“Stuff your eyes with wonder. Live as if you’d drop dead in ten seconds. See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dreams made or paid for in factories. Ask no guarantees, ask for no security, there never was such an animal. And if there were, it would be related to the great sloth which hangs upside down in a tree all day every day, sleeping it’s life away. To hell with that. Shake the tree and knock the great sloth down on his ass.”

- Ray Bradbury 

I’ve been friends with the man pictured above for more than half a decade. It all started with a Craigslist search for my first motorcycle. 

I ran across an ad titled, “Faster than a raped ape, faster than a cheetah on cocaine.” I called him up and it spiraled from there…

Todd Kiergen is a rare man. He’s got a beard down to the middle of his chest that’s raggedy at the bottom because he keeps catching it in his drill press. He measures time in cigarettes. He’s got a stereo that hits stadium rock volume levels and I’ve seen some of his bikes fire three-foot flames out of their tail pipes. He can talk about compression ratios, valve clearance and various bike models until I’m totally lost, and then follow it up with a joke about racing an ugly woman to the light switch. I’ve never met anyone like him before. 

This originally appeared in Accent Magazine along with an essay that I wrote and some photographs. 

About three and a half hours into what was supposed to be a two and a half hour ride my phone died. No GPS so I had to buy a map and tape directions to my tank. It was surprisingly rewarding. I need to unplug more often. 

Wrenchin’ with Todd and his buddy on a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Florida.