Motorcycle Madness

I started riding motorcycles shortly after I was born. OK, not really... but I was pretty young when I first got the taste of riding a motorized vehicle on two wheels. Actually, now that I think about it, that "feeling" that I'm talking about probably came the first time I went down a steep hill on my bicycle. You know the feeling I'm talking about. You're not pedaling, you're just holding on for dear life as the bicycle careens down the hill! Well, that was probably the first time that I got a taste of that "feeling" and it felt good. Really good.

Fast forward a few years to when my dad showed up one night after work with a bright red minibike in the trunk of his car. Man, was that a night to remember! Anybody close to my age, around 25 (+ another 25), will remember those cool little minibikes. They had a tube frame into which you could mount just about any kind of engine. Standard issue was a Briggs & Stratton 3 1/2 HP lawnmower engine. Add to that a little centrifugal clutch and you were ready to hit the road. Now, of course, they weren't street legal but they sure were maneuverable. If you had the stomach for it, and knew the neighborhood backyards pretty well, you could usually make your way home from just about anywhere without getting caught. Unfortunately, although we had "parent sanctioned" rides up and down our street there in our Ohio town, the local police didn't get the memo and it wasn't long until that little adventure was shut down. But, I had now gotten a taste of motorized 2-wheel transport and my addiction had been set in motion.

The next motorcycle that I could regularly get my hands on was a Honda Mini Trail 70. My parents had some friends that had one, so my dad bought one for us and we mostly took it on camping trips. It was big enough for the "dads" to ride, but for us kids it was a "real" motorcycle with gears (albeit a 3-speed automatic with, yet another, centrifugal clutch) and it was "off road" which meant it had some suspension to it. It really was a great little bike at the time and I think that's where I first picked up that "smell" that motorcycles have when you first start them. Harley or Honda, new or old, they all have their own particular smell which is a combination of exhaust gases, metal heating up and whatever else makes up THAT smell. If you ride a bike, you know what I'm talking about. We all experience the smell when we start our bikes in the garage, especially when it's still cold outside. Anyway, the Honda 70 was our "dream bike" for a number of years and we loved it.

When I was about 15 my dad decided he liked the motorcycling thing and decided to buy a bike of his own. In retropsect, I don't blame him a bit... but I sure wasn't happy about it. In his defense, I can only imagine what it's like to try and wrestle YOUR motorcycle from two crazed kids. My brother, Scott, is just a year older than me and together I'm sure we were always a handful. So, like I said, my dad decided he was going to get his own bike. Now this is back in the early 70's so please don't judge the man on the bike he bought (a Honda CB 100). I'm sure his decision was as much fiscally based as it was experience based. I'm actually surprised that he was able to pull it off at all back then because my mother can be pretty persuasive. She may appear defeated early on, but if she isn't happy about what's going on I guarantee she'll eventually make you wish you had seen it her way from the beginning. She is a tremendous force, but carries it brilliantly in a silk glove.

OK, so let me get to the good part of the story. By now I had a gotten a strong bite from the motorcycling bug and could think of nothing else. If you ask my parents (bless their hearts), I bet they would tell you that all I talked about through junior and senior high school was motorcycles. I knew every model, read all the magazines and literally thought about motorcycles ALL of the time. So you can imagine my teenage indignation when my dad bought a bike... just for himself. There it sat in the garage, hardly ever ridden (sigh...), and here I was with a fever so strong it occupied my every waking moment.

Well, if you haven't guessed by now... I could stand it no longer. One night, after my parents had left for some friends' house for an evening of card playing and my dear brother was settled in front of the TV, I snuck out to the garage and committed a crime. Now, at the time you couldn't have gotten me to admit that I was committing a crime, but if anybody did to MY bike what I did to my dad's bike that night... they'd be going to jail. I removed the speedometer cable (hey, I'm not stupid) and, without telltale mileage to later get me in trouble (yeah, right), I hit the road on a licensed motorcycle for the first time in my life. Man, what a feeling that was. Riding a real motorcycle through the streets of my town, at night, without a speedometer. I was in heaven... but I was soon to be going the other direction in a hurry.

Prior to embarking on this little escapade, I had called a friend and told him to be ready, that I was out on "my" bike and would be by to get him. After picking him up I decided the next thing I needed to do to celebrate my new found freedom was to swing by an old girlfriend's apartment (how old can a girlfriend be when you're 15?) and show her how cool I was on my trusty steed.

OK, if you didn't guess the first part, maybe you're starting to get a premonition here. Yeah... we never made it to the "old" girlfriend's place. Somehow (and I will always wonder what gave me away, because I FELT confident) a local police officer seemed to think that I looked a little tentative and decided to pull me over. Actually, he didn't pull me over, rather he waited as I rode through the parking lot of the girlfriend's apartment complex and had his lights flashing when I emerged on the other side. The Steve McQueen in me wanted to flee, but having been raised by awesome parents, I knew that the gig was up and I was in big trouble.

Well, I won't bore you with the details, but it was not a happy night. The cops called my parents at their friends' house, the folks had time to sit around and figure out what would torture me the most (making me wait for my thrashing until their late arrival home that night) and then of course there was some jail time (just kidding.. but I did have to go to juvenile court).

I learned a very valuable lesson that night. You gotta have your own bike and you gotta do whatever it takes to get one (short of stealing someone else's, of course).

The fact is, I've pretty much had at least one motorcycle (or more) all of my life since then. Actually, I can't even imagine life without one. Because it's that one thing that, even today at age 50 with a lot of experiences under my belt, still gives me the feeling of speeding down a hill on my bike at age 5. There's nothing like it and, hopefully, I'll never have to live without it.

See you on the road!

MotoRush

Possessed by our Possessions!

OK, so my wife and I live in Central Virginia and, up until last weekend, we lived during the week in a nice condo in town and then spent weekends at our "house in the country". Well, with the economy being what it is, we decided to start renting the condo in an effort to offset a portion of our two mortgages. What we didn't realize was that we had, over the last couple of years, built up two complete households of "stuff".



Now that may not seem like a big deal until you consider the fact that we are now being forced to combine two households into one... and believe me, it is turning out to be a challenge. The movers came yesterday and picked up all of the "stuff" from the condo and brought it here to the house. And all I can say is... what a mess! There are boxes sitting around in every room and my ultimate "Man Shop" is now filled with tables, chairs and assorted other household goodies. Hardly acceptable in a shop that houses tools, motorcycles, trailers, cars, etc.



I know, by now you're wondering what the heck my little "consolidation move" has to do with motorcycles, trailers and traveling on the open road. Well, it has everything to do with it. I mean, isn't that why we ride motorcycles and travel all over the place on our bikes anyway? To get away from all of the "stuff" and get back to being ourselves without all of the stuff that defines us and confines us.



Several years ago, my wife and I owned a business in Van Nuys, CA(Los Angeles area) that we purchased while we were still living in San Diego. It wasn't too long after the purchase that we realized we needed to be closer to the day-to-day operation and that would involve a move to Los Angeles. Luckily, for once in our lives we were actually on the right side of the housing market and could easily sell our San Diego property for a tidy profit. What we weren't sold on was the move to Los Angeles. Neither of us was particularly keen on the idea of sinking another fortune into a home there, so we came up with another option.



We owned a 40 ft. sailboat while we were in San Diego and decided to sail the boat up to Marina del Rey, CA (a "port suburb" of LA) and live on the boat while we decided what to do with our housing situation. I told my wife "two weeks on the boat" and then we would have our next move planned. Well, two weeks turned into two years and I will always remember those two years as some of the happiest of my life. I'm an avid sailor and we were able to sail most weekends over to Catalina Island (27 miles off the coast of CA), anchor in a nice private cove, fish, dive for lobster, etc. It was an idyllic existence, at least until we had to come back to LA to run the business. But I digress...



Here's my point. When we moved from our fairly sizable San Diego home onto the boat, we had to put the majority of our possessions in storage. What I didn't realize at the time was that putting those belongings in storage actually freed me up to enjoy my life and not be "owned" by my possessions. I realize we had the boat and all that goes with it, but it was a SIMPLE life. The boat contained everything that we needed for travel and adventure, but you couldn't have much because there just wasn't room for it.



I think that's why we really love our motorcycle and our Trekker Trailer. We can load up everything we need for a relaxing camping or cross-country trip and know that we will be comfortable and self-contained. And, at the same time, leave all of the other possessions at home to be forgotten about. That's what true freedom is all about.



So, as I sit here at my desk with boxes piled all around me... I think to myself, "do I really need all this stuff?" And although the answer is most likely a profound "no", it sure doesn't seem to keep me from acquiring it.



Well, I have to go now... I have a lot of boxes to unpack:-(



See you on the road.



MotoRush

Spring is in the Air!

Hi Everyone,

Well, you may think by the title of this blog that I'm a little premature on the whole "Spring" concept. But, let me explain. I now live in Central Virginia after having spent ten glorious years in Southern California... San Diego to be exact. Anyone who rides a motorcycle knows that SoCal is one of the greatest places to live and ride. The riding season is virtually year around, you can safely split lanes if you get stuck in a long line of stopped traffic and the roads along the coast and inland are some of the best in the world. It truly is a mecca for motorcycling.

But, I now find myself (mostly for family reasons) living in Central Virginia where the weather is pretty decent most of the time, but certainly not up to SoCal's level. However, one of the things that you do get here in Virginia (which you don't experience in monoclimatic areas) is the anticipation that the weather is starting to change, in this case to Spring and warmer. This past weekend the temps were close to 70 degrees... in February! That makes for some pretty good early riding sessions, although they are typically short because the temps start to drop pretty soon after the sun goes down. But you can feel the change in the air!!

So, this past weekend I got the Harley out, cleaned off the fine layer of dust that had settled over the last few weeks and put on a fresh coat of wax. And, of course, because my wife and I like to travel we have a matching black Trekker Trailer that we use for camping and longer touring trips. It's an awesome combination to see the trailer and the bike together, all squeaky clean and shiny. You can just feel the anticipation of the next trip staring back at you as you look at the Trekker with it's sleak lines and ample storage waiting to swallow tents, sleeping bags, coolers, etc.

I may be pushing it a bit to say that Spring is on the way, but when I sit in my garage and look at that beautiful bike and trailer and think about all the places we're going to go and all of the things we're going to see... I know it's true. Spring IS in the air!