Going faster...

So, my darling dearest boy has offered the observation that I may be the only rider on the planet who doesn't want to go faster.  When I started riding, I had an irrational fear that going fast was going to fling me from my motorcycle, a fear that has mostly passed.  Yet, I still have trouble keeping up with traffic.  I was riding home from work last night, and found that once the needle hit 70, I started to worry about getting pulled over.  While I'm mostly over the fear part of going fast, I have anxiety about getting a ticket.  Yet, going slightly faster than traffic is the safest way to ride.  This creates an internal conflict that has yet to be resolved. 

This is where being a therapist comes in handy.  I borrow a couple of Cognitive Behavioral skills that I try to teach my clients.  First, I take comfort that on my second day of riding, when my darling boy was following me, he wondered if I had a top speed of 17 mph. Because I couldn't seem to go faster than 17mph.  Which on a motorcycle, on city streets, is slow.  Slower than the posted speed limit.  And certainly slower than any car wants to go.  If I can learn to go more than 17mph, I can figure out this internal conflict that seems to exist between safe riding and posted speed limits.  Second, I remind myself that my actual speed is actually slower than my speedometer says.  This helps me combat the part of my brain that reads and follows rules without thinking about them.  There are pros and cons to being a rule follower, and this is one of the cons.  My third strategy is to remind myself that going any slower than traffic is dangerous.  Cars are bigger, heavier, and quite oblivious to my presence.  My strengths on a motorcycle are being nimble and quick.  I need to utilize my advantages to overcome my disadvantages.

Reflecting on these lessons, I realize they are great life lessons.  We are all in a process of growth, and when we get frustrated with where we are today, we can look back and see the changes we have made.  Rules exist for a reason, but so does our capacity to reason.  It's important that we always approach rules with a skeptical mind, to understand and integrate them into our value system thoughtfully.  And we all have strengths and weaknesses.  As we accept our weaknesses, we can work on improving those, as well as playing to our strengths.  This self acceptance will lead to an overall happier life.

The controls...

My new related hobby is reading motorcycle autobiographies, especially about female riders.  In the most recent two books, both of which are fabulous, the authors dedicate some amount of time to the controls of the motorcycle.  So, I suppose I should too.  I remember the first time my sweetheart put me on his YZ250.  I'm 5'2" and hadn't ridden a bicycle in years.  There was something about easing out the clutch and rolling on the throttle.  Given my later challenges with those activities, I don't know how I actually got going, but I did, on a gravel road, in a straight line, but I had no idea how to stop and no way to reach the ground if I did, so when I felt ready, I'd just hit the breaks until I was rolling slow, and jump off.  Turns out, one of the things that does come naturally to me is tucking and rolling, which is good, because my best dirtbiking "skill" has turned out to be crashing.  More on that another time.

But the controls.  The concept of slowly letting the clutch out, rolling on the throttle, and easing off the brake, and moving was nearly impossible to grasp, and learning it involved many instances of killing and having to kick my little CRF 80.  I'd be exhausted after about 20 feet, because I had killed and kicked that bike so many times.  It's funny.  Most of the motorcycle biographies discuss the first gear down, second through fifth up shifting process.  I had trouble going fast enough to get out of first gear for a long time, so that wasn't too much of a problem for me.

One of the great things about that experience has been after two seasons of dirt bike riding, I don't have trouble with killing my street bike.  I read about my book characters sitting at stop lights having to restart their bikes, and feel relieved, because I  have mastered one small part of motorcycle riding.  While countersteering and counterleaning are still in my list of skills to learn, I can gently go. 

Now to go faster...

How it all began...

As a kid, I had two views of motorcycles. On the one hand, there was the desire to be free, go fast, and fly through the air.  On the other, there were the many stories of family and friends who had fallen.  It became a 'let's think about that later' desire.  Fast forward to college, relationships, and child rearing, and motorcycles were a daydream, a song lyric, and a 'when the kiddo is 18, I'll look into that' desire. 

And then there was a boy.  A boy who came to visit on a motorcycle.  A boy who took me for a ride on the back of his motorcycle.  An invitation into the club...  Would I walk through the door?

This blog will outline highlights and stories of the journey into riding, along side of being a partner, a mother, a friend, and a therapist.  Stories from each of these identities may appear at any point, because riding a motorcycle isn't something you do, isolated from your life.  It's part of who you become, every minute of every day.  I want to write to express the joys, the challenges, the ups and the downs of this journey.  Perhaps someone will stumble upon this blog when they are considering giving up on their desire to ride and find hope, perhaps someone will get to relive their newbie mistakes, perhaps no one will ever read this, and it will be my little online journal.  Nothing about riding a motorcycle has come naturally to me, but I knew the moment I sat on my first Honda CRF 80 (at the age of 36) that this was something I would want to do forever.