I suppose I’ve been procrastinating over the last few days while trying to get my head around Saturday’s ride. To say that it’s been rather tumultuous in my life as of late would be a massive understatement. It seems I currently reside in a state of utter extremes and daily contradictions. Climbing on to the bike Saturday morning I found myself feeling rather certain that this would be one of those rides when the daily life intercepts and supercedes my weekend life. Rather shockingly however I was wrong.

In the past I’ve written at length about how one of the great joys I find in riding a motorcycle is that it’s an activity that requires if not demands a total one hundred percent type of focus and concentration. Up until Saturday I honestly believed that this was of utter importance to any riders survival. Of course believing something and practicing it can be two completely separate things. I doubt any of us who ride truly can give one-perfect total concentration to the sport while we’re riding. There are simply to many real world obligations and issues to ignore.

On this particular day through out the ride I found my mind wandering from an assortment of pertinent daily life topics. Some of which I have the power to control and others of which I simply must allow to play out. None of these issues were completely distracting but they were certainly at the forefront of my mind. Normally this sort of distraction would undoubtedly throw my ride off.

Yet Saturday was surprisingly different. The taste of a minor distraction somehow allowed me to just go out and ride and amazingly not think about what I was doing. That space in-between my helmet that’s usually reserved for technical observations, personal criticisms, or even the inevitable sensation of fear was seemingly full. It was being used for something else and all those normal ‘random’ thoughts had nowhere to go. So they simply didn’t exist. And in an odd way that little bit of a distraction made the ride feel more fluid, less reserved and most importantly more enjoyable. It was almost as if there was a greater freedom on this particular ride than I’ve felt as of late.

I suppose the greatest illustration of this unexpected freedom came on the middle portion of Cornell Road, when coming into a tight right hand corner before the road begins to eventually straighten out I managed to put my knee down without even thinking about it. To be honest it was a rather shocking moment since I wasn’t expecting to do it. My sense is that it’s been a good six months since I last touched down and lately I’ve found myself feeling very concerned about road debris, traction, safety and an assortment of other random motorcycle thoughts. But Saturday, with my mind cluttered with other stuff, I simply let go and it just happened. And somehow given everything that’s going on that seems to speak to me.

Here are some more picts from the ride: