Ridin'

I went for a 20-mile motorcycle ride last Thursday.
Ordinarily, that would not be worth mentioning. But this has not been an ordinary year. Ordinarily, I would have put at least 1,000 miles in my mirrors by this point in the year. For the first four months of 2007, my mileage stands at a pathetic 70 miles.
The ongoing garage project is the biggest reason. As the demolition of our old garages neared, I shifted our two bikes to my neighbor Larry's barn, where they have been keeping his BMW R1150RT company. That makes it a bit of a hassle to gear up and walk about a quarter-mile down the road to go for a ride. (Yeah, I know. That wouldn't be a problem it I were really motivated to go for a ride.)
But with Maria and me working five, sometimes six, nights a week and our weekends getting filled up with photo shoots and her family stuff and the marginal Indiana spring weather, I haven't found the time to throw a leg over a bike and blow out the cobwebs.
But on Thursday, I resolved that come Hell or high water, I was going for an afternoon ride. Besides, my neighbor Larry had a t-shirt for me from BMW Motorcycles of Western Oregon. BMWMWO is owned by Larry's daughter and son-in-law. They have a BMW motorcycle dealership in Eugene and just opened a new dealership in Tigard, a suburb of Portland. Larry and his wife flew out for the grand opening a couple of weeks ago and I put in a request for a shop t-shirt, since I expect to visit the dealership the next time I ride out to visit my son Sean and his wife in Portland.
I also had the 2007 registration certificates and license plate stickers to put onto the bikes.
Since Maria's '94 K75S was the easier of our two bikes to extricate from the barn, I chose it for my ride. It was sunny and the temperature was in the 70s when I tapped the gearshift lever down into first, eased the clutch out and rode down Larry's driveway with no particular destination in mind.
It felt great to be moving on two wheels again and I found myself smiling as I accelerated out of town, heading east on Ind. 47. I rode down to the county seat, and had a cup of coffee at McDonald's while I gazed out the window and admired the acid green bike glowing in the afternoon sun.
I thought of a dozen places I wished I could ride to, but realized my time was limited because I had to be at the newspaper by 5:30 or 6 p.m. to help Maria edit copy and read proof. So I took the back roads home, eluding dogs at two farmhouses where I'd not been chased before. In both instances, the dogs were in pursuit as I approached the apex of a 90-degree turn, which made it a little tricky to accelerate before they were on me.
I hated to switch the engine off, but I promised myself I'm going to keep next weekend open for some serious riding, weather permitting of course.