Passes & Canyons Blog

A stop on the Canada trip in 2018.

As a member of the American Motorcyclist Association I am on their email list, and in their emails they ask members to submit their answers to different questions. This month the question is “What is your motorcycling goal for the new year?”

Now, I actually addressed that question at least a bit in my last post but I’m wondering if I can take that a little further. Writing is a method I use to process my thinking–if I’m unsure about something I write to find out what I think. Let’s see where this goes.

First off, I want to take a long trip with Judy. A couple years ago we joined some friends on a 3,000-mile ride up to Banff and Jasper, reaching British Columbia and Alberta. In 2020 I’m not sure if Judy was on the bike at all. If she was I don’t remember it. We sure didn’t take any motorcycle trips.

In the last couple years we have both bought new helmets–the best helmets we’ve ever owned–and a new Sena communicator system that finally allows us to talk easily and actually hear each other clearly. Far better than the two systems we have used previously. There’s no point in having bought these things if we don’t actually use them. We bought them to use them. In 2021 I intend to make sure we use them.

I also want to ride more on my own. While I did put 5,049 miles on my three bikes in 2020, that’s nothing. There have been a few years when I put more than 10,000 miles on just the Concours, and then additional miles on the other two.

For some people, riding is a social thing, and if they’re not riding with friends they don’t ride. I like riding with friends but I love riding alone. I love being able to stop and go at my own pace and pleasure, to take any road that catches my eye at a moment’s notice, and to ride as much or as little as I wish. Load camping gear on and this becomes total freedom.

But then this gets back to riding more with Judy. If she and I have taken or are planning a big trip, she is not as likely to resent it if I then choose to go off for a several days ride alone. And it feels a lot less selfish to me.

These objectives, plus anything else I can think of boils down to this same basic idea: my goal for 2021 is simply to ride more. Why complicate things? I’ll just leave it at that.

Biker Quote for Today

Not sure if I want to ride to work or call in sick and ride all day.

Tags: motorcyclig goals

This entry was posted on Monday, January 4th, 2021 at 12:01 pm and is filed under motorcycle touring. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.