Gratitude and Practice

I want to thank everyone who came out to say bon voyage to me on Saturday. I had a blast and I hope you all did also. I'll post a link to some pictures as soon as my sister emails them to me.

I've been having trouble getting to sleep at night the past few days because I can't get my mind to stop or slow down when it's quiet. I'm either worrying about Ian, going through the trip in my head, or thinking about work. One of the reasons I love to ride motorcycles is because, just like when I acted in high school, it requires my undivided attention. They both let me escape from these thoughts and focus on one thing: The road. My safety demands it, but it's more than that. Riding a motorcycle is like flying a plane on the ground. To do it properly, you have to lean just the right amount at just the right second at just the right speed and every single corner demands those elements to be right. You can do it sloppily and still get from point A to B safely, but when you get into the groove, it's magical.

There is, as it turns out, one thing that is getting in my way of this perfect picture: Luggage. I loaded the bike today as if I were leaving tomorrow. I packed every single item (there are 136 of them to be exact) and spent the time to put the items where the bike would be balanced from left to right. I strapped everything down and went for a short ride. It was terrible. While the left to right balance was fine and the bike flicked over fairly easily, the front to back balance was way off. My handlebars felt way too wobbly like all the weight was on the back.

I came home and went back to the drawing board. I removed some items that were in the "luxury" category and shifted some items forward. After about three different attempts, I almost got the bike perfectly balanced between front and back. It's still a little back heavy, but nowhere near where it was before. A short ride to test it confirmed that the problem is definitely workable. While it's not perfect, it never will be on a ride like this. The biggest pain I can foresee on the trip is going to be taking all the cases off the bike into my hotel rooms each night. Each side case weighs 21 lbs and the top case is about 20. Plus a compression bag, a garment bag, and a tank bag. Overall, it's about 80lbs of gear. Still well below the maximum weight load on the bike, but I'll definitely be getting a bellman cart when possible. The good news is that while I'm in Banff and Jasper, I'm staying multiple nights so I can unpack the bike and lighten it up for the local riding.

If I don't lose weight on this trip, I'll be shocked.