Monkey butt and the Eldo: A modern tail By Jerry Bernardo

My father Frank had a beautiful old Moto Guzzi 850 Eldorado when I was younger. He left the bike to me after he passed away and I restored it back to pristine condition, riding it now and then around the high desert region of Southern California where I lived at the time.

I was never a real big fan of riding on the roads; I was more interested in riding dirt bikes and smashing around in the woods with my mates. When I was out riding on the “Eldo,” I spent most of my time worried that I was bathing in a sea of bad drivers. It seemed that every car was a threat to my very existence and, yes, they often pulled out in front of me as I had predicted, my finger on the front brake long before their obvious brain fade.

The other part of riding that drained me of gathering any sort of recreational bliss was a sore ass. When you ride dirt bikes you often stand on the footpegs to maneuver over obstacles and help steer the bike by weighting said pegs.

Whilst tooling about the back roads of the desert on my Guzzi, my butt was always firmly planted onto the seat and after a just few hours, it faded off into a sad place and I just became numb down south. Cruising wasn’t really my thing and I rode the Eldo mostly to keep the battery alive. Later in life, I elected to hand the bike off to my brother Mark who lived back in Boston.

Mark embraced the gift of Dad’s old Moto Guzzi with generous applause and began his many treks up and down the East Coast, riding whenever he got a chance.

When I owned it, I never really thought about the comfort of the bike. I just hopped on when the sun was shining and cruised up into the hills above the desert floor until I was either bored, fidgety or my ass fell asleep.

Sleeping buttocks is a rare treat. We all know what it’s like to snooze off on plane and have our hands go to sleep–idle blood flow means dead mitts connected to the ends of our forearms. The buttocks are the largest muscles in our bodies. Fingers can be wiggled back to life, but when you have two muscles the size of a Christmas ham that have gone Rip Van Winkle, you’re suddenly in a bit of strife.

Recently, I stumbled upon a product designed to help reduce rear end fatigue and the dreaded numb bum syndrome. It was a photo of a seat cushion that I saw while plodding around the Web one day when I should’ve been working. I immediately thought of my brother and how much he loves to ride and thought he should give it a look. I imagined my brother out on a 300-kilometer jaunt with his butt falling comatose to hours of white line fever. Tick the Not Fun box now.

Apparently I was onto something and Mark later informed me he had read some great testimonials about it and purchased the aforementioned product, a DebbonAir seat cushion. Having offered to help my much-beloved older brother with his bum skews this story off in a very different direction, but my heart was truly in the right place. As a graphic designer I know all too well that sitting for long periods of time tests one’s gluteal patience and hope that the air seat pad he bought online from Dan Medica South puts him back on his bike, not standing in some roadside lot and staring at the machine as the saddle taunts the very fiber of his personal Southern Hemisphere’s existence.

They say that sharing is caring. I gave brother Mark a motorcycle, a link to a great product and, more importantly, a chance to travel for hours on end without the nagging and irritating syndrome sometimes referred to as monkey butt.

In closing, I say we save the pins and needles for the Peckham Quilting Club and get both Mark and me back out on our motorcycles where life is a bit more tolerable.