So let me paint you the picture.
It's dusk and I'm making like a bat out of hell on the highway trying to beat the rain. I was promised by the weatherman that it was not going to rain. Yet the skies were a steel grey all day and we had pop up showers throughout the day. It started in earnest when I was heading home.
I hate the highway. I hate it in rush hour and I hate it in the rain. It's raining, not pouring down rain but enough to make me put on the rain gear. I love my rain gear as I'm dry, toasty and warm.
Last year at this time I was feeling mortal. I was still recovering from a wreck and as I healed another medical issue, previously hidden, was discovered; which kept me off the bike for longer as I wanted as I healed and mended. I was feeling all my 47 years.
I'm an year older now and in the past year I've ridden a bit, but Kimmie and I still don't have that magic we used to have. My riding time has been limited to medical issues in the family, but thankfully not my medical issues. By weather (which I would have rode in before), by circumstance - most of which I created.
I thought about all this and more as Kimmie and I worked our way home through crowed streets and down detours. Getting stuck behind a accident and delayed by a train, oh the joy of city life. We ended up going out of our way for gas and she again showed me her heart because she literally was on fumes when I finally gave her a drink. For these reasons I'm tearing up the highway as darkness closes in and
She's dirty, beat up, leaking oil from somewhere which is a concern and I know I'll need to have a actual mechanic look at that problem. And possibly replacing the CVT belt. She's having trouble starting still when the temperature is cool.
I've no desire to trade her in or give up on riding, like a few friends have.
I think about bike week, how there are so many places I want to go. I also know that business commitments and our annual "Susie's side door cafe" (the annual community yard sale where we sell hot dogs and such) will keep me off the bike this weekend and next...and the week after that.
I think about Susan's knee and how she can't climb on back anymore. What choices we have remaining. I think about all this and more in the rain on a road I hate to ride.
I think I think to much. "Just shut up and ride."
7 comments:
Sounds like a lot of stuff playing on your mine my friend. Your not the only one to think too much, it happens a lot in helmet time. Bear with it Kimmie can be mended. Have you thought of a trike for you and your beloved to try riding, I hear they are easier get on for a passenger. Hang in buddy!
To be honest Dar that is something she's been pushing for some time. I personally like the idea of a Ural sidecar better.
Frankly at this stage I'm more concerned about "the future" and what that means to us then anything...and if riding is going to be part of it.
I'm quickly turning into something I didn't think I would. A weekend recreational rider.
I don't think it's unusual for any of us that ride, to wonder about the future: Is the day not far off where I won't be a rider?
Personally I have already become a weekend recreational rider and don't mind in the least.
Hang in there Robert - ride when you can and ride in the moment.
Robert, there's nothing wrong with being a weekend warrior per say (at most times I am guilty of just being that, too). Like Dar said, helmet time gives you time and opportunity to think. More riding equals more thinking, and I would strongly recommend more thinking along the lines of acquiring a three wheeler, be it a hack or a trike, in order to get Susan to travel with you.
Get it in while you can, Robert. Enjoy right now. Tomorrow never comes.
As others have said, ride when you can, and enjoy it when you do. It's when that "I must ride" feeling comes over you that takes all the fun out of it. That's when helmet time is the worst, when you begin questioning your desire and joy of riding. And if sharing is important (which it seems to be) then go to 3 wheels and squeeze as much fun out of it as you both can. Good luck.
Of course, riding just gives you more time to think too.
Ride when you can and it feels right.
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