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November 2, 2017
What You Learn From the Road: Discipline
I think one of the things I miss most about being on a motorcycle adventure is the discipline. Like, when you're on the road, and you need to take care of something, there is no tomorrow. Tomorrow does not exist. If you need to tighten your chain, you do it right now, in the parking lot, before you leave the hotel.
If you need to get an oil filter or a new battery, you do it now, while you're in civilization. You drive to a Wal-Mart and take care of it in the parking lot. Because tomorrow, you'll be in a forest or in the desert and you won't be able to fix it then.
And, so it goes with the motorcycle. There is no tomorrow. Today. Fix it today. Do it now.
You'll be riding down the road, and a butterfly hits your visor on your motorcycle, and smears it all up so that it impedes your vision. And, for a while, you ride on and then you realize....this is stupid. This has to be fixed immediately. There is no point in riding another inch with my visor all smeared. And then, you pull over on the side of the road. You fix it now. Right now.
When I'm at home, I lie in bed with the ambition of a housecat. Like...the cats aren't up yet...why should I get up? But the cats are false prophets. They never get up. They sleep all day. So, if you're looking to them for inspiration, you're not going to get much done today.
I remember when I rode my KTM out to San Francisco in July of last year (2016). I get prepared, and I have everything packed for the trip. And, as I'm about to embark on the adventure, there is some angst. Some trepidation. Some fear. Like...seriously? Why am I about to ride a motorcycle to California. Other people are not doing this (most other people). And, there's a lot of room for self-doubt in these adventures. It creeps in through the cracks and around the corners. I'm standing here thinking...this is crazy. This does not make sense. This isn't safe. It's not a good idea. It's going to suck in a big way. Lots of things can go wrong.
But then, I pack up all my gear, and I get on my bike, and I ride off down the road. And, one hour later, I'm in Vail. And I'm like...why do I not get out more? I can't believe that I'm in Vail and it's been just over an hour on the road. Like...my brain is not normally able to guide me out of bed, much less to Vail. And you want to capture this somehow. This knowledge. This discipline. This zeitgeist. And you want to share it with yourself...with others...who can't get out of bed. There needs to be some way to peel back the lethargy. To burn it away. So that we might do more. Live more. See more.
And, it's not that I have it figured out. I do not. I think, when I'm on the road, that my life will be better when I get home again. That I'll have some wisdom to impart to my other self. But this is never the case.
I want to take the discipline that I learned from being on the road and apply it to myself when I'm at home.
One of my favorite things I learned on the road is that a) I can ride a thousand miles in one day if I need to and b) there's nothing to be gained by lying in bed until they forcibly evict you from the hotel.
I learned this when I ran into some other bikers on the road up in Livingston, Montana (I believe it was). I ran into these guys at a gas station in Livingston and we were dodging some rain clouds. And decided to ride together for a little ways. They said they had an extra room I could have if I rode with them to Great Falls. But, later, I would learn that they were in a motorcycle race/rally/ride called the Hoka Hey. They started in Key West, Florida and were riding to Homer, Alaska. But, the thing that shocked me, was when I realized that we'd both left on the same day. I left Denver, Colorado on the same day that they left Key West, Florida. And we met in Montana, about 7 days later. And so, when you see these things, you realize that there's no reason to be sleeping in the hotel room until noon. Until the maid is beating on your door with both fists. Nothing is gained, and something is lost. You could be out riding. You could be on your bike. Rolling down the road.
"I couldn't do that....that isn't me..." I offered to the strangers on Harleys. "I ride 300 miles a day."
"You could do it though, if you wanted to....if you needed to...you could do it. It's not that hard," one guy on a Harley offered.
So I learned from meeting these people and I changed my behavior. Now, I get up and get out of bed. I plan on riding 100 miles before noon. That's my mantra.
The road changed me. It made me a better rider. It made me a better person. It made me question my preconceived notions about what is possible.
And when I was coming back from Alaska, and tired of being on the road, I rode from Boise, Idaho to Denver, Colorado in one day, a distance of roughly 850 miles.
And then last summer, on July 3rd, 2016, I rode from my house in Morrison, Colorado to June Lake, California, a distance of 1,013 miles in one day.
And it's very frustrating to realize that we place these parameters around what we thinks is possible. But I still struggle with applying these lessons at home.
I have been blessed by the people I have met on the road. Some I have stayed in touch with. Most I have not. But you learn so much from the road warriors you run into. They're like guardian angels sent from heaven to watch over us. To guide us.
I don't know why I decided to go to Tierra Del Fuego. I don't really have a good answer for that. I will say that I first discovered Torres del Paine National Park at a gathering of artists at Lake Evergreen. They all had their photos and paintings up for a public exhibition in the park and I saw a photo of a mountain range that I didn't recognize and my brain was like "you should know where that is, and you don't, do you?" And so I asked where it was, and she told me it was called Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia...down in Chile at the end of South America and I was truly stunned. Shocked that I was never aware of it's existence bore that day.
And then, once you've been to Deadhorse, Alaska. Once you've swam in the Arctic Ocean at Prudhoe Bay. You start to think, "why not ride down there and check out the park?" It's not that far. You can ride down there if you want to. And the problem is that it's not like you can ask the other people on motorcycles for guidance. I can't imagine anyone saying, "you couldn't make it" or "don't go" or "that doesn't sound like a good idea to me".
I can't think of any time I've had an adrenaline junkie on a motorcycle tell me "don't go there, it isn't safe" or "that's too far to ride". It's more the other way. You have to be careful about what you say. Like, don't go bragging that you've been on your bike for a month and ridden across a dozen countries, because the guy you're talking to has undoubtedly been on his bike for longer, and ridden further, than you ever dreamed possible.
So now, I know...when people ask where you're heading, you just play it down..."ah...I'm just out for a little ride. Going to run down to Tierra Del Fuego and check it out for a bit. How bout you? Where you coming from? Where you headed?"
Posted by Rob Kiser on November 2, 2017 at 11:10 AM
Comments
"I drifted across Asia, Mexico, Wyoming, hitchhiking and sleeping in ditches until I learned that aberrant behavior, when written about, is literature." - Fred Reed, December 1980 (here)
Posted by: anonymous on November 4, 2017 at 7:40 AM