My bike is done.   Waiting for the phone call to go pick it up.   Man, I can’t hardly hold a thought in my head.  All I can think about is riding her again.

I’m waiting any day now. my camera is ready, my bags are already packed, and my route is planned. I just don’t have my bike yet. Tomorrow? I hope? Friday? I honestly don’t know.

Maybe you don’t know what I’m talking about.   Maybe touring is not your idea of a good ride.  Thats cool.   To me, it *IS* riding.   Of an 15 hour a day, 3 day ride, this is what its like for me:

1. first 2 hours, are nothing but stress like any other day.   wondering if I forgot anything, if I am gonna hit rain, if I’ve abandoned my family or if something is going wrong at work.
2. next 2 hours I realize that I’m actually heading somewhere.   My senses come back.   My feet are up on the foot pegs, and I swear to god theres a tiny hole in my boots where my problems and my life stresses are dripping out.
3. next 2 hours its dusk, and I’m getting excited.   It’s still a friday or a thursday night.   I’m feeling alive again.   I start to notice the evening stars and The smells of the road.  Music sounds better.   Starting to feel alive again.
4. I hit my hotel room or pitch my tent, with a new point of view.   Tomorrow, the world is fucking mine.  MINE.   I’m gonna see what there is too see, and my watch isn’t worth looking at because time has slowed down and doesn’t matter.
5. I wake up, with the cold air on my face, and the day at my feet.   Every decision now is a good one:  Do I eat at the local coffee shop, or quick mart?  There are no wrong answers.   everything is an experience now.    I have all day.   Tonight, I’ll be even further from home.   Load the bike, and get on with it.     Its all good.
6. I ride all day.  I feel my wits and my senses come back.   I know, worse case scenario that If I have to I can not show up to work till tuesday morning, or make 1k miles on a ride home.   Maybe I’ll be back monday at noon.  It’s not going to screw up today.
7. Toward saturday at around 4pm, I make more decisions about my day.   I’ll live by them.  I hit my camp by dusk, set my camp, drink a nip of scotch, call my wife and tell her my philosophy or description of my day.  by this point, I’m a new man and I miss her and my kids.   I’m looking foward to seeing her.
8. sunday morning, I head home.   no matter how far away that is.

Cheap therapy for about 6 tanks of gas, a sleeping bag and a love of the open road.   You tell me what else can do this, and I’ll kiss your ass.   After 42 years of life, I haven’t found it.

Dammit, I’m frustrated.

I knew from the 90 minutes I sat by the side of the freeway last december when I blew my engine, that I was going to spend at least 3 grand to get it rolling again.   A few weeks later I figured 4 grand.  then, when my flywheel was fucked I figured it would be $4,500.  I’d planned on raising that much.   I raised $1900 and gave it to jerry, which left 2600 bucks I had to come up with.     Jerry called me and told me my bike would be done thursday.   I rallied, did some hustling, sold some web sites and got 2500 bucks thursday.   Man, was I happy.  I made my goal.

Till i got there and found out I was 1,175 dollars short.   I’ll raise that too.   I’m waiting on one part to come in from Milwaukee, then I’ll be riding again.   Jerry is being very fair to me on a bike that needed everything but case halves, cylinders and heads.

Really, none of this matters.  Not your problem, It’s my problem.    I was hoping to be breaking my bike in again tonight.   Listening to the stereo, cruising over the utah hill tonight, dreaming of where I’d ride to this summer.   I’d change my oil for the initial break in, and ride a few hundred more miles and change it again.   Then, the US is my oyster.

My bike is important to me.   Man, Maybe too important to some people, but certainly not to me.   It’s my sanity — my reset button.   It’s my psychiatrist that asks for nothing more than a tank of gas and an unknown road to tell me exactly what I need to do to make my life, my BACA chapter, my family and my direction all come into harmony and be better.   You may not understand that.   If you don’t, you probably don’t ride.     4 hours into an unknown direction, things come into focus.   Clarity happens.    I learn to appreciate the thorns that I have bled to, the plant that I am keeping alive and the roses that smell so sweet once again.     I’ll ride another 10 hours away from home, and the way home I go home a better man.  A more patient husband, an understanding father.   Thats not drama, thats reality.    I absolutely understand that I need to ride.

The last 2 years I’ve given up so much.   I lost my home of  15 years.   I went months and months keeping my employees paid and me going home with nothing most weeks.   I’ve had repo men on my doorstep more than a few times.   I’ve defaulted on credit cards.    i’ve had phone calls from people I’ve owed money to.   I’ve had fridays I’ve barely made payroll.    My wife has not had grocery money.   I’ve sat home a failure, with my phone blowing up from bill collectors.    All with my bike in the garage, and 25 bucks for 2 tanks of gas, and I’ve risen and fought again on monday.

Now, my business is profitable again.   have a little money, and am using it to pay off the debt I’ve accrued to keep my business alive.   My business partner has stayed my best friend, who fights his fights as well, and many of mine.   But my bike is not in the garage, and I can’t enjoy any of it without it.   Next week, I will.   I’m going to take a few hundred dollars, ride to texas for the first time in my life, re-align my priorities, and come home with my ass on fire and my head clear.    Gotta get my rockability back.

Even my bike let me down at the perfect time of the year.    I can’t complain about a thing.

My wife is rock solid.  I’ve picked my friends well.   My business is healthy.   My family is good.    Once my bike is back, I’ll be complete.       Like I said, its not me being dramatic.   It’s a fact of my life.     I am a Biker.

Just called Jerry.   My bike is gonna be done thursday.   I’m not going to be able to sleep for 2 days.   I also gotta find a few thousand dollars.    I’ll find it.   You’ve never met a man more motivated.

First thing im gonna do is take the old girl to the firehouse for a beer.   It’s date night.

Stroker crank is in, stroker pistons are in, backplate and oil pump are in with the new cam chain tensioners, new pushrods, rings, bore is finished and looks good.   new bearings, oil lines.   its all in.

I should have my bike back next week.

I remember early on feeling that It was my job to provide.   I remember being in 9th grade, writing some silly ass paper in creative writing and taking it pretty seriously, that I was going to have a wife and kids someday and it was going to be my job to make sure they had a roof over their heads, food on the table and clothes on their backs.     I sound like I’m being dramatic, but I can remember the exact moment.  The desk I was in.  the  blue lines on the paper, and the teacher standing in front of the room. The feeling I had as I wrote it.    Funny, I didn’t know that very moment would stick with me.   Maybe moreso than any moment in my life.    Providing for my family is my job.

It’s not some macho bullshit.   If my wife ever wanted to work, I wouldn’t have some ego trip about it.   She’s never asked, and I’ve somehow been able to eek out a living.  Sometimes we’ve kicked ass.   Sometimes we’ve looked at foreclosure and had U-Hauls in our driveway and tried not to think about the memories of kids we’ve raised in the home we lost.   Thoughts of little girls in new school dresses in front of trees we planted with our own hands.   Bringing home babies to new cribs.    Problems overcome.   Neighbors we gave a shit about, and some we didn’t.  Starting new endeavors.  Struggling together.  Winning and losing together.   Each time, figuring it all out and moving on.

But every time, I’ve felt the weight of making sure we could move on.   Making sure that I had some sort of decision to share and to believe in.     It certainly hasn’t all been me, my wife has supported, fought and busted ass right along side me.   calling me out when I needed to be, and defending and moving ahead with the plan.      Adjusting the plan.

I hope someday my daughters will look back and remember their tattod Old Man who fought to give them a life.    I’m sure they’ll marry men different than me, but I hope they find someone who at least has the same quality as me.   I may be a lot of things:  Impetuous.  Impatient.   Loud at times, understanding at times.   But I’ve never given up.    Not on them.  Not on my wife.  Not on our life.  Certainly not on my responsibilities.     It’s why men die earlier than women.

I’m so thankful that I found a woman who’s got the same moxy.   Robyn, I love you.