Like most people will tell you, I live in kind of an abstract world. I don't like, as a general rule, to be troubled with the details of the phyical world around me instead much preferring the space in my head where I am free to contemplate the intracies of my navel. There are, however, a few things that will bring me out of the abstract and back down to reality.

Tires, for instance.  

Tires are important. To many, tires are religion and there are countless holy wars fought over the subject.

Whether you are in a truck, a car, or on a motorcycle tires act as the interface between your vehicle and the ground. The amount and composition of tire rubber that meets the ground combined with tread pattern and temperature determines how much traction you have in a given situation. Clearly, on a motorcycle, traction is key.

The area where the rubber meets the road is referred to as the "contact patch". You'll notice that on car tires the bottoms are squared off, if you look at it from the front of the car. This allows the tire to touch the road from sidewall to sidewall maximising the amount of rubber that touches the road. Even when cornering, it's the bottom of the tire that remains on the road. The tire never rides up on it's sidewalls. Well, at least not unless Very Bad Things(tm) have happened. The wider the tire, the greater the "contact patch", the more traction, the faster one can go around a corner without sliding. This is why you see sports cars have much wider tires than normal passenger automobiles.

Motorcycle tires are fundamentally different.  First, because motorcycles have just two tires, the amount of rubber meeting the road is reduced. Additionally, the size of the tires is much smaller further reducing the contact patch. Beyond that, unlike a car, a motorcycle leans when it corners. This dictates that the profile of the tire as viewed from the front must be rounded off so that the bike can actually lean. As a result the contact patch is further reduced down to an area of just a few square inches. That's the entire area available for traction whether accelerating, decelerating or cornering. 

As anyone who knows me will tell you, I'm a bit fanatical when it comes to tires. Traction is a good thing especially when Bad Things happen as they do from time to time. My feeling is that to the greatest degree possible I want as much traction out of the contact patch as I can get. But there are unfortunate trade-offs as seems to always be the case in the physical world.

One tradeoff is the compound that makes up the tire. In order to make a long lasting tires, one has to use harder compounds. Unfortunately, the harder the compound the less "sticky" it is, the less traction it has. Conversely, the softer the compound, the "stickier" it is, the shorter it will last. 

For example, the hardest tire that I have any experience with is the Metzler Marathon series. These are super hard tires that last for well over 10,000 miles and are designed for long distance and very heavy bikes. You'll see them on Goldwings. I don't like them because in my humble opinion they are too hard and don't offer the kinds of traction that I like to have. The Screaming Chicken, which I will write about soon, runs them. It's funny how after a while you can really feel the difference in types of tires. 

On the opposite end of the street spectrum you have full sport tires like the Michelin Pilot Power 2CT. It's a very sticky high traction tire but will likely only last 2500 to 3000 miles. 

Another tradeoff has to do with riding conditions. The more sport oriented a tire, the less likely it is to be designed to handle varied weather conditions. Think of a Porsche in the snow. Yea, not a pretty sight. The ability of the tire to displace water without losing traction is a tradeoff. To displace water one needs more tread grooves but those tread grooves remove rubber from the contact patch. For dry clean conditions like you see on a racetrack you might have noticed guys running slick tires without any tread pattern on them. This provide maximum traction in dry conditions but are completely useless in the wet.

So tires are a tradeoff.

Another problem is if you mostly do around town and highway riding the center of the tire will get vastly more usage than edges simply because you have little opportunity to lean the bike over. This will cause the tire to "square off" which then produces a dangerous situation where, when you lean on that squared off edge, the contact patch is suddenly significantly reduced. It also feels awfully squirrelly as the bike starts to lean onto the squared off edge.

For sport touring riders like myself a new kind of tire has been introduced in the last decade or so called the "dual compound" tire. It has a harder compound in the center where you spend most of your straight up and down riding time and much softer compounds on the sides to provide more traction for cornering. The Pilot Road 2 by Michelin is such a tire. These are the tires I run now and I've been getting about 6000 miles out of a set before they square off.

Another tradeoff in tire design has to do with operating temperature. Tires when cold are less sticky and provide less traction than tires that are warmed up. It usually takes several minutes on a warm day for tires to warm up to their target temperature where they have maximum traction. It can take significantly longer on a day when it's cold or raining. When I start a ride I usually take it pretty easy for the first 5 or 10 minutes to give the tires some time to warm up. Sometimes you'll see racers at a track use "tire warmers" to pre-heat tires before a race so they have 100% of the available traction at the start.

How quickly a tire warms up under what conditions is another design compromise. 

On a trip down to Deal's Gap I was talking to a racer about tires. He mentioned that many inexperienced riders will run full not-street-legal racetrack tires thinking that it provides some kind of benefit. As the racer explained to me, full race tires are designed to handle super high speeds and mega-aggressive cornering. As a result, it takes a lot more to "warm them up" than the comparable street tires. As a matter of fact, the racer said, in street riding conditions a race tire will never reach it's target temperature thus providing /less/ traction than the comparable street tire in those conditions. I haven't researched it, but this is what I was told. It seems to make sense. 

The last aspect that I'm aware of with regard to tires has to do with heat cycles and age. Tires age just sitting on a shelf. Over time they get harder and lose traction just by off gassing. Once on a bike there are only so many times the tires can heat up and cool down before it starts to get lose it's stickiness, even when there is still significant tread life left on the tire. As an experiment, last season we ran a set of tires down to Deal's Gap that had been run the previous year. Bruce said he could really notice the difference as the bike didn't feel nearly as planted. Lesson learned. I change tires every year now before the trip to the Gap. If, or should I say when, I do track days this year I'll run fresh tires on each. I imagine those with significantly more experience in these matters than I can provide more nuanced perspectives. 

As many know, financially things have been a little challenging. My business has tanked and the projects I had attempted to build up over the last year and a half since I came back from my trip have failed. My business partner and I have essentially parted ways as he's wandered off to get a full-time W-2 position. The horror.

Without much money coming in the door, my context has changed and jobs that made no sense for me to do myself suddenly make a lot of sense. Changing tires is one of them. I have over all the years that I've been riding motorcycles only participated in changing one tire. With Yun now riding regularly we have four bikes that will need regular tire changes. With what will hopefully be expanded motorcycling this year, there may be multiple sets that need to be done. The amount of money that can be saved by changing my own tires can really add up. 

So it came to pass that Josh, who like Yun thinks about these things much more than I do, has forged ahead, purchased a tire changer and balancer, and learned how to change his own tires. On Saturday he invited me down so I could see the process and learn how to do it myself. He evilly thought this was a way of getting free labor. He was entirely correct. 

Josh purchased the No-Mar Cycle Hill Motorcycle Tire Changer off a commercial listing on Ebay. He suggested getting it from Ebay since you get the scratch proof bead breaker with it which normally costs extra. 

The tire changer needs to be mounted on the floor which was a concern of mine since I don't have enough spare room in my garage to permanently mount a tire changer. The solution Josh came up wtih seems to work very well.

He drilled four oversized holes in the floor using, I think it was called, a hammer-drill with a concrete bit. He mentioned he destroyed the bit in the process. He then installed from threaded sleeves. I failed to ask him how he secured the sleeves in the hole. I will try to remember to ask him. 

With this setup, it's a very straightforward process to mount the changer when one needs to work on tires.

After removing the wheels from the bike, the first step is to remove the valve and let out the air in the tire. Josh chose to remove the valve directly. Please wear safety googles! The air pressure can cause the stem to shoot out. When I do this process here, I'll depress the valve and let the air out first before removing the valve.

To remove the valve you need a little tool you can get at the auto-parts store, a valve remover.

Once mounted the tire makes a hard seal on the rim. It forms a "bead" on the rim. The bead must be "broken" to remove the tire from the rim. It requires a somewhat brutal application of force.  The wheel with the deflated tire is placed under the bead breaker.

A word to the wise, this entire job goes MUCH more easily if the tires are warm. Josh left both the wheels and new tires in the sun for quite some time. I will probably use my blast furnance to heat up the tires to make them more pliable. I doubt that one additional heat cycle from this will make much difference but I'll have to do some checking. 

It's important to note, while it's not depicted in this photo that if the wheel has brake disks on both sides it needs to be raised up off the ground with a 2x4 or something similar so that when you apply force with the bead breaker you do not transmit any of that force onto the brake disk. 

It's just a matter of lining up the tool and applying lots of force.

The rubber of the tire will contort. I haven't researched it but my understanding is that if the tires aren't too old one can mount and unmount them like this without ill-effect. Looking at how the tire deforms when this occurs it makes one wonder.

You have to work your way around the tire on both sides to make sure the bead is broken all the way around.

Once the bead is broken the tire is mounted to the changer. There are rollers that line up on the rim to hold it into place. These get tightened down good and tight as they are the only thing holding the wheel in place as you try to remove and reinstall the tire.

We had quite a bit of trouble with the wheel wanting to spin around while working on it.

You can see how the rollers, center, fit onto the rim.

And, as Josh will not let you forget, many things are much easier when properly lubricated.

The changer comes with a lubricant that makes getting the bead edge of the tire over the rim much easier. You use it in two forms. One as a spray on liquid and the other as a grease.

First you spray the bead edge.

Then you use a clamp to push the bead edge of the tire down to make it easier to get the de-mounting tool under the lip.

Working with the de-mounting bar is by far the most challenging part of the job. It has a hook on the end. You shove the tool between the rim edge and the tire bead edge, turn the tool 90 degrees and try to pull the bead over the edge of the rim. The tip of the de-mount tool seemed a bit fragile for the job. My impression is that given the force exerted on it that it might break. Maybe that is why they provide a second one with the changer. 

Once you get the de-mount tool in and the first section of the bead over the rim you forcefully pull the de-mount tool around the perimeter of the rim. The wheel kept wanting to turn when we did this.

This took us a bit of time and was without a doubt a two person job. Read: Pain in the ass but entirely doable.

Once we had the first bead off the rim the next one pulled off without much troube.

"Honey, look, see what I killed? ", the triumphant hunter exclaims. His wife and daughter did not seem impressed.

While the rim is off it should be cleaned.

And then in order to make the job go much more smoothly the rim should be lubricated with the goop.

In addition, the inside bead edge of the new tires should have goop applied to it liberally.

Then comes the second difficult part of the job. The mount tool looks like the demount tool except it two tips separated by a few inches. The process is pretty much the reverse of the de-mount. You shove the tool in grabbing the lip of the rim and then you attempt to force the tool around pushing the bead edge of the tire over the lip of the rim. This was also a pain in the ass. The last section required quite a bit of force.

But once you get the hang of it it becomes much easier.

Tada! 

The bead edge of the tire was pushed in in places. To get it to "pop" out and make a good seal against the rim we used a compressor and while applying air bounced the wheel on the tire a bit. Eventually with two distinct pops the tire snapped into place and started accepting air.

Tire mounted. But before the wheel can be re-installed on the bike the wheel must first be balanced.

Tires and wheels are not perfectly uniform in density. As a result, there tends to be a heavy side and a light side. If this discrepency in weight is not accounted for the wheel will shake violently as you ride. Imagine a laundry machine with an unbalanced load and you see the the problem.

So the idea is you attach weights to offset the imbalance to bring the wheel back into balance. For this you need a "Wheel Balancer". The one Josh got is Marc Parners Balancer for BMW's (BML). There's not much to it. It's a rod, some cones and two bases. The idea is you shove the rod through the center of the wheel, clamp down the cones on each side to support the wheel so it spins freely. You then slip on the bases and support the whole assembly on a couple of jack stands.

The cones are tightening with thumb screws. It should be noted that the thumb screws need to be on opposites side of the shaft so that the tool itself is not imbalanced. (i.e. thumb screw on the left side should face up and the one of the other side should face down.) 

The the whole assembly is put onto jack stands. You have to make sure the cones are secure. If there's any slippage it affects how the wheel rotates and you won't get a good balance. 

You then spin the wheel and watch it. If it spins then slows down and reverse direction the wheel is out of balance. You wait until it settles. This should mean the heavy spot on the wheel is at the bottom. You stick a weight on the top to compensate. You can see weights like this on your car wheels as well. If, as you're driving down the road you feel a shake, there's a good chance your wheels are out of balance. Sometimes weights fall off.

We repeated this process until the wheel simply stopped after spinning. It was remarkable how obvious it was.

I had run a timer during the process. To remove the tires and remount them took 54 minutes. Much of that time was spent explaining to me what was being done. Balancing took another 25 or so minutes. It may have taken another 30 to put the wheels on the bike. Based on this experience my feeling is that after a few times a bike could be done with two people in under two hours.

After thinking about it, I realized just taking the bike up to Bob's BMW to have the tires changed takes more time out of my life than this. I will be placing an order for the tire changer and balancer shortly.

Once we finished we took the bike out for a test run down the road where a buddy of mine crashed. "I don't like that road.", Josh commented. As I was snapping a photo, a train passed by. Pretty cool.

Josh had decided to try the Michelin Power Power 2CT tires which are a much softer compound tire than the Pilot Road 2's I've been running. After scuffing the tires in a bit he let me ride his R1100S on a twisty local road. Of course, his bike has Ohlin's shocks on it so any comparison to my R1100S bike is going to be questionable at best but I must say the new tires felt really good. I'm tempted to put them on my 'S as well. And despite the lack of income I am very tempted to slap some Ohlins shocks on my bike as well prior to Deal's Gap in May.

Now, as I mentioned above, this was my very first time doing a job like this. I am by no means an expert on the subject of tires and maybe not even motorcycles. I'm thinking I'll let loose the dogs of war and ask the super-knowledgeable guys from the BMW Tech list if they might give this artcle a once over to see if I am making any huge glaring errors.

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A few months ago, on a racetrack ...

It was the last track session of the last day. I was heading down the straight at something like 140mph, which is significantly slower than race speed but faster than my beloved Blue Bike can go, when my coach passed me and tapped his rear cowling to indicate I should follow him. This typically meant I had done something wrong, but not this time.

For nearly a decade, my refrain had remained the same. "No way, Ryan! There is nothing you can do, nothing you can say that will /EVER/ get me on a racetrack!". Each time, Ryan, who had raced for some years, would smile with a calm, patient, knowing demeanor as if to say, "It is your destiny. I have forseen it." I, to my credit, had an absolute resolve in my blind unwavering ignorance that would make even the staunchest Fox News believer green with envy. What would I learn on a racetrack, anyway? I'd probably get myself killed. Over the years I've talked to so many guys missing internal organs from being rear-ended on a track. My fear was that the kind of riders that I would share a racetrack with would be the kind of young reckless squids you see splitting lanes on the DC Beltway doing a buck twenty during rush hour. Even without that, I tried to imagine what it would be like to go really fast on a racetrack. I imagined a hectic twitchy "oh my god I nearly crashed there again" activity riding at the extremes of my ability. I figured the only reason racers were able to do it was that they just didn't have my sense of self-preservation; young kids taking crazy risks. Maybe they had faster reaction times. That's easy to believe. It seemed like something I wouldn't be any good at. Contrary to what some say, I'm not a fast rider. I'm really not. Ryan is much faster. "You'd be fast if you weren't so afraid." Phil used to say. Phil and his friend Geo are even faster than Ryan. I'm not. So I was immovable. Nothing Ryan could say would ever get me on a track.

Truth be told, I was afraid. So much about being on a track scared me, more than I think I've let on.

Then, one day, I made an error. I had read an article in Motorcyclists Magazine by a guy named Keith Code who is probably the most famous motorcycling race instructor in the world. His organization, the California Superbike School, has trained some of the top racers in the world.  Keith had recently switched his school from using Kawasaki Ninja's to training on BMW's newly introduced S1000RR. With the introduction of the S1000RR, BMW had launched itself from being an old-mans go slow conservative brand to being the producer of one of the most sophisticated highly regarded sport bikes ever. This was the first real sport bike BMW had ever created and it was hit from the word go. A real BMW sport bike, something that at the time could walk away from every other production sport bike in the world while still being balanced and civilized? A BMW sport bike? That's just got to be tried, but not on a racetrack. Definitely not. What really started my downfall was Keith mentioned in his article that they had measured something like a 75% reduction in student accidents since switching to the S1000RR. This was due to its advanced traction control and engine management which essentially amounted to electronic training wheels. "Hmmm. That's really interesting." I thought and mentioned this on Facebook.

Error. I had not anticipated. Sonia, Ryan's wife, would see my post.

Then the email came.

"I saw your post. Ryan hasn't been on a track in ages. I want to send him to Keith Code's school for his birthday." she wrote.

"That sounds like an awesome idea! I think he'll have a blast." I replied.

"He's talked about getting you on a track forever. To make it really special, I want you to go with him." she responded evilly knowing I could not say no.

Shit.

During the Nightmare, Sonia was incredibly kind to me. She has never asked me for anything. How could I say no?

"ok", I wrote with a weight on my shoulder much like those that walk their last mile must feel. At no point did I consider that I might learn something truly valuable that went beyond motorcycling.

I resigned myself to my fate. I could just imagine those guys whizzing by me like I was standing still. Or maybe I would make a fool of myself. Or let Ryan down. Or be too slow. I just had no feeling for what I was getting myself into.

I read their signup page. "Students must have some riding experience -- we do not train first time riders." That didn't sound very serious. They didn't say anything about track experience required. I certainly have more than "some" riding experience. Yet, I was still uneasy.

As it turns out they conduct their courses all over the place including in this strange place called New Jersey.

On September 6th, Ryan and I made our way up to the track. Ryan drove while I experimented with his EZ-pass. "If I put it on the dash ...", I mused. Nope. That didn't work. Another flash. "What if I hold it up here ...". Nope, that didn't work either. "How about if I do this ...". And so on. 'Sorry, Dude. I guess my experimenting is gonna cost some money." I confessed. "Don't worry about it. It's Sonia's." he replied with a smirk. Sorry Sonia. I hope the fines weren't too high.

Day 1

Morning arrived and we were at the track at a truly sadistic hour. The horror known as 7AM.

We came upon a pair of trailers prominently displaying the BMW and Superbike School logos. There was a staging area covered by a canopy. Breakfast was served in the trailer. They had a few items I could eat, some eggs and some fruit, and there was coffee, drinkable coffee. I tried my best to take in the scene but I confess I was honestly quite nervous.

After breakfast we were shuffled into the first briefing where we were introduced to the staff and given an overview of the rules in addition to the first topic, which was "throttle control". It took mere minutes for me to realize that this experience was not going to be anything like what I had imagined or feared. These were very serious professionals. They were mature, disciplined and clearly knew their subject cold. These were adults. They were all much older than I had expected, most of them being closer to my age. Some even older. Also, these were technicians; motorcycle racing geeks. No one here had a death wish. As a matter of fact, it was quite the opposite. To say these people impressed me is an understatement.

And holy shit these guys could ride.

The school is run like a finely oiled machine with a sense of military discipline to it. There's always something happening. While those that know me realize I rarely notice much in the way of details, I did notice that there were more steel Rolex Submariners being worn by the instructors than I have ever seen in any one place. Some of these guys were former SEALS.

Each day was divided up into sessions. 20 minutes classroom sessions followed by so or so minutes on the track where students practiced a single topic. Students were assigned to coaches, 2 students to a coach. The coaches would ride on the track with us sometimes following, sometimes leading, often scolding, or so I thought. They were part instructor and part race cop. Ryan and I were paired up with coach Cobie, a great incredibly knowledgeable guy; and talk about grace in motion on a motorcycle.

There were corner workers with flags. There were people tending the fleet of bikes. There were managerial staff making announcements. There were people everywhere.

I must confess I found the sheer volume of new details that were thrown at me simply overwhelming. It was relentless. "Some riding experience" should probably have read "some track experience" and they should have included some kind of primer beyond the Keith Code Twist of the Wrist books. I'm probably a very rare profile of student for the school. I had never been on a track before. Hell, I haven't even watched a complete race from beginning to end. I didn't know /any/ of the terminology. I had never put on a one piece race suit, which I must admit is a royal pain to put on. I had never worn race boots or put on those armored gloves. Not that these are, by themselves, any big deal but in combination, when thrust into a completely unfamiliar environment, while announcements were coming out fast and furious over the loud speaker, leads to a lot of distraction. "What was that they just announced?", I would ask Ryan as I fiddled some more with my gear.

Then there's everything you have to remember. Was I supposed to study the track before I got there? "Turn 9? What do you mean Turn 9? How do you remember which turn is which? Black Flag? Checkered flag? Yellow Flag? Red Flag? What? When am I allowed to pass? How fast can I go? What's too slow? When I roll into the pit lane I have to raise my left hand to let riders know. If you get black flagged, which is bad, you're supposed to go into the pit lane as soon as you can. Black flag, bad. Pay attention and obey the coaches. Leave 10 feet between you and any other rider.", and so on. There were rules and they wanted you to follow them. They reserved the right to pull anyone off the track that didn't obey the rules. It seemed to me that it was really easy to run afoul of the rules and this added to my unease.

There's a whole backdrop to motorcycle racing culture that's fundamentally different from the sport touring or adventure touring world I'm familiar with. Simple concepts that are just part of the vocabulary or are assumed knowledge. I wish I had had a "street riders introduction to the culture of being on a track". 

Ryan, on the other hand, was completely in his own element. And, it seemed to me, so were the other students. I felt like the odd man out. Would I make a fool of myself?

One piece suits are a pain to put on. I mean a real pain. Worse than the monkey dance you do putting on a rain suit. Experienced racers wear some type of slippery long johns under them to make it easier to get in and out of. I wish I had known.

We were assigned bikes. It was then a rush to get to the bike, get it fired up and go out to the starting position. Have I mentioned that I have not spent more than 15 minutes on a sport bike before? I had no sense of the throttle. Even in "rain-mode", this beast I was riding was incredibly powerful. The riding position was scrunched up, aggressive and at first uncomfortable as is to be expected on a bike like this. I fumbled to turn the key in my gloves and struggled to find the start button too distracted by trying to rush and follow the other riders. Pulling in the clutch I wondered how fast this thing was going to be. No sense of how much throttle it would need I gave it too little and creeped along tentatively. "Ummm. Where am I supposed to go?", I mused as I blindly followed the rider ahead of me. A staff member asks each rider before they are allowed on the track what the exercise of that session was. "Throttle Control", I responded mechanically.

Oh, and I think I forgot to mention that WE WERE NOT ALLOWED TO USE THE BRAKES. "What??", I thought completely shocked. We were to remain in fourth gear and not use brakes at all in that first track session. My guess is to try to slow us down. Ummmm. I let the clutch out and tentatively rolled on the throttle out of the pit lane and up the hill to run two.

Remember how I said I had no experience with sport bikes? First, the thing is fast. Even in rain mode it feels faster than anything I've ever ridden. And then there's this thing called a slipper clutch that these bikes have. So there I am, the very first time on a track, coming up on my very first corner on a racetrack having no sense for the bike at all, how fast it is, how it responds and, mostly importantly, HOW IT DOESN'T SLOW DOWN LIKE MY BIKE DOES WHEN YOU LET OFF THE GAS! Needless to say, that first set of turns was a bit more than just inelegant. I didn't want to get sent home so I didn't touch the brakes. Not once. At one point my coach passed me, flagged me to stop with him and he dinged me for my riding. I was going into the first set of corners too fast. "Yea, I'm not familiar with these bikes. They don't slow down the way I'm used to." I thought but said nothing. He thought I was in danger of crashing. I already felt like I was in over my head. So much of my attention was being dominated by trying not to break any rules and do everything I was supposed to that there was little attention left for anything else. A lot of it was focused on worrying about the things I didn't know. My riding suffered and I fear that during those initial sessions that I came across as a significantly less capable than I actually am.

This compounded all my fears of doing something wrong, disappointing or looking like a fool.

I fear those first sessions gave my coach the wrong impression of my riding ability.

It had rained so the track was slightly wet. I was running around the track slowly attempting to practice what I had been taught but I spent most of my time during those first session trying to get familiar with the track and bike.

At one point, Ryan passed the coach and I too closely in a long left hand corner and got a serious talking to as a result. We were both afraid he was going to be pulled from the track. I became even more tentative as a result. 

Those first sessions were rough. It seemed like I kept doing things wrong as if it was some existential confirmation of my being, of my being someone that did not belong here.

Time passed quickly. The second track session went a little better. We were allowed to use third and fourth gears but still no brakes. Progressively during the day I started being able to pay more attention to my surroundings.

The classroom sessions were extremely valuable. It didn't take long listening to Dylan Code speak to realize that I knew nothing about riding a motorcycle. He spoke in one session about tension. As many people know, I'm an easy going loose and nimble type. Yea, right. But they were making the point that if you were not relaxed on the bike it physically can't go as fast.

"Ummmm?", I thought as I pondered this being some new age mysticism applied to motorcycles.

He went on to share an anecodote as a lead-in.There's a thing that can happen on a motorcycle called a "tank slapper". The front wheel can become unstable and start oscillating back and forth violently. The period of the oscillation can increase to such a degree that the handlebars smack the tank left and right hence the name tank slapper. He described a racer who's name escapes me, get into a tank slapper. The racer held on for dear life only to be thrown from the bike. As soon as the rider was ejected, the bike stabilized and proceded to make it around the corner on it's own.

Then he went on to explain the mechanics of a motorcycle suspension and steering system. As it taverses bumps, the front suspension of the motorcycle is in constant motion. It's purpose is to keep the wheel in contact with the road surface regardless of what the surface is doing. As it does this, the wheel will tend to oscillate back and forth a bit over these bumps. It's normal. However, because of simple physics, if someone were to hold onto the handlebars too tightly, with too much tension, and prevent that normal oscillation from happening, the force that would normally cause the front wheel to oscillate gets transmitted through the tense rider to the seat and body of the motorcycle, and thereby the rear wheel. In a nutshell, grab the bar too tightly and the bike becomes less stable as it moves over the pavement. He went on to describe another racer who got into a tank slapper and apparently on the video they show him, at race speed, have such a presence of mind to literally let go of the handlebars which immediately caused the tank slapper to stop and he was able to continue on without crashing. Talk about controlling your fear. How fearless would that guy have to be to do that?

Yea, I know nothing.

He then went on to talk about loss of traction as it relates to tension.

I fear loss of traction. The idea of having both wheels on a motorcycle start to slide scares me like little else.

When you lose traction in a car, when it begins to slide, you have to make an active input to turn the wheel in the direction of the slide. Interestingly, and this is something I had never thought about, on a motorcycle if you begin to slide the front wheel automatically turns in the direction of the slide. So in contrast to a car, on a motorcycle, you gain control in a slide by doing nothing. And that nothing is more than just not make any changes, it means not holding on to the handlebars to such a degree that you're barely touching them letting the motorcycle do it's thing. 

You gain control and speed, by doing less.

I found myself wondering if these guys are aware how incredibly philosophical they are.The more I listened the more these sessions began to sound ilke martial arts classes I took many ages ago.

I think it was the fourth session of the day I was told to do two laps then come in and switch bikes to the camera bike. They have this bike with a camera mounted on the back. You're supposed to do a couple of laps and then they review the video with you afterwards.

So off I went to do my two laps. My focus was on my riding, the corner workers, the other riders, my fear of doing things wrong, my fear of making a mistake, my fear of what I was doing, that I completely forgot that I was supposed to come in. On the third lap around, as I was coming down the straight I saw the black flag.

"FUCK! I forgot!", I literally said in my helmet as I rolled off the throttle as the pit lane disappeared behind me.

I was barely able to form the through, "Dammit." when coach was beside me shaking his head. He rolled out in front of me and tapped his cowling indicating I should follow.

I was in trouble.

He guided me off the track and we spoke.

I was sure that was going to be my last ride of the day. I had forgotten to do something I had been told to do.

"Don't roll off the throttle suddenly when you get flagged! I almost rear ended you.", he explained.

"Dammit. Sorry. I saw I was black flagged and thought I was in trouble. I thought I was supposed to go into the pit lane immediately. I didn't know but I should have.", I apologized profusely. 

"If you get flagged and can't make the pit lane just go around again and then come in when it's clear." he said.

I didn't know. It makes sense but I wasn't told, or if I was, I missed it.

The thing I feared the most I almost caused.

Now I was bonafidedly terrified. But I wasn't asked to sit out. Sent to the camera bike, I did a lap. My lack of confidence and tentativeness was evident in the video.

One of the most interesting things told to us during a classroom session was about cornering. Cornering is the most difficult challenging thing to do on a motorcycle. Anyone can go fast in a straight line and stop again. But cornering, leaning the bike over and negotiating a turn, is an art that occupies most of a motorcyclists career. Even top racers continue to practice cornering.

Cornering is the majority of riding a motorcycle. Watch top racers and you'll see cornering in the absolute extreme. You have to have nerves of steel to go around a corner that fast, no? They choose methods of traversing corners so that when they exit the corner they are set up optimally to enter the next one.

"We are not here to get inside your head." Dylan would say. 

"If you're not where you want to be at the exit of a turn, don't think in terms of what you didn't do. It's not useful to say 'I didn't brake early enough', 'I didn't go in fast enough', because these things do not point to something concrete and active you can change. Focus on the concrete active things you did entering and during the turn that yielded the result you got. You adjusted the throttle. You applied the brake. You turned the handlebars. These are the only active inputs you can make to a motorcycle. The only difference between you and top racers in the world is 'what you do'. So step backwards one step at a time and adjust the active things you did until you get the result you want. We are not here to get inside your head."

And then it hit me.

It's amazing the power words can have and how quickly we can forget hard fought lessons we've learned elsewhere. I had been making the same mistake here on this track that I had seen so many guys make out on the Haul Road. They rode the road on their own terms. They didn't give it the time or attention it needed. Overwhelmingly their focus wasn't where it needed to be, on the here and now, because they were too concerned about external things, things outside of themselves, the business partner or wife, the deadlines, the job back home, all these thoughts that pulled them out of the moment and away from the road. 

And they crashed by the dozens.

And here I was making absolutely the same mistake on a race track. I was not willing to fail. I was not present. I was not focused. I wasn't in that calm inner place where I could, if I needed to, simply walk away. Stop at any moment and turn around. It was that state that let me ride on a much more dangerous road under much worse conditions far far away from any help and call it easy. But here I was, in a much safer environment, being less confident and more likely to cause an accident because of all these thoughts and feelings of what I thought it meant to be on a track.

And all this did was pull me away from the simple mechanical task of negotiating corners. 

"It's not about you. It's not about your history. Your problems at home. Your thoughts about who you are or what you have been through. It's not about how good or bad a rider you are. It's simply a question of, if you are not getting the results you decide you want, looking at the active things you do that yielded the result you got and adjusting the things you do until you get the result you want."

Events happen. How we interpret those events is so powerfully colored by the emotional context we are in. I was guilty of that because I felt all these things that had nothing to do with being on a track. My coach would tell me something and I would not hear him clearly because too much of my attention was focused on all these internal thoughts about what I thought about my own being.

Step back. Stop. Think. He's my coach. I am the student. He's here to point out my mistakes and help me correct them and improve my riding. He didn't pull me off the track because of the black flag, he pulled me off because I dumped the throttle. That's what he's supposed to do. Once told I'm not going to make that mistake again. But he let me continue on. I was not asked to sit out. I was not being irresponsible. I was not disregarding the rules.

The effect was as interesting as it was powerful. With these simple words, and the insight it produced, my focus adjusted. It was no longer about me. It was no longer about what anyone thought or my nameless fear. It was simply about experimenting and adjusting positive actions I took to get the results that I wanted to achieve and for the most part, on a track, it's nice and simple. Leave the corner travelling as fast as possible and be set up for the next corner.

But my sense is that this view, this way of looking at results as the direct consequence of positive actions as opposed to the result of some existential state that follows us around like a black cloud, applies in many more areas of life than just on a motorcycle going around in circles on a racetrack.

There is something about the motorcycle that brings out the philosophical.

Out on the track, this new perspective freed me to simply, dispassionately, ride the track. And I began to step back from my own toxic beliefs about what it all meant and trust that my coach was there to tell me how I could improve.

Early on, because I was so tentative, I had projected a lack of confidence to him that I'm sure made him concerned that I might try to ride beyond my ability. I also began to understand that my job as a student was to convey to him a sense of confidence that I was trying to learn what I was supposed to and that I would, at no time, ride beyond my ability. Simply ride the track.

Things started improving almost instantaneously. I was on a racetrack on one of the most powerful sport bikes in the world and finally I was starting to feel at ease. It's just another road.

During a break between sessions, I overheard that a guy had been pulled off the track for being "wreckless". He was sitting out a session. What surprised me about this was that I don't remember him passing me. Then again, I don't remember many people passing me except the instructors and Ryan.

At one point, a guy on a black bike whizzed by. He wasn't an instructor so I figured he was in the class. If he, a level I guy, can do it then surely I can. So I decided to keep up with him. I followed his lines. He was moving at a really good clip. Things were started to get fun.

Later on I would learn, at dinner, that the guy who's name I have forgotten, was in the level IV course and had been racing for decades. Oops. He seemed surprised that I kept up with him.

He was 63 years. 63. Very Cool. I hope in 20 years that I am still riding motorcycles.

I didn't get dinged again. 

The first day ended. Ryan and I stayed at a hotel in town. Had dinner with the level IV guy then went to have a drink at a weird little local bar. New Jersey is a strange place filled with strange people. Even strange bartenders.

The night ended early and we were up and at the track at the horror of '7AM' the next day.

Day 2.

Level II is primarily concerned with vision and memory.

The classroom sessions went from discussions of the physics of the motorcycle to discussions of the evolutionary disadvantage human beings have. We are not evolved to ride motorcycles and it largely has to do with how our visual system evolved. If we had the eyes of a hawk, we would probably be able to ride much faster.

I had always thought racing motorcycles was a twitchy reaction-time dominated activity reminiscient of those times that I've ridden close to the edge my ability.

"To go fast you must go slow", Ryan would always say, but I never really understood what that meant.

It takes something like .35 seconds for photons to bounce off a target, have it enter your eyeball, get converted to nerve impulses, get transmitted up to your brain and then interpreted into an understanding you can begin to use as a the basis for a decision.

.35 seconds. If you are doing 100mph on a motorcycle and you look straight down at the pavement, what you are seeing is 51 feet behind you because of this delay.  You are looking into the past. It also feels like you are going much faster than you are. What you decide to look at and how you decide to look has an incredible effect on slowing the scene. This is one of the reasons that people slow down when crossing bridges and going into tunnels. Because of the guardrails or tunnel walls the feeling of speed increases without any change in actual velocity.

As you run around a racetrack there are things to look at. You come up on a corner and you must decide where and when to let off the gas, apply the brake, turn into the corner. How you decide to do these things depends on the reference points you have decided to use. There are features on a racetrack, skid marks, repair patches, discolorations that you can use as reference points to help you remember what you did the last time around that corner and what you would like to change. For instance, at the end of turn 9a which is a long right hander where it turns into damn near a 90degree right they taped an X onto the pavement. That was the hardest corner for me to get right so I would experiment with that marker. Turn in before or after it. Maybe try to the left or right and I would try to remember how it felt, what position I was in. It took me forever to come up with a way of negotiating that corner that felt right.

But what happens on a track is that without some forced discipline you look at what you are afraid of. This happens on the road and even in a car. I would focus on that damned X in the road because that was my most difficult corner and the closer I got to it the faster I would seem to be going. I would slow down too much. The scene reduced down to nothing but that X and I would be squirrely around the corner.

Target fixation. We look at what we are afraid of instead of looking where we would like to be going.

They talked to us about peripheral vision and training yourself to take in the whole scene without moving your eyes. Remember the .35seconds delay? When your eyes twitch from target to target on a track there's a moment you can't really see as your eyes are moving. Go at 200mph and you've travelled over 100 feet during that time.

Scary.

The top riders focus a huge amount of effort training their vision, deciding what do look at, so they can get their mind to slow down. And beyond that they slow down their activity. They plan ahead for motions. On the straight there's nothing to do but wait until you reach your reference point to start slowing down. Then there's nothing to do until you reach the reference point to start your turn. Once leaned over, again, nothing to do. It's not twitchy in the least. It's slow. Action. Rest. Action. Rest. Do less. Move slowly. Decide what to look at and how.

"Do you believe that my being stronger or faster has anything to do with my muscles in this place?" to quote Lawrence Fishburne, one of my favorite actors, in my favorite movie, The Matrix.

At race speeds, because of visual system delays, even those with the fastest reactions times are no competition for those who have learned to slow the scene down. The less we fixate on what we fear the slower the scene moves the greater our ability to negotiate past it and achieve the results we want.

We focus on what we are afraid of. Again, I wonder if these guys know how philosphical they are? It's so easy to see this same effect in other aspects of life. The more attention, time and energy we spend focused on what we are afraid of, the things we do not want, the less there is to negotiate a path to avoid it.The more energy we waste in times when we should be resting, the less we have when we need it.

I continue to ask the question "what is it that I am able to do on a motorcycle that I am not able to do in other aspects of my life" and continue to be surprised.

The class sessions continued. They began to talk about how motorcycle racing is a 90% mental game. I've heard this said of so many sports but have never had anyone go into detail about it.

Another thing that separates top racers from everyone else is memory. Dylan shared an anecdote about how many details top racers can remember after having ridden around a new track just once. Every relevant skid mark, crack, discoloration, details about the camber of the pavement, etc. etc. And not only can they remember these places they can also remember exactly how long the interval is between those places. Once someone has a set of reference points they can then use them as decision points. Coming into turn 9b I scan over the X standing the bike up looking where I want to go but missing the X two feet to the right, or some such. I can only remember turn 9b in any detail now. Top racers can do that for every part of a track. Sick.

Racing motorcycles is nothing that I believed it was.

During a break a group of riders were talking. "I'm gonna have to make this up to my wife." one said while two others nodded in agreement.

"HIs wife sent him here." I said pointing to Ryan.

There was a moment of awe struck silence which yielded to envy.

In the next track session, I took the camera bike out again and this time a coach reviewed it with me. Despite knowing that I'm not supposed to put weight on the handlebars I was still clearly gripping too tightly and my body position was all wrong.

It was a disheartening realization.

So off to the lean bike they sent me.They have this bike outfit with elaborate training wheels so that while going slowly you can be coached on body position while negotiating corners.

Unfortunately, because it was wet, I wasn't able to ride it. So a group of coaches stood around while I sat on the thing in lean position. They critiqued and moved me around until the position they had me in was half leaned off the bike, ball of my right foot on the peg, calf muscles extended forcing my knee into the ledge of the gas tank on the grip pad. All of my weight being supported by the right leg, knee and my torso so that I could let go of the handle bars completely. Left knee hung out slightly.

It hurt.

It hurt bad.

Clearly these were muscles I had not used before.

It made me look like a frog.

But I got the message loud and clear.

For years I've been having problems with a muscle around my right shoulder blade locking up on me when I ride. When I came back from my trip my arms were built, but not my stomach or legs. 

I've been using the wrong muscles all these years. I'd been gripping the bars too tightly all this time. There's an interesting difference between knowing something conceptually and then knowing what it's supposed to feel like.

Out onto the track I went with this new insight. It had been raining so the track was wet.

It took me a lap or two of experimentation to finally nail it. My muscles just weren't trained yet. But when I nailed it, when I got my body off the bike , my leg locked into the tank and my hands so light on the handlebars that I was barely touching them magic happened. The feeling is incedible. There's this stability I had not previously known. I was running around the track. I finally nailed turned 9a and 9b. I managed to not fixate on the target but instead look to the next reference point. I flipped the bike over into turn 10 which is a long left hander. Two bikes were on the inside track in front of me. There was more than 10 feet to the right. "Hell with this", I thought as I leaned off slightly more and rolled on the gas a bit more passing the two riders on the outside. Open throttle as I came into the last turn onto the straight. I relaxed. Turn 1 came up quick. Off gas, reference point acquired. Look to the apex seeing the turn point in my peripheral vision.

Off I went. A number of turns were quite wet. Some had tar snakes, which are exceptionally slippery repairs in the pavement. Arounds these corners I went in the wet.

The bike lost traction and skipped over so slightly to the right. Both wheels. I did nothing. Not only that, it didn't phase me in the least. At no point did I feel like I was out of control.

Onward I continued. Another wet corner. Another slight lateral slide. Maybe it was 4 inches but it felt like a mile. Again I did nothing.

My coach passed me and pulled me aside.

"Did I do something wrong?" I asked expecting to be told to slow down.

"Can you feel around turn 7 how the bike skips a little bit?" he asked.

"Yea, I'm keeping loose on the handlebars and it's working out well for me." I replied. "Do you want me to slow down?"

To my surprise he said, "No, I just wanted to make sure you knew how close you were. In these conditions I would not want to go more than 5% faster myself."

"Yea, I'm not going to go any faster." I replied.

Wow.

Ok. So back onto the track I went.

By the next session, it had dried up a bit. My coach passed me and instead of slowing me down we bumped the speed up 5%. I kept up and at no time did I feel like I was going all that fast nor did I feel scared in the least. I was having a blast.

We pulled into the pit lane for the debrief. We had one more track session left.

"You've really picked up your pace quite a bit." he said somewhat surprised. 

"I'm finally feeling pretty comfortable. Can we do that again?" I asked like an excited little kid, "but a bit faster?"

It was the last track session of the last day. I was heading down the straight at something like 140mph when my coach passed me again and tapped his rear cowling to indicate I should follow him. This time it didn't mean I had done something wrong. He slowed down for a second and then took off. And I followed. I followed his line, trying to apply everything I had been taught. I did more corners correctly than not. Sometimes I would miss a line or a turn but I kept up. He would look back from time to time and it was as if I could see the surprise on his face. Each time he would would pick up the pace incrementally. The way this guy could ride was grace in motion.

We came upon turn 9a, that long right hander. There was a bike to the extreme outside. As we passed him on the inside, I watched my coach lean his body off his bike for the first time, ever so slightly. And suddenly he started pulling away in earnest.

And I followed. That bitch of a right hander in turn 9b came up and i nailed it and staying right behind him. Flipping the bikes over left we took the outside track through turn 10 passing another couple bikes. We were moving.

And I was having the time of my life.

The session ended as quickly as it began. We pulled back to the staging area. He pulled his helmet off with a big grin.

"Now that was fun." he said which I took as an incredible compliment.

Yes. It was. And I can't wait to go do it again.

The class was over. It was time to hand in our suits and head for home.

It would take me some months to understand how much this class changed me as a rider. Nothing I have done in years has been as eye opening and dramatic as those two days spent at Keith Code's California Superbike School.

I've been tormenting people with race school life analogies ever since.

If I were to do it over, I would have gotten a book on basic track ettiquette, if such a thing exists or I would have gone to talk to some more racers. I would have also gotten a printout of the track with turn numbers labelled. I would have also test ridden an S1000RR so I could familiarize myself with the bike and maybe asked for more details about how the class activities flowed.

Without a doubt I will take levels III and IV and will be better prepared and out of my own head leaving my toxic fears behind.

If you are a sport oriented motorcyclist of any kind, after taking Total Control, I would highly recommend to anyone to take this sportbike school. It simply rocks.

It will change your riding, and maybe more, for the better.

Thank you, Sonia. Thank you, Ryan.

---

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Thanks.

It was a simple plan. Bruce would arrive on Friday. We would pack the bikes and then get up early on Saturday to collect Duncan. We would hit the road by 9AM intending to take a leisurely 550 mile ride to Deal's Gap. We would meet Josh somewhere on route 81 and then arrive at the Gap sometime in the middle of the day on Sunday so we could do a few runs.

Well, that was the plan.

Unfortunately, I've been having intermittent boughts of insomnia. I had been unable to sleep much either Wednesday or Thursday night and by Friday I was having trouble staying awake. So tired. I headed up to BWI to pick up Bruce who was flying in from Los Alamos to ride the guest bike. I understand the Innuit have something like 200 words for snow. I have a similar set for fatigue and pain. At this point, I was already stupid tired. Stupid tired, as the name implies, is when you're so tired that you're just stupid. Mixing being stupid tired and 550 miles on a motorcycle is a recipe for disaster.

We had dinner at the Outback, as is customary for a Friday, and then headed back to my house to pack the bikes and get everything ready.  Because I had been so stupid tired the past few days I failed to get everything quite up to the standard I usually achieve. I wasn't able to wash the bikes or get the luggage set up, but Bruce took it all in stride. All in all everything went smoothly and we had the bikes packed pretty quickly.

I was convinced I'd be able to sleep given how stupid tired I was. It was not to be. After packing the bikes and getting everything ready we called it a night at midnight. By 2:30AM, I was still fully awake with a racing heart. I realized I wasn't going to fall asleep any time soon. There was just no way I was going to be safe on the road the next day so I made a command decision and sent out text messages to everyone to postpone the departure time to 12:30PM.

I finally managed to fall asleep around 5AM. Bruce didn't get the message and dutifully woke me up at 7:30 but I was able to fall back asleep fairly quickly. No harm no foul. I woke up again around 11. I was really tired but not in a dangerous way. We had intended to go to a diner for breakfast but it was crazy busy so we opted to head over to Duncan's house sans breakfast.

Duncan to his credit was pretty much ready to go. The weather forecast had changed. Exhibiting an abundance of experienced realism, Bruce put on his rainsuit but refused to do the mandatory Monkey Dance. I tried to catch it on video but it was not to be. He was entirely too dignified. Foiled once again!

I, of course, having my beloved Toxic Suit on, had no need to do the Monkey Dance and just watched. Shortly thereafter Duncan rolled out his packed bike and we were ready to leave. The sky threatened but we were unconcerned.

We asked a group who were out walking to take a quick photo of the three of us.

Last year's Deal's Gap trip was the first time the three of us had ridden together in nearly two decades. Crazy. Both Bruce and Duncan are great guys and they are like brothers to me. Family. They are the two biggest reasons I am still standing. They were there through everything; through every last step of the nightmare from the beginning all the way to the end 17 years later. No matter what happened or how bad it got, they never faltered. They were always there. I shudder at the thought of what my life might have become had I not met these two guys. No one has friends as good as I do.

That they would take time out of their lives and away from their significant responsibilities to family and jobs to go on some crazy adventure with me is a privilege I do not take lightly. That their wives would cover for them to take care of kids and households on their own is something I also do not take lightly at all.

I remember last year Bruce saying early on, "This is a lot of fun. Maybe I can swing a trip like this again in 5 years". Later that week it was "well, maybe in two years". By the end of the trip he was saying, "I'll be back next year!".

Duncan's progression was similar. Tragically Duncan broke his wrist in a fall a few months ago and it had not been clear that he would be able to go until the very last moment. His wrist still hurt but it was healed. We agreed that if it bothered him we would take extra breaks or potentially even stop the trip if it got too bad.

He needed to be back on Saturday before noon. No problem. Plans updated. We would leave on Friday for the return trip to arrive home on Saturday before noon. Of course our track record with plans ...

So around 12:30 we texted Josh to say we were underway, stopped at a gas station and then headed out. We rode about 100 miles in the first sitting. Traffic wasn't too bad. And because we are hard core, we stopped at a starbucks near Front Royal.

I was really tired and not feeling well at all. I texted Josh to let him know about our progress. Duncan did his mandatory silly stretches. You've heard of the Ministry of Silly Walks? Well, Duncan could be the Minister of Silly Stretches. We hung out at Starbucks for a bit pondering the changing weather forecast and headed on to Staunton where we had agreed to meet Josh. 

Duncan and I met Josh last year prior to the last Deal's Gap trip at the Total Control course we took. After returning from Deadhorse, Josh and I took a short run down to the Gap in October. The original plan had been for a bunch of people to join us on this current trip. Unfortunately, things fell apart and almost everyone bailed. Doing a trip like this is a big deal and I can understand how life can get in the way.

After last years trips, we all agreed we needed more time down there. Unfortunately, Josh could only go for three days and needed to head back Wednesday.

We met Josh at a Shoney's. Josh rides a Yamaha FJR, a very big bike. It's his first. Josh has only been riding for two years and his riding is already on par with guys like us who have been riding for decades. Nuts. When mixing people who have never met one has to be careful. I'm very cautious about who I travel with. Styles matter. But I was convinced everyone would get along on this trip and as it turned out everyone got along wonderfully.

I was hungry having not had any breakfast. So I ordered myself an omelette times 2. They had a list of ingredients you could add. Not wanting to think I just asked them to add it all. Epic Omelette!

The cook came out to confirm that this is actually what I wanted. "Ain't never made an omelette that big before". The waittress, who was kind of cute, started teasing me about how there was no way I could finish it. "You do not know this man", Duncan told her. A few minutes later the omelette was gone and I was no longer quite as hungry. 

At some point we started discussing what we were going to do, joking about the late start I had caused.

"So if we had a plan, what would it be?" Bruce asked. This became a refrain for the remainder of the trip. "Not that I suggest we should have a plan, but, you know, if we had one, what might it be?" Josh would joke.

We talked to the waittress for a while and listened to her tell stories involving too much alcohol and her ability to drink guys many times her weight under the table. It was all pretty funny. Eventually we decided the time had come to be gone.

"Do you think I should put on my rainsuit?" Josh asked.

"Yes", I replied.

A couple hours later when the rain started pouring down we stopped under a bridge for the rainsuit Monkey Dance. 

I like this photo.

We rode for some hours well into the night. I had targeted Wytheville as a place to get a hotel. At a stop sometime before Wytheville Josh asked, "Do you think I can do without the electric vest?".

"No. I think you should put it on now." I replied.

A few hours later when it got cold, just pulled ahead and stopped at a gas station which was only something like 30 miles from Wytheville.

"I'm freezing. I'm going to put on the vest." he stated as if having discovered a new truth in the universe.

"Do you think we should get gas now?" Bruce asked. 

So we got gas and Josh donned his electric vest and we were on our way to Wytheville. The rain was really coming down pretty hard in places. It had been a nasty ride. The intent was to find a hotel with a hottub which we found but we arrived too late. The hotel staff was really nice and let us park our bikes in the handicapped spot partially under the awning.

There was an Applebees about a quarter mile away so we decided to stroll over there. I was exhausted and feeling worse but the walk did me some good. The service there was terrible and it took forever. It was the same Applebees that Ian and I had eaten at some years earlier on a previous Deal's Gap trip.

I actually managed to sleep but only fitfully. The phone rang far too early. It was Josh telling me I had 50 minutes to get up and out before checkout time. We packed up our gear and rolled the bikes over to a Waffle House where I had the customary omelette and terrible coffee. We still had several hours of riding to go and things take a lot longer with a group of 4 than it does with 3 or 2. It's just the nature of motorcycle travel.

We rode south along 81. At one point we came across a swath of incredible devastation. A huge tornado had cut through trees and shattered buildings. I've seen images of this kind of damage before but never seen it up close like this to this degree. If I had been on my own I would have done a panic stop on the side of the road to take photos but with three guys following there was just no way. Route 81 has a huge amount of traffic on it and there's no way to make a stop like that safely. So I passed it up. Awesome devastation. Trees snapped halfway up like twigs. One house completely smashed, the one right next to it unphased. Frightening.

We came upon Knoxville and took the exit for 129. It had been some years since I had ridden out this way and I had forgotten what kind of establishments were along the road. I had thought there were a bunch of restaurants but didn't see any after more miles than I remembered. Josh and I both attempted to use our lying GPS's to find a place to eat and that then turned into an hour plus wild goose chase, our bitch GPS's lying to us repeatedly. Eventually, we found our way back to downtown Knoxville and found a grill where we could sit outside. We got parking a ways down the street just out of visual range. I pull my tank bag, grabbed my helmet and walked over to the restaurant to secure a table.

It was a surprisingly nice restaurant with a view down the street to the bikes.

The waiter was nice enough to take a photo of the four of us.

As we sat there we pondered how far South we were. What kind of people inhabit these parts? Are there perhaps any warning signs around us that we should pay attention to? Then Josh pointed out a disturbing sign:

No lunch is complete without a trip to starbucks. We headed to one to get our last cup of good coffee for a while.

This was a recurring theme. "I don't think it'll rain." Duncan would say. Josh would ask, "Do you think I should put on my rainsuit?". Bruce, ready to go helment and rainsuit on would sit patiently. I had given up attempting to give sage advice and merely looked in their direction and then at the sky. Josh got the hint and started putting his rainsuit on. Duncan followed suit with a few issues having to do with the order of things. You put the earplugs in first, then put on the helment then the gloves. It's amazing how many permutations and combinations of these three steps result in "Dangit! I forgot to ...".

Bruce waited patiently. I declared that I was revoking the democracy and it would now be a dictatorship with me as dictator. "King", one of them replied.

Route 129 out to Deal's Gap is a wonderful road. Sharp corners across a very lush and green countryside punctuated by stands of trees followed by open fields. It's a beautiful road, that is once you get to the two lane portion. The four lane portion sucks and the left hand where route 411 and 129 diverge sneaks up on you.

"If you're going to be King, Yermo, we require two things", Josh stated. "You must navigate without missing major turns, like let's say, the road we have ridden all this way to ride". I have forgotten what the second condition was.

It is good to be King.

The sun was setting as we headed into Deal's Gap, also known as the Dragon. Despite not feeling well, fatigue from not sleeping and a fully loaded bike, running the Gap was fun. The new suspension I have set up on my Blue Bike makes it a different beast. They said it would be better. They failed to tell me that it would completely change the bike. That was fun.

We arrived just after 7PM and got to our "apartment" suite, #2. The neighbors were friendly.

They were pulling our chain about riding BMW's. There was some comment about electric vests. "You should see his espresso maker." one of my crew replied. That got a good laugh.

We unpacked the bikes and got settled into our apartment suite. The Deal's Gap Motorcycle Resort is basically a motel with a gas station, fast food grill, campground and souvenier shop. Everything is geared towards motorcyclists. You park your bikes right in front of the room. There are benches outside so you can watch the mayhem unfolding in the parking lot. It has the added benefit that you immediately get to know your neighbors. They call it a resort because of the liquor laws in that county. A resort has to have a tennis court or swimming pool and then it's allowed to serve alcohol. So the Deals' Gap Motorcycle Resort has two unused tennis courts hidden somewhere.

Despite being wet, tired, and ill, I got on my machine and ran through the 11 miles out and 11 miles back through 636 challenging turns. Awesome. When I got back, Bruce handed me a shot of scotch and we stayed up fairly late talking. The rain had started again so there would be no fire in the firepit that evening. The accommodations are spartan but I like them. Cinderblock walls, cots, metal racks. What's not to like? It does kind of resemble what I imagine prison is like.

I couldn't sleep again and spent the evening in significant pain. Something I had eaten the previous day really disagreed with me. Monday is largely a blur to me. I was worthless tired. Bruce, Duncan and Josh headed out for a ride to Maryville. Given how I was feeling I opted to stay behind. It started raining in earnest again just after they left. I got a few cups of coffee and sat on the bench and watched the rain for most of the day.

In the background is the Tree of Shame. "No Gain and a lot of Pain". The tradition is to take any parts that have broken off your bike when you wreck and put them up on the tree. Everyone commented on how much it had expanded since the last time we were here.

I started feeling much worse. I was grateful for having a bathroom at my disposal. Unpleasant times. But it always seems like I suffer when I travel.

I decided to walk around for a while thinking that maybe it would help me feel better. I snapped a few photos and I strolled around. This is what the resort looks like. The beginning on the Deal's Gap Run is on the left and leads up the hill.

Motorcycle Mecca. It doesn't matter. Right is very good. Left isn't bad either.

I walked back and sat on the bench watching the goings on. After a while I noticed a sight I had not seen before. Another BMW K100RS rolled down the hill. I looked over and decided to be social. The rider's name was Joel.

Joel had been travelling with his dad, John, on a multi-week tour down the East Coast. Both of them rode 8V K100RS's. Awesome. As luck would have it they were staying in the room next to ours. I talked to them for a while about the modest improvements I've made to my bike. They were both particularly interested in the laminar lip I had installed on the fairing which significantly reduces buffeting. On my bike, BMW really did not do a very good job engineering the fairing. We affectionately call it the "turbulence generator". The buffeting is so bad that before finding out about the laminar lip, thanks to Duncan, I was considering getting rid of the bike.

We talked about suspensions and the Total Control course. We talked about the Gap and how to ride it safely. What impressed me about Joel was his interest in learning. He was cautious and interested and fundamentally not reckless. His dad would disagree but seemed really pleased that someone was there willing to take some time with his son. Personally, I got a real kick out of sharing what little I know with him. He really seemed to gain from it and it turned what had been a miserable day for me into one I'll remember in a positive light for a long time.

After some discussion, Joel asked if I could lead him through the Gap. He wanted to follow my lines. I touched base with his dad assuring him that I would not push his son in any way to ride beyond his ability. The Dragon, as Deals' Gap is called, can be a very dangerous road if not approached in the right way. There are 318 corners many of which decreasing radius multi-axis turns. Often, turns are hidden and seem to appear out of nowhere. You think you're doing a 30mph turn when suddenly it arcs sharply to the right and up a hill turning into a 10mph corner. To some degree to have to memorize the road. You also want to be very careful who you ride with. A very common way to crash on the Gap is trying to keep up with someone who is a better rider. It's easy to get caught up in appearances. If that old BMW guy riding that ancient machine can do it, I should be able to do it on my modern sport bike. Not necessarily. More importantly, it's not a given that another bike of the same make and model will be able to run the Dragon the same way. There's always that chance that there are hidden modifications. Joel rides an older K100RS. It has skinnier tires and his suspension was in dire need of some upgrades. My bike had fresh sticky tires and a completely redone suspension and brake system. Given comparable riders, my bike will run circles around the old K100.

So when you lead someone through the Dragon you need to assess their riding skill and comfort and adjust accordingly. Similarly if you follow someone and they are going faster than you feel comfortable with you slow down. Don't try to keep up. My group is really good about this. There's no ego involved. We're all here to learn, improve our riding and have some fun while doing it.

In many ways when you lead someone through the Dragon or even if you have a passenger on your bike, at that moment you are no longer riding for yourself. You're riding for the other person. In the case of a passenger it's very similar. There's some skill involved in being a good passenger. The bike leans and the body position of the passenger affects cornering. There's a ramp up time for someone who's never been on a bike before to get comfortable. I always try to introduce people gradually and carefully. Be cautious about getting on a bike with someone who doesn't take you into account. More often than not, especially for women, some guy will try to scare them. I hate that.

So I started out very slowly trying to get a feel for how Joel rode. As it turned out, he was a much more tentative rider than I expected. Almost too cautious. So we went through the entire gap mostly well under the speed limit. I had never run through the gap that slowly before and I found it quite tiring to keep looking in my rear view to make certain he was ok. I would stop every so many corners and touch base with him to see how he was doing. I'd give him pointers and critique his riding. He listened and attempted to apply everything I suggested. It was impressive how much he improved just running out and back again once. Interestingly, I found going through the gap like that beneficial as well. I found myself thinking about what an acquaintance had said she had been told. "Riding a bike is like playing an instrument. First you make sure you can play each note. Then you focus on putting them together, playing them faster and making music". Taking each corner slowly and focusing on my line, mostly to demonstrate how to enter the exit the corner to Joel, was great practice. I think it contributed to why I can run the Dragon much faster now. I'll do that again the next time I'm down there.

Bruce, Duncan and Josh returned. It had been pouring rain. They had run out to Maryville, about an hour away, gotten something to eat and bought some critical supplies.

The rains continued and we put an end to riding. It let us slightly later in the evening so I put some effort into building, what I considered at the time given the conditions, an impressive fire in the firepit. Hanging out around the firepit at night represent some of my best memories at the Gap. There are almost always interesting people to talk to from a variety of backgrounds.

Duncan had met Chad, on the left, who was in the other apartment room and rode an Aprilla. The running joke was, "Hey Chad, want to ride an R1100S? I could follow you on the Aprilla". Yea, he didn't buy it either. I didn't get a good photo of Josh's Dad, John. He's sitting on my left. I thought it was really impressive that he spent so much time with his son on a trip like this. He had recently gotten back into riding after a long hiatus. A good guy. I liked him.

We shared some of our booze with them. They said they were going to leave the next day. We tried our best to get them to stay and even offered to let them join us in the "Apartment Suite". 

Bruce lost his "hoody", whatever that is, and was relegated to wearing his silly hat. I have gotten to spend far too little time with Bruce these last many years. Since Duncan's gotten his new job I don't seem him much either. It was very good to spend this time with my friends. My life is much better with my friends.

I've told many that my friends are virtually as polite as I am. Even when we're on our own and no one is there to listen, we so very rarely tell any off color joke or make any off color comments on any topic, especially when it comes to women. No one believes this, but it's true.

However, adding Josh into the mix added a "refreshing" level of wrongness, sometimes extreme wrongness that would get me to cringe.

Why is it that everyone enjoys buggin me so much?

Of course, we soon realized someone, Bruce, was taking pictures so we had to put on a serious front to keep up appearances.

When Josh is there topics go in directions that they don't normally. I think Bruce and Duncan have both long since given up on me in terms of relationships. They've seen first hand how miserable every single relationship I've been in has made me. I get too caught up in obligation, I guess. Then again I haven't been in a relationship "post-nightmare". Maybe things would be different. But they seem to understand that it's probably better this way. As is my lot in life, those precious few women that I could probably be happy with I can't be with for one reason or another. As Zathras from the Babylon 5 series said, "Is very sad life, will probably have very sad death, but at least there is symetry."

It's funny. I had always thought I would get all kinds of pressure from women, but it's actually been my male friends who are far more concerned that I'm single. Come to think of it, I get more comments from my male friends than I do even from my mom. Every now and then I'll get the "It's your own stupid fault you're alone." to which I respond, "You didn't do so well with son-in-laws. You sure you want a daughter-in-law?". That pretty much ends that discussion.

I think at some level it really bothers Josh that I'm single. I think it bothers him even more than I turn down so many offers. It seems to offend him at some existential level. So of course, he has all kinds of "constructive" advice. Add a little alcohol in the mix and they all started ganging up on me. It was all very funny in a cringing sort of way. Luckily for me, there are mercifully few women at the Deal's Gap resort and the few that are there are married.

The next day, Tuesday, the rain let us a bit and the Dragon started drying out. I offered to take Joel through again and shoot from video of his riding with the GoPro Hero cam I have. The Dragon is one hell of a twisty challenging road.

Joel said that me leading helped him judge his entry and exit points since he did not know the road all that well yet. He continued to improve. John thought it was really cool that I got video of him. I offered to do the same for him but he said he wanted me to spend time with his son. "He's getting a lot out of it and I would just detract from that." he said. Instead, he headed off to run some errands.

It turned out that Joel's dream bike is the BMW R1100S. Coincidentally, that happens to be, as we all know, the guest bike. I checked with Bruce and then offered to let Joel give it a try. Since he was a relatively new and tentative rider, I asked him to ride it up and back in the parking lot first so he could get somewhat of a feel for the bike.

I then led him through the gap.

He was even more tentative on the 'S than he was on his bike. The 'S can run circles around the K100RS, even mine. It's a beast. It took me a bit to realize what the issue was. "Are you concerned about dropping the bike?" I asked. He confirmed my suspicion. "Listen, the intent is for you to have some fun. If you are over-cautious it's even more dangerous. You won't drop it, but if you do it's my responsibility. I'm the one letting you ride the bike. If you drop it I'll fix it. No worries. ok?". He started having a bit more fun on it after that.

I spent a couple hours with Joel going out and back. It was fun but I was starting to feel the need to push it a little bit. Josh's riding has really come along. He offered to mount his camera to his bike. He picked up his own GoPro. I followed him through the Gap at a decent clip. The video never looks as impressive as it feels but I did manage to put up a few in this forum thread.

The most challenging thing about riding a motorcycle is cornering. The bike leans. The suspension and drive train get all squirrelly. There's a lack of confidence in tire traction. You feel like you're going so much faster than you actually are. You feel like you're so much closer to the limits of traction than you are. There's a careful dance between body position, throttle position, braking, counter steering, picking an appropriate entry and exit points. Negotiating the corner apex. A very common accident is to come into a corner too fast and then panic. Either you hit the rear brake which does next to nothing, or you grab the front brake and crash, or you go wide and run out of the corner when the correct answer is to just lean the bike over more and take the corner harder. If you haven't practiced this time and time again, chances are in a panic situation you'll screw up. Deal's Gap presents an opportunity to practice worst case cornering over and over and over again. It's an awesome education and any rider who approaches this road seriously and applies some cornering discipline will become a much better safer rider as a result.

It completely changed me as a motorcyclist. As a matter of fact I have a few friends and acquaintances who are talking about getting into riding. I hope to talk them into going to Deal's Gap after they have some mileage under their collective belts and after they've taken Total Control.

For some reason I didn't take many photos Tuesday. We went down to Fontana Resort for dinner. It's a wonderful 11 mile ride down route 28, known as HellBender. We saw Josh's piglet on the side of the road again.

Since the rain had stopped I had planned on building another good fire but by the time we got back one had been built.

I was a little intimidated by the wastefulness of this awesome fire. They had /filled/ the pit with wood and created a fire so intense we had to stand outside the outer ring. It was drizzling but the water wasn't making it to the ground anywhere near the fire. That evening I met James, the Mississipi push boat captain. We got to talking about the gap. I think he saw me ride and had asked if he could follow me. "I want to see your lines." he said. This was strange since he rode a Super Motard which is basically a dirt bike with street tires and suspension. They are the fastest bikes through the Gap.

"Ok, but just pass me if I go too slow." I replied.

Very late that evening we retired to our "suite". This is what stupid tired looks like.

I managed to sleep. I slept really well. Finally.

Unfortunately, it was the end of Joshs trip. He got up at 6AM and headed out. We were all sorry to see him go.

When I woke I felt better than I had in weeks. The healing effects of motorcycle travel, I tell you what. I did a run out to the overlook early. While there I saw an Suzuki SV650 and a Bandit take off. The SV650 is a very competent bike and should be able to run the Gap pretty well. I wanted to follow someone fast so I got on my bike and chased them.

Unfortunately, the Bandit rider was a noob. Interestingly, I found following him for a while really educational. After a while, to realize what you're doing right you should watch someone do it wrong. His lines were all wrong as was where he was looking and how his body was positioned. He didn't let me pass but eventually I found an opening and went for it. After a bit I caught up to the SV650 rider who was much faster and was leaning off well. The faster corners he was taking correctly but to my surprise the short sharp corners he was slowing down way too much. I followed him for a while but was starting to get distracted by the fact that on the short corners I kept getting too close to his rear tire. This happens when you look through a corner ahead of the rider in front of you.

So I decided to pass him. After I hit my horn he let me by. Off I went. He stayed behind me for most of the Gap except in the tight corners. I don't run the straight sections that quickly preferring the more technical cornering sections. Old man needs his rest, after all.

I rolled up to the suite and he followed me. His name was Tyler.

"Damn", he said or something similar. James the pushboat captain showed up on his motard shortly afterwards and we went through the Gap again. "Can I tag along?" Tyler asked. "Sure." I replied. So we went through and by the time we got back the compliments started flying.

"You know, we used to rag on you old guys on your Beemers. I tell you what, not any more. Damn, you can lean that thing over. You could have dragged knee in places if you wanted to." James exclaimed.

I mentioned this all, jokingly, to Josh at some point some after the trip. "I didn't think I'd keep up with a Motard". We got into a discussion about brands and posuers. These guys weren't. They were relatively new riders but they took it seriously. Nothing Poseur about them. But in many cases down there you see the guys dressed in full race leathers on the super sport bikes that can't ride worth a damn. They buy bikes and gear inappropriate for their skill level.

When I started futzing with my suspension I went through some similar thoughts. It this just BS? Sure the suspension is beat but maybe I should just rebuild it to "stock" instead of trying to improve it. I've always believed in buying less competent equipment and then outgrowing it. It's much more difficult to ride a BMW K100RS through Dragon than a Super Motard or a sport bike. But I learn alot doing it. I have to be much smoother. I have to pay so much more attention. It's difficult.

But I had not considered that improving my equipment might actually allow me to learn something new. I would not have imagined that I would learn to become a better rider by improving my suspension. But I have. Even Duncan, Bruce and Josh commented on it. And I'm having significantly more fun as a result.

Joel and John left. We were unable to convince them to stay. They ended up riding the Blue Ridge. I heard from Joel recently. He said his time with me gave him the tools and confidence to really enjoy the Blue Ridge with alot less tension. I took it as a huge compliment.

Ego so huge now ... intolerable really.

For Ian's benefit, I figured I'd comment on the couple of old guys who took the room next to us who had Ducatis.

We decided to spent the day hanging out at the most challenging corner on the Dragon, the Gravity Cavity. James the pushboat captain showed up and offered to take some photos. So Bruce and I decided to see if we could improve our negotiation of this corner by repeatedly going through it. It's actually a beautiful spot.

And so we gave it a try.

Bruce on Duncan's K1300S.

Duncan shot some video of us using his Flip Camera. I'll have to do something with the video at some point but don't yet actually know anything about video editing.

That evening there was another fire. A guy was playing "Ring of Fire" on his harley stereo at the time when a huge flame fired out of the pit. Gasoline. Unfortunately the wood was so wet it could hardly burn. I worked on it for some time and slowly got the wood dried out. The guys once again said anything less than overkill was not enough so the pickup truck got loaded up with firewood and the pit was once again filled. 

Eventually it caught and we had another good fire.

The next day the weather was beautiful. We met Doug who was travelling across country from California. He was a video effects designer for major motion pictures. The last one he worked on was an animated film for Disney called Mothers for Mars or some such. Duncan and Bruce wanted to ride the Skyway. Doug joined us. He's a good guy and very disciplined rider who has clearly done a lot of miles.

Bruce had been talking about R1200GS's for some time but had never ridden one. "Hey Doug, how would you like to ride an R1100S up here?" I asked with a wry smile on my face. "Sure!" he replied.

So Bruce got to ride Doug's R1200GS.

And he liked it. We joked about getting him one.

The skyway is beautiful with incredible vistas.

Because of the nice weather it seemed like every bike was at the Gap. It was just too busy.

We went back to the Gravity Cavity to watch the mayhem.

And then to the overlook.

There's a reservoir. For the first time we saw a boat.

In motorcycling there's this concept of a "wanker strip". It's the strip of unused traction surface on the side of your tires. The larger the "wanker" or "chicken" strip, the less you lean the bike over. I regularly have leaned my bike so that there's virtually no wanker strip on the back tire. But I have never, in all the years I've been riding, had that happen to the front.

At this point I've spent most of my day writing and I'm running out of time. There are too many other stories and events to describe. There were the guys who had disassembled a bike with a broken frame.

"What was it?" I asked. "A CR500", the guy replied. "What will it be?" I asked. "A CR500 before I go to bed. The frame had broken. He was replacing the frame. I didn't believe he could get it done.

I was mistaken. Impressive.

The details are fading. The stories dissipating. It's now Tuesday. We got back late Friday night. We did the whole run from Deal's Gap back to Duncan's house in one day. 550 miles. Because we took breaks and didn't push ourselves too hard it was surprisingly easy.

Here's to next year. I'll have the bikes ready.

When I was Out There, it seemed to me that time slowed down. Fleeting moments felt like hours that left lasting impressions. However once I came home, time began to slip into the future quicker than it had. Days turned to hours. Weeks slid by. Before I knew it, six months had past. It's been three months since I've written anything and I started this article two weeks ago on my birthday. It feels like I just put it down moments ago.

We've all heard the cliche that time seems to pass more quickly as we age. I think this is only partially true. I feel it's more that we fall into familiar patterns where we encounter the same scenes and ideas day in and day out. Having nothing new to anchor our sense of the passage of time, time begins to slip.

As children, time passed slowly. Each day was filled with new experiences and ideas. There was always something to learn. Moments make an indelible mark that last a lifetime, like the only time I saw a flying squirrel. What we as adults would consider trivial was endlessly fascinating. The sight of our first bird, a bug or creek. It was all new and time past slowly because of it.

But as adults we've largely seen it all. Filed away as something familiar, repeat experiences no longer fail to slow us down and pull us into the moment.

But, travel to new and interesting places seems to. While I was Out There, I saw things I had never seen. Coyote. Buffalo. Bear. Moose. Elk. Carribou. Eagles. Whales. Endless day. Emerald lakes. Incredible people. Views into so many different lives. Every day held something new and time slowed down to the point where in some cases it felt like it stopped completely. How long did I stand there on the edge of the Dalton Highway on the North Slope alone? I remember that moment, standing in the middle of the big nothing as if I had spent days there. It's image is still burned into my brain. I may have stood there for less than 20 minutes.

There's something about having time slow down that makes writing easy. Being here, I've found writing to be vastly more difficult. Even now, as I try to type these words, I struggle in ways I didn't while on the road. The daily stresses and distractions take a toll on my ability to concentrate. The themes and words simply don't flow like I remember. While I was riding, alone in my helmet with only my thoughts to occupy me, exposed to the new, I found it strangely easy. By the time I stopped for the day, I had entire articles written in my head and it was just a matter of typing them in as fast I could.

Here things are different. The voice is fleeting and time passes so quickly it's hard to stop it long enough to craft words. After all the praise I've received for these words, I've felt a strange pressure to hold myself to the standard set by my previous self, a previous self that was in a different place and wrote under much different circumstances. As a result, I haven't written for fear of disappointing. Of course, this is a silly perspective. I have no idea what aspects of this people like or don't. For me it's always seemed that as soon as I have some goal in my mind, for instance I really want you to like what I write, it all falls apart. Instead of letting the story unfold as it will, the way I did while underway, I fixate on this artificial target, please like this, which narrows my field of view, reduces my options and causes me to fail. In motorcycling, target fixation is a classic way to crash. This pattern has shown up in so many aspects of my life. It seems as soon as I try to engineer some particular result or achieve some very specific rigid goal, I have always failed. This has been true as well with business, friendships, women ... I was always taught, and it's often been reinforced, that this is weak and is no way for a man to be. In American thinking, you choose a target and then you narrowly, using sheer force of will and dogged persistence, acquire that target to the exclusion of everything else. If you fail at that acquisition, then you are a failure at some existential level. Fear of that failure paralyzes you. Fear of the judgment that follows prevents you from even trying in the first place.

Coward.

It's interesting that every time I have succeeded in any business venture it's followed the same pattern as writing. It was never what I thought it was going to be and it was always more about just letting an opportunity develop on it's own terms rather than me forcing it to be something it could not be. Interestingly, if you listen to talks by the top business guys out there, you will inevitably hear the bravado where they with great conviction will attempt to convince you that it was their genius that led to their success. Think Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others. None of these companies knew with any clarity what they were going to become, despite what their founders might like you to believe. While they were in many ways brilliant, and worked very hard along the way, their success was much more related to the fact that they got out of their own way and let the opportunities unfold and define themselves.

This is something I have to remember but it is so easy to forget. Like difficult muddy roads, writing and life is something that, at least for someone like me, cannot be forced. I simply can't engineer my existence. I can't write to produce some effect.

So I will remind myself not to try.

When I started writing this article, it had been exactly a year since I made that fateful decision to go cross country. On that day, I didn't know I would go to DeadHorse. I only knew that I had to get away. I had envisioned a trip like the one I had in 1992. It would be long, grueling and involve a lot of miles. I imagined doing the near 1000 mile days which would, as I used to describe, sandblast the cobwebs out of my mind and leave a calm emptiness in it's place. In a masochistic way, I looked forward to the torture and wondered whether I could actually still do it. I didn't expect any great changes or insights and I certainly didn't believe I could run away from any of my problems. But I did think that maybe I could take a break from them for a little while. Maybe through grueling miles and the emptiness that results from them, I could quietly slip into the future and put some temporal distance between me and my troubles.

Of course, we know that the trip turned into something vastly different. I sometimes wonder where I would be today if it hadn't been for the blog. In the beginning, once the idea of going to DeadHorse for No Good Reason At All started forming in my head and I started mentioning this to close friends, most of them mothers. The overwhelming response I received was you're going to die! You have to send me an email or a text message every day so I know you're alright. After it got to be over a dozen, I began to realize there'd be no way I could ever keep up with that many messages.

You should write a blog, Maria, also a mother, said. That way anyone who's interested in your untimely demise can follow you and once the blog updates stop we'll know roughly where you bit it..

That made sense to me so I promised I would and I do try to keep my promises.

As I mentioned early on, a trip from Washington DC to DeadHorse Alaska isn't in and of itself noteworthy. Sure, it's a long way but it's a far stretch from the epic adventure one might think it is. It's done every year by little old ladies in RV's.

I remember thinking early on, if everyone has done a particular trip why bother doing one? It's a commodity trip to an arbitrary destination and there's no point to it.

I've started reading motorcycle magazines again. Last month, Brian Catterson wrote a little editorial in Motorcyclist Magazine called High Adventure where he wrote Please don't call to tell me you're riding around the world ... Hate to say it, but circumnavigating the globe on a GS has become a cliche.

In one way, he's right. If it's been done so often by so many, why do it?

He misses the important point.

We live in a world where most things have been done. With over 6 billion people on the planet it's unlikely that any of us will do much in our lives that truly has not been done before. Add to that the thousands of years of recorded human history and the chances become even less. All the great adventures have been had. The paths have been cut ahead of us. The most we can realistically hope for is to follow in someone elses footsteps to do what has already been done.

And it's completely irrelevant and lessens nothing.

This is because of the nature of stories.

If it weren't for a few serendipitous events, I would never have understood this.

My plan had been to ride the 15,000 miles focused, as I had been in 1992, only on riding miles like so many guys I met out there. On the '92 trip, I didn't meet a single person on my own. I spent all day every day on the bike from dawn till dusk. The country was a blur and the trip was over in a heartbeat my perspective over the handlebars largely unchanged. It is possible to go from one end of this country to the other and experience next to nothing.

I have to thank Maria for suggesting the blog. Without that one off hand comment, I would never have considered doing something like this. I knew I couldn't write. But I figured I would at least give it a try since no one would read it anyway. I figured those interested in my untimely demise might skim over the photos.

I learned to ride 36 years ago. I've been across the country three times and have taken countless lesser couple thousand mile trips. I've done it so often that much of what I do slips by too quickly because it's so familiar.

I figured I shouldn't write a typical road report. None of the people who expressed concern rode. Most had never been on a motorcycle. So these people would not be interested in the typical kinds of things that occupy the minds of motorcyclists. Tire wear. Oil consumption. Gravel. Road conditions. Speed. Miles. Pain. Antics. Monkeybutt. Boring.

Sometimes to get the an answer you have to ask the right question.

I asked myself, as I sat on my motorcycle crossing into Pennsylvania, What is it about this experience of riding a motorcycle cross country that I take completely for granted? What is it that is so routine that I don't even notice it or think to comment about it but that might give someone who has never ridden like this a sense of what the experience is like?

That question at that moment completely changed the nature of my trip. It prompted me to look at what I was doing through what I imagined were the eyes of people who cared about my well being but had no idea what it was like to travel many Miles by Motorcycle. It was not new for me, but it was new for them.

As I rode along on my little commodity trip out to some random point on the globe, I tasked myself to pay attention to those things that I have seen time and time again; that I take completely for granted but that someone who has never ridden across the plain states, or up in the Rocky Mountains or through deep canyons would not know about.

Suddenly time slowed down as if it was my first time. The nature of my trip changed from an external brutal assault of miles into an internal story I wanted to tell myself.

I tried to imagine what questions would others ask and what stories I could tell. Why do I ride? What's different about riding? What happens to someone traveling so far by motorcycle that does not happen to people in cars? Of course, these stories are old hat for anyone who rides. They are normal, even potentially boring because we've been Out There. We know. We've seen it all before.

But that's irrelevant for a story. Stories are not for us. They are for you. For you who have not done, seen, thought, felt, or experienced the things we have. Stories are how we, as human beings, share our experiences with others. It's core to what makes us human.

We are a storytelling species.

In the old days, merely doing a thing was sufficient for a story. There were technical challenges to overcome and the practical aspects of trips or any accomplishment were worthy of the telling. But today, where virtually everything has been done, merely telling the what, as Mr. Catterson implies, no longer cuts it. At the practical level, there are only so many ways to do a trip. So you ride bike around the planet. Maybe you try to distinguish yourself by riding an old bike around the planet. Or maybe you try another practical approach and do it one handed. Etc. etc.

Futile. It's been done.

I just finished watching the Long Way Down (affiliate link) where Ewan McGreggor and Charlie Boorman travel from the Northern Tip of Scotland down to the Southern Tip of Africa by motorcycle. It's a 12 part mini-series and is their second large trip.

The first, which they also turned into a mini-series is called Long Way Round (affiliate link) and documents their trip around the planet. If you ever want to get a visual feel for what it's like to travel the way I have watch either. Long Way Round is the better one, IMHO. The first couple of episodes are trip prep and then it gets really good.

I watched Long Way Round some time ago and last night as I finished watching Long Way Down, I wanted to see more. I found myself hoping that they do another trip and document it. I wanted to hear the story despite having heard and read about similar travels. The parts I found most compelling were not the scenery, the difficults roads, but instead the people they met. The lives they touched and most importantly the internal challenges they faced as they did their 15,000 mile trip. Ewan McGreggor is at times quite philosophical and introspective and is someone, given the chance, I would like to ride with.

Many of the themes and internal changes that I felt on my trip they talk about on theirs. Despite the fact that so many of the themes in their story are familiar to me, I was still captivated by their telling.

There's something significant here.

We seem to have a never ending capacity for listening to stories, especially stories about other people. I spent good money and watched many hours of video about a couple of guys riding motorcycles. In a way, it's absurd. I can go do that anytime. I also know, that even if they were to ride across the US and produce a video of it I would buy it and take the time to watch it. It'd be a good story.

So, on the one hand, while even just watching these guys try to pitch a tent in the cold wind and rain is interesting to me (Are you listening, Ian??) when it comes time to express my own experiences I become self conscious. Clearly, a story of pitching a tent is not worth telling ... but maybe it can be, especially to someone who has never been camping.

And I think there-in lies the difference. We lead finite lives. We believe firmly that our own stories are too boring, too common place to ever be worth telling. Yet somehow we crave the stories of others outside our experience. I've talked to so many people who feel that they have nothing worth telling.

I was recently at a bar talking to a guy who had served in Afghanistan and Iraq who was born in Ireland, lived in France for a while. He had been shot twice and had incredible stories of people and places. I've got no stories, he would tell me. What? Are you kidding??, I replied. Well, I've never ridden a motorcycle cross country, he answered. When he talks, I listen. It's always a good time but I think there's something here. Here's a man who's experienced things that I will hopefully never experience. Yet he doesn't feel that the stories are worth telling.

I think of Phil, the former America's Cup sailor who I stayed with in Boston. He's an incredible story teller. He has a way of taking even disasterous events and making them worth listening to. He's another individual who has experiences and insights I will never have. I benefited greatly from the stories he told me.

And I think that's the key. We all have our stories whether we believe they are worth listening to or not. Most of us, if not all of us, being so intimately familiar with our own stories, lose sight of how others might benefit from them.

We demand of our own stories that feeling we get when we listen to the compelling stories of others. I think the trick is to realize that we never feel that way about our own stories, because they are our stories. We share them not for ourselves but for others.

I recently got a friend request from a guy in Zimbabwe who had happened upon the blog. Zimbabwe?? I found myself wondering what his daily life is like. He could tell a story of getting up in the morning and going to work just describing what he saw, heard and most importantly felt during his day and while he might be bored in the telling of it, I would find it interesting. We live in a ridiculously small world.

How many people are there in the world that would feel the same about the mundane aspects of your own life? Or maybe put another way, what have you done that I never have? Can you remember the very first time you did a thing? Can you remember what drew your attention? Do you remember how you felt?

Stories start there.

I recently met Josh at the International Motorcycle show down in DC. He had mentioned some time before, based on the last article I had written, that he had wanted to tell me something; something that he thought I would benefit from.

We met for lunch before heading into the show and he tells me, "You may have been through hell, but you have great stories and I never get tired of listening to them. I don't have any stories but I hope to make up for lost time." I was floored. Thank you, Josh.

Josh has great stories too. He, like so many of us, just doesn't know it.