At some point in January I wrote about Chocolat, a mystery bike I knew nothing about but insisted on publishing anyway because I really liked it. I asked readers to come up with a backstory for the bike since I didn’t have one. It was a risky move to publish a bike about which I knew nothing, but I figured if I received any legal threats I’d simply post them on my office wall with all the others.

I’m very proud to announce that no law suits followed, and two sharp readers responded to the call to solve this mystery: our own Dennis Margheim, a sales associate at Barnett Harley-Davidson; and bike builder Ethan Bond, who’s orange V-Rod we featured fairly recently in the paper edition of Barnett’s Magazine. Both sleuths discovered the bike was built by Riverside Motorcycles, but it was Ethan Bond who was kind enough to tell me, “It actually only took about 30 seconds to find it: I simply typed in the name of the photographer and the word ‘Chocolat’ into Google!”

So that was good.

I visited the website which is actually Riverside Motocyclettes France, in hopes of grabbing the specs for Chocolat. Much to my horror it was in French. So I thought WWEBD (What Would Ethan Bond Do?) and looked them up on Facebook. Sure enough, they were there, but in French. In their photo gallery there was the bike in all its chocolatey goodness. But again no specs, and if there was any explanation at all I couldn’t understand it because it was in French. Even Google Translator wasn’t much help.

Now just let me tell you that any place outside of the United States makes me hyperventilate. It’s some sort of specialized agoraphobia stemming from the fact I can’t speak any language other than English, and if I were to travel beyond our borders I’d lose the ability to communicate, especially in France because I never took French and, to me and me alone, their language is completely unintelligible. Lovely but unintelligible. Going there would be like the time I visited a French province in Canada for a week and nearly starved to death. And that was just Canada, also known as America’s attic.

I wish I could speak a second language. I mean, I really want to. But as soon as I sit down in a class to learn a foreign language (usually Spanish but sometimes Italian) my brain goes into some sort of panic mode and I am immediately struck by hysterical deafness. I just start screaming and screaming inside my head and I can’t hear a single word, much less learn one. And here in El Paso I am surrounded by people who have taught themselves English and speak it perfectly, mellifluously floating back and forth between Spanish and English without effort, creating their own beautiful language that makes me jealous. It also makes me think to myself, Oh my God — what the hell is wrong with me? Why am I so single languaged?!

Off-topic: At times my handicap has been humiliating. At the flea market two old abuelitos from Mexico made me a fresh fruit slushie that was so delicious, and all I could say to them was “Muy bonita!” which means, I think, “Very cute!” and they looked to each other and laughed and laughed and laughed. Then, because words really do get lost in translation, I tried to cover by saying, “Yo soy ignorante,” which made them laugh even harder and the lady behind me said I told them “I am ignorant.” I guess they took pity on me because as I was slinking away the two old men told me I was muy bonita.

Back on-topic: You might ask yourself why I didn’t just contact Horst Rösler, the photographer of the bike. He lives in Germany. I’ve met Horst, although I can’t say I really know Horst. I met him in Cincinnati at the V-Twin Expo and he was wearing a tailored Burberry trench coat and telling me about an F5 tornado in Kansas he’d just chased down to photograph. Then he contemplated the crowd for a moment and disappeared into it. I was very impressed. In my mind I’ve painted him as an international jet setter, the son of a duke or a count, lives in a family castle with giant tapestries on the wall and speaks 14 different languages. But I don’t know his email address. Perhaps Dennis Margheim and Ethan Bond can get it for me. Together they make one damn good detective.

But that’s it. I’m done with this bike. It’s a beauty, and it comes from France. Period.