Perfection is Boring

I miss my Harley. I miss my old Ducati. I miss the Yamaha XS 750 triple that I rode in high school. I miss all of the dirt bikes I owned. If you couldn’t tell, there’s a theme here. Every motorcycle builds its own character as you ride it. They all have their own idiosyncrasies that you get used to. They tend to have their own feel.

 

Two motorcycles that are the same make, model, and year can feel totally different. Maybe one owner lives on a dirt road, while the other lives in a city, which could totally change the wear on the suspension. One owner may have aftermarket exhaust or suspension. Over the course of time each bike will become unique.

 

It’s that unique feel that makes a motorcycle belong to you. That is its character. The character is what I miss the most of all my past bikes. The thing that made them unique. This is why I tell riders to not fret over every scratch or ding on their bike. These types of things tell its story. Perfection is boring.

 

“Perfection itself is imperfection.” - Vladimir Horowitz

My Drinking Team has a Motorcycle Problem

It seems that everytime I get together with my old friends, two things happen. One is that we drink beer. The other is that we talk motorcycles. It seems inevitable.

 

Last weekend, one of my friends was having a birthday party for his daughter . While our wives, kids, and other guests were inside eating cake, opening presents, and doing all the rest of the standard birthday party stuff, a bunch of us snuck outside and cracked a few cold ones. After that, it didn’t take long and motorcycles were the topic of discussion.

 

This time the subject was trials bikes. We complained about how expensive and unavailable they are (the used ones). Then we started scheming on ways to travel south, where there are many more trials motorcycles available, to buy a bunch to resell at home. By this time, the amount of beer that was drank was driving the schemes more than anything else!

 

It’s definitely a little crazy that I can go months without hanging out with these guys and when I do, we end up doing the same thing, drinking beer and talking motorcycles. I think I wouldn’t want it any other way. “

 

Beauty is in the eye of the beer holder.” - Kinky Friedman

Embrace the Suck

October is usually the last month of riding season here in the upper Midwest. About once a decade we’ll have a snow free November, but I’m not counting on that happening. Before we know it, motorcyclists will be longing for Spring.

Recently, I’ve been dabbling in jiu jitsu. Actually, I wouldn’t even call it dabbling. It’s more like fumbling my way through it about once a week. As a fairly large guy, I wasn’t really used to being thrown around and getting twisted like a pretzel, but I am now. It’s pretty humbling to have a much smaller person submit you over and over and knowing that they are actually taking it easy on you!

A jiu jitsu coach that I follow on Instagram and YouTube was asked a question about going through rough patches of training. His response was to “embrace the suck.” In other words realize that the bad things make the good things so much sweeter.

I think we motorcyclists should take this approach with Winter. Embrace it! Know that the wait to ride will make it so much more awesome when it actually happens. Also, make the knowledge of how much Winter sucks force you to enjoy these last rides you have right now.

“You go with it, man. You embrace the suck. You’re gonna have the peaks and you’re gonna have the valleys. You can only have the peaks because the valleys exist. You can only have the sweet because the sour exists. So, even though you don’t like it, it’s just a part of it and, honestly, down the road you’ll be glad you went through it” - Nick “Chewy” Albin

Here’s the jiu jitsu coach’s social media I was discussing. Check him out if you are at all interested in jiu jitsu.
https://instagram.com/chewjitsu?utm_source=ig_profile_share&igshid=uu6dl1cdprx8

https://www.youtube.com/user/chewybjj