I remember the day a massive crate containing my moped landed at my front door in downtown Charleston. It had traveled from Bombay, India on a ship for 10 days and I had purchases her from an auction on eBay. I recall breaking down the nearly five foot cubed wooden box in less than a minute to find what was later known as Katrina, my 49 ccs of mad fun appropriately named after the hurricane due to her fierce ‘pop’ and ‘crackle’ while riding.
So, the last time I had been on a motorcycle was when I was living in the mountains just outside of Los Angeles. I’d ride hundreds of miles up the coast on my chromed out masterpiece I had bought from a pawn shop in San Bernadino. I’d try to catch whatever band or show I was into at the time. I remember pulling up to my first Parliament show in LA, a series of Grateful Dead shows in Vegas, Sonic Youth in San Francisco, and Fugazi in some bar off the Mexican border to name a few. Before then, it was all about riding along the cornfields on my neighbor’s moped smack dab in the heartland of the Land of Lincoln. The skies were innocent baby blue with puffy cartoon clouds. This was when I started my love affair with all things with two wheels.
Roughly 30 years later, I’ve come full circle and put myself back on the saddle of my awesome ride where everything else is secondary when I’m riding in the present. Like any other discipline, it takes patience and preflection to reach one’s mastery of optimal experience. Staying in the zone makes people more apt to gaining a positive environment.
