A Motorcyclist Emerges

A couple days ago I met up with Eric, a fellow F650 GS rider, for some dinner, music and general catching up. Eric was my first friend in New Mexico and has been helping me out since before I even knew I wanted to ride a bike. He played a huge part in convincing me to audition for MotoFemina in the first place, and he has remained faithful to the cause ever since. Eric is more than just a friendly motorcycle commuter – he’s a regular world traveler! Originally from Boulder, CO, Eric has bounced around the West for most of his life, but didn’t experience the exhilaration of driving on two wheels until he began helping his father with adventure motorcycle tours in India in 1992. He learned to ride on lawless quasi-roads, across mudslides and through floods. Eric describes his work there as "expert pillion transport over cracked up and crazy terrain."

In between bites of pizza I described to Eric how I really felt like I was becoming a motorcyclist, learning things that most people have to learn over years, not weeks, and sometimes the hard way. Eric pointed out that he had never thought of it that way but yes, he agreed, there’s a big difference between motorcyclists and people who just ride. Anyone can buy a bike and zoom towards the horizon, but they may be dangerous to others, unaware of the risks and how to minimize them. This isn’t the case every time, of course, but motorcycling is serious business. Your safety and the safety of others is always hanging in the balance, though this is true in almost any situation in any vehicle on our nation’s highways. The conversation with Eric really got me thinking about my personal responsibility and I realize I have come full circle, to the very beginning of it all.

Over the last ten weeks or so, my brain has absorbed endless motorcycling data. It reminds me of my 3-week “crash” courses from college - one topic, 4+ hours each day, with plenty of assignments to fill the evening hours. It goes without saying that MotoFemina is much more exciting than three weeks of memorizing the physiological processes of mammals! Funny how the brain has this endless capacity for learning, retaining trivialities such as that silly song that puts all 50 states in ABC order and the complexities of quantum physics. Though not as involved as quantum physics, knowing the ins and outs of piloting a two-wheeled machine with a big engine is not a simple task and motorcycling, like any other object in motion, does indeed involve its fair share of physics.

I have been the lucky recipient of enough information to fill a book during my relatively short motorcycling journey thus far, from humor to safety, and shared experiences to lectures. If these morsels are taken out of context the interconnectedness ceases to exist, leaving random bits that make little sense without their neighboring puzzle pieces. I should admit that some of the pieces don’t make sense even with the other pieces! At these times, I only focus on what I need to know, because getting bogged down in the details at this point is not really the goal. If I win the bike, there will be ample time to really discover the intricacies of my fascinating machine, to know everything that makes it do what it does that I love so much. As all the puzzle pieces come together, a motorcyclist emerges…