The weather widget showed a high of 20ºC on Saturday. After taking Celia (http://celiafriesen NULL.com/) to her musical theatre class and back, and a picnic lunch with Bonne (http://bonnefriesen NULL.com/), Celia and Seth (http://sethfriesen NULL.com/)1, I leathered up, mounted my 1985 Honda Shadow VT750 and set out on my first long2 trip on the motorcycle, ever.
Read more…
Tag: motorcycle
After all that mucking about, my brother called. “What’s going on?” he asks.
I tell him my sordid sob story.
“J — give my father-in-law a call. All you need to do is buy that drawbar that was too long and cut the end off it. Dad Wiebe will have tools.”
Read more…
This list is longer than I originally intended…
Read more…
Yesterday, the outside temperature rose to 10ºC.
I’ve been sick with a stomach flu, but felt a little better in the afternoon. The sun was shining, melted snow was dripping frantically from the roof, and under my motorcycle in the yard, an ever-widening patch of uncovered grass.
Read more…
The driving rain subsided to a trickle, and then stopped. After an hour or so, I packed up some rags and chrome polish and wandered out to the bike to see what I could do to the pipes. I scrubbed industriously for awhile, and they started looking really nice again.
It dawned on me that it was warm, sunny, with just a light breeze. I checked the temperature: twelve degrees Celsius. Hmm… roads are dry too…
My beautiful wife was feeling tired and uncomfortable. But with happy, enthusiastic persistence, I managed to convince her to come out for a ride.
Read more…
The most common comment I am hearing nowadays is:
“Gee, you have a motorcycle! That’s great! I really want one, but my wife won’t let me get one.”
I did speak to one man whose story was similar to my own: his wife encouraged him to buy a Harley Davidson. Unlike me, he’d already been riding motorcycles for a while. I also know a man whose divorce was sparked by his purchase of a Harley. The saddest statement I’ve heard for a long time was: “I am finally so old that the desire to ride a motorcycle seems to have disappeared.”
My wife bullied me into strongly encouraged me to take motorcycle lessons, and when financially possible, to buy a motorcycle. The point was that motorcycling does something to men, something healthy, something alive. Maybe it’s the adventure. Maybe it’s the (relative) risk. But for me — and for many men — it’s something that encourages life in us.
There are so many reasons to ride a motorcycle: economy, environmentalism, enjoyment. The reasons against seem to be the inherent danger and some sort of threat — that the motorcycle will be competition, taking attention and passion away from the wife, like another lover.
This is worth further study. But I ask this: if you (or your husband) is really interested in riding a motorcycle, why would you refuse?
