T-minus 10 days

I’m breaking in my riding boots again. I didn’t wear them at all last year. I’d used a kit to relocate my forward controls, and it worked great, until the rod that went from the shift pedal to the shifter assembly snapped. Months passed while I tried to order another rod, but I kept getting rods that didn’t work for a variety of reasons, either too short, too long, to wide or the wrong thread spacing, finally I ended up ordering the original rod from Honda again and just put the control back to its original position.  Then I had to work in Brussels for a month, though weekending in Amsterdam, I didn’t miss the bike much.  Living in Minnesota, the riding season is short as it is, when you have a busted bike and/or travel for work, it’s that much shorter.

This year I make up those miles.

I’m not a huge fan of freeway miles. The deluge of autopilot engaged cruise-controlled automatons mindlessly going from point A to point B, unconsciously changing lanes and forcing motorcycles into unwinnable scenarios where the only options are death, dismemberment or death and dismemberment, all while waiting for the next exit that has a McDonalds so they can sate their next Big Mac Attack, no thank you.  I like going through small towns, seeing interesting sights and finding that one small coffee shop that makes their pies fresh daily, with lard, because that’s the way it’s always been done.