Finding Time

Time is a valuable entity, one over which we have no control.  As much as we'd like to speed it during a traffic jam or slow it whilst having fun with friends, it moves inexorably at a pace of its own choosing.  The only throttle we exert over time is our usage of it.  Therein, my riding friends, is the predicament: how do we find more time to ride given the constraints on our lives?

One way is to commute, but there are drawbacks: some days you have to schlep a bunch of stuff to the office or pick up the kids on the way home and short of having a sidecar, it's just not practical.  Sometimes we have to wear clothing that doesn't lend itself to being stuffed inside riding gear or exposed to the elements.  My buddy solved this dilemma by giving himself no choice: he had no 4-wheeled vehicle.  Unfortunately, that left him at the mercy of others when there was ice on the road or if he needed to pick up the kids from swim practice.

Then there's the errand, that indispensible trip that feeds and clothes us and keeps us in gadgets.  Face it: some days it's just easier to grab the keys to the car without configuring for All The Gear, All The Time (ATGATT).  That 40-inch TV is just a little larger than the SV650 is prepared to handle and no matter how big my Beemer's bags are, the week's groceries just don't seem to fit.  I always feel guilty when I recall the photos I've seen of third-world guys on scooters hauling yak-loads of firewood, but I don't have anything two-wheeled that will safely get the recycling to the transfer station.

Ahhhh, the weather: wouldn't it be nice if we all lived in sunny SoCal, where temperatures in the 50's have the locals bitching about the cold?  Hello, Buffalo, where this thing called "lake effect snow" is a constant reminder of the riding difficulty there.  I've yet to see one of the tire companies come out with an "all-season-mud-and-snow radial" for a bike.  Then there's Montana, where they have two seasons: fire and winter.  At the opposite end of the spectrum is the South, where summer temperature/humidity combinations make ATGATT feel like climbing in an oven-roasting turkey bag.  When it rains, a nice restaurant just loves a couple of diners who arrive in soaking, dripping nylon.  Sometimes that heated or refrigerated box on wheels just looks so damn good by comparison.

Life in general places demands upon us that interfere with our riding time.  It seems like there's always a report (or a column) to write, a tax return to file, an appointment to make, a book to read, etc. that leaves us with hard choices about a ride versus other responsibilities (or vices).  Given the other constraints on our riding, it's easy to fall into a habit of placing motorcycle rides into a "when I get around to it" category.  Some people even go so far as to place riding into a "when I retire" bin of their time planning.

Unfortunately, time has its own plans and a guy called Fate operates on his own schedule.  I just lost a buddy who put off seeing the country by RV and doing the bulk of his hunting until after retirement.  Mere weeks after selling his business, cancer called and now his hunting and travelling days are done.  I wonder how many riders have shared his fate for putting off doing "the big one" until some later date?  Time and tide wait for no man.

I wouldn't be writing this if I weren't guilty of passing up opportunities to ride.  Too many times I've found it simpler to grab one set of keys versus another, avoided gearing up, and gone to do things on four wheels that I could as easily have done on two.  I've watched my neighbor, subject of a column I did called "Stolen Rides," head out alone on a mission of pure two-wheeled pleasure wedged in between family obligations when, by all rights, I should have been chasing him down some country lane for the sheer fun of it.  I was probably changing the oil in something I should have been riding.

There it is, the confession of this so-called "serious rider:" I'm just as bad as anyone else at finding time to ride and I offer this mea culpa as a cautionary tale for others.  When the meter expires on our mortal parking space, chances are we'll be more likely to mourn the rides we didn't take than the time expended for an extra-careful polishing job or that required to go ATGATT for an errand.  This afternoon I'm going to find some time to ride.  I hope you find yours.