Getting 100,000 Miles Out of a Motorcycle

My odometer, seconds after the 100,000 mile turnover

The feeling was more like a revelation than anything else. When Blackbird, my faithful Honda ST1300, finally logged its 100,000th mile this afternoon, I realized where it happened, and when it happened, and thought to myself, "Oh, OK."

I mean, after my Alaska trip in 2010, I felt convinced that this bike was a keeper. That's the point when I wondered how long it would take until I got to see the odomoter tick from "99999" to "100000", and where it would happen. It wasn't until just a few weeks ago, that I finally had a good idea.

So, there it happened today, along County Road S-22 in San Diego County, otherwise known as "Montezuma Valley Rd", just east of Ranchita, CA, inside Anza Borrego Desert State Park.

But best part about it is that Blackbird did this without any help. That is, she's never needed repairs. Nothing busted, no faulty parts, and nothing worn out. All it has ever needed was the usual fluids, brake pads, and tires. It's not like my 2005 Harley-Davidson Electra Glide Ultra Classic, that needed constant repairs and patch work to keep it going. I mean, I suppose any motorcycle could go 100,000 miles if you keep replacing busted parts.

So, kudos to the engineers at Honda for designing a rock solid bike.

Yeah, that Harley was a comfortable bike with lots of bells and whistles. But that's about all I can really say about it. About every 8,000 to 10,000 miles, it would require some kind of major repair. A few times the inner primary seal wore out and needed replacing, which is a tedious job to do. I had a head pipe crack on me. I had the rear brake line wear a hole. I had an engine mount crack and disintegrate. The ball joint on the shift rod connector wore out. And of course, I had the cam chain tensioners disintegrate.

It's as if Harley designs bikes with the intention of failing so that you'll take it to a dealer for repair. That way, you'll notice the newer motorcycles in the showroom that were resdesigned to solve the problems your bike is plagued with.

"Yup, Harley fixed that issue last year", the salesman says to you. "Your bike was the last model year that had that problem."

County Road S-22, just inside Anza Borrego Desert State Park

It's no wonder why the Motor Company sells more bikes to existing owners than to any other group.

It was around 75,000 miles when the cam chain tensioners finally disintegrated on my Electra Glide. I was faced with either replacing them, or spending a lot of extra cash for gear-driven cams. It would take another 50,000 to 75,000 miles for gear-driven cams to pay for themselves, and everyone encouraged me to do it. But I said, "No".

This is where the love-hate relationship with Harley stops.

I went the cheaper route by getting new cam chain tensioners, and then I sold the bike. I used that money to buy a used 2006 Honda ST1300 that had 7,000 miles on it. 93,000 miles later, here I am writing about it.

Complaining about Harleys isn't the reason for writing all this however. My point is that I wouldn't appreciate getting 100,000 miles out of a motorcycle that needed no repair work if I had never had the Harley.

But it's not to say that Blackbird will put on another 100,000 miles. She could fall apart tomorrow for all I know. But at this point, I feel satisfied knowing I got my money's worth.

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Does Google Hate Harleys and Bikers?

Autocomplete is a feature of Google Search that displays a list of suggested search queries as soon as you start typing. According to Google, the suggested queries are based on what other users have actually searched.

So let's take a look at what people are searching with respect to Harley-Davidson and bikers.

These Autocomplete suggestions are with Global Results turned on...

Could you imagine Harley-Davidson coming out with a line of douchebags called, "Milwaukee's Eve"?

I guess when a motorcycle costs the same as a brand new Ford F350, you want to check with Google to make sure it's worth it.

Because if bikers really are getting laid, then it'd be a lot cheaper than buying an Italian sports car.

It's kinda sad and hilarious that people use Google to learn how to look and act like a biker.

If everyone knew how bikers made money, then everyone would become bikers.

Or maybe people are getting way too hooked on Sons of Anarchy.

This is the second search phrase that associates "harleys" with "gay".

No, but if you line the inside of a motorcycle helmet with aluminum foil, it will prevent aliens from reading your thoughts.

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How Sash Got the 2015 Indian Scout

Sash on a 2015 Indian Scout, Petco Park, San Diego, CA

Many of you already follow my wife's blog, and therefore you already know that she got herself a 2015 Indian Scout.

Or perhaps best clarified, Indian Motorcycle International, LLC, a division of Polaris Industries, Inc., loaned her one of their pre-production, media-edition, 2015 Indian Scouts, for at least two months.

I make that clarification, because apparently, these pre-production, media-edition bikes are not exactly what will be delivered to buyers. I'm not aware of all the differences, but am told that among them is that actual Scouts will have adjustable foot controls for shorter/longer legs, and greater fuel range (I'm not certain what they'll do to increase that).

But for all intents and purposes, she's got an honest to goodness 2015 Indian Scout, for free, for at least two months, and more importantly, she's been saying she's going to get one going back to last August.

As the husband in all this, it's been quite an observation.

Sash was at the previous Sturgis Motorcycle Rally the second the bike was unveiled to the public. She had acquired a rather coveted media pass into Indian's "Reveal" event.  She got to chat with some big media names in the motorcycle industry, like Peter Jones of Cycle World, John Rogue of Bikernet, Cyril Huze of Cyril Huze, to name a few.

But she also got to meet executives at Indian.

It took a lot of follow-ups, a lot of persistence, along with demonstrating that we're good at blogging and social media, have a decent sized following, and are committed to working within the motorcycle industry. We submitted a written proposal, attended events where Indian executives would be, and it also helped that Sash and I had written reviews of the new Indian Scout on Biker News Online and and Women Riders Now.

I mention this because a lot of people have asked us how it is that Indian Motorcycles would loan one of their bikes to Sash for a couple of months, when most media people only get them for a week or less.

Well, persistence. A positive enthusiasm for the Scout. Being sashtastic. Won't take no for an answer. Being a woman. The last part has to do with Indian Motorcycles wanting to get more women riders over to their camp.

There's also a story about her father.

Sash remembers him telling her that he had always wanted an Indian Scout. He had told her about the legacy of the Scout. Considering he was a full-blooded American Indian, it seemed like a fitting bike. This was during the late 1960s and 1970s, and by then, the old Scout 101s were hard to come by.

But this isn't simply a story of a girl wanting to honor her father, or gain his approval through the afterlife. She really digs this motorcycle! Did I mention the review she wrote for Women Rider's Now?

And now with 35,000+ miles of riding across the country for nearly two years, as a newbie rider, she's ready to settle into a long-term bike.

That's what the 2015 Indian Scout means for her.

But I'm really just proud of her persistence and for believing that she'll make the impossible happen.

Finally, as part of our agreement with Indian Motorcycles, we've launched a dedicated website documenting Sash's ride on the Scout for the next couple of months... "Sash On A Scout" http://www.indianscout.com

This new website will also detail the impact Sash's father had on her new-found motorcycling passion.  She'll be riding the Scout to various places of her troubled youth, reconciling the past, while seated on the bike her father always wanted.

I hope you bookmark it, blogroll it, and share it with others. (it'll make us look good to Indian...)

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Achieving Shibui Through Motorcycling

Shibui is probably the most difficult thing to achieve, mainly because you're never satisfied. It's the ability to get more out of less. In art, it's expressing something more profound in a simpler way. The Japanese are great admirers of Shibui.

It's something I've grown to appreciate as Sash and I continue on with Road Pickle.

Take our computer bag, for example.

Sash and I store all of our computer gear in this black leather bag, which is actually a backpack.  It stores our two laptops, our tablet, our external drives, all of our power cables, USB cables, HDMI cables, camera chargers, mini speakers, and bunches of SD cards.

In a way, I appreciate how we're able to store all of that into one bag that fits nicely into the trunk of my Honda ST.

However, I'm dissatisfied because the bag becomes overstuffed and bloated.  It's like we haven't really simplified, we've only concealed the excess.

So, last week we got rid of our two laptops and replaced them with two Surface Pro 3's.  These are actually 12" tablets that come with very thin, light keyboards.  The two take up the same room as one of our laptops.  Sash detaches the keyboard and lays on the couch or bed of our hotel room and continues working.  She's able to get more things done without having to remain seated at a table.

And that accomplishes the "Shibui" I'm looking for.  We've reduced the weight and volume of our computer bag, while actually increasing productivity.

So now, I'm looking at buying a Chromecast.  That's the little device that plugs into the HDMI port of a television.  It allows you to stream video from a laptop, tablet, or phone to your TV via Wi-Fi.  The Chromecast is much smaller than the 6 foot HDMI cable we currently use to stream video to a TV, but because it's wireless, we don't have to walk to the laptop or tablet to play a different video.

We've actually looked at everything we own and come up with ways to achieve Shibui.  We found exercise clothes that look appropriate enough as bathing suits.  We can use the same set of duds to work out in and relax in the hot tub afterwards, thereby lightening the load on our suitcase.

We moved all of our medications and vitamins into Ziploc bags because you can squeeze the air out of them and really shrink their size, whereas plastic pill bottles take up way more room.  Ziploc bags make great travel containers because they fold up so small, allowing you to keep several extras on hand.

But Shibui is not something that has translated over to motorcycling much.  I mean, my Honda ST1300 does a good job of offering storage, with good power, handling, and great range.  But motorcycles have become bigger and heavier than compared to 50 years ago.  I want to see a motorcycle that offers more storage, more power, and more amenities in a simpler, lighter, and more efficient design.

The end result of pursuing Shibui, I believe, has caused me to examine things on the standpoint of increasing value while decreasing load.  It makes me question what I need, don't need, and what can be multipurposed.  The full time riders I've met in person, like Kevin Bean're and Vespa Steph, all have their ways of achieving Shibui.

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Death of a Motorcycle Camera

My old Canon Powershot SD1300 IS

Some sad news to report, my camera died a few days ago. The lens won't push out on power up anymore. I can hear the motor trying to push the lens out, but it just clicks and grinds now, and then goes through an auto-shut down.

Well, it was a good camera. Took thousands of photos for me on many rides. Didn't even complain when it rained. I can recall down pours in Canada, numerous drops on the pavement, getting cooked to 140 degrees sitting under direct sun, and even getting snowed on along Wolf Creek Pass.

I put a strip of velcro on the side so that I could mount it on my gas tank, and quickly shoot a photo.  I've been pulling it and out of my pocket so often, that its LCD monitor was too scratched up to view.

I remember when I bought it.

I was on my way back from Alaska in June 2010, riding south along the ALCAN, trying to get photos as I rode down the highway. It was raining quite hard, but I really wanted to capture the riding conditions, the rain, the frost heaves, and the landscape. And the camera I had back then, simply quit.

When I pulled into Whitehorse, Yukon, I found a Wal-Mart, and picked up this Canon Powershot SD1300 IS. It was on sale for $79.00. I didn't have room to keep the box, CD-ROM and manual that came with it, so I chucked them, keeping only camera and batter charger.

In fact, just a week after I bought it, it developed a burn spot on its sensor, probably from taking a photo of the sun somewhere.  As a result, photos of the sky, or something white, revealed a slightly darker blotch in the middle.

Since buying it in Whitehorse, it's taken tens of thousands of photos for me. Perhaps 90% of the photos appearing on Motorcycle Philosophy and Road Pickle were taken from this camera. The other 10% came from my cellphone, or Sash's camera.

I just couldn't get myself to toss it in the trash. So, I'm FedExing it to Sash's nephew Zack in Southern California. He's has a fondness for gadgets, as well as the time to tinker with them. Maybe he can fix it and give a second chance at life.

My new Canon S110

So the camera I bought a couple days ago to replace it is a Canon S110. It has a 1/1.7 CMOS sensor, which is a little bit larger than the 1/2.3 used in most of the other Canon compacts.  As a result, the price tag goes up quite a bit too.  But I wanted to try something different.

The biggest downside I see to this S110 is that the power-on button is really tiny.  I'd have to ride bare-handed to use this camera.

But as far as my Powershot SD1300 is concerned, it ought to feel as if it had a good life.  It got to travel all over the United States, see some pretty amazing places, and be an important part of a small marketing business.

"This is the kind of mentality that goes into hoarders", I told Sash, not wanting to part with my camera.

"Yup, exactly!" she said.

But I don't want my lifestyle to become dragged down holding on to every piece of stuff I've purchased over the years.  When I buy a new camera, I want it to understand that it's going to live like a gladiator, getting all the glory while it's alive, but getting tossed into the trash when it dies.  That's the price it pays for an adventure of a lifetime.  Otherwise, it should raise its hand up and refuse to be purchased, opting to wait for a grandma who will use it only for Christmases and graduations.

So, I don't know.  Maybe I shouldn't send it to Zack.  Maybe he'll just give it some attention and set it aside forever where it can feel sad about current state of affairs.  Maybe it's better to let it sit in a landfill and slowly rust over and get picked at by seagulls until its soul finally withers away.  It's sad to think that the entire camera is useless because of one small part.

But that's a fact of the consumerist/disposable world we live in.

It's the kind of thing that makes you wish you could just disintegrate something, store the molecular pattern in a ZIP file, and reassemble it anytime from a pile of garbage.

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Don't Get Scroogled

You're wondering by now why all the broken image signs are appearing all over this website. It's because Google decided to deactivate my account about a week-and-a-half ago.  Now I'm faced with a long road to recovering.

Because these days, Google has gone to a single login account for all of its services, when they deactivate that account, you lose everything, your G-mail, Google Drive, Google+, AdSense, DFP for Publishers, Analytics, Picasa, Calendar, Docs, Apps, Groups, Webmaster Central, and even Blogger. If you're like me, and put all your eggs into Google's basket, they have the ability to delete your personal and professional life in a single stroke.

So why is this blog still here if Google deleted my account?

It's because I had the foresight to create a second Google account and made it an administrator on all of my blogs. So while my primary Google account was deleted, my blogs remained online because my other Google account was still there to claim administrative rights.  I've logged into that other account to post this article.

Unfortunately, other Google services don't allow users to associate multiple admins, including my Picasa, Drive, Docs, and Google+, and therefore I've lost all that data, including the photos and graphic files used by Motorcycle Philosophy, and can't get it back.

Some of you might remember an old article of mine, "Riding Off Into the Cloud", where I talked about benefits of storing all your computer data on the "cloud". Well, it also comes with a huge risk.

I don't know why Google deactivated my account.

All I know is that when I turned on my Samsung Chromebook (which is a Google-based laptop that can only be used by logging into your Google account), I got a message telling me that my Google was deactivated due to a violation of their Terms of Service, effectively rendering the Chromebook unusable, at least for that account. I thought it was some strange glitch, and restarted the computer. But alas, the message still came up.

The message gave me a link to their appeals page, where I asked them what specific violation was made, and if I could at least get my files back. I had them send the answer to an alternative e-mail address.

I got back what appeared to be a prewritten response, telling me again that I had violated their Terms of Service, with no further explanation, and that my account was not eligible for reinstatement. Again, I asked them if I could at least get my files back, since nearly all of my business documents are stored there. No response.

Because I use so many of Google services, and I've been using them for 14 to 15 years now, I have no idea where the violation was made. I read over their Terms of Services, which is a long, detailed document, and I couldn't see that I had committed any violation. Each Google service provides users with messages that may include warnings about service abuses, but I don't recall anything saying that if I don't make corrections, they'll deactivate my account.

I met with my attorney. He's worked on other cases involving deactivated Google accounts.

"Sounds like you were picked up by some automated Google nebulous, and I doubt that you're on anyone's radar", he said, responding to concerns that I may have violated the law. When I asked him about getting my files back, he said, "You're better off walking away and starting over".

He went on to add that Google doesn't back down.

"They work with federal agents from all departments", he continued. "Obviously, they found something on you they don't like, and you don't want to play fire with them."

I walked away feeling sick to my stomach.

Others messaged me on Facebook that a lot of people were getting their accounts deactivated too. I read reports on forums that hackers are breaking into peoples' accounts to conduct illegal activity. Others suggested that there are files such as scripts, Office documents, and others that contain malware, that I may have stored them on my Google drive.

I put my Chromebook away, and bought myself a new Windows 8.1 laptop.

I've stopped storing files on the cloud, and am now storing them on an external hard drive.

I even set up a Microsoft Outlook account and a Yahoo account for web-based e-mail, and am testing them out.

As for Motorcycle Philosophy, Road Pickle, Sash Mouth, and several other blogs that I administer, I'll either keep them on Blogger, or convert them to a WordPress.org platform where I have more control.

Cloud-based storage is still a great idea, it's just really risky when the God who controls it has a sensitive trigger finger.

 

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The Best Motorcycle Jackets

Me and my trusty jacket at Lyons Valley Trading Post

Anytime I hear about new gear, something in me wants to check it out, just to see if there's something I really like. And if the prices are low enough, it starts the wheels moving in my head.

The fact is that I don't really need a new motorcycle jacket, I like the one I have. And I tend to be someone who prefers to hold on to something for years and years, letting it wear down and taking on the look as if it's been to Hell and back. I mean, I've had my boots now for 4 years. I had my summer gloves for 6 years until one of them ripped apart on Road Pickle. My winter gloves are 4 years old. Even my helmet is 4 years old.

My jacket, however, is barely a year old.

The new line of VikingCycle Jackets are priced quite low as far as motorcycle jackets go, and they all look really good, and all come with the functionality you'd expect. So, I get these wheels spinning in my head that says, "I could just buy one and it wouldn't be much out of my pocket", and "You never know, I might end up liking it more than the jacket I have now."

For someone who's learned to live with fewer and fewer things, I still struggle with the temptation to buy more.  Even if it's free stuff, I still have this other conscience that asks, "Am I arrogant to want more?"

But as it turns out, it's not the price, and not even the look or functionality that I consider.

The best motorcycle jackets, my experience tells me, are the one's that you've been wearing the past year or more. They've already stretched and softened to your body's unique shape. Your hands are already trained to go right where the pockets happen to be. You already know how to fold it the right way to use as a camping pillow. And better yet, they save you money from having to buy another.

For that matter, a brand new jacket has to be tighter than comfortable, just to stretch and reshape itself to match your unique shape and still prevent from inflating like a balloon down the road. I'm the kind of guy who'd rather not break-in a new jacket.

Even helmets are like that. When you buy one brand new, it's gotta be tight enough to give you a headache, just so that it compresses and reforms to the shape of your head and does it's job effectively when needed.  And why go through all that when the helmet you have is already perfect?

Otherwise, my jacket, helmet, boots, and gloves have been with me through the rain, hail, cold, heat, and bugs.  I like to think they've soaked up some of my spirit and soul from the tens of thousands of miles over the years, and that makes them a part of me.  I'd hate to keep them in a dark closet where they feel left behind while I ride my motorcycle with some other strange new set of gear.  I guess that's just something quirky about me.

But when you dedicate yourself to living with fewer things, you really do get attached to the few things you have.

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Conquering Fear By Pushing to the Extremes

Part of the reason why most of us riders don't practice tight, slow speed turns, is the fear of dropping our bikes and doing damage.

But what if we practiced dropping our bikes? What if the first thing they told you to do at a motorcycle safety course is to stand up a motorcycle, with the engine off, and then put both feet on the pegs and let the bike fall over? What if you had to go 5 mph (8 kph), then throw the handlebars fully to the right, and fall off? What if you did this stuff over the entire afternoon?

You'd probably get bruised and exhausted. But assuming you had on full gear and pads on your knees, elbows and shoulders, you probably wouldn't hurt too bad. But you wouldn't be afraid of dropping the bike anymore.

Rory Anderson, another motorcycle blogger, who writes "The Awesome Blog", and who follows me on Google+, responded to my last article about "Riding a Motorcycle in the Cold", by posting a video of another rider taking a CB750 street bike to work along the snowy roads of Portland, OR...


At the 3:10 mark, he's at full speed, when the car in front of him throws on the brakes lights, and guess what happens?

So most of us are afraid to ride our motorcycles in the snow, largely because we don't want to drop our bikes, or take a slide and hurt ourselves.

But if you had on full gear like this guy, rationalized that the snow was just powder, and saw it as an opportunity to become a more experienced rider, then you would't be so quick to dismiss it.  You'd actually find a way to argue with the demon on your shoulder by saying, "Yes, but what if..."

And that's what a geek is.  It's someone who so fascinated with something, that they look at it from different angles, eager to learn everything about it, to where the fear can no longer hold them back.

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One Man's Trash is Another Man's Treasure

I-15 northbound, past Lawrence Welk Resort

Riding the freeways just isn't the big boredom that it used to be for me. As little as a few years ago, I didn't care to ride the slab. I always wanted to take the little highways that ran through mountains and canyons.

But these days are different. Today, my motorcycle is back to being my only means of transportation. It isn't just for recreation anymore. As a result, it changes the way I think about motorcycling. Now, it's my daily vehicle. It's no longer a toy I keep around for the weekends. Freeways are just a fact of life in San Diego, and riding them on my motorcycle is a fact of life.

Instead, you learn to find the fun in riding freeways, just as much as I find the fun in riding through downtown. Motorcycling is no longer a thing I do to get away from domestic life, it's completely engrained into my domestic life.

I remember seeing a rerun of Anthony Bourdain's "Parts Unknown", the one where he discovers the restaurants of Korea Town Los Angeles. He hooks up with an ecclectic Korean-American painter named David Choe.

The show depicts Choe in his studio garage surrounded by bikini clad Korean hotties as he feverishly swashes black paint across a canvas in the same fervor as a hip hop rapper spitting saliva into a microphone. Choe talks to Bourdain with a kind of youthful attitude and anger found ad nauseum on MTV.  Bourdain wants to get inside this guy's head to figure out what makes him tick, because only a hometown boy like Choe knows where to find the down to Earth eats that Koreans go to enjoy.

Sizzler in Murrieta, CA

So it comes to no surprise that Choe takes Bourdain to a Sizzler for the salad bar buffet.

Bourdain's facial expression was that of amusement and that of "You're joking, right?" But as it turns out, Korean-Americans are enamored with the corporate American fare. To them, day-old lettuce and frozen chicken wings is exotic Western dining. It's the stuff completely opposite of kim chee and bulgogi beef, and it's stuff romanticized on such American media as Roseanne and The Simpsons.  And the fact that they can eat all they want for one low price, leaves the matter without question.

So there's Bourdain, sitting at a table of formica and naugahyde, being taught how to stuff meatballs into a crispy taco shell topped off with nacho cheese sauce.  Bourdain holds the taco up to his mouth and pauses, the same way he pauses when he's about to eat pig testicles in Prague, Czechoslovakia. He takes a bite and nods his head a few times in approval.

According to Bourdain, it was the first time he had ever been to a Sizzler.

Whether its meatball and cheese sauce tacos at Sizzler or some strange hog entrail stew in an European town, the experience is all the same. It looks gross, it smells sick, and it'll probably make you barf later on. But it's not to say that one is more exotic than the other.

SR-163 southbound, San Diego

Riding the superslab through California might be as uninteresting and dull as eating the salad bar at Sizzler. But there are still people elsewhere in the world who dream of doing so. And when they finally get here and ride the Interstate, it might turn out to be anticlimactic, but it was something they could boast about back home.

Perhaps for Sash and I, riding the freeway this afternoon and having lunch at Sizzler was nothing exciting. But then again, it's just living for us, the same way it is for Czechoslovakians eating pig testicles.  But there are still people who envy us for doing so.

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If J.D. Salinger Rode a Motorcycle

Dumbfounded, I simply answered, "Well how did you know I ride a motorcycle?" The guy answered back, "I don't know, I just thought you did." I came to the conclusion that it must have been my clothing gave me away because I certainly didn't announce it when I came into the bar.

And that has always ate at me.

Somehow, I don't like advertising myself as a motorcycle rider.

It's really about categorization. I hate that people can put me into a box where they can predict my beliefs and behaviors. And just to piss them off, I'll say something that I don't actually believe in just to throw them off.

It's why I don't go to biker bars anymore. There, people have you figured out. You're a biker. But when I go somewhere else, I'm completely anonymous. They don't know if I'm a commie-pinko bastard, or a capitalist pig, or an illegal alien. No one knows where I am on the political spectrum, the social scale, or the evolutionary timeline. At best they know I drink the dark stuff, and therefore I must be some kind of ass wipe, but that's about it.

What I appreciate, however, is recognition from my peers. I like getting comments from other motorcycle bloggers. I like talking to other riders who've ridden to Alaska and back. I like to compare notes on such infamous roads as the Moki Dugway, the Beartooth Pass, the Coronado Trail, or Going to the Sun Road. But I don't like wearing that stuff.

OK, there was a time when I used to wear a leather vest adorned with pins of all the places I had been to. Somehow, that made me feel as if I had earned my place within the biker community. But when I first started riding in 1985, I had been a solitary rider. I was riding to commute to college and work. I never went to rallies, or rode with groups. Back then, I would wear my normal clothes. I didn't even wear a "motorcycle jacket", I had just a plain old jacket.

So over the years, after I bought a pickup truck, motorcycling became relegated to a hobby. When it came time to upgrade that old Kawasaki KZ400 to a new bike, I bought a Yamaha Road Star. From there, I ventured into some local riding clubs and groups and found myself amid other leather-clad riders. I wanted to fit in, so I wore the same shit. The only things I simply refused to wear were chaps and a doo-rag. I mean, I had to draw the line somewhere.

But as the years went by, I found so much fake with all that. The collection of leather vests, the pendleton shirts, the bandanas, the rally pins, the long-sleeves with the flames up the arms. To me, all that stuff is more visual than it is practical.  And when you become all about the visual, then what?

I also found that as the years went by, other riders respected me for the years that I had been riding. My riding buddies, along with other local riders who knew of me, didn't care about how big of geek or dork I was. They already knew about my experiences. So I woke up one day and decided to sell the Harley and buy a Honda ST. That meant getting rid of all my Harley t-shirts and all my "biker" gear.  I remember a few Harley enthusiasts telling me it was an act of regression to go from Harley to Honda. I would disagree. But overall, the people who appreciate me as a rider didn't really care about any of that external stuff.

It's like the more time you spend riding, and the more miles you put on, the more humble you become. Maybe it's just the people who are new to motorcycling that get caught up in the "look at me" thing.

My therapist once told me, "you have to swing all the way to one side to know that you don't belong there."

I feel as if I started out at one extreme, swung all the way to the other, and then swung back to the other extreme again.

There's an element of Catcher in the Rye in just about all walks of life, not just motorcycling. Anything can be either a total rat race of chameleons trying to fit in, or total anonymity and mystery as to what makes you tick. But like with anything, it's all about balancing the extremes than to be one or the other. Sometime's its good to wear a little flair, sometimes it's good to be invisible. I'd rather have the freedom to choose than to be forced to choose sides.

Still, I don't like giving myself away as a motorcycle rider. It almost feels like bragging. For that matter, I don't like giving myself away as a computer geek, or a business owner, or a craft-beer snob. I'd rather be a mystery to some and totally invisible to others than to advertise myself and have people put me into a category.

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Motorcycle Road Trips Becoming More High Tech

My friend Mike and our bikes on a road trip a few years ago.

After reading jmadog's post entitled, "Anticipation", where he opines about motorcycle riders becoming addicted to their cellphones, I couldn't help thinking about this in a more grand scale.

Today, when we go out on a motorcycle ride, we still take our world with us.

It used to be as recently as the 1970s, when we left home, we left our world behind.  We couldn't take our telephone with us.  There was no GPS.  We didn't have mobile computers.  We couldn't search for the best hotel rates in advance.  We didn't have ATM cards.  Even if we had credit cards, a lot of places still didn't accept them.

But today, I still have my world with me.  With smartphones, laptops, GPS, SPOT Tracker, GoPro, MP3 players, Wi-Fi and 4G connectivity, it seems being left to our own devices now has a new meaning.  And with Facebook, Twitter, Google+, even our friends on the cloud.  All that shit I wanted to leave behind?  It follows me through e-mails, text messages, and voice.  I'm never on a vacation.

When we leave home for a long road trip, we're not really leaving home at all.  We're just changing the scenery.

On the other hand, it feels good to remain constantly connected to my world, wherever I am.  Even in a strange city full of strangers, I still feel at ease and in security.

But if I strive to remain constantly connected like this, will I ever find the courage to throw it all away and rely on the strength inside?

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The Devil in the Details

St. Elmo Bar, Bisbee, AZ

It seems like a lot of motorcycle bloggers have an article entitled, "Why I ride a motorcycle".  This entire website is devoted to that subject, shooting off into different directions and exploring each detail.

Popeye used to say, "I am what I am, and that's all what I am."  Yet, there are hundreds of self-help psychology books focused on that very same sentence.

Losing weight is as simple as eating healthy and exercising more.  Yet, there are thousands of strange diet plans that offer the same concept in a more detailed and confusing way.

Sometime it's best to keep a thought simple and allow others to explore the minutiae of what it means for them.

Each individual has his/her own personal filter, built on their life's experiences, that makes it impossible for one writer to take a single thought, extend it to hundreds of pages of detail, and get millions of people to arrive at the same conclusion.

Maybe an article entitled, "Why I ride a motorcycle" could just be a photo of a glass of beer and a motorcycle helmet. Maybe a self-help psychology book would be better off with just a single page with a single sentence.  Maybe the next new diet fad could be sold as a bag containing a banana and a pair of running shoes.

By writing out so much detail, we stifle peoples' own creative juices to explore what it means to them.

It's said that "a picture is worth a 1,000 words".

Perhaps all I need to do is show you a photo, and let each of you write your own words, using your own life's filter.

  

  

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