Concerns : why and how it is that I am a motorcyclist

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My beemer has a significant place in my life. (My 1st car and 4th car did, also :) , I ride to live rather than live to ride.
The vehicle is transportation for me; it is simply incidental that I enjoy it.

Travel in the cold season is of course minimized.

The practicalities are spelled out below :


I I

It should not be necessary to participate in the car culture, in order to be a first class citizen.
(As!, getting from one edge to town to the far side on a Sunday when the buses do not run. Um, not having always to leave a party at nine o'clock.)

Rather than re-write and pare this long post, I will take it as an opportunity to explore WHY I ride. Who knows?, a travel-diary someday I may polish to book-quality and put up for the many to read.

In a profile I have stated I have a car. That was a hard choice to make. One person (infra) took me to task for it. But the choice was, finally, to make clear, in a fast-moving market, I *can* get around. Ottawa is a question, however Philadelphia I expect to visit and having better than public transportation once there

Many tell me (for reasons of the cagers) that motorcycling is risky. There is a grain of truth in that of course. I've taken a safety course and expect 2 take an advanced... Joe, the one teacher I would pay the dollars for, is one of the _advanced_ ppl in this. He would become a guru, in a kind of way. A guru for the inner me, the kind person to always remember in a secret part of oneself.

Robert Pirsig's writings need not be the last word

Automobile insurance is not a thing I would enjoy, by now, shelling out for.** I live one mile from town and sometimes get to bicycling in the everyday. / Have you ever seen a sticker (on say a Schwinn) saying, "Honk if you are looking for parking)?
** First year's insurance for my present MC was 70.00. Get it?, ca. $6/mo


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I originally purchased the beemer with the idea of visiting old school friends scattered about the country. --Although that WAS some years back and my ambitions, with the years, are becoming more modest. There are times I ride the BMW lots, and times when I leave it home and cycle. That is enjoyable and of course *totally* green. I live a mile from downtown. If I had an auto, during the seasons where it just sat -- being used a couple times a month, I would think about that insurance.

A previous BMW, ridden in the 1980s (as a different person..but that is a song from a different opera), cost me exactly zero in mechanical upkeep.

I exchanged messages with one POF-er briefly : one of the most green, close-to-the-Earth persons I've ever heard of. But when this woman sensed I went by bus during a hard January, I heard a sudden silence. No, the near-perfect-maintained 850 cc twin I have is not like an electric car (well heated iMean), but OTOH it is a vehicle I'm not encouraged to put 10,000 or 15,000 miles on per year; MANY fewer.

I.e., I'm not encouraged to LIVE in or on a vehicle. Owners of cars eat, hold many conversations,... get into/to warm up in bad weather. A scholar once told me he thot I was close to the elements and to the spirits of the Earth, beings that I was outdoors so much. If I had a family, I suppose it would be different -- and a car would need not be seen as an isolating factor.

So. It IS less than the most safe thing, OTOH I enjoy it immensely (am like a chap in jail, where ppl are obsessed with food, pleasure-wise).... I'm overcoming that loner style I had through years of senseless work, of underemployment, of..; and one way is with some of those I meet "kicking tires." A fine chap with wife, beatup pickup and gas-can stopped and helped me once. I hope I'll recognize him when I get to Heaven :) I enjoy the respect accorded me when a fellow looks at a 15-year-old machine which is easy to keep near-spotless and smiles big. He may be driving a late model 4-door with kids in it and live where the vast lawns are manicured, but suddenly a life-style fact shows we are just men.
Yes in college I thot I would be above that, but life hasn't turned out the way I expected.

And if femmes are not able to see their way to riding on the pinon, they might have an alternative. WALKING with me being one poss.; I just saw the profile of a fine woman in a town of 5,000 and a $!!! small private college -- no car. No need for a car.

cheers,Gershwin-2