Pendulum of Confusion
F4 at the Rockstore
The engine is howling with anger as it sucks down air and explodes. Blows Up and instills its will. Rev by Rev, the road surface bears the brunt of this rage. For an instant it’s easy to imagine bits of tarmac being ripped right out of their cohesive molecular bonds and spit backwards, towards the remnants of the traffic behind me.
Asphalt Hell it seems is alive and well…
At five-grand I’m already doing seventy-five or more on the freeway and that’s not even a quarter of the way up the tach – I shutter to think what would happen if I really lit it up… Though the phrase ‘prison bitch’ comes to mind…
Slowly, or at least I think slowly, my hand instinctively rolls back the throttle anyway. Soaring speed like this is too much fun to ignore – to cathartic to miss – regardless of the consequences.
The sound of the engine goes up a notch. Becomes more intense. More sinful. More vicious. More maddening. Even with ear-plugs.
Quickly, I short-shift into the next gear in a sub-consciously ridiculous attempt to at least keep the speed limit in sight and the next thing I know, not only is the rest of the everyday world far, far behind me, but so too is the freeway itself.
It’s gone.
Vanished.
Behind four legendary MV Agusta exhaust pipes, which right now are bellowing out a purely wicked tune.
A moment later I come up to the first traffic light on the Pacific Coast Highway and am forced to stop. Cease dreaming and start seeing. Reality is back, in a big, big way.
It sucks.
More cars, more people, more dreams, more of the real-world once again. Lots of people on Bluetooth headsets chit-chatting away. I feel bored. My eyes search. Seek out something to focus on. Then they arrive at the clock in the dash.
It’s now an hour ahead.
Think to myself, ‘I ought to change that’, before stumbling through a series of vague Italian electronic solutions that make programming an ordinary VCR seem simple.
Its moments like this that make me question Italian Traction Control.
Seconds later the clock rolls back as the traffic rolls forward — It’s time to go again.
Finally.
Looking down the road, the light is harsh. The shadows starker and living more horizontal than I remember them before…
But then it’s been quite awhile since I was regularly riding.
Quite awhile indeed.
Can’t tell if I’m guilty about that or just plain angry with myself for letting it happen.
To many days have come and gone this riding season without a ride taking place. I’d say it wasn’t intentional, that it was a series of coincidences that in the end added up to form one horrific non-riding riding season, but then I’m not exactly sure that’s true either. I’m not really sure what is true right now. At least when it comes to riding and, well, more importantly work.
It seems once again, I’m living on the extreme edges, and perhaps for the first time in my life I find myself wondering if that’s a good thing or not anymore.
Somehow the journey seems harder right now than I think it should be. Harder to live with. Harder to justify. Harder to believe in. Harder to verbalize in a blog.
And yet it’s amazingly good right now too – On a personal front, it’s good in ways that it has never been before – Very, very good… The kind of goodness that makes you think you might actually be lucky enough to have finally found that missing piece to your life.
It is as if the pendulum of confusion has swung one-hundred and eighty degrees to the other side; Where there was once comfort from the profession and yet personal-side confusion, now there’s security in the joy the other parts of life and perplexity in the my working-world dream.
Why does that happen? How does that happen? What the hell is going on here? Is it impossible for life to be 100% good – does the journey we take always need some amount of uncertainty? Some amount of confusion?
I don’t know, but I’m starting to think so…
A beat later, the F4 roars back to life as the road opens up and I smirk with a diluted sort of self-confidence. The kind of confidence that I fear has been missing 9 to 5. There are lots of rocketships on the market right now and many I quite admire, but few that elicit this sort of emotional response. Something about the MV F4 is more evocative, more alive, and more vivid than any other machine I’ve ever known. Even when life seems to begin and end on the edges.
With a nearly full tank, a sunny, mellow temp’ed day and an open road, all that’s left is to decide where I want to go…
Organic Comfort
The road is rising. Lifting up. And reaching out.
Searching perhaps.
For where to go next.
As am I…
I think…
Hugging the side of the mountain, the road anxiously bounces, frenetically jumping left and then right and then back left again. Over and over and over again. Each kink flowing into the next, with such little regard for the rules of reality that at times it seems almost overwhelming.
Yet it never quite gets away.
Never makes that full and final break that ends today and starts tomorrow…
Instead coming out of each successive corner, the road surface jumps ahead just enough to show you how little control you have over it before it slows back down and nimbly allows you to find your groove once again.
That addictive groove. The one that all riders crave.
When you can see no evil nor hear no evil. When you and the bike symbiotically connect with such frightening ease that what seemed fast yesterday is now downright mellow in comparison.
A slow mellow.
As the road snaps right, I catch my first peak at the ocean ahead and smile. The rush of the ride is coming to an end. I can see it beneath the faint haze that’s hanging over the crystal blue water. Half of me thinks that this is a good thing. That there’s no way I can sustain this pace safely. That I’ve ridden today to far out of my comfort zone.
Yet the other side of my head just defiantly smirks. Because like everything else comfort zones are organic. They live, they breathe, they grow. Expanding with confidence or contracting with fear.
And today it’s wider and deeper than its been in ages.
Long Time to Look This Good
Back at it Again...
The bike is slipping into second gear as the sunshine flickers. Bright and dark rays shutter through the weeds. Spill onto the road. Laying out a pattern of texture that’s deep with shades of gray but very little black and white…
And then the torque starts to talk…
Big hits of power slam into the road. Punch the asphalt straight in the face as the bike gnarls, and snares, and grabs hold. Wringing the last bit of grip as the power envelops not only the moment, but my mind. And it’s evil and it’s vicious and it’s just down-right mean… After three or four hits I find myself thinking the poor road didn’t even do anything to deserve this sort of punishment… And yet it’s still getting knocked silly… Rip after rip…
The top of Stunt Road
Jumping forward, the bike blasts. Begins beating up the wind as well. Nothing it seems can stand in its way… And then you realize it’s time to buckle down. Fully focus. As in 100-percent pay-attention time… No room for wandering thoughts, idle memories or business decisions that lurk ahead… No, now there is no time for anything else but moto-satisfaction…
Breaking left, the road tries to sneak one past the machine… But it doesn’t are. Just flicks in. Dives for the centerline. Acts unfazed…. Subconsciously I lean inside… Slide off the mount and towards the ground… Think to myself it wasn’t that long ago I was fighting this situation… But that was months ago and even though it’s been awhile since I was on the bike, this somehow feels more secure than it has in quite awhile… Because the bike just holds its line… Hangs on in one extended moment of solidarity with the asphalt. As if suddenly they’re best friends again… And I think what a change a six-pack of months make…
They say that ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder,’ but historically, for me anyway, that’s not always been case when it comes to bikes. The longer I’m off them, the more reasons I seem to find for putting off the first ride back. Chores, bills, parties, work, sleep, all those other things from regular life that tend to get in the way…
And it’s not because I love the machines any less, but rather, really, because the first ride back after a long lay off always seems to suck… It almost never fails that I find myself fighting something… The machine, the transmission, the road, the grip, the rusty feelings…
In truth, it’s not my favorite emotional ride…
And yet today none of that is true… The machine is matching the revs of my mind and doing exactly what I want, when I want it and it just seems easy… Remarkably easy…
Pulling off at a vista spot, the old man, pulls off his helmet and looks at me and then the machine…
“You look like you again,” he says with a smile… And I think, ‘I feel like me again’…
“It’s seems like it’s been a long time since I felt this good on a bike,” I respond and he nods…
It’s been months since I was last on the bike, thanks as usual to work - the traveling, the catching up on sleep, the deadlines, it’s the perfect cauldron for poor riding really… But somehow, for some reason, not today… How that’s remotely possible I don’t know, but I dig it… And I can’t wait to ride out the rest of Summer… Ah… It’s nice to be back…
Back in the Saddle, Part 2
MV Agusta F4 & Ducati ST3 in Malibu
It’s been a great day and it’s been a strange day all at the same time.
While I’d like to say that I’m over the effects of my crash, the reality is that it continues to hang over my head like a weight. It haunts me. It scares me. It continues to affect my riding…
While it was great to get up to the canyons and out on the road once more, I continue to find myself lacking the very confidence that I so desperately want to feel.
Each turn, each corner, each bend of the bike feels harder than it should. Almost destined for failure. It’s a feeling that I so, so wish would go away. Yet it doesn’t. Instead it continually permeates my mind. Perhaps that’s the prudent part hard at work. Perhaps this experience will ultimately make me a safer, better street rider…
In that respect I certainly feel as if my ’street riding’ is considerably safer at the moment then it used to be. I’m leaning less, I’m charging slower, and all in all I’m risking less. Yet it’s hard to get over the fact that what once felt easy, suddenly seems so difficult.
Yet I keep telling myself logically that this is all part of a ‘healing’ process, after all having your first crash is a bit of a traumatic event — I’m not suggesting it’s the most traumatic event ever known to a rider, but it was certainly more traumatic for me then perhaps I realized when it happened.
Taking stock, as of tonight, I find myself feeling as if I need to go backwards several steps before I can continue forward, much like the guy who slows down to get faster on the track. Because it’s not the bike or the road conditions or the weather, but rather it’s the stuff inside my head that’s holding me back — it’s the lack of confidence, the lack of trust, the inability to believe that currently is challenging my sense of security on the machine.
Back In The Saddle
Back in the Saddle
The suit feels stiff. The zipper determined not to budge. The protective pads feel awkward. The plastic part of a junior prom gone bad. Yet as I snap the last buckle on the boot and listen to the loud pop which suggests that the strap running across the top of my foot is now locked into place, I can’t help but wish that the rocket scientists who developed thermoplastic had something for a bruised ego. But they don’t, so instead I’m left to my own devices. Left to battle my own demons.
Walking into the garage, it’s hard to imagine that its been just six days since I laid the 999 down for the very first time.
One-hundred and forty-four hours of wildly juxtaposed emotions. On one hand, I continue to feel surprisingly ‘ok’ about the event and relatively at peace about the outcome (I’m ok, it wasn’t a bad crash, life goes on, etc.). Yet on the other hand, as badly as I want to ride this morning and ‘get back on the horse’ so-to-speak, there’s a side of me that feels surprisingly timid. As if last Saturday’s get off is the harbinger of something worse sitting just off the horizon. Something darker. Something scarier. Something more uncontrollable.
Mentally, I keep hearing the insurance broker’s last line on phone replaying over and over, “The first accident isn’t a big deal, but the second will be” and for the first time in my riding-life, I’m conscious of the next time this happens. Wondering when inevitability will strike again. It’s not quite paralyzing but it certainly has my attention. Because now it no longer feels like a potential possibility but rather a certainty. I just don’t know when or where.
Particularly because as I’ve replayed the event in my mind over the past six days, I keep finding myself overcome by the sheer instantaneous of it. It just happened. There was no wiggle, no warning, no moment of concern whether this was a possibility or not. One second I was perpendicular to the road and the next I was sliding parallel to it. In the flash of a heart beat. And try as I might, I can’t shake that idea that when it’s your time, it’s your time. Needless to say as I fire up the F4 and watch the old man pull up to the stop sign on the Beemer, I know that the accident is squarely stuck in my head and I’m struggling to temper it’s effects. Even though it wasn’t a bad ‘get off’, it happened and that has me a bit unnerved to say the least…
Thirty minutes later, we’re rolling down the Pacific Coast Highway as shards of light sparkle atop of the ocean waves and I find myself thankful that my first bit of time spent back on a bike is happening on a ride with the old man. There’s something comforting about his presence, even if in reality it doesn’t mean much in a practical sense. Certainly the fact that he’s rolling down the road just behind me won’t stop the inevitable from happening again, but it’s still nice to know that he’s there. No matter how much I grow up, there’s always a unique sense of security when he’s around. The remnants of childhood parental protection I suppose.
Yet as we pull up to the stoplight before Topanga Canyon and approach the sportier parts of the Malibu Mountains, I can feel a twinge of negative energy traveling down my spine. The fear of falling a second time seems so much more real right now. And I feel forced to wonder if this sentiment will ever, truly, go away.
But then the remarkable happens… The light turns green.
Quickly the F4 revs, the engine howls with a uniquely Italian four-cylinder sound and the traffic disapears. Seconds later I’m pushing the right side of the handlebar and admittedly feeling timid as I counter-steer towards a relatively spartan Topanga Canyon. But then the bike bends. Grips ground and never lets go, as if to say ‘I won’t hurt you on my watch’. The chassis plants itself with such conviction that it seems foolish not to trust it. Not to allow it to roam. The road surface tilts to the right and the bike follows its instincts. Then the asphalt rolls left and without even thinking about it, I’m leaning off to the inside of the corner as the machine maneuvers itself towards the apex. Not a knee down racetrack kind of lean angle mind you, but enough to realize that what was timid is now adventurous. The bike seeming so secure that I feel compelled to forget the fear…
A half dozen corners later life seems so much sweeter, the glory of riding the right bike on the right road pushing everything else to the back burner. Once again I find myself feeling what it is to be alive. To be free of thought and fear. To be focused on one thing and one thing only, the road.
In the end, while the hesitation to get back on the bike post-accident makes perfect sense to me, even though it wasn’t a ‘bad accident’, perhaps the greatest lesson from the last six days is that every so often humanity need a reality check — We need to feel things that are negative in order to remember what actually is positive about a given experience.
