On The Road to Recovery
Tugging on the brake, deep in the corner, there’s a loud ‘thunk’. Then a blip. Or more appropriately a rev or two. And the bike bounces.
It stands up. Says I’m here. I’m free. I’m out to play. And then the pace picks up…
The machine basks in the glory — The sounds of an L-twin being let loose on curvy roads uninhabited by traffic …
Suddenly I feel a strange mixture of excitement and fear…
And I smile.
I think to myself, this is exactly what it’s supposed to feel like. This is in fact me…
And I smile again.
There are only so many moments one can allow to pass by – and today, of all days, it finally feels as if I’m meant to be in this bit of time, this space, this cross-section of the here and the now. Because I finally feel like I’m coming back around.
I’m returning to who I am.
It’s been a mere 56 days since I dump the 999. And they have not been easy days…
I think about what happened constantly. I analysis it. I reflect on it. I ask myself what I could have done to avoid it.
Perhaps that’s just human nature at play. Or perhaps I’m making a far bigger deal out of this than I should… I don’t know…
However to say that I’m over it is a total exaggeration. I’m not. And I’m not sure I should be. However, while the inevitable weights on my mind, there’s a certain glory, and pleasure, in being set free.
A certain sensibility in coming back around to the mindset that it’s possible to lose oneself in the uncontrollable. To lose oneself on the open road. To feel as if life is alive. That whatever organic nature there is to our being, it exists in the asphalt that gets us from the here to the there… That while none of us can ever really choose our time or place to go out, there’s something unique about feeling like you’re living in the chunk of time you’ve been granted…
I don’t mean to get all mystical here, but today I took the 1098S out and felt alive… Obstinately because the 10 needed to be run. It’s been in a track configuration for quite awhile now. But as we all know old gas in the tank is bad gas in the tank. And, more importantly it seemed like it was time… Time to take the beast out…
Of all the bikes that the old man and I share, the 1098 is undoubtedly the most twitchy. It’s the most real. The most powerful. The most alive. The one with the holier than thou brakes. The one that revs the loudest, bangs the best, and seems the most scary. It’s a machine that asks quite a bit from you — not so much physically, but rather mentally. It’s a machine that does specific tasks quite well — but to make that happen, you’ve got to on the top of your game… You’ve got to be living in the moment…
And yet today, it was perfect. It was sublime. And it was absolutely wonderful… It did everything I asked and more… Yet…
When waking up at 9am, I roll over and ask, am I awake enough to make this work? Am I where I need to be in order to take this bike out? Can I control it? Can I be what I need to be in order to make it work?
These are questions I never used to ask myself. Thoughts that I never fathomed.
I was the guy, who incorrectly thought, given enough time could learn to do just about anything on a bike. But mortality, and crashing, and reality, have a nasty way of proving their point….
I am not a god. I am not a pro racer. And I will never be.
The learning curve, while exponentially increasing over the years, quite possibly has hit its mark.
I say that not to sound defeatist, but rather because post-crash I find myself questioning the very nature of how I ride and where that riding takes place…
Up until now I’ve ridden with the sole intention of trying to getting better — to improve — each corner was challenging not because of its own virtue, but rather because of the virtue I imposed. At times I looked at a kink in the road and thought to myself, ‘this could be a knee down corner’ or ‘this is a bloody fast spot’… But post-crash it occurs to me that perhaps there is a point where the street no longer allows you to improve. Perhaps there’s a point where riding amongst everyday traffic effectively gets graded on a curve… A moment where the skill of riding and the enjoyment of riding settle their differences and diverge once and for all. Perhaps they take different paths and never look back. Never cross over again…
And tonight, I find myself wondering what it is that truly I love about riding?
Is it the speed? The adrenaline? The rush? The journey? The vistas? The thought process? The living in the moment? The ability to get lost and yet be somewhere? The imagine of the machine in its own environment? The reality that I’m controlling the uncontrollable? The excitement of the back and forth movement in a chicane? Or is it just being out there? Being alive? And being alone amongst the picturesque bits of nature?
I ask, because I’ve just spent the last four hours getting mentally lost on a road that up until now I would have told you was more or less boring, but today, post-crash, it seemed riveting. It bent and twisted and came back over itself in a way that felt entirely new. As if I it had been reborn — yet it wasn’t. I was. Instead of looking down on it, today I found myself enlightened. I looked through the visor and saw nothing but excitement and potential, and thought to myself, ‘was this here before?… Did I miss it?’.
I don’t quite understand how that’s possible… How one can look past something for so long and then wake up one morning and go ‘wow’…
It’s as if the road was the symbiotic twin of the awkward gal in high-school who blossoms later in life… The one you never saw coming… Until one day, she arrives and you wonder, why didn’t I see that before? How could I miss such potential?
Part of it, no doubt, is because I’ve tried to go back to basics, but beyond that, I find myself wondering what it is that I truly expect out of the street and what chances I’m really willing to take outside of a controlled racetrack…
What is safe? What is secure? What is acceptable? What is it that I truly love about riding on the open road? And, ultimately, what do I need to do to feel that sense of living? If 70% gets you to that feeling on the street, why go to 80% or 90%???
These are all questions that keep coming to mind… And ones, I didn’t really ask before…
And while I don’t exactly know the answers, what I do know is that it’s not the bike, nor the tires, or the road surface, but rather it’s my inability to trust myself that haunts my riding right now… The demon that haunts me isn’t based in logic, reality or the here and the now… Rather it’s the inability to let go of the past, to see through the moment of concern and the ability to forget that holds me back…
Mellow Movements and Perspective
On The Road to Recovery
Tugging on the brake, deep in the corner, there’s a loud ‘thunk’. Then a blip. Or more appropriately a rev or two. And the bike bounces.
It stands up. Says I’m here. I’m free. I’m out to play. And then the pace picks up…
The machine basks in the glory — The sounds of an L-twin being let loose on curvy roads uninhabited by traffic …
Suddenly I feel a strange mixture of excitement and fear…
And I smile.
I think to myself, this is exactly what it’s supposed to feel like. This is in fact me…
And I smile again.
There are only so many moments one can allow to pass by – and today, of all days, it finally feels as if I’m meant to be in this bit of time, this space, this cross-section of the here and the now. Because I finally feel like I’m coming back around.
I’m returning to who I am.
It’s been a mere 56 days since I dump the 999. And they have not been easy days…
I think about what happened constantly. I analysis it. I reflect on it. I ask myself what I could have done to avoid it.
Perhaps that’s just human nature at play. Or perhaps I’m making a far bigger deal out of this than I should… I don’t know…
However to say that I’m over it is a total exaggeration. I’m not. And I’m not sure I should be. However, while the inevitable weights on my mind, there’s a certain glory, and pleasure, in being set free.
A certain sensibility in coming back around to the mindset that it’s possible to lose oneself in the uncontrollable. To lose oneself on the open road. To feel as if life is alive. That whatever organic nature there is to our being, it exists in the asphalt that gets us from the here to the there… That while none of us can ever really choose our time or place to go out, there’s something unique about feeling like you’re living in the chunk of time you’ve been granted…
I don’t mean to get all mystical here, but today I took the 1098S out and felt alive… Obstinately because the 10 needed to be run. It’s been in a track configuration for quite awhile now. But as we all know old gas in the tank is bad gas in the tank. And, more importantly it seemed like it was time… Time to take the beast out…
Of all the bikes that the old man and I share, the 1098 is undoubtedly the most twitchy. It’s the most real. The most powerful. The most alive. The one with the holier than thou brakes. The one that revs the loudest, bangs the best, and seems the most scary. It’s a machine that asks quite a bit from you — not so much physically, but rather mentally. It’s a machine that does specific tasks quite well — but to make that happen, you’ve got to on the top of your game… You’ve got to be living in the moment…
And yet today, it was perfect. It was sublime. And it was absolutely wonderful… It did everything I asked and more… Yet…
When waking up at 9am, I roll over and ask, am I awake enough to make this work? Am I where I need to be in order to take this bike out? Can I control it? Can I be what I need to be in order to make it work?
These are questions I never used to ask myself. Thoughts that I never fathomed.
I was the guy, who incorrectly thought, given enough time could learn to do just about anything on a bike. But mortality, and crashing, and reality, have a nasty way of proving their point….
I am not a god. I am not a pro racer. And I will never be.
The learning curve, while exponentially increasing over the years, quite possibly has hit its mark.
I say that not to sound defeatist, but rather because post-crash I find myself questioning the very nature of how I ride and where that riding takes place…
Up until now I’ve ridden with the sole intention of trying to getting better — to improve — each corner was challenging not because of its own virtue, but rather because of the virtue I imposed. At times I looked at a kink in the road and thought to myself, ‘this could be a knee down corner’ or ‘this is a bloody fast spot’… But post-crash it occurs to me that perhaps there is a point where the street no longer allows you to improve. Perhaps there’s a point where riding amongst everyday traffic effectively gets graded on a curve… A moment where the skill of riding and the enjoyment of riding settle their differences and diverge once and for all. Perhaps they take different paths and never look back. Never cross over again…
And tonight, I find myself wondering what it is that truly I love about riding?
Is it the speed? The adrenaline? The rush? The journey? The vistas? The thought process? The living in the moment? The ability to get lost and yet be somewhere? The imagine of the machine in its own environment? The reality that I’m controlling the uncontrollable? The excitement of the back and forth movement in a chicane? Or is it just being out there? Being alive? And being alone amongst the picturesque bits of nature?
I ask, because I’ve just spent the last four hours getting mentally lost on a road that up until now I would have told you was more or less boring, but today, post-crash, it seemed riveting. It bent and twisted and came back over itself in a way that felt entirely new. As if I it had been reborn — yet it wasn’t. I was. Instead of looking down on it, today I found myself enlightened. I looked through the visor and saw nothing but excitement and potential, and thought to myself, ‘was this here before?… Did I miss it?’.
I don’t quite understand how that’s possible… How one can look past something for so long and then wake up one morning and go ‘wow’…
It’s as if the road was the symbiotic twin of the awkward gal in high-school who blossoms later in life… The one you never saw coming… Until one day, she arrives and you wonder, why didn’t I see that before? How could I miss such potential?
Part of it, no doubt, is because I’ve tried to go back to basics, but beyond that, I find myself wondering what it is that I truly expect out of the street and what chances I’m really willing to take outside of a controlled racetrack…
What is safe? What is secure? What is acceptable? What is it that I truly love about riding on the open road? And, ultimately, what do I need to do to feel that sense of living? If 70% gets you to that feeling on the street, why go to 80% or 90%???
These are all questions that keep coming to mind… And ones, I didn’t really ask before…
And while I don’t exactly know the answers, what I do know is that it’s not the bike, nor the tires, or the road surface, but rather it’s my inability to trust myself that haunts my riding right now… The demon that haunts me isn’t based in logic, reality or the here and the now… Rather it’s the inability to let go of the past, to see through the moment of concern and the ability to forget that holds me back…
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