{"id":243,"date":"2017-05-03T15:52:11","date_gmt":"2017-05-03T15:52:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/?page_id=243"},"modified":"2017-05-03T15:52:11","modified_gmt":"2017-05-03T15:52:11","slug":"why-i-ride","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/why-i-ride\/","title":{"rendered":"Why I Ride"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If I have to explain it, you wouldn\u2019t understand.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That\u2019s the easy answer when someone asks you why you ride a motorcycle.\u00a0 But some people really don\u2019t get it, and want to understand so I\u2019ll to do my best to explain it.<\/p>\n

Imagine you\u2019re looking at a puppy behind a pane of glass.\u00a0 Now imagine actually holding that puppy, the way a puppy smells, how soft it\u2019s fur is, it\u2019s little feet in your hand, etc.\u00a0 That\u2019s the difference between driving a car and riding a motorcycle.\u00a0 Sometimes it\u2019s like the difference between looking at or actually holding a pissed off six foot long rattle snake – but that doesn\u2019t happen very often and most of the time, the situation could have been avoided by using better judgement.<\/p>\n

\u201cGood judgement comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgement.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 \u00a0 – Will Rodgers –<\/p>\n

Performance is definitely a factor when riding any kind of modern motorcycle.\u00a0 Knowing that you have enough power right there at your wrist to accelerate to over 100 mph very quickly can be intoxicating and is a temptation that some riders are unable to resist.\u00a0 However, as the speed goes up, so does the danger factor, so you\u2019d better be careful.\u00a0 Not to mention those speeding tickets and reckless driving charges.<\/p>\n

Your involvement in a car amounts to pushing a pedal and turning the wheel.\u00a0 On a motorcycle you are an integral part of the equation.\u00a0 And if you screw it up, you are going to have to pay – directly, personally and immediately.\u00a0 So there is an element of danger and thrill there.\u00a0 But it\u2019s also a great sense of accomplishment when you get it right.\u00a0 There\u2019s no feeling like leaning that bike hard into a corner and accelerating as you come out of it.\u00a0 It\u2019s like a death defying (or at least injury defying) dance – just you and the bike; take it easy or challenge yourself; you pick.<\/p>\n

Ralph Waldo Emerson said, \u201cLife is a journey, not a destination.\u201d\u00a0 Motorcycle riding is\u00a0 exactly like that – until you get up on the slab.\u00a0 The slab. for those of you who don\u2019t know, is the interstate (a slab of concrete).\u00a0 On the interstate you\u2019re mixing it up with a bunch of people who are mostly only interested in their destination.\u00a0 If you\u2019re riding a motorcycle on the interstate you need to be sharply focused on staying alive!!\u00a0 And whether or not you\u2019re successful at that, depends largely on factors that are out of your control; the actions of other drivers.\u00a0 There are LOTS of idiots out there; one of them very nearly cost me my left foot on May 2, 2000, and I\u2019ll walk with a limp for the rest of my life because of it.\u00a0 Riding a motorcycle up on the slab a necessary evil at times, but it takes a lot of the fun out of it.<\/p>\n

Riding at night is likewise less enjoyable and more dangerous since your vision (and everyone else\u2019s) is limited.\u00a0 Not to mention all the critters that come out after dark.\u00a0 Almost all the road kill you see happens at night.\u00a0 And if you and your motorcycle hit a deer – that\u2019s going to be a very bad day for all three of you.\u00a0 That being said, a late night ride through the middle of the desert when the moon is full is one of the coolest things ever.<\/p>\n

Perhaps Robert Pirsig said it best in his book Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: “You\u2019re completely in contact with it all. You\u2019re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 If I have to explain it, you wouldn\u2019t understand. That\u2019s the easy answer when someone asks you why you ride a motorcycle.\u00a0 But some people really don\u2019t get it, and want to understand so I\u2019ll to do my best … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"class_list":["post-243","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/P8BM7q-3V","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":245,"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/243\/revisions\/245"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.lennysride.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}