{"id":8619,"date":"2018-04-05T13:35:50","date_gmt":"2018-04-05T19:35:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/?p=8619"},"modified":"2018-04-05T13:35:50","modified_gmt":"2018-04-05T19:35:50","slug":"the-battle-back-to-the-bike","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/the-battle-back-to-the-bike\/","title":{"rendered":"The Battle Back To The Bike"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>Author&#8217;s Note: Unless you are reading this on <a href=\"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/<\/a> you are probably reading it on a rip-off site where they steal my work and publish it as their own. If you are not reading it on http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/, please exit and do not return to this rip-off site.<\/em><\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_8620\" style=\"width: 507px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Nederland.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-8620\" src=\"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Nederland.jpg\" vspace=\"10\" alt=\"motorcycles are roundabout\" width=\"497\" height=\"367\" class=\"size-full wp-image-8620\" srcset=\"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Nederland.jpg 497w, http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/04\/Nederland-300x222.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 497px) 100vw, 497px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-8620\" class=\"wp-caption-text\"><strong><em>So many directions to choose from.<\/em><\/strong><\/p><\/div>\n<p>My string still holds, but it is destined to break soon. Ever since I bought my first motorcycle about 28 years ago I have ridden each bike I own at least once every calendar month. For the Honda that&#8217;s more than 300 consecutive calendar months. For the Kawi it comes to more than 200 consecutive months. For the V-Strom we&#8217;re looking at maybe just 45 months or so. But there will be no rides in April 2018. And probably none in May.<\/p>\n<p>Thank you, heart surgery. Three weeks ago I had a quadruple bypass, along with repair of an aortal aneurysm and I&#8217;m not even supposed to drive for two months, much less ride a motorcycle. Heck, I&#8217;m not supposed to pick up anything weighing more than 10 pounds. How much weight do you suppose it involves just to rock a bike upright from its side stand? More than 10 pounds, I bet.<\/p>\n<p>But I have to get back on the bike as soon as I can. Judy and I have plans to take a ride with our friends Willie and Jungle up to Bampf and Jasper in early July. I don&#8217;t intend to miss out on that trip. But that means that when I am able to ride, maybe around the first part of June, I&#8217;ll have just a month to get my stamina back and get my confidence up where it needs to be.<\/p>\n<p>That confidence factor is a big one. I&#8217;ve never had to dust off rusty riding skills because I have never put the bikes away for the winter. This will be by far the longest I have gone without riding. And then there is the strength issue. I know I&#8217;m going to be nervous on my first couple rides so I&#8217;ve arranged with Alan to ride with me a few times. I know I&#8217;ll feel better knowing there is someone there to provide assistance if I need it.<\/p>\n<p>This is all uncharted territory for me. I&#8217;m doing what I can already to build up strength, but so far it can be simply exhausting to walk around the block. Starting perhaps next week I&#8217;ll be going in regularly for rehab. No one is going to need to push me to do my rehab exercises; I intend to be pushing them.<\/p>\n<p>So I don&#8217;t know how frequently I&#8217;ll be updating this blog for the interim. If I feel like I have anything interesting to discuss I&#8217;ll be here. Certainly I&#8217;ll be highlighting the big steps forward.<\/p>\n<p>And also, just by way of explanation of that Author&#8217;s Note at the top, just recently two different websites have started stealing my blog posts and putting them up as their own. I&#8217;m trying to work with their web hosts to have them taken down but until that happens I want to try to make it clear to anyone coming to their rip-off sites that they are in fact rip-off sites.<\/p>\n<h3>Biker Quote for Today<\/h3>\n<p>A Biker&#8217;s Prayer: As I lay rubber down the street, I pray for traction I can keep. But if I spin and begin to slide, please dear God protect my sweet ride.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Author&#8217;s Note: Unless you are reading this on http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/ you are probably reading it on a rip-off site where they steal my work and publish it as their own. If you are not reading it on http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/, please exit and do not return to this rip-off site. My string still holds, but it is destined [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[197],"tags":[902],"class_list":["post-8619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-colorado-motorcycle-rides","tag-the-battle-back-to-the-bike"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=8619"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8619\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8621,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8619\/revisions\/8621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=8619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=8619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/motorcyclecolorado.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=8619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}