King of the Road

"I'm a man of means by no means..." -Roger Miller


$10,000 for a dirt bike?  For what amounts to essentially a toy?  I struggled to swallow that one, as a friend told me the out of door price for his new KTM.  Don't get me wrong, I'm sure with all the whiz bang technology it's worth every penny, but I wondered how any human being, especially men of our rather ahem 'advanced' age could exploit and really take advantage of such technology.  Sure electric start is nice, endlessly adjustable suspension, butter smooth power everywhere in the rev range, lightweight, one finger brakes and on and on. 

I'd venture to say nearly any motorcycle built in the last 20 years is capable of far more than the average rider.  Yet we still want, no, demand, more.  And we pay for it.  Or should I say, we make payments on it...

At what point do we reach the level of absurdity?  Or hit the outer limits of diminishing returns?  When do we finally make the distinction between want and need? 

Who knows?

Break out the duckets, it's gonna cost you...

   

Holeshot

Sunday, June 24, 2018 Rural Retreat VA

To lead a race, if even for a short time, is an amazing thing.  And difficult.  Red-eyed hounds of hell nip at boot heels with only one intent: your failure.  The animosity behind is palpable, wheedling its way into the subconscious to whittle away at self-confidence.  Hanging it all out turns into merely hanging on.  Until...

Fast becomes past.  Passed.

But a brain remembers those moments besting all comers, and formulates a plan to take it the distance.   

This Is Spring Grove Part II

Charley is back there.  I can hear him.  His KTM is ready to pounce should I make the slightest bobble.  We reach the second grass track section, with built in wood pallet chicanes.  The Spanish and Austrian two-stroke 300s get to feed, I'm up into 5th gear.  Can't lose him.  Wide, sandy, sweeping left hander, he pulls up on the outside.  We are neck and neck.  It's dusty, can't see a damn thing, but my memory from last year tells me there is a sharp turn to the right coming up.  I back off slightly, Charley goes by, off track and right into some hay bales, but doesn't crash.  I make the turn, barely.  Relax and breathe for a few seconds.  He'll be coming again.  It doesn't take long.  He gets by and I try to give chase, but soon he is gone.  I'm not up to speed yet, fighting my own battles with the bike and the track, let him go.  My day will come. 

I float around in 9th place for the first three laps, waiting for my second wind.  Can you really call it a second wind if you never got your first?  Now all my training begins to pay off.  The riders in front of me start getting tired, they slow down.  I'm on the move.  Eighth place.  Next lap sixth.  I see fifth place in front and follow.  He's faster in some sections, but I am faster in others.  He can't pull away, but for every little mistake he makes, I make one trying to capitalize.  For over 30 agonizing minutes we play cat and mouse.  Getting tired.  Finally he slows.  Make the pass.  Fifth place.  I'd be over the damn moon if I wasn't worried about him putting up a fight.  He doesn't.  Thanking my lucky stars and finishing the race in fifth, my best of the season.

I'm gaining.  Finally.

Just after the start.

2nd place!  It wouldn't last long...

     

Fuck the Bohemians, This Is Spring Grove!

Sunday, June 10, 2018 5:00 AM  Spring Grove, VA

I wake up with a sore throat and know that I'm getting sick.  Now is not the time.  Just over eight hours until the race.  My teeth feel fuzzy, fell asleep before I brushed, whoops.  It is cool, if a bit humid.  Temperatures must have dropped considerably last night.  Lie awake and think, unable to go back to sleep.  Scenarios play in the mind, how things need to be done, how to handle them when it inevitably goes wrong.

The sun finally rises and so does the heat, hand in hand with lovely Southern humidity.  My Yankee blood may never fully acclimate to this. Hours pass, the morning race participants head out, then return as I continue with my pre-race rituals.  At what seems the last possible moment don the 25 pounds of gear and ride my aged 2005 Gas Gas EC300 to the the line.  There's hardly anyone there.  Dammit, early again.  Sit and bake in this goddamn oven.  Finally Dave Zimmer shows up with an umbrella and it doesn't matter that he is not a scantily clad 'brolly girl, so welcome is the temporary shade.  The bite valve for hydration in my helmet suddenly springs a leak and squirts sticky electrolyte solution over my goggles and tear-offs, ruining all visibility with five minutes to go.  Swearing, yank every tear-off and wipe the goggles down as best as can be done, with the bite valve jammed in my mouth sucking down precious fluid as quickly as it pisses out.  I am now suitably furious.

The flag waves and two dozen middle-aged adolescents charge with screaming engines towards the first turn.  Third to arrive, wondering where the hell everyone is.  Push as hard as I dare through the grass track, bike wallowing, feeling like the frame is broken in half, finally into the woods, down into second gear and up into second place.  It's not going to last long, there's fast company nipping at my exhaust pipe, revving motors, hooting and trying to push me into a mistake.  They get what they want when I clip a small tree which proves remarkably inflexible.  Five of them rush by and I watch my best start of the season evaporate.  Let the work begin...

Third (well, sort of) on the outside, soon to be second...

     

The Restless Life

"The answer is there.  The answer is there.  But there is not a fixed position."
 -Fugazi,  Long Distance Runner


Have you ever been content?  Looked around and felt like this was all you need and want?  Was it a good feeling?  Did it last?  Could this be called happiness?  Are they the same thing?

The recent celebrity suicides got me thinking about these concepts of happiness, contentment and restlessness.  Many of us common struggling folk might give our eye teeth to be where those two were, but such dissatisfaction and hopelessness existed in them to choose extreme, final solutions.  Yet, the statistics show suicide rates are on the rise in all demographics.  From a pragmatic viewpoint it can be said that none of us asked to go on this ride, why should anyone be forced to continue if they don't wish to?  Hackneyed cliches (e.g. "Life is worth living.") aside, such a scant minority of life's choices are actually our own, choosing the time and manner of one's demise might just be among the few.

Always present is a great, unrelenting push from advertisers to make sure that no one is happy or content with what they have or who they are.  If everyone woke up tomorrow and decided not to buy anything non-essential there would be chaos among the Madison Avenue types and corporate mucky-mucks.  Plastic surgeons would go out of business, cosmetic companies bankrupt, therapists and psychologists panhandling, indeed much of the glittery fake fabric interwoven with the cloth we call America would fall to dust.  Not going to happen, but still something to ponder...

And the restlessness persists.  Perhaps a human genetic predisposition, for surely without it man never would have crossed the oceans or hurled himself into the heavens.  For some this discontent is a great motivator, for the troubled it may be a final straw under which our camel collapses.

The happy are not immune either.  'Tis but a short drive from content to complacent, and oft is one mistaken for the other.  Doubtless it's double-edged.  Complacency corrodes, depresses, and destroys.  It is also a very easy thing, thus all the more treacherous.

I'm sure I don't have any answers.  Just keep the wheels turning.  Or else Death might catch you.

Give Him a run for his money...

 



 

State of the Blog 2018

It occurred to me that I have been writing this blog for almost four years.  It seems like a long time and a lot of work, but I wanted some numbers, so here we go:


First post: 11/7/14

Most recent post: This one, duh. 6/7/18

Total number of posts:  337

All time pageviews:  50,516 (as of 6/6/18).

Followers: 0   (That is not entirely accurate, a handful of you follow through my linked Google page, so thank you for making me not feel like a total social media loser)

For the most part I think this thing has served its purpose, allowing me to work on my writing, to post self-aggrandizing stories and photos as well as providing an expressive outlet for ideas closely, (and sometimes not so closely) related to motorcycles.  I'm not overly proud of it, being, after all, mostly ramblings akin to talking to oneself, but there are bright spots that still make me smile when reread. 

Will it continue?  Probably, in a limited fashion.  I feel the need for something different, some sort of a change, but at this moment I can't say exactly what.

Thanks for reading.

The chase continues.  RIP #334

Odds and Sods

Thank you to The Who for loaning me the title for this post.  Good album, especially the track "Naked Eye".  What follows are random excerpts from my "Drafts" folder.  Posts started but never finished, and lets face it,  probably not going to get finished.  Below is a selection from the basement archives, the "odds and sods", as it were.  

Enjoy.


1/12/15:

Long hours training in the gym and wrenching in the garage do little to sate the racer's urge. One needs an outlet, otherwise the light at the end of the tunnel grows very dim.  

1/28/15:  

A fool believes he can win when the odds are stacked against him. A genius believes he can win when the race is already lost.

4/29/15:

The test and the truth lie in finding oneself.  But did it always need to be so damn hard?

1/11/16:  

Sometimes, I think if I could find a forest big enough, I might just ride into it and never come out. 

1/13/16:

There is no secret speed formula, I work at it every day, with mixed results.

1/21/16: 

Riding is a finicky drug with no set time release, no prescribed or recommended amount, and you never know it's too much until you've overdosed.  Side effects have been reported, some fatal.

1/21/16: 

Despite the sense of entitlement we tend to feel, motorcycles owe us nothing. 

2/17/16:  

Ever notice how doing simple maintenance on a machine can convince you it is running better?

2/9/17:

  I've never been one to commit to a whole lot of things (as my marital status, or lack thereof will verify), but the ones that I do, I am in for the full measure.

3/10/17: 

As a young man, I wasted a lot of time, as it seemed an endless thing.

3/10/17:

Whatever your personal beliefs in an afterlife, the soul, reincarnation, might be, no one knows definitively that we get more than one lap around.

5/11/17: 

Racers know it.  A low hum at the very edge that is always present, persistent, nagging reminder of the possible outcomes.

1/16/18:

The motorcyclist has discovered something which can help to counter the creeping darkness we all experience from time to time.  

3/27/18:

 I wait an hour and a half for someone to bring fuel.  Gives me time to decide how mad I should be at my stupidity.

3/27/18:

Force myself to relax.

6/5/18:

$10,000 for a dirt bike?  For what amounts to essentially a toy?

6/5/18: 

You reach a point in the murky depths of adulthood where you realize that everything parents and teachers fed you full of as a kid, you know "dream it and you can do it" is, for the most part, utter shite.

Past.

Present.