Issue link: http://trailridermagazine.uberflip.com/i/1517946
Ed Her elder and Rick "Super Hunky" Sieman swapping lies in be er days Ed Her elder and Rick "Super Hunky" Sieman swapping lies in be er days When I did, I found him in a small apartment off Crystal Lake Avenue in Haddon Township. It was a very normal place to be holding such a unique indi- vidual, except for one thing—in his living room, he had a DKW hanging on the wall like a giant trophy. I no ced he had cut the handlebars off the wall side of the bike so it could hang straighter, and he said "Here, let me show you what happened to that." And he pointed into the bedroom where he had hung the stub end of the handlebars just as if the bars stuck right through the wall. Over the years Ed and I would run into each other here or there, and it was always a treat to swap lies with him. Eventually I wore out my welcome in California and came back east, and it wasn't long a er that when he finally got red of grey, wet New Jersey weather and moved out to Arizona to dry out and get warm, and be close to his youngest daugh- ter Joan. That's when I received his POETIC license plate as a going-away present. Honestly, Ed was a riot. He really did have a crowd around him whenever he was at an enduro or a trail ride, and he was plainly in his comfort zone when he was "holding forth" as they say. Everybody who knew him has a story to tell about him, but right at this point I'm going to reveal the truth: though he claimed to be "The World's Worst Dirt Rider" he wasn't really that bad. He was actually very orga- nized and methodical, and without a doubt he was prepared, though he didn't look it. He would have every sort of tool and piece of recovery equipment with him wherever he went. If you needed a tow rope or an inner tube, or just about anything else, he had it with him. And yes, he probably had a fried egg sandwich or at least a cheese sandwich in the pocket of his ra y old Barbour jacket, along with a couple handfuls of lint-covered malted milk balls. The way we're going to remember Ed's stories is through his wri ng, because over me he wrote just about everything down. Find Ed's books—I'll betcha anything there's a few of them in the Collingswood library—find him in old issues of Trail Rider, but the real gems are going to be the old stories in Cycle magazine, in the late 1960s, back when there were s ll a few Triumphs in the woods, and some Greeves and Harley Sprints and lord knows what else. Ed was there, with his upside down Bultaco and a laughing crowd wrapped around him. I'll bet you that's what he's doing right now, with his old Barbour jacket zipped up against the low clouds and the cold and damp. I know that's what the weather is like in Ed's new home because yeah, he liked it warm, but he didn't like it THAT warm. Godspeed, Ed.