Six Days

Against the wall to the right of my computer screen is a torn-out page from the March/April 2010 issue of Motorcycle Classics Magazine. The temptress-picture of California Highway 58 on it has mocked my office life for longer than I can remember.  Next to frayed edge of desert is a Triumph poster showing the 2011 Speed Triple.  Although I can't see inside the rider's helmet, I can hear what he's saying.  I've had motorcycles on my mind for over five years.  It started as an idea, morphed into an obsession and finally: reality.

Everything I've experienced so far has felt different on the inside than it appeared on the outside.  College, first love, joining the almighty work-force.  But in all honesty, I don't have any expectations about next week.  I know where my skills are at and what I'll need to do to improve them.  I know where I'm starting and ending on a map.  I know what I'm wearing and what I'm carrying.  But I have no clue what it will feel like rolling through Green Mountain National Forest (right past Killington Resort).  Not an inclination what "pushing the bike down" at 60 miles per hour will feel like.  I don't know what it will sound like, look like or taste like.

With the exception of the drums, there is nothing in this world that I have wanted more than this.  In six days, I am riding my very first motorcycle.

Edit on September 11, 2012: You know, looking back on this over a year later, I have to correct something.  The last sentence of this post reads as if I had never rode a motorcycle before.  That's simply not true.  The first time I rode a motorbike was in Burkina Faso in 2007.  I acquired my motorcycle license in the spring of 2010.  Thus, I've been riding for a couple years.  The emphasis of that last sentence was meant to be on the "MY" indicating I'd be riding the first motorcycle I've ever owned.  Also, please note, I bought the motorcycle in February of 2011, a full four months before picking it up.