The Ryukyu Islands hang like a string of irregular pearls from the southern end of Kyushu in the north to Okinawa in the south. They form a rough semi-circle demarcating the East China Sea from the Pacific Ocean. The Japanese nickname for this area is Typhoon Alley, because the mighty typhoons that ravage the Japanese archipelago are spawned in the warm Black Current which sweeps up the eastern shorelines of the Ryukyus. In ancient times there was a Kingdom of Ryukyu. This independent island nation carried on a thriving trade with China and other Asian countries. Eventually, like other island paradises such as Hawaii and Tahiti, the Ryukyus were absorbed by larger nations determined to expand their empires. Larger nations against which small islands stand no chance.

To me, however, the Ryukyus are a time machine — a place where one can experience a Japan largely unspoiled by modernization. I’ve come here, to the tiny island of Kikai, off the northeast coast of Amami Island, to work with a group of Japanese carpenters who still build their complex houses the old way, without metal fasteners of any kind.

I’ve taken a room at the inn Tanaka-so, about a twenty-minute ride from town. A ride I make on a step-through Honda 90 sans leg shields which I rescued from the trash in Tokyo.

Days start early here. Concepts such as Saturday and Sunday are unknown. With the exception of local holidays we work every day, and our lives are ordered according to the lunar calendar. Enlightenment from the master carpenter comes in sharp admonitions.

One day, just as I was congratulating myself for finally having learned to carve the complex kanawa-tsugi, the mortised rabbeted oblique scarf joint, I’m jolted out of my daydream by a sharp rap on the knuckles.

“What are you doing?” he yells, “You’re putting that siding on upside down!”
“Huh?”
“All the wood must have its grain facing upward, the same direction it grows in the tree.”
“How do you know which way is up?”
“Just feel it,” he says, running a gnarled hand lovingly along the grain. “See, it feels smooth in the direction it grows. The house is much stronger if all the wood, especially the posts, is oriented upward, in the direction it grew.”

Daylight tools of chisel and hammer are replaced at night by spear and underwater flashlight as the master’s son and I free-dive the jagged reefs bordering the island. This is not the world of friendly sandy beaches fringed with palms so beloved by travel agencies. The edges of Kikai are guarded by razor-sharp reef, and one steps off them at night into the inky blackness of deep water.

So passed my days and nights on the island that time forgot.

Like all idylls, it could not last.

One morning, just as I was finishing a carpenter’s breakfast of grilled tuna, boiled white rice with raw egg wrapped in dried seaweed, and miso soup made from fermented soybeans, the innkeeper’s wife called to me from her kitchen in the lilting local dialect: “Nick-san, telephone call.”

“It’s a Mister Nakada, from Tokyo,” she said, placing special emphasis on the word Tokyo, that mighty city of which she had heard so much but never visited. Reluctantly, I took the receiver.

“Hey, Nick-san! What are you doing down there?” said the familiar voice. “Get back up here. We’re having a big meeting about the new 08G in two days and the Yamaha guys want you there.”

Yes, for the 08G I would have to go to Tokyo. The 08G was
something special, Yamaha’s bold attempt to re-invent the sports touring motorcycle. I had already translated many of the technical documents for this revolutionary machine into English for the overseas importers, so I was well acquainted with the bike’s high-spec trickery.

Highlighting the 08G’s list of breakthrough technology was the radical RADD front suspension system designed by the American inventor James Parker. Featuring a single-sided swingarm, it was similar in concept to the double-wishbone system used on many race cars. Unlike conventional motorcycle forks, the system’s natural anti-dive qualities prevented suspension compression under braking, allowing use of a softer, more compliant settings for better road holding and a smoother ride. Further, since suspension impacts were transmitted directly to the frame rather than to the handlebars as with conventional forks, the ride quality was much improved.

Other cutting edge 08G trickery included electronic fuel injection, a catalytic converter, ABS and an Omega frame, all wrapped around a 1,000cc 5-valve Genesis engine — quite an impressive list of technology for its time.

Still, while we knew all about the bike’s fancy gear, none of us had any idea of what the finished machine would look like. And that was the purpose of the big meeting at Dentsu.Reluctantly, I packed by bags.

A three-hour plane ride returned me to the late 20th Century, and the next afternoon I was waiting in the main lobby of Dentsu in Higashi Ginza. As usual, I had arrived early so as not to be late and, like everyone else in the lobby, I sat there patiently staring at the ears. Well, why not ears? An advertising company’s job is to listen, both to its clients and to the market. And as long as you’re going to make some ears for your company’s lobby, why not make them ten-feet tall, mount them on the wall and paint one blue and the other a garish red? And since Dentsu is the largest advertising agency in Japan and one of the largest in the world, who am I to question the aesthetic tastes of their interior designers? Still, one wonders.

Dentsu has since moved twice. Their latest digs are an intimidating and very modern building in Shiodome, a stone’s throw away from the Hamarikyu Imperial Gardens. But I still wonder about those ears. Maybe they’re in a bar somewhere. Or, perhaps some mid-level suit spirited them away to his luxury condo overlooking Tokyo Bay where he uses them to lure chicks back to his pad — “Hey, Baby, wanna come over and see the ears?”

“None of these photos are to leave this room,” said Yamaha’s PR chief Tanaka solemnly as the meeting got underway. I couldn’t help noticing that each photo was numbered. Nakada and I were sitting next to each other, and when the photos reached us we just looked at each other with identical expressions that said: “Oh, no.” Stylistically the bike was a mess. Clearly, this was a motorcycle that only an engineer could love, one of those bikes whose designs “grow on you.” Nakada muttered the Japanese proverb: bijin ni akiru, busu ni nareru (You get tired of looking at a beautiful woman, but you get used to looking at an ugly one). Truly, this was a bike that would take some getting used to.

I later learned that somewhere in England was one very seriously pissed off designer. It seems that Yamaha had contracted out the design to this talented Englishman, then saw fit to “improve” his workmanship after it arrived in Japan. After all the anticipation, I felt betrayed — like a little kid who joyously opens his Christmas presents only to find nothing but socks and sweaters. Most of the meeting was spent discussing advertising strategies, the bike’s big debut at the motor shows in Europe and something about a promotional video. After seeing the photos I pretty much tuned out all the hype, my ears only perking up when I heard Tanaka utter the words,”…and Nick-san will be the rider.”

“Huh?”

Yep, Yamaha was pulling out all the stops for this baby. No cheapo shoot in the Japan Alps or Hokkaido, either. No expenses would be spared, the GTS shoot would go down in the good old US of A, in, of all places, the Anza Borrego Desert. Where else would you shoot a video for a bike so advanced that it could only have come from outer space?
“I can see it now! We‘ll have it land in the desert in the middle of the night. It will be encased in a giant silver egg (cut to shot of Gila Monster). We’ll have technicians dressed in hazmat suits check it out with weird electronic gizmos. Then will have dramatic shots of the bike zooming around the alien desert landscape. And if we find a hot enough chick to ride on the back, maybe no-one will notice what a hokey video we’ve produced.” While those may not have been the exact words of whoever cooked up the silliest shoot I’ve ever been involved with, it’s probably pretty close.

Anyway, a lot of money was spent and a lot of fun was had by all, especially by me because I got to ride around with this busty babe hanging onto me while I demonstrated the very powerful front brake (repeatedly demonstrated, I might add).

The wrap party took place in one of those ostentatious San Diego homes with a swimming pool, a hot tub and lots of extra bedrooms in which a lot of things and people ended up where they didn’t belong and about which nothing was said the next day.

The GTS1000, however, did not fare so well. Like many Japanese motorcycles of the time, hasty, ill-considered marketing strategies had forced it onto the market before it was ready, and it flopped. Big time. The touring riders wanted integrated bags and shaft drive; the GTS1000 had neither. The sport-touring guys didn’t like the funny front end with its vague steering feedback. And the fit and finish was less than buyers expected for a bike in that price range. In short, the GTS was a bike looking for a niche. I never found out how much money Yamaha lost on the GTS1000 but it must have been a lot. A shame, because it was both an interesting and fun-to-ride machine.

Anyway, there I was, momentarily unemployed, in no hurry to get back to Tokyo and my 1970 Triumph Daytona just sitting there with a full tank of gas. Easy call, back to the desert. Rumor had it that the Hermit was living near an abandoned dirt airstrip just north of Red Rock Canyon in the Mojave Desert. More than two years had elapsed since he left Gasoline Alley for the dez and I hadn’t heard a peep out of him since.

In order to miss the morning traffic, I saddled up and headed out of L.A. at 4:00 am. By the time the sun crested the horizon I was on Soledad Canyon Road, burbling along in top gear and thinking how good it was to be alive.

Tracking him down was easier than I expected. I just went into the first bike shop I found in the town of Mojave and asked the kid behind the parts counter if he knew of some guy living out in the desert with some old Triumphs.

“Yeah, what a weirdo,” said the kid, before I’d finished my description. “Take the dirt road on the left about twenty miles past the Red Rock turn off. If you get to the rusty Power Wagon upside down in the ditch you’ve gone too far.”

Gone too far. That’s what the Hermit had gone and done, I thought to myself, as I headed north on 395. And just how far was too far? The only way you can find out, of course, is to try and go back. If you can’t get back to where you came from, I guess you can say you’ve gone too far. Had the Hermit?

I turned off on what seemed to be the right road. There were no signs, nothing to indicate that anyone might live wherever the road went. Leaving the Triumph in 2nd gear I stood up on the pegs and let the bike skitter along beneath me. Chunks of quartz littered the landscape, indicating that this was an old mining road.

After negotiating a couple of sand washes and cresting the second hill I was about to turn back when something caught my eye — something spinning just over the next rise. As I came up over the rise, there, spread out beneath me was a hidden valley bisected by an abandoned dirt airstrip. Adjacent to the strip were two large shipping containers, one stacked upon the other. A small windmill mounted to the top container was spinning merrily away. As I rode closer I could see that the sides and roofs of the containers were covered with solar panels. A Triumph 650 desert sled was sitting in the shade from an overhead deck. And there, sitting on a milk crate next to the bike was the Hermit. He was replacing some spokes in the rear wheel.

(To be continued.)