer as a youth, and then strayed from family tradition and became a semi-professional motorcycle racer on the California and Northeast circuits.  He also happens to have studied mechanical engineering at Lafayette and earned a degree in business from UC Berkeley.  

Hamilton Allport, a Cornell Economics graduate who founded the Cayuga Curmudgeons, can’t make the ride this morning.  Ham—known as an independent spirit—owns University Cycles, a bike shop out on Dryden Road he wanted to name “Near-Varna.” The Curmudgeons also count Al George, a mechanical engineering professor famous for his work on engine acoustics, and Harry Stewart, a civil engineering professor involved with the MARS Rover Project, as members.  From researchers to bus drivers, surgeons to construction managers, lawyers to Ithaca High guidance counselors, the Curmudgeons are a diverse group united by their love of the machine. Todd, who has a 1978 Ducati from Bologna, Italy and a 1988 BMW, says, “I’ve never had a bike newer than ten years old.  A bike has to have some sort of character; it’s like a work of art.”  Hammer currently owns five Yamahas and two BMWs.

Before gearing up for the ride, I check out the bikes in front of Carl’s.  The motorcycle is intricate but solid, heavy and lumbering, yet sleek and sparkling, too.  I’ve dressed in layers for the ride—two shirts, fleece jacket, jeans—but the guys inform me this is not enough.  I put on the windproof motorcycle jacket, gloves, and helmet Hammer has brought for me and hop on his bike for my first experience  “riding pillion.”  I am ready to discover for myself the manly metaphors that the powerful advertising of the motorcycling industry had brainwashed me with as I perused the models displayed on the BMW, Yamaha, and Harley-Davidson brand websites.  The ad copy hyperbole crafted by under-worked, creatively suppressed writers screams masculinity louder than power tools and Monday Night Football: “ Lean and mean and low-slung is the name of the game here, with boulevard bad boy styling,” claims a Yamaha blurb describing a V Max Cruiser as “the Mr. Olympia of power cruisers.”  As we drive out of Ithaca, I begin to understand what the fuss is all about, even from the pillion seat.  Teena Risley, the wife of a BMW motorcycle owner, confessed her love of the bike in a recent BMW Owner’s News article:  “Though I’m just a pillion passenger, I’m as hooked on bicycling as my bike-mad husband.  Hugging close into Tim, I’d watch the road ahead, knowing when he’d be shifting down for a curve, leaning into a sharp turn and accelerating out.  I’d match his moves, anticipate the shifts, flow with him.  What a feeling!  No sitting like a sack of flour against the back seat rest for me; I became an active passenger and the joy of the ride intensified tenfold.”  Risley’s words echo in my head as I cling to the rider in front of me.  Though I wish I could own and ride a motorcycle of my own, riding pillion is the next best thing.  

We ride through Enfield and Enfield Center, into Schuyler County through Meklenberg, Montour, Montour Falls, Odessa, Orange, and Watkins Glen, stopping at Tobe’s Coffee & Donut Shop by the shore of Seneca Lake.  I look out on small towns and villages, vineyards, rolling hills spotted with chestnut horses, black and white cows, cylindrical hay bales.  There are flat stretches of razed cornfields, red barns with rusted metal corrugated roofs, farmhouses and silos, doublewides with swing sets and cars for sale in the front yard.  As we lean into tight corners, the motorcycling clichés run wildly through my consciousness:  the open road, a clear blue sky on a crisp autumn day, the sun warming my face, and my ponytail flying in the wind.  I can feel the engine underneath my body, feel the bike jerk when we shift gears, feel the parts whirring and vibrating with a tingling mechanical energy that travels from the footrests to your very core.   This is what motorcycling—and the Cayuga Curmudgeons—is all about.

A quick look at the BMW website shows, in contrast to many other over-masculinized brands, the company’s signature emphasis on quality, safety, and a less blatant sexually-charged reason to ride.  “Take it easy!  You’ve done it!” exclaims the ad copy.  “You’ve forgotten all about your daily worries.  No appointments, no deadlines and no obligation to get caught up in the hectic rush of your surroundings. With the BMW Cruiser you are above all these things and can breathe easy.  Experience the unlimited freedom of the easy life and the unique technology that only a BMW can offer. Sit back and enjoy a bike in which the classic look and modern functionality have been brought together into a timeless work of art.”  This mentality about the art and sport of motorcycling articulates the appeal of the bike.  For the Curmudgeons, motorcycling is a lifestyle.  They are busy, accomplished professionals and academics in search of a little adventure, a little speed, and the freedom of the American roadway.  After the ride Hammer delivers me back to my car at Carl’s.  As he pulls out of the parking lot he smiles, “All you have to do is twist the throttle, and you’re gone.  Just ride off into the sunset.”