Garage Diaries

As i surely must have mentioned in previous posts, i enjoy ( and believe all true bikers should ) spending as much time with my bike in the garage, as i would spend riding it along a highway. For me, there is something alluring about fixing your own bike. Maybe it is the feeling of being the creator, having the power to give life. Maybe it is the feeling of satisfaction of knowning and being able to do something that most people wouldn't be expected to know and do. Maybe it's the pushing of physical limits. Maybe it's the mystery of playing detective, hunting for clues to solve that little rattle you hear when you shift to third. Maybe its the satisfaction of finding a loose nut or a whithered wired before it caused a breakdown. Or maybe its just the feeling of riding your bike after your done and thinking "wow, it feels much better, i made that difference". Motorcycling has always been about freedom and giving a person control of a moment. I think garage days really bind into that spirit.

So when my friends sometimes taunt me about weekends "wasted" indoors in my garage, i always smile and think to myself, "I wouldn't have it any other way".

Accident Recovery

On March 25th 2015, i crashed. I won't go into the details of it how it happened, but i can say that i had no fault in, or control over the situation. I crashed at well over a 100kmph and was thrown through 60 feet of thorn scrub and a barbed wire fence. If it wasn't for my helmet that took a nasty blow for me, this blog just might have had a very abrupt ending. I remember waking up, checking if i could still move my limbs and thinking to myself, "I'm alive, after a crash like that, I'm still alive!". The doctors told me that there was a bone out of place in my left knee and my ligaments were seriously strained. In short, may never be able to kick start a motorcycle or ride again.

Needless to say and true to my nature, i threw all caution to the wind, kick started my motorcycle and rode away from the hospital. The next few weeks were easy, i buried myself in fixing my bike and thought of little else. With that done, i tried to ignore all else and ride again as if nothing had ever happened and i had never crashed. But that was harder than i thought. The seconds before the crash were like photographs pinned up in my brain. Every time i tried to ride, and saw, heard or felt something that related to the day of the crash, the memory was triggered and the entire scene would play out in my head. Not used to this kind of a mental struggle, i would sometimes jam the breaks, screach to a halt just to clear my head. The pain in my knee also severely restricted the length of my rides, and more than once i doubted if my riding days were over.

There is no dramatic turn, or inspirational moment in this story. All there is, is trying, failing and trying again, months of being relentless, countless defeats and slow progress. Lessons in patient defiance, the former being alien to me and the latter, all too common. Despite these determined efforts, some scars never heal. I still see the scene played out in my head sometimes. Only now, i know how to ignore it and focus on the road. The knee still hurts, but with a metal brace and a lot of physiotherapy, i was able to complete my own version of the freedom ride today. A 68 km bicycle ride that i participate in every year, only this time, i didnt sign up with the rest of the riders but drew up a tougher route for myself and completed it, in almost about the same time.

The truth is you never know how strong you are, how resilient, how defiant, how determined, until you have no choice, but to be. 

They said, i would never ride again.

Yeah well, good luck with that. 

Born to ride, forced to work...

A bikers work station be like...

A heart on two wheels

I went out on one of those "dont care where you're going" rides today. Quite a long one after quite a long time. And as mile after mile of beautiful country roads disappeared behind me with a cool breeze constantly caressing my face, I felt myself leaving behind a lot of things. Worries about injuries, thoughts about the past, anxieties of what the future may hold, anger about being wronged, hurt about being let down, pressures of being someone I'm not, in short a whole lot of baggage seemed to slowly burn away along with the fuel and disappear down the exhausts. All that existed for me was that moment. Me, my bike, the never ending road and all the beautiful sights that flew by. Maybe thats why some people (like me) love riding so much, its a humbling experience that on some good days brings you back to the bare essentials. I don't know if I did a good job describing it, nor do I know if anyone ever will, but I do know that in that moment I was not my past, I was not the image I'm forced to portray to society, I was not what I've achieved in life or what I've failed to be, I was just a boy, with a heart on two wheels.