Bob Duffey and the Purple Van

After camping on the outskirts of Las Cruces, I rode ten miles into town at about 7:00 in the morning to grab breakfast. An older gentleman named Ed asked me about my rig, and we talked for a while about motorcycle touring and land sailing (he was wearing a land sailing shirt). He was there to have breakfast with two friends, Bob and Ana Duffey, who are also motorcycle tourists. I joined them at their table and told them about the three flat tires I had had in the last 50 miles; apparently Southern New Mexico is notorious for goatheads, which had indeed been causing all of my flats.

I had a slow leak in my rear tire as I ate breakfast that I didn't really want to fix with a hand pump only to go two miles to the bike shop. Bob asked if I would like to load my rig into his van so that he could take me over so that I would not have to get directions to the place or use my hand pump. After breakfast, we said goodbye to Ed and headed to the van.

Bob's van is something is like the Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo gone wild. It is from the 1970s, has over 500,000 miles on it over three engines, and is COMPLETELY purple. The exterior paint, the upholstery, the steering wheel cover, and even the bean bag chair in the back are purple. The carpet and the rims are purple. Bob likes purple.

After fixing the flat, the temperatures were soaring. Bob and Ana asked me if I would like to join them for lunch, and we went back to their house, which I was curious about after riding in the van. It didn't let me down.

Bob's house is completely devoted to motorcycles. He won the 1977 CBS Sports Spectacular World Championship Motorcycle Jumping Competition by jumping his motorcycle over rows of cars to land on a target. He held the record for the fastest quarter mile ever ridden on a motorcycle: backwards. In his front room his two stunt bikes sat behind velvet cord, and his purple motorcycle leathers with "Bob Duffey" emblazoned on them hung on the wall. There were thousands of miniature motorcycle replicas, motorcycle posters covering ever inch of every wall, and in the bathroom the Hot and Cold taps had been replaced with piston heads, and the water spout was an exhaust pipe. Bob loves motorcycles.

We watched grainy old videos of when Bob became the first man to jump over a helicopter with the rotors spinning. We watched the 1977 CBS coverage. When looking through photo albums, every single picture had a motorcycle in the scene, and many times the subject was riding the bike.

Bob didn't recall time so much in years as much as by the motorcycle he owned at the time, or else how it related to the 1977 jump competition. 1977 might as well have been Year 0 of the Bob calendar; everything else was either "Before Competition" or "After Domination". Bob's pictures can be seen here:


Bob helped me box my bike and trailer for the bus ride home the next day. Just as Bob had chosen to measure his life by what motorcycle he owned or how it related to his "big jump", I had decided to listen to what I see as omens. For one thing, Texas was blisteringly hot. My last three days I had averaged over 100 miles per day, which meant I was racing the heat instead of enjoying the ride. I wanted very much to be home for Mother's Day, and could just make it if I got on a bus the following morning. All of my friends were finishing school at the University of Nevada, and I looked forward to spending my summer with them. The time was right.