Recently an Off-Road.com reader wrote in to our Dirtbike Columnist Rick Sieman:

"I am a long time fan of your magazine column work. I have even begun writing stories of my own riding experiences, attempting to do it in your style, that I liked so much. One of my favorites of all time was the "Tear Jerkers". The routine, painful things that happen to us out in the garage working on the bike. I would love to read it again, any chance of getting to see it?
Thanks.
Mike"

Here you go:

TEAR-JERKERS
(Whenever I hear about a baseball player not playing because of a sprained knee, or some other pussy injury, I just read this column and figure I must be a hell of a man. Or in a really stupid sport.)

By Rick Sieman

Tear-jerkers. We're not talking about when Ramone leaves Belinda for an under-aged goat brander from Seville and gets hit by a train and a bus. Nope. We're talking about real life tear-jerkers … the kind that can bring a grown man to his knees, eyeballs moistened, hurting too much to even curse. Let me explain:

A short time back I was working on my bike, quite peacefully, mind you, getting it ready for the weekend. Now, I have a habit of sticking the screwdriver I'm using into the footpeg. That way I can find it easily. Anyway, I had just put the shiny new Craftsman straight-slot screwdriver into the peg and turned my attention to removing the airbox cover and the filter, when the phone rang.

I got up from the milk crate and drove—literally drove!—the tip of the screwdriver into my left leg, right above the knee. Using my lightning-quick racer-trained reflexes, I immediately fell to the floor, moaning like a kicked poodle, tears welling up in my lagoon-blue eyes. Tear-jerker.

A friend of mind was fixing a cracked pipe on his Yamaha by carefully welding along the spider-webbed damage, taking his time, doing it right. He set the welding rod down, removed the welding goggles, studied the weld, then put the goggles back on to weld a bit more. When he picked up the welding rod, it was by the hot end. Tearjerker.

Once I was in a desert race, doing rather poorly, if memory serves correctly, and I smashed my right foot into a rock that was hooked directly to China. The pain was blinding and caused white dots to swirl in front of my eyes. However, it was not a tearjerker. I was only five miles or so from the finish, and I had no choice but to ride in.

After picking up the bike, I got back on, found neutral, and gave a boot to the kickstarter, with the swollen toes pointed out. On the third kick the bike fired, but the kickstarter slipped up and slapped me on the back of the leg, just above the boot. Serious pain, but still not a tear-jerker.

Rather carefully, I rode back toward the finish line, with the entire right limb throbbing like a wounded tuna. After a few miles, the foot hurt so much that I could no longer keep my heel on the footpeg. So I held the foot in the air and rode even slower. About one-quarter mile from the pits, I rode through a little gully, and the suspension gently bottomed out. This lowered the injured foot just the correct amount, and it made contact with a grapefruit- sized rock, toe first. Real tear-jerker!

My friend George was racing at Saddleback one fine, clear Saturday, and he related this tale: He got off the line a fraction late and had to gas it hard to get to mid-pack. As he neared the top of the long start straight, a rock lazily left the rear knobby of the bike in front of him and arced through the air. He tilted his head to one side to play it safe, and the bike moved over slightly with his body. The rock then dropped gently right into his groin, hitting him in ... how shall we say it?... one of the family jewels.
The pain was intense enough to make him suck in his breath, curl up into a ball and make no attempt whatsoever at trying the first turn. He merely rode through the turn, fell on the ground at one mile per hour and lay there, feet in the air, whimpering. Tearjerker.

Recently I ran into a series of minor cuts and scrapes that were more infuriating than anything else. First off, I cut open my right thumb on a sharp-edged hose clamp while removing the carb. After a few minutes, I forgot about that. Then, a bit later, a screwdriver slipped and my left palm got a nice little gash. I sucked on that for a few minutes to cleanse the wound and then proceeded. A half hour later, a wrench slipped, and I gashed open the backs of two knuckles on the footpeg.
This was getting monotonous. Twenty minutes later, I got a three-inch white-meat cut on the back of my left hand while trimming a zip tie with a dull razor blade. Not much time passed before my right hand got pinched in the toolbox lid. I more or less wrote off these petty injuries and went about the business of shaping up my bike for the next day.

At 11:15 that night, I was just about done, with only the air filter left. It had been hanging up all day to dry, so I grabbed it and got out a bottle of filter oil to wrap up the job. With the filter in my left hand, I poured a liberal amount of Maxima filter oil on the foam and began to work it in really well.

At this point, I realized that my hands had no less than ten open wounds! People have received medals for less serious injuries. Well, what could I do? My hands were already covered with the filter oil, and the cuts were thoroughly saturated. With tears in my eyes, I squeezed the oil through the foam, then stumbled into the laundry room and turned on the hot water and squeezed liquid soap into my greasy hands. And washed them. King of the tear-jerkers!

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