Motorcycle Blogging Conundrum

Thumper, who writes the well-read Outlaw Biker World, e-mailed me a few days ago asking why I haven't been keeping Biker News Online updated with fresh content.

He advised that I'm enjoying my weather here in SoCal, because apparently in Arizona where he is at, he isn't.

Well, yeah, the weather has been getting a lot better here in sunny SoCal, and the days are starting to get longer too. I just got new tires on my Road Star, and have been taking her out more often.

So if I earn a living writing some blogs about motorcycles, how am I supposed to get any riding in? Well, the truth is that I can do much of that blogging at night. The reality is that I'll go through several months of non-stop blogging, followed by a few months of inactivity.

I think that I end up sitting in my home office so much, that I get into a little bit of depression, and find myself wanting nothing more than to get out on the road. For the past few months, that's where I've been. Even though the past few months were in the cold of Winter, the riding is still not bad here in SoCal.

Once I've had my fill of riding, I start feeling the need to express myself in the written word, and it's back to blogging again.

Jay, who writes the newly launched Road Captain USA blog, wrote to me asking for tips on running a successful motorcycle blog, and I basically said to keep it fresh with lots of content, preferably with new material each and every day. And at the same time I said that, I had already let my Biker News Online website lapse without any new material for a couple of weeks.

So, I don't know if he truly took my advice with any seriousness, or with a grain of salt.

I guess if your favorite activity is to write, then it would provide a great foundation for a very successful blogging career. But if your favorite activity is to ride your motorcycle all day long, then it kinda contradicts a career that demands you to sit behind a computer.

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Riding With Strangers

Yesterday I went for a ride with Joe, a guy I barely know.

I met him a few weeks ago on a website, where bikers in my general area congregate to chat, BS, and share their thoughts. Since he lives in my town, I threw him an e-mail just to say "hi".

A week later, we hooked up for a ride to San Clemente to grab some pizza and hang out. I took my wife, and he took his girlfriend. We had good time.

Yesterday, we hooked up again, grabbing some lunch at a fish shack in Carlsbad.

That's basically what I've doing over the past few years, meeting riders in my area via the Internet, hooking up for rides, and forming friendships with some.

On HDForums, under the California section, there are guys there organizing "Sunday Rides" and "Saturday Rides", and people from all over SoCal hook up, and ride as a pack for just the afternoon.

When Joe and I left the fish shack, and headed up Pacific Coast Highway, we crossed paths with another guy, Jorge, who was riding his bike back home. I met Jorge a year ago, also on the Internet. Jorge decided to turn around and ride with us a for a ways.

I don't know how many riders I've met online and hooked up for rides, but thinking back over the past few years, there's been lots.

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Dyna Wide Glide and Road Star

The past few months I've been following my heart more than my head. As I get older, it seems like I do this more often.

It was in my mid-30s when I found myself at work realizing that I was stuck in a rut. I was managing the research & development department of a software company, and I was spending more time dealing the attitudes of my employees, the attitudes of my superiors, and competing against other managers trying to crawl up the corporate ladder.

It all came to a climax when another department manager, who I had hired years before, and trained, stabbed me in the back for something I didn't do. Blamed me for something she fucked up on. I tried to defend myself, but the more I argued, the more it looked like I was a dickhead.

"Why am I wasting my time doing this shit?" I kept asking myself.

I knew right there I wasn't cut out for corporate life.

That was Orange County, CA. "The OC" as many people now come to call it.

My wife and I left "the OC" in 2001 for a place further inland, where rural living butted up against urban sprawl. We had all the goodness of a small community, but the luxuries of shopping and dining.

My next door neighbor, who was the same age as I, and was in the same career rut that I was in, showed me a Harley-Davidson brochure, and the bike that he wanted to buy, a 2004 Dyna Wide Glide.

I remembered back to my college days when I rode my Kawasaki KZ400. I rode that bike everywhere because it was all I had. My buddy Greg had a Kawasaki KZ450. Greg and I rode the crap out of our bikes. Whichever direction the wind blew, we rode with it. We watched "Easy Rider" together and talked about doing our own cross-country road trip.

As it turned out, I fell in love with a girl, and I wasn't spending too much time riding with Greg. He and I kinda drifted apart, though he was there to stand by my side at my wedding. Riding motorcycles took a back seat to Life.

If not for my wife, I may have taken that road trip with Greg, and who knows where I would have ended up. But what I do know today is that I still have the same wife, and she's been there to support me through my worst days.

So when my neighbor showed me a photo of the Dyna Wide Glide, I told him that if he bought that bike, I'd buy a motorcycle too, and that he and I would ride the crap out of them. He finally bought the Dyna, and I bought a Yamaha Road Star, and the two of us hit the road and forged a closer friendship. He showed me a map of the USA, and said he wanted to do a cross-country trip, just like in Easy Rider. I said, "Let's do it".

Not too long after, my neighbor did something really dumb, and got served with divorce papers. I helped him pack his belongings into a pickup truck, and I haven't seen him since.

I've since gone on to meet other guys in my local area with bikes, and we ride as often as we can, and have formed some close friendships. We've done a lot of road trips across the western USA, but I still haven't done that cross-country ride.

I'm at a point now that I don't care about the things that I should be doing, but the things that I really want to do. These days, my wife's health is failing, and she needs me here. It might be awhile before I can leave everything behind, jump on my bike, and see where the road takes me.

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