As published in Keystone Motorcycle Press, January 2024
Since I’ve been writing for motorcycle publications for more than 40 years, my memories of stories I’ve done sometimes get conflated. And, truth be told, I’m not sure the trip whose notable memories I’m about to evoke came from a piece I did for Keystone Motorcycle Press or for RIDER Magazine. But it is one with details I’ll never forget.
Way back when, with those RIDER credentials, I was able to “borrow” Harleys from the factory in nearby York, PA for projects. I didn’t learn until much later that if I’d broken them, I’d have had to buy them. So, deluded as I was, my wife and I hopped aboard one of their very expensive Road King demos and headed for a trip to the wilds of NW Pennsylvania…a place we’d never been.
State College: We’d planned a three- or four-day trip and our first really memorable experience came at State College, where we pulled up to Beaver Stadium on a sunny, late-summer weekday. There was an entrance open, and stadium workers were busy inside. Somehow, using the “I’m doing a magazine article” dodge, I talked some guy into letting us ride that Harley into the stadium and onto the turf to pose it for a photo. You have to remember that this was in the JoPa era, and not only was he a saint, but this place was holy ground. It wasn’t long until somebody higher up the ecclesiastical order spotted us and came running in a rage. How dare we! We were promptly escorted out, with me having to push that damn heavy bike least I despoil the sanctified turf. But, hey, I got a shot.
A Painful Hyner: My next memory of that eventful journey was of climbing the winding road that leads to the overlook of the West Branch of the Susquehanna at Hyner View State Park, east of Renovo. Halfway up this narrow path we rounded a curve to find a bunch of police cars, lights flashing, with their occupants surrounding a small sedan whose roof and glass had been shrouded with a white sheet. We didn’t stop to ask, but a call to the State Police when we returned home confirmed our suspicions. Some poor soul had decided to end it all. Just glad he stopped at mid-point, enabling me to get another great picture at the top. And speaking of odd things, how about that name, Hyner View? What image comes first to your mind?
Shagged: Figuring this to be a three-day trip, I’d made a reservation at the only motel near there that the internet, primitive at that time, could provide. It was west of Renovo, even deeper into the PA version of the Heart of Darkness. Our expectations weren’t all that high, but when we arrived, at a place seemingly distant from any sign of civilization, we found those expectations to be greatly under-exceeded. A lady was on her hands and knees, her “hyner” sticking out the open door of our room, scrubbing the linoleum floor. God, could that be blood? Did the last occupant get shot? While she finished, we back-tracked to Renovo to find something to eat and to try to acclimate ourselves to the strangeness of those parts. Returning we found that our lodging did, indeed, have carpeting. Unfortunately, it was brown shag and it was only on a headboard that extended floor to ceiling. It was with a lot of trepidation of something emerging from that creepy canopy that we climbed into bed that night.
Oil’s Well: Next stop was Oil City and the Drake well, the one that started the whole petrochemical industry. That went fine. As did the push to the Ohio line, something of a necessary, if unremarkable, part of the whole venture. (Your first prize is a week-long vacation in Ohio. Second prize is two weeks!) Turning around immediately, with the hopes of getting closer to mid-State and finding something slightly more upscale in the way of lodgings for that night, I noticed on my map that we were very close to the Kinzua Viaduct State Park in McKean County.
Readers of my “work” will recognize that both railroads and bridges hold a particular fascination for me. So, I impulsively decided on a detour from our chosen path to visit this landmark, once hailed as the tallest RR bridge in the world. When we got there, we found that the footings of the far half of this huge steel trestle were being reconditioned. While the tourist train that had previously run across it was temporarily out of business, foot tours out onto the near half were being conducted by park rangers.
Don’t Look Down: Why I ever consented to walk out onto that structure I’ll never know. If there’s one thing that truly scares me it’s heights. The space between the railroad ties that supported the track was open, and you could see the whole way down. 300 feet! Eeek! They’d laid some very narrow wooden planks, end to end, about a quarter of the way across. But these were not fastened down. As our group followed the ranger, single-file, onto the narrow, one-track bridge, I happened to be behind a guy who looked very much like the Hulk. That is, he was huge! Being afraid to look down, or to either side, I was fixated on his “hyner,” which was almost face level to me in my fear-gripped, bent-over posture. And every time he stepped on the end of one of those warped planks, my end would jolt upward. It was terrifying, waiting every eight feet or so to be launched into the abyss. I don’t specifically recall, but I’m sure, when we’d managed to hear the ranger’s spiel and returned to solid ground, that I got down and kissed it. The ground, I mean.
The Coming Storm: That ranger also happened to mention that some fierce weather was expected the following day. Already skies had gone from sunny to gray and sullen. I looked at the map and calculated that six hours of hard riding could probably get us home before dark. And that’s what we did. Do you know how many trees there are in that part of Pennsylvania? I think we saw them all during our return.
Still, my near-death experience of walking the planks at Kinzua wasn’t really the strangest thing about that part of this trip. As predicted, some really violent weather swept across the state the following day. And the morning after, I opened the paper to see that half of the enormous structure, standing since 1900, had fallen in that storm. I’ve taken hundreds of motorcycle trips, most all with memorable experiences. But I can’t recall any that could compete with the memories of this one.
©2023, David B. Bucher
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