Motorcycling to me is...

I love riding my bike. Not a shattering statement, but it defines me.

I prefer going on long trips, but for now I have to work, so I ride to work most days and enjoy the country roads. I can smell everything flowers, pine trees, skunk spray and cow dung (LOL). I can FEEL the weather; the wind and the warmth or the cold. I can be calm or angry or happy without anyone knowing or judging. It makes me feel alive.

Riding can sometimes be hard work, especially in heavy traffic, thunderstorms or at high speed on a busy highway. The constant concentration required to arrive alive on the other side of the trip, knowing that most motorists are constantly distracted. (Riding on a bike lets you see inside cars and realizing that they text, talk on cells, eat, drink and pick up stuff off the floor. Interestingly you can smell when they smoke, and can often distinguish between tobacco and that other I-did-not-inhale-type.)

Sometimes I am dancing on the bike and singing in my mind and sometimes I sing out loud. I scream at idiots who cut me off and swear at the top of my lungs and my words get lots in the wind, so no one hears it and no one cares.

When I feel like everything else is crap I can fantasize about not turning and just going straight when a tight bend in the road comes up, flying over the cliff like Thelma and Louise. This usually makes me feel better and I laugh out loud and safely lean into the turn.

I am always pretty much inside my own head, but riding is the ultimate in me-time.