Sanity Is Overrated

People seem increasingly to think I'm either tough as nails or just plain crazy.

This past May, I rode my 1995 Honda Shadow VLX 600 down to Santa Cruz. It was a 10 hour drive, from start to finish, and I stopped only as long as was necessary to keep my gas tank and my belly full. While I was down there, I met and rode with a friend's dad, a Harley rider of 20+ years. He and his riding buddy, who rode a fairly awesome Yamaha V-Star, told everyone we met that I had ridden straight down from Eugene, Oregon. And here's this hardened, weathered, no nonsense kind of guy—picture your stereotypical Harley biker, and that's him to a "T"—telling everybody we talk to that I'm tough as nails. That was weird. A few days later, I made the same ride in the opposite direction.

I'm back in school, and one of the men in my class is a fairly tough looking old man, in his 60s. He used to ride a Honda Goldwing. (Now that's what I should have had to go down to Santa Cruz; my bike isn't really suited for long trips.) He asked me if I rode all through the winter, and I told him what I tell everyone: It's all I got, I have no car, so I ride all year round, in all weather conditions. His response? "You're a real rider!"

Tonight, riding back from Portland at around 10:15 p.m., I pull into a gas station in the Coburg area. It's about 27 degrees out. (For the mathematically challenged, that's 5 degrees below freezing!) When I pull in, the attendant is bent over a broom and a pile of dust next to one of the other pumps. I shut her off and dismount, and then I hear, "A motorcycle?!" I look over, and the old guy's just staring at me.

"A motorcycle!!?" he repeats, even more incredulously. "You have got to be kidding me!!"

"No sir," I replied with a chuckle.

Eventually, he made his way over, as I got off my gloves and pulled out my wallet. I fumbled at the card, and he was quick to comment, saying, "Your hands are so damn cold you can't even grab the card!" Well, I won't deny that. It was absurdly cold, and I think there were small chunks of ice that had formed on the fingers of my gloves. So I filled her up and then headed back out, because home wasn't far off.

People call me "tough" a lot these days, just because I ride year round, through anything. But I think most of them are actually thinking more along the lines of that old guy at the gas station—that I've just plain lost my mind.

Well, maybe I am crazy. Certainly a more likely theory than the one that says I'm "tough as nails."

But then I get back on the road, and as I enter that first curve, I roll on the throttle and gain speed, leaning hard into the corner, entering the freeway again. And as I come flying out of that first curve at high speed, I know: It's worth it.