From Booklist
La Plante presents a subdued but genuine piece of bikerlit. Afflicted with writer's block and awaiting two monumental,life-changing events--the birth of a second child and the delivery ofa custom motorcycle--La Plante freewheels to the notorious annualmotorcycle-related festivities in Sturgis, South Dakota. Afterpersevering in wretched weather (the "floods of Iowa" figureprominently) and a trip made more arduous by age, an injured knee, andseparation from his family, La Plante partakes of the soul-cleansingSturgis experience, where "the stars spilled like a chest ofrainbow-colored gems above" and "Willie Nelson's voice waft[ed] outfrom an open window." This is good stuff for chopper pilots with aliterary bent and those who love them. It is also an excellentshelfmate for La Plante's Hog Fever (1995) and Hunter Thompson'sseminal Hell's Angels (1967). There probably aren't enough sex anddrugs, though, for boomer Harley poseurs and adolescent thrillseekers. Mike Tribby
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Review
“I had a great laugh over the whole story. Richard La Plante is having one helluva good time and passing that along to the reader.”—American Rider
“Like many a fancier of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle, the ‘hog’ of song and story, La Plante became hooked, then obsessed, then broke. He’s still hooked, obsessed, and broke.”—Los Angeles Times
“This book is a Bible for the first-time Harley rider and anybody else who’s ever dreamed of a life in the wind.”—K. Randall Ball, editor of Easy Rider Magazine
Review
“I had a great laugh over the whole story. Richard La Plante is having one helluva good time and passing that along to the reader.”—American Rider
“Like many a fancier of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle, the ‘hog’ of song and story, La Plante became hooked, then obsessed, then broke. He’s still hooked, obsessed, and broke.”—Los Angeles Times
“This book is a Bible for the first-time Harley rider and anybody else who’s ever dreamed of a life in the wind.”—K. Randall Ball, editor of Easy Rider Magazine
Review
“I had a great laugh over the whole story. Richard La Plante is having one helluva good time and passing that along to the reader.”—American Rider
“Like many a fancier of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle, the ‘hog’ of song and story, La Plante became hooked, then obsessed, then broke. He’s still hooked, obsessed, and broke.”—Los Angeles Times
“This book is a Bible for the first-time Harley rider and anybody else who’s ever dreamed of a life in the wind.”—K. Randall Ball, editor of Easy Rider Magazine
Book Description
Author Richard La Plante had always wanted to ride cross-country to Sturgis, South Dakota. To the famous motorcycle rally that began as a small gathering of the Jack Pine Gypsies MC in 1938 and grew to become the Mecca for the American motorcyclist. But, by the age of fifty-three, still bruised from a divorce, newly remarried and a father for the first time, he thought the trip was destined to remain an armchair fantasy.
Then came the summer of 1999. Again his wife was pregnant-with a second child. The family was temporarily homeless, he was suffering from writer's block, but a Big Dog motorcycle that he had been designing by phone was finished and ready to ship. With no place to live, a new wife and child, another baby on the way, a blank computer screen, a teetering bank balance, a twenty-five thousand dollar motorcycle ready for delivery, and a mind that felt parboiled, La Plante made a decision. Escape. Out of the armchair and into the saddle.
On a borrowed bike, he set off for the Black Hills of Dakota. Waiting at the end of the ride was a week-long party, a cast of outrageous characters, a sea of chrome, steel, and rock'n'roll, and his Big Dog motorcycle. But the real story is the miles in between. Moments of crazed introspection while stranded beneath a highway underpass in Iowa waiting for the floods to stop, the sheer euphoria of watching the sunrise in the mirror with the wind in his face and the bike roaring west, the anguish of being hopelessly lost on the wrong side of Chicago, all add up to the metaphor of a life's journey.
Told in La Plante's humorous and self-deprecating style, Detours is a wild ride, all the way home.
From the Back Cover
Praise for Richard La Plante’s bestselling Hog Fever
“This book is a Bible for the first-time Harley rider and anybody else who’s ever dreamed of a life in the wind.”—K. Randall Ball, editor, Easy Rider Magazine
“The story of a love affair between a grown man and a set of chrome exhaust pipes. I laughed, I cried. I went out and bought a crash helmet.”—Peter Mayle, New York Times bestselling author
“Like many a fancier of the Harley-Davidson motorcycle, the ‘hog’ of song and story, La Plante became hooked, then obsessed, then broke. He’s still hooked, obsessed, and broke.”—Los Angeles Times
“I had a great laugh over the whole story. He is having one helluva good time and passing that along to the reader.”—American Rider
“A self-deprecating true chronicle of La Plante’s near disastrous experiences riding a Harley.”—The Philadelphia Inquirer
“This book . . . is enlightening, funny, and infectious. Read this and you too will itch to be ‘in the wind.’”—Birmingham Post
“Highly readable, full of anecdotes and insights. La Plante has a great sense of humor, which jumps out at every page. The best Harley book I’ve ever read.”—Sunday Express
About the Author
Richard La Plante's thrillers, Mantis, Leopard, Steroid Blues, and Mindkill, are compelling reading for those who love fast-paced films like the "Lethal Weapon" series. La Plante is also the author of two nonfiction books about motorcycles and the love a man can have for a machine, Hog Fever and Detours. A native of the Philadelphia area, Richard La Plante lives with his family on Long Island in New York.
Detours: Life, Death, and Divorce on the Road to Sturgis FROM THE PUBLISHER
Author Richard La Plante had always wanted to ride cross-country to Sturgis, South Dakota. To the famous motorcycle rally that began as a small gathering of the Jack Pine Gypsies MC in 1938 and grew to become the Mecca for the American motorcyclist. But, by the age of fifty-three, still bruised from a divorce, newly remarried and a father for the first time, he thought the trip was destined to remain an armchair fantasy.
Then came the summer of 1999. Again his wife was pregnant-with a second child. The family was temporarily homeless, he was suffering from writer's block, but a Big Dog motorcycle that he had been designing by phone was finished and ready to ship. With no place to live, a new wife and child, another baby on the way, a blank computer screen, a teetering bank balance, a twenty-five thousand dollar motorcycle ready for delivery, and a mind that felt parboiled, La Plante made a decision. Escape. Out of the armchair and into the saddle.
On a borrowed bike, he set off for the Black Hills of Dakota. Waiting at the end of the ride was a week-long party, a cast of outrageous characters, a sea of chrome, steel, and rock'n'roll, and his Big Dog motorcycle. But the real story is the miles in between. Moments of crazed introspection while stranded beneath a highway underpass in Iowa waiting for the floods to stop, the sheer euphoria of watching the sunrise in the mirror with the wind in his face and the bike roaring west, the anguish of being hopelessly lost on the wrong side of Chicago, all add up to the metaphor of a life's journey.
Told in La Plante's humorous and self-deprecating style, Detours is a wild ride, all the way home.
Art & Photography
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