A Rare Opportunity

Well, a unique opportunity has presented itself to me. Something I have always wanted to do. I have a chance to ride a motorbike across the country, from east coast to west coast. But before I get into that, let me give you a little history.

I have four brothers. Zach, Chad, Josh, Cole aged oldest to youngest. We may not say it much, but after my lady they are my four closest friends. Call it a brothers bond or whatever you will, but I'd lay down my life for these four.

Cole and Josh are years younger than Chad, Zach, and I due to the fact that we have different fathers. Cole and Josh are still in high school and progressing through with much more success than I. Cole is a ladies man, kind hearted, meek, loving, always thinking of other people. Josh, well, I think he's a mix between myself and my great friend Aaron. Josh takes after me in looks. Not to say we look alike. We don't. I look like my father, he looks like his. But, I'm dashing and so is he. Yes, this is said with a bit of arrogance. But, this is my story so I'll elaborate where I want to. Josh is a jock, playing baseball religiously; a choir boy, singing in the vocal ensemble; an avid music lover, recently picked up an electric keyboard and taught himself how to play; a book worm, he gets good grades with a relative amount of ease. Neither one know how to clean their rooms.

Chad is a year younger than I. For this, we fought a lot. I remember throwing him across the room when I was in 6th grade and he in 5th. Not sure why. I also remember him pulling a knife on me and threatening to stab me. So...I did the only rational thing at the time and pulled a bigger one and did try to stab him. I should be careful here not to elaborate too much for fear that I'll paint our childhood a violent one. It was not. But to also show love for my brother, it was that same year during a bus ride home that a neighbor, and I say that loosely as we lived in the country, was picking on Chad. I was tired of it so on the way off the bus I punched him in the face as hard as I could. His head hit the window, it broke, although I'm not sure if the cracking sound was his head or the window. Chad is now grown. As successful, if not more, than I am in business. He's much better looking and could grow a beard to rival mine if he ever got up enough courage.

This leads me to Zach. Gregory Zachary Scott Lucas to be exact. It's hard to tell where to start with Zach. He's the oldest child. Always looked after us, but never carried us, always made us walk through life. He was smarter than I growing up, as far as books were concerned. I remember him wearing Jesus sandals and rainbow belts and shoelaces, etc in high school. I thought he was trying to be a hippy most of the time, but also heard that he might have been trying to take the rainbow back from the gays. Apparently he didn't think it was fair that only gays could wear those colors. A bit of a rebel that one.

He went off to college. Randomly drove across the country to visit a girl. Dropped out of college. Moved in with our father. Worked construction. Joined the Marine Corps and that is where he is at today. 6 or so years after joining and he is now an officer, married, two beautiful kids, strict, passionate about numbers, business, motorcycles, the Marine Corps, and his family, in no particular order.

My older brother, who I never fully understood, and still don't is the same today that he was 15 years ago. He always stood, protecting us as best he could, watching, keeping the worst at bay. He is still doing that. Today, though he keeps us all safe, guarded. He's the shadow on top of that wall, with the big ass gun pointed at any outsider who wanders too close. I don't care your politics, what side of the isle you are on, or if you are standing in the middle. That is the life of a marine. The life of an older brother.

For this reason I am honored to have been asked to guard something that led to this great opportunity I mentioned earlier. He's asked me to watch over his motorcycle. His only motorcycle. His brand new Harley Davidson. To be exact it's a 2009 Harley Davidson Sportster Iron 883.

To give you an idea of what this means to me. I was into bikes long before he. I own two Honda CB650's. One sleeper, the other is slowly on it's way to being a street tracker. The monetary value of both combined, after all the work, is still less than half the value of my brothers Iron. Last year I started this blog to document my longer rides. Not my daily commute, or even Saturday runs around town, but really getting out and hitting roads I've never seen. I live in Portland, Oregon. The Iron is in Stafford, Virginia.

I knew one day in the next few years I wanted to take some time and ride around the United States. I didn't think that the opportunity would present itself so soon after, and on a bike I have to worry much less about breaking down along some back county road in Alabama.

This is an opportunity I plan to never forget.

False Insecurities

I have so much to learn. She's afraid, my wife, of the risks of trying. Not the money, well that too, but what it will do to me if for all my trying I just can't win.

I say bullocks! Don't you win just for trying? Maybe not the prize you initially envisioned, but certainly something just as valuable.

Just like riding a motorcycle, the same thing could be said about horses, and probably was, you always get back on. What I think I never told her was that my first time on a bike I crashed. Right into a post of barbed wire fence. We were supposed to go camping that day. Instead I rode a motorcycle and landed in the hospital with a broken ankle.

I remember sitting at home the next day, foot in cast for 6 weeks, and thinking about all the things my friends were saying as they still went camping. What jokes were they making? What fool did they think me to be?

I grinned and didn't care...I rode that steel horse and I was going to get on it again. It didn't matter the destination or how I stopped, simply that I took it for a ride.

The risk is there everyday. A fool be the man that stands on false securities. Me...I'll stand on those foot pegs, 8 inches off the Tarmac at 65 M.P.H. headin straight into the sun.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]

Ain't Nothing Like a Little Recognition

I think, I'm not sure, but I think, that today was the first day anyone on the World Wide Web has linked to this specific blog. It is an honor, and a wake up call. It's been months, but I've found myself recently back to the place where this was all derived, and now...

I find myself looking forward, to the future. I had a great lunch with a friend of mine, E.R. Sprague, on Monday. We're both trying to get set a snowball in motion of our dreams, our passions. We're both trying to get the damn things out of our heads, and either onto paper, or built and into useful hands. We find it very difficult, very frustrating, and very un-motivating. But every once in a while...things just seem to come together.

To me, building this dream was very much like rebuilding the top end for my 1982 CB650. It was scary, simply because I'd never done it before. I knew there was a lot of pieces, and I could spend hours, days even, taking them apart, cleaning them, analyzing them never to put them back together again. And that was my fear! That I would never put it back together. 21 hrs straight of dismantling my first top end last year. I bagged and tagged every washer, nut, bolt, and even a piece of old crusty chain grease that had solidified so much I thought it was part of the starter assembly. I wasn't quite as scared when I finished the tear down that night. Knowing I could come back tomorrow, open up the container I had organized and either associate a part number, a serial number, or a made up number I had come up with, with a picture or section in the manual somewhere.

You see, through the whole process I really had no idea how I was going to get to where I knew I needed to be. I didn't know what all was going to be entailed in taking that top end off. But I knew that if I "tagged and bagged" everything along the way, if I ever messed up, it would be like leaving a bread crumb trail back to home.

So as I sit here knowing the point at which I want to be some day soon, I still have a very unclear picture of the path it's going to take to get there. But I'm tagging and bagging all the nuts and bolts along the way. Oh, and that CB...she made it back together. A couple of bad timing jobs and broken bolts, she's fast enough to startle me when I twist the throttle fully.

The Sadness Is Mine

Ryan Adams said this, "the sadness is mine."
Today, I say it. Sadness, realizing that I am the most productive by myself, but most motivated when with other people. Now, that is a rather large discrepancy. How do I reconcile that? I get most motivated when other people are around, but I get more done when they leave?

What am I suppose to do? "Hey Chad, yeah, can you come over for I dunno, 20 minutes, and give me a pep talk", I'd say. Then 20 minutes in, "Okay, now get the F out!"

I don't see how that works. I love to share my idea's with people, with friends, but when I do, I don't get much movement on them. But when I keep them bottled up, I need to see some sort of movement, so they come out in actually getting it done.

Then there is the side of me, that after sharing my dreams, and good ones they are, with a friend, I immediately turn around and think that they might steal my idea and do it themselves. After all, they have more money, more connections, etc. So then I talk myself into trust issues with my closest friends.

As you can see, the sadness is mine. And still no running bike to take it out on the road.
Damn shame.

Aaron's Bike Path

We all take different paths to our first two-wheeled purchase. I'm not talking about rambling a pedal bike down a creek drainage for the first time, though the title suggests it. And I'm not talking about the '68 Rok-on that you saddled up every time you went to your cousin's farm. I'm talking about the first time the conscious decision was made and the dear cash handed over in exchange for internal combustion between two tires. When friends tell me that they want to buy their first motorcycle I tend to calculate an instant power-to-weight ratio of sorts for the rider's weight, body-type and physical ability, etc. What usually comes spilling out is a bike that is controllable and fun enough to never out-grow. But just tonight, I read an old blog from one of the Cycle World writers and I am reminded that not everyone's path is the same.

02.01.2007
GETTING SMALL
by Keith May

I am just realizing, but Nathanwide and his CB100 already understand, that sometimes it's better to just ramble along. You get to see more trees, more leaves, and take more time to stare down that Douglas Squirrel in the middle of Camp Sherman Lane. There is more experience in the world around the pavement and maybe more freedom, but even if I'm wrong about that I now believe I need to make room in my stable for smaller bikes.

So why did I decide yesterday that this was the next addition to my fleet? It only comes in that yellow and I still want it... unless I find a mid-70's XL250 before Aaron.

TWAFR Teaser 1 HWY 138 E Crater Lake to 97 N

Below is just an unedited teaser. Camera shots are bad as the road was bumpy. But if you look closely, it is beautiful country.

First Up

Day 2: 9:11 a.m.:

I am the first to rise, by almost two hours. Nit hardly a sound from the others, save a muffled snore from Officer Hillson, and a once and a again rustling from someone rolling against a tent wall. I keep thinking Aaron is going to rise, but he never does.

[Posted with iBlogger from my iPhone]