Impulse

Ever notice how life is a series of impulses, desires, urges, wants, dreams and hopes that are never supposed to see the light of day?  It seems to me we spend an awful lot of time thinking these thoughts that we couldn't or wouldn't dare tell anyone.  Be sensible they said, don't do what you want to do, do what you should do, what is required of you.  Enough of that crap and you stop knowing what the hell it is you want to do, or who you are for that matter.

That's a terrible feeling.  For the gullible and easily manipulated there is always the media.  Television, magazines, the internet, are more than willing to tell you what you want, just pay the price of admission and viola! Fulfillment!  For a limited time we will double your order, that's twice the Fulfillment (just pay separate processing and handling fees)!!!  Call today!

We ease ourselves into this misery as one enters a scalding bath, slowly, one toe at a time until it can no longer be felt and soon the body is totally immersed.  But the water inevitably becomes tepid, then cold and our flesh wrinkles and it is no longer enough.  We have to add more scalding water or get the hell out and do something else.

Two of the greatest decisions I made in my life came as a result of following impulse.  I saw a skateboard at a yardsale for $2 when I was 12.  My mother said no, that I would hurt myself, so I rode my bicycle back later and bought the damn thing and hid it in the basement.  I then embarked on a 25 year journey that saw me travel the United States and learn some of the most valuable lessons life has to teach as I came to know myself.  25 years man, that's longer than most marriages last.  All from a $2 purchase that I was not supposed to have.

Motorcycles were the same way.  At 16 I bought a $250 Yamaha that my parents adamantly argued against.  So began another odyssey that continues to this day and has brought me here, to your computer screen.

I didn't know at the time how those two decisions would shape my life, I just had a feeling there was something there.  Where would I be now, had I not followed those impulses?  I don't know, living up to someone else's expectations?  Dead?  In a van down by the river?  Corporate lackey? Billionaire?  Whichever possible pasts I may have eschewed through my lack of respect for duty, authority, conformity, they could not have proven as worthy as what I have known through following the siren's call of my heart.

Impulse #1

Impulse #2.  And life would never be the same.  Or normal.

Two Mistresses

People keep asking me what my plans are for the 2016 season.  There was talk of attempting the "Double Double" (two championships in two classes two years in a row) and while that is tempting, my heart lay elsewhere.  Over the course of 2015 this infatuation of mine for off-road riding began to rival my passion for roadracing. Competing in off-road events seemed the next logical progression, but I found myself still unwilling to forswear the pavement entirely.  Can a man truly serve two mistresses?  This glutton for punishment was itching to try.

In true Larrivee fashion, I opted not to go the easy way, which would be to buy a modern, race-prepped machine, but instead to outfit my truly archaic KDX200 from the previous millennium to compete in what are known as "hare scrambles", which as the name implies is like a bunch of bunnies hopping and tearing around in the forest, except these bunnies have knobby tires and drink race fuel.

Bolstering my decision to race such an antediluvian machine was the timeworn adage: "It's 80 percent rider, 20 percent bike".  I also read somewhere that when most people feel ready to physically quit, they really are only 40 percent expended.  So that leaves something like another 60 percent out there, using a little Enron math, standard deviation, rounding up and that puts me somewhere around 120%!

In all seriousness, it seemed like a worthwhile theory to test.  Was it really 80 percent rider?  Could a physically fit forty-something getting several hours seat time per week hope for a reasonable showing on a well-prepared, if somewhat long in the tooth motorcycle or would the onslaught of technology prove too much to bear?  It promised to be an interesting and possibly eye-opening experience.

Two things I knew going in:

1. As it had proven with roadracing, I was going to have a lot to learn.

2. If I was aware of what I was getting into, I probably wouldn't do it.

Machine, vintage 1989.  Scrapheap fodder or worthy mount?

Rider, vintage 1974.  Too old to rock and roll? Too young to die?

Slap In The Face, Pat On The Back

"The value of life can be measured by how many times your soul has been deeply stirred." -Soichiro Honda


I know, I know, two Honda quotes in a week, my apologies.  This one really got me thinking.  I began to recount the moments in my life where this has occurred.  Then I stopped and wondered what actually qualified as a "soul stirring" moment, overthought the whole thing into a bunch of requirements and qualifications and promptly ended up in some philosophical morass the likes of which an intellectual 4x4 with a winch could not pull me out of.

Finally, like a drunk emerging from his heady stupor, I had a moment of clarity.  If you have to question, then it simply wasn't.  This made definition easier, but also dramatically cut down on the number of occurrences, which is sobering in and of itself.

As you may have guessed, some of my moments involve motorcycling one way or another, the rest are none of your goddamn business, at least not until somebody around here buys me a nice dinner.

Moving down my list that seemed to be growing shorter by the minute, I defined two different types of these events, the first of which I called 'The Slap in the Face', the second, 'The Pat on the Back'.

The Slap in the Face, by virtue of name alone, is the more jarring of the two, but perhaps more meaningful.  It is the kind of experience that can lead to a real personal shift, a stirring in the opposite direction that turns our notions on their ears.  As we age, we become more armored against these, I think, at least until the slap gets powerful enough to knock us on our asses.  Then we ignore them at our peril.

The Pat on the Back is exactly that, only deeper.  An affirmation of the things we already knew but needed to be reminded of, an ember re-kindled.  They serve, maybe, to let us know that we haven't gotten absolutely everything wrong.

Whichever of these we experience, they are one of the few things that call to us to do more than exist.  Vegetables exist, rocks exist, dirt exists, we, on the other hand, can be moved.  And that is something, so I will keep looking for it with two wheels, two feet and two eyes.

One cannot hope to be moved that stands still all the time.

Vicarious Living

No riding this weekend.  18" of snow in central VA ensured that and made simply getting from point A to B obscenely difficult and without the benefit of 4-wheel drive, nearly impossible.

It's not pretty what lack of riding can do to a person.  A stagnant, caged and restless monotony enshrouds the man who cannot do what he loves.  He will climb the walls by his fingernails.  My mind and body have come to count on the 6-10 hours of ride time per weekend.  Absent of this I am more tense, unable to slough off the detritus of the previous week's 47 hour grind.  I shudder to think about how tightly wound the working stiffs who don't have such a wonderful outlet as motorcycles must be.  What they do to deal with it?  Drink?

I have been here before, in an earlier chapter of a checkered past, as a skateboarder in the frozen bowels of Northern New York.  Long before indoor skateparks, our activities came to an abrupt halt during the long winters, aside from the occasional basement session banging our skulls on the water pipes when somebody's parents were at work.  These don't last long, you dent one Maytag and everybody's pissed!

Without the ability to engage our passions, we become unwilling spectators to them.  How many times did we rewind and rewatch that copy of H-Street's Shackle Me Not or Hokus Pokus videos trying to memorize Matt Hensley's movements?  Hundreds if not thousands.  It was all that could be done to dull the urge until it warmed enough for us to shovel out a 20" x 20" section of road and hope the ice melted before new snow fell.

If you skated in the early 90s, this image is seared into your brain.

Ironic how life has a way of repeating itself, isn't it?  I find myself turning to the digital medium once again for a fix, having just spent my lunch break watching YouTube videos of enduro riding, occasionally glancing out the window to ensure the snow is melting.  A poor substitute for the real thing, and while patience may be a virtue, it certainly isn't one of mine.

(These guys put out some decent videos for a bunch of contemplative old farts, I've even picked up a tip or two for my off-road riding, check them out if you feel so inclined:  Enduro and Cross Training Videos )

Selfishly Go Forth

"Racing improves the breed." -Soichiro Honda


Someone brought it to my attention recently that motorcycle racing can be seen as a wholly selfish endeavour.  Superficially maybe, and I think for many of us it begins that way.  If you persist, though, and become increasingly intimate with the culture, perception shifts.

Racers are not entirely a bunch of self-absorbed narcissists sating a wanton desire for speed, but rather a community of like-minded individuals gathered to test themselves and each other.  When one rises above, others must aspire to that level or be left behind.  The funny thing though, more often than not, is competitors openly assisting one another, be it through advice, equipment, time, or money.  A true sense exists of being involved in something amazing larger than a lone rider.   It's cliche to say it now, but racers are living the dream, or at the very least attempting to, and the majority of them are sincerely pleased to help others do so as well.  When the fan hits the shit, sometimes your fiercest rival is the only one you can count on to keep you on track.

Anyone with balls (or ovaries) big enough to step into a chosen arena and proclaim "I am good enough.  I deserve to be here.", and subsequently labor to back that statement up, now no longer exclusively serves their own interests, whether they know it or not.  A thing such as this that motivates and inspires others and asks them for their best can never be considered wholly selfish.  When we seek out challenge, we begin to understand ourselves a little more, and in doing so become happier, more focused, stronger, better people and our entire outlook can change.  It is infectious.  What uplifts us as individuals, uplifts us as a whole.

Maybe when Mr. Honda spoke about improving the breed, he was not referring to machines at all.

It takes a village, or something.

The End Is Nigh

1/22/16 7:10 AM PST

The National Weather Service has issued the following warning:  The end of the world is here.  Buying bottled water at The Walmart will not help you.  Please bend over, put your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye.  Nearby areas are reporting herds of  panicked lemmings swarming grocery stores to purchase the last can of lima beans.  Some drivers have begun running their cars into ditches before the snow falls to get a jump on the crowds.  A snowflake was spotted in western Virginia, causing 37 heart attack related fatalities and one news helicopter crash.  If you have a god, pray to him now.  If not, you may want to find one, there are many to choose from. Atheists may exit quietly from the back of the bus, there are no further instructions for you.  Others should now make peace with your enemies, hug your children and please calmly wait for the end.  You are well and truly fucked.  Be sure to stay tuned for the new Martha Stewart special "What I Ate With Oprah In the Apocalypse".

My assigned "Motorcycle Parking" spot will remain empty today.  I consider myself a pretty hardcore commuter, but even I have my limit, which is usually when snow begins sticking to the roadways and the central Virginia populace of driving doofuses start crashing into everything.  I received an email at work yesterday reminding me to "wear boots with good traction on snow and ice" and I realized just how far we have sunk as a country, species, whatever.

By coddling all the morons and idiots out there it ensures that stupidity is the new norm.  It flies in the face of evolution and guarantees that the planet will be overrun with simpletons eating, shitting and breeding until all resources are wiped out.  Our communication has been reduced to a series of grunts and three letter texts OMG!  We live in a new world where all the corners are rounded, floors and walls padded.  We are devolving into something worse than animals, because at least they have survival instincts.

Hence one of the appealing things about motorcycles, they do not suffer fools for very long.  While I would never wish death or injury on a fellow rider, there is also no sleep lost over some retard who met his maker while trying to 12 o'clock on the interstate (other than the fact that it makes us all look bad).  The motorcyclist who refuses to learn, adapt and be aware is not long for this world.  Riding is one of the last true refuges of responsibility left to our existence in the modern void.  And responsibility means freedom.

Not today old friend

 

Sometimes It's Hard

Strapping on my knee braces I notice the stiffness in my legs.  Shoulders are sore as well and if I think about it, there is an overall tired feeling.  Bed would be easier than this on a Sunday morning.  A wave of dread ripples through my gut followed by speculation as to how long this will take to pass, before the enjoyment begins.  It almost always does, otherwise I would not keep coming back.

I've got to take things easy for the first fifteen or so minutes to get warmed up.  Many an outing has been dampened or ended by an early morning crash that breaks motorcycle parts and bruises body ones.  A quick reminder this is not a race and that I am alone out here.  Priority one is to return with rider and machine intact.

Anticipation for the ride has been building all week, preparations have been made and now that the moment is finally here the simpering voice of doubt and indecision begins mewling about bed and rest again.  I stomp it down like a nest of cockroaches, squashing most, with the only quickest escaping through the cracks in the wall.  Soon they will be forgotten.  Mostly.

Other times it's just plain hard.  The days that feel as if you've never ridden a motorcycle, all the practice and techniques and hours logged seem as if they were done by another you.  A younger you.  A better you.  Paths and obstacles once thought vanquished seem to have grown new teeth with which to rend a hapless wanderer.  A motorcycle no longer feels like an extension of the body but rather an awkward prosthetic designed to toss you unceremoniously to the hard earth.  It sucks, and it can drain the fun right out of riding faster than Craigslist motorcycles eat up my tax refund.

What's to be done then?  Take your ball and bat and go home?  Pack it in only to regret on Monday, knowing there is a week's wait before any sort of redemption?  Under certain extremities discretion is the better part of valor and we get warnings.  I've thumped myself hard enough off-road that I wasn't sure if I would be able to ride out, when suddenly the real test of yourself is just to get home without any further damage.  But what about when for no good reason your body and brain are saying quit and the thing counted on to bring some joy and stress relief is causing pain and pissing you off to no end?

It's nice when there is someone to help you get back up again.
 But that's not always the case.  Shannonville, 2000