Picture this if you will. It’s a Monday. It’s senior year in high school. You’re about to walk into class. Last weekend you spent at a cabin on a lake sleeping with your teacher and one of her friends – It was the most amazing experience you’ve had to date in your 23 years on earth. You’re about to explode with excitement, but you can’t tell a single person what happened; EVER. Ridding into work today I had that level of excitement, but talking about my ride is not going to hurt anyone, so, I can share some of my excitement. – Might need to get a bike and ride more often – or – maybe big breaks make me appreciate the rides more when they happen.

My kids said I look like a storm trooper in the ridding jacket; cute kids

Sharing my bike history and Excitement

My boss moved to Dublin for a year to manage some peeps over there. We have containers and space, so I offered to store his motorcycle while he’s away. The weather in the Seattle area was amazing this week, you need to ride a bike every now and then to keep it running properly. Math is telling me the bike needs to be ridden to work. Confirmed with Boss I have approval to ride, and I rode to work today. I sold my last liter race bike in May of 2009, My third Yamaha R1. The R1 being the sexiest two wheeled machine ever built to me. I sold my BMW 1150RT in April of 2010. The 1150RT being the most comfortable bike I’ve ever owned. It’s been a few since I took a race bike for a long ride.

Wowie Zowie, I’d forgotten how amazing riding a motorcycle can be. In Kevland- It’s pure freedom and power on the road. Ridding is also a time when my mind is extremely happy, clam, and clear. Ridding is like meditation to me. All of my focus is on ridding. I’m paying attention to what’s in front of, behind, next to, and or near me. I’m planning what will happen in the future, feeling the RPM of the bike and tweaking to maximize responsiveness and control for the ridding situation now and seconds in the future. I’m taking in the smells, and sounds all around me. I’m looking at the pavement and all of its patterns, pot holes, lines, ETC. I’m taking all of the sensations you miss in a car. I’m looking at every car around me judging its level of threat, and planning an attack vector to overtake or avoid it. I’m literally seeing lines in traffic I could take to move through the cars. All of my mental powers are focused on ridding, and singing Friday, the bloody song stuck in my head.

There’s no room left to think of anything else, all there is enjoying the ridding. No clock or need to consider time, and no phone with alerts to distract me. Not even a book to listen too playing in my ears. Just Kev, and 1000CCs or pure freedom and power on two wheels.

Post flight briefing

I can play most of the ride to work out in my head pilot post mission debriefing style – approaching the exit ramp from interstate 5 to I-405 I backed off of the car in front of me leaving an approximate 95-foot gap. I then moved to the left hand side of the lane to attack the turn with the top to the bottom to the top line. Striating my line allowing me to lean the bike deeper into the corner. My inside knee dropped out of habit as I started to move my center of mass to the inside of the corner. Already in second gear, I rolled the throttle back and increased my speed — it’s all there in my head ready to be played back on demand.

Sharing intimacy

Thanks boss for the ride, and thanks for sharing your motorcycle with me. My car is a space I live in a few hours a day commuting to work. I’ve setup my car to make me more comfortable, but it’s just a car to me. It’s something, I share with others without thinking much about it. My car relationship is like going out to dinner with a co-worker. There’s a friend ship and a relationship there, but it’s more mental with some emotions, than it is physically intimate.

My motorcycles become an extension of Kev when I’m ridding it; I’m bonding with the bike. We’re working as one when we’re moving. When I’m riding a bike it’s a personal deep intimate relationship for me. A motorcycle ride is a no clothing full intimate encounter for me – with lights on, and an emotional connection equal to a soul gaze. It’s a much deeper connection for me.

Because I feel this way about my bikes someone letting me ride their bike is not a simple surface experience to me. It’s deep mutual trust and respect. To me there’s a huge level of trust involved in the deep sharing experience between the bike owner and me. We’ve now shared an extension of each other and bonded as motorcycle riders. Someone letting me ride their bike is a huge gift I appreciate. – Thanks boss.

The Bike

Boss’s bike is a Kawasaki liter bike, with aftermarket handles, exhaust, light kit, steering stabilizer, slider bars, and some other things. It’s a gosh darned sexy well running powerful machine. Like my R1’s of past zero to 60 and back to 0 again in less than 5 seconds. Only downside / thing I was not in love with was the tiny mirrors. I grew up being taught mirrors are the way you look behind you on the road. The mirror turn signal elimination kit boss put on the bike means you cannot see directly behind you at all, and you’re only seeing from about foot forward next to you. This lead to my lane changing being timed where I paced a car with a large gap in front of it then flew by the car and moved into the gap, or I used some upper body head turns to check for space, then changed lanes.

Gorgeous bike – it was a true pleasure to ride.