Part-Time Biker Keeps It Together

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A few months back, when Storage Mobility Inc. exec Ben Orze was visiting his family in Arizona, he decided to go out for a motorcycle ride.

He had restored his bike, a 1971 Triumph Bonneville, five years earlier with his dad, and since his move out to Santa Monica it had remained in the garage mostly untouched.

Orze began his ride in the evening and took it along the desert roads outside of town, riding at “75 to 80 miles per hour,” he remembered. “Probably shouldn’t have been going that quickly.”

As Orze was easing off the throttle while going down a grade, he felt the Bonneville struggle. He looked down to see gasoline pouring onto his leg.

The source of the problem: a missing carburetor bolt. It must have fallen off somewhere during the joyride. It was 10 p.m. and Orze had a flight the next morning.

For the next hour he searched the desolate road, using his cell phone as a flashlight. He heard coyotes and dangerous javelinas.

Then, miraculously, he found it wedged, somehow, between the crankcase and the frame of the bike.

“It was a one in a million chance to happen,” he said.

Orze quickly screwed it back in using a quarter and drove back home.

Although he has been an avid rider for years, that was the last time he plans to take a late night ride in the desert.

“I guess sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good,” he said.

Stepping Up and Out

By day, Steve Valentine, 49, runs Miracle Mile public relations firm Valentine Group L.A. By night, he dances with men.

A competitive same-sex ballroom dancer, Valentine has begun the early stages of preparation for the August 2014 Gay Games, to be held in Cleveland.

There, he will dance for the chance to reclaim a gold medal he won in Cologne, Germany, in 2010 with dance partner Robert Tristan.

Valentine said he’s only dancing on weekends in these early stages of training, but that as the competition nears, he’ll start dancing at least five days a week.

“Right now I’m trying to get in shape and trying to feel that muscle memory so that some of the choreography comes back,” he said.

Balancing dancing with work is a challenge, but Valentine said he manages, sometimes by hiring extra help during the most intense training periods. He enjoys dancing in part because it’s a great workout and stress reliever, but also because he likes the message it sends.

“I’m a businessman, I work with lots of great clients, but I can also do this,” he said. “It’s OK to be gay; it’s OK to show a part of your lifestyle expressed in an art form.”


Staff reporters Tom Dotan and Bethany Firnhaber contributed to this column. Page 3 is compiled by Editor Charles Crumpley. He can be reached at [email protected].

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