A Life Different

Motorcycling.

It's like snowboarding: carving into turns, riding moguls in the slopes, watching mountains of unbroken green crest over you as you near towering over the incoming turn.  And as you near, the mountain disappears as a wave of green tree canopy overtakes it and washes over the closing sky.

This weekend a friend from Atlanta rode up to the B&B in North Carolina and we cruised over to Deal's Gap Motorcycle Resort at the Tennessee border to ride the Tail of the Dragon, a regionally famous public road winding through the Appalachians. There's a so-called Tree of Death in the parking lot where parts from wrecked bikes and sport cars have been strung up on its branches. The plastic fairings and body parts clank against each other in the wind like bone chimes before we set off. It’s an ominous sign, like seeing the statue of the Egyptian god of death Anubis through the glass at Denver International Airport before your flight.

Tree of Death at Deal’s Gap.

Soon the kickstands are up and I’m pushing the handlebars hard to the left, then the right as there's nary a straight stretch anywhere. None of the Vettes, Mustangs, Chargers, Porches, streetcars or other bikes, all with GoPros attached somewhere, come close to us. This little stretch of highway must generate thousands of gigabytes of data each day with all their gear, plus the 3-4 photographers along the road that photography everything that comes by. I didn’t know that was a thing, and this must be the only place in the country where they do that. The tires were a bit slippy without ABS (the cable for it got jacked up last weekend ) and the rear tire slipped on the very last corner. HOLY FUCK, it really put the fear into me. I’m thankful it happened on the very last corner though. When we made it to the end I pulled up to the gas pump and my buddy didn’t see me do that, so he thought I wrecked and went back to look for me. His concern wasn’t off base, since on average there’s an accident here every few weeks and at least one person dies every summer. Another tidbit I learn is that the motorcycle signal for “cop ahead” is to pat the top of your helmet.

Afterwards we continued west on a frigid ride into the wintry mountains at 5,000 feet, where we put the kickstands up at Hooper Bald. I had to sit on my buddy’s bike with the heated seat and handlebars to warm up before we did a short hike. All the trees were still sleeping and hadn't even started to green up yet. There weren't any good shots to take under the biting wind and overcast skies, so we parted ways and my my buddy headed back to Atlanta and I headed back East.

Texas plains.

Left alone again, I reflect on how I’ve been spending the time I’ve been giving. This had been almost favorite activity of mine since I heard on Canada Public Radio years ago that the average person has about 650,000 hours in their lifetime. I think that one broadcast sometimes drives me to do some of the things I do because I’m so fearful of wasting time. And as I think on this, I realize that I’ve seen so much of this country from the roads now. In this excursion alone I’ve traveled a thousand miles from the Rockies to Texas and along the coast, all outside. And this trip has changed me. If it wasn’t for this trip, I could see myself not being as engaged and passionate about the natural order if I spent more of my hours commuting in a car and in an office. I imagine my set of priorities would be different and probably lay more in the artificial. I'd aspire to a late model SUV in a muted tone and badges showing the engine size, with a toll pass to display my elite status to other commuters I'll never see in my life again. But now I feel more connected to this land than ever, and almost radicalized to protect it because I’ve seen how sprawling we are and how how we treat those remnants of nature. Che Guevara was radicalized by his own experience on a motorcycle trip, though I’ll probably not be leading guerillas in the South American forest. But we’ll see.

There are so many small things I love about this motorcycle life that can build up into into a sublime adventure. I love the sound of the exhaust reverberating through a tunnel. I love when raindrops smack into my visor, and when I turn my helmet to the side the wind blows them across it. I love when little kids point and wave and give me the hand signal to rev the engine.

But I’m also dog tired of this motorcycle life.

It's been grueling riding through thousands of miles of wind. And I don’t think anything has sucked as much as trying to find my way at night to new places in different states without a map or reception. Being an ultra minimalist on a motorcycle means I don't have any way to pull up directions on the go.  Sometimes I'll just head in a direction and use dead reckoning to try to figure out approximately where I'm at.  For example - I'll head east and after a while, the sun is on my back.  That must mean I’m in Alabama?   Sometimes I'll look for landmarks.  When I'm in the area I want to be in, then I'll stop and pull up a map and try to hone in on my final destination. This is all my own fault of course. After shunning everything and converting to minimalism, my struggles are condign.

Man in the Sea Museum, Florida.

But even on blue sky days when it’s warm out, there’s always something. Motorcycles take a lot more maintenance than cars. Every 500 miles one should be cleaning the chain and adjusting the chain slack. And gas, the fucking gas. My bike has about an hour and 45 minutes worth of riding time before I need to get more, and the more than a few times I’ve found myself in strange territory wondering where the nearest station is. One of my most terrifying rides has been in the plains of north Texas in 35F at night, unsure of where the nearest station or even highway was. Like with electric cars, range anxiety is a thing on this bike. So I’m constantly at a gas station to compensate for my insecurities.

Country road maintenance while waiting for golden hour.

And life feels itinerant. It’s tiring to always have to be on the move. My ass can’t take more than a couple hours on the saddle at a time, and these wretched hands stiffen into claws after gripping the handlebars in the cold for too long. Because of this, I realize that I'm a better photographer with a vehicle. Some of the best photographs are when weather is dramatic and misbehaving, and as I go through my latest albums I realize I’ve become a fair-weather photographer. And maybe the worst aspect of this life is when I see friends who I used to see after class and go to bars with share pictures of their families on social media. It makes me think that this is a young man’s game, and that my life is just an erectile dysfunction commercial with some aging guy trying to prove something to the world.

Colorado, a lifetime ago.

So I’ve made a decision.

I’m going home. I want to spend the summer photographing the Alaska range and finishing this goddamn book. And after so much time on the road, I think that ironically, staying in one place would be the radical thing to do for me. So I’m going to take my armor off and set it on the mantle like a decorative ornament. For posterity I’ll end this life chapter with a few anthropological pictures that I feel summarize it.

This lifestyle is for the extreme minimalist since the whole kit and caboodle fits on the bike.

There are a few standard places to store things on motorcycles: a small bag over the gas tank, saddle bags (aka panniers), and a dry bag on the back. Some also wear a backpack but at least for me it’s a pain in the ass to have the straps dig into my shoulders and have the weight wreck my posture on the long rides.

The dry bag (at left) goes on the back of the bike and offers the most space. There’s a lot of options available but I used an Osah 60L waterproof bag. One lesson I learned from living out of the Escape is to store things in clear bags so you can see what’s inside them. Even after becoming an extreme minimalist, it can be a pain to have to rummage through things to find something you want. But the upside is that the less you have, the less you desire. It has its own set of challenges too though and induces minutiae at times, like when you’re fretting over how much space a bottle of vitamins, etc. takes. It’s a continuing process to downsize and find ways to get by on less, and find multiple uses for things. It’s a constant balancing act though. In Texas I dropped off a shirt so I could make room for a 2nd pair of swim shorts on the muggy coast.

It’s impossible to anticipate everything you’ll need in this kind of life. I left CO with a ton of stuff I thought I’d never get rid of, but after reaching Texas I was ready to toss it to the curb and never see it again since it had been so heavy on the ride down. You’ll realize what’s important to you as you separate needs from desires and downsize along the way. And you’ll figure out ways to become efficient. For example, I got rid of my hoody, long sleeve shirts, light jackets, etc and just used a motorcycle jacket or fleece. And I ditched all my different shoes for just one pair and sandals. I only had one bottle I’d refill with tap water and stopped drinking coffee since it took up too much space. I switched to tiny energy mixers instead. I used empty bread bags as garbage bags and backpacked everything from the grocery stores. Electronics were downsized and used until they’re dead.  My phone cover has been taped up multiple times now. I used shaving cream for conditioner which took some getting used to, but now I appreciate how the blades glide along my skin.  And when I finished shaving, I’d clean and dry out the blade by blowing on it and wiping it with a towel/cloth.  It's not the act of shaving that reduces a blade's life, but having it sit with moisture.  If you dry them then they'll last forever!  For the last six months I've been using a dollar shave club blade that’s supposed to last two weeks.

Everything I own (except for some winter gear at friend’s houses in CO and AK I didn’t get rid of before leaving).

So I’ve spent 5,000 of my (maybe) 650,000 hours learning all this and being broken by it. But I’m glad to have lived this weird and wild chapter and to have been changed by it. And when life is mundane I’ll think back on these times and of faraway places and think, oh, the places we go.

Yours truly. Credit on this one goes to Xtreme Sports Photography.