Things to look forward to.

Hey, it’s cool now to end a sentence, or a blog header, with a preposition. Really. I would never lie to you.

For the first time in a few years, I’m psyched about going to the bike show this December. Maybe it’s because I took a nice trip right before an imposed hiatus, but I’m excited to sit on all the bikes and see the new colors and walk around with big eyes.

Selling the SVS earlier this year definitely freed me in a way. Prior to the Z, the SVS was the only bike I’d toured on, crossed state lines on, photographed roadside. I think I believed that that was the only bike with which I could ever do those things. I was stuck with its flaws just as certainly as I loved its strengths. So being at the bike show was rather like a married man at a strip club — I could look, and admire, but ultimately, I’d made my choice already and I knew I was going home to the SVS in the garage.

This is not to say that I don’t like the Z — I do. But now I know it’s silly to look for everything in one bike. I know that what I love is the touring, the riding, the photographing, the research, the history. It does have to be on a motorcycle, but I’m starting to realize that which motorcycle is almost irrelevant.

Perhaps this is all just rationalization for wanting to really like BMW’s new F800ST. 😉

But back to bikes that I already own. One of the frustrating things about my continued neck pain (a week after the injection and I’m still on 1800mg – 2400mg of ibuprofen a day) is that it’s that perfect time of year, that perfect time of autumn. I so wish I were going to Metcalf or up Summit Rd on the XT one of these weekend mornings.

Hopefully I’ll be back on the XT before it starts raining. I have dirt jones. Mmm, dirt.

OK, must post this entry and get back to the Sharks-Predators game. 6 minutes left in the 3rd, and we’re tied. Go Sharks!