Why do I do it?

I like riding my motorcycle! Let me tell you why.

I first thought about riding a motorcycle when I was headed off to college and was looking for cheap transportation. I ended up not getting one because I was going to school in Ohio and wouldn’t have been able to ride it for most of the school year. Brr. Besides, I had just ridden behind my cousin on one and that was enough to make me question whether or not I was truly ready, or, in point of fact, would ever be ready.

A few years ago I finally convinced myself that it really was the weather that had stopped me from getting one. My wife claimed it was a mid-life crisis that brought me to this decision. At the time I was hoping that she was right. Well, actually I was hoping that it was more like a pre- mid-life crisis. Whatever it was, I got my motorcycle license the easy way through California’s Motorcycle Safety Training Class, bought a motorcycle, and started riding.

It didn’t take long to ride over all of the closer “good” riding roads and after getting stung by a rather large stinging insect on a particularly hot day I became a perfect weather rider. The day had to be cold enough to allow me to keep my jacket zipped up to keep those pesky bugs out from inside it but not too cold. After a few attempts to commute into San Francisco from Fremont on the I-880 corridor I realized that I really liked BART even if the weather was perfect. Riding during commute hours, with the morning generally dark as well, let’s just say that it was too exciting.

I bought my current bike in 2005. Due to a host of reasons, I really didn’t ride it all that much before this year but for some reason, I decided to ride across country. My longest previous ride had been to a couple Indian Casinos in the Sierra’s and back. (The joy of the ride was somewhat muted by my luck at the casinos, all of it bad.)

For practice, I rode down to visit my daughter and son-in-law in Pasadena, twice, 400 miles each way. Now, how I became a Twit is another story but it was on one of those rides that I got the idea that saying anything meaningful in 140 characters requires information density very much like poetry. (In fact my first composition was: “Tumbleweeds along the fence: Did they blow there Or did they grow there?” My son-in-law didn’t like my name for them and suggested “twoetry” or “twoems.” He also said something about Elmer Fudd. I don’t think he was referring to me.) The point is that riding for a long time with no phone, radio, or music only allows thinking.

On the cross-country trip I did ride for a long time. One morning I started late to let the rain pass and found myself riding late and composing my first, and so far last, limerick:

Riding late into the night,
With bugs who fought the good fight.
‘Though my visor is hurtin’,
Their salvation is certain.
Because they all saw the light.

Yes, except when it's too cold to ride, bugs are bad. I was glad that I had to get gas every two hours or so because that let me wash and squeegee my visor.

Then there are the smells. You know the good smells are few and far between when “l’odeur du skunk” is one of the more pleasant smells. Other than diesel exhaust, which makes my eyes water and my nose itch, the worst smell on my cross-country trip was when I was trapped behind a hog hauler in St. Louis. At least I didn’t notice any diesel exhaust but then I was trying not to breath.

My longest mileage day, 750 miles, was cut short when it started to hail. Even though I desperately wanted to get out of Kansas the most boring state for motorcycles, I stopped. At least there wasn’t a lot of rain because with a lot of rain my chaps act a lot like downspouts and my blue jeans act a lot like a sponge.

I also found out that there is no speed that makes 103 degrees feel anything cooler than HOT.

If you’ve ever ridden a motorcycle you know that taking your right hand off of the throttle slows the motorcycle down quickly. (Two wheeling friends, and all motorcyclists are friends, greet each other as they pass with a hand wave that is generally two fingers pointed down.) I was barely a quarter of the way across the country and already feeling the strain on my right arm and shoulder when a motorcyclist waved at me with his “right hand.” I immediately jumped to the obvious conclusion: He had cruise control. Two thousand miles later I got one of my own and quickly discovered that a constant throttle is nothing like a constant speed. If there were hills, downhill would be 15 miles above the speed I set and uphill would be slow enough to lug the engine. I did get to use it for about 50 miles in Kansas until a truck tried to pass me. The truck provided enough of a windbreak that my constant throttle sped me up to keep me right beside it. After a couple of miles I took my cruise control off and let him pass. I don’t think it was the same truck that ran me off the road when I got to California.

Heat, rain, hail, bugs, smells, traffic, why am I riding a motorcycle? It’s fun. Besides, how else can you get a helmut hair look half this attractive? So far I’ve ridden over 9,000 miles this year.