Motorcycle Musings

As you probably know by now, I love riding my motorcycle. I especially love riding now when I see the gas prices creep closer and closer to $4.00 a gallon (our cheapest gas in Boise is about $3.20 a gallon but I've seen it here up to $3.63 a gallon, and it's on the rise). I get over 75 miles to the gallon on my bike... compared to about 17 miles to the gallon with my Blazer. When you figure that I have a 20 mile round-trip commute everyday, I can save quite a bit of $$$ by riding. I have, however, up to this point made it sound like riding is always incredible. I've realized over the past year or so that there are sometimes I'd rather be in a car!

• Riding behind a garbage truck inhaling other people's rotting garbage really stinks. And there's no rolling up a window to shut out the smell.
• It is possible for a bug to somehow splat underneath your sunglasses when riding a motorcycle. And when it sticks to your eyelashes, it can be really annoying and hard to see.
• When it's 104 degrees outside and you're in full gear, you'd better expect to have to take a shower when you get home. No matter how fast you ride, the wind is still HOT wind. Oh, and stopping at lights when it's that hot really isn't fun.
• And when it's 40 degrees or colder, your hands freeze (unless you have really excellent gloves). The bummer part is that you need your hands to shift, break, and apply gas. And I've yet to find a heater on my motorcycle (although I know there are special hand grips that are heated).

Really, though, I ride as much and as often as I can. I often go on rides just for the fun of it - to explore new roads in the town that I've lived in my entire life. It's amazing how many streets I had no idea existed. Like the other day, we found a street just a few miles down the road from where I live. We turned on it, and there were no other roads off of it for over 10 miles! I was wondering if we'd ever hit civilization again :-) Anyway, just some random ramblings of my life as a motorcyclist!