Motorcycle Travel Quotes

Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive

I now know, by an almost fatalistic conformity with the facts, that my destiny is to travel...

I finally felt myself lifted definitively away on the winds of adventure toward worlds I envisaged would be stranger than they were, into situations I imagined would be much more normal than they turned out to be.

We want to make good time, but for us now this is measured with the emphasis on "good" rather than on "time"....

Take care of your car in the garage, and the car will take care of you on the road.

They say life is a highway and we all travel our own roads, some good, some bad, yet each is a blessing of its own.

To arrive in the Rocky Mountains by plane would be to see them in one kind of context,as pretty scenery. But to arrive after days of hard travel across the prairies would be to see them in another way, as a goal, a promised land.

The roar of an engine blasted from his left—and a Harley-Davidson motorcycle with flame decals jumped the sidewalk in front of him. A small crowd of travelers scattered. "How do you say, 'You jerk!' in Turkish?" Jake asked. "Erasmus!" Dan cried with relief. Jake balled his fist angrily and shouted, "Erasmus!"

At night, after the exhausting games of canasta, we would look out over the immense sea, full of white-flecked and green reflections, the two of us leaning side by side on the railing, each of us far away, flying in his own aircraft to the stratospheric regions of our own dreams. There we understood that our vocation, our true vocation, was to move for eternity along the roads and seas of the world. Always curious, looking into everything that came before our eyes, sniffing out each corner but only ever faintly - not setting down roots in any land or staying long enough to see the substratum of things; the outer limits would suffice.

I am emotional about engines, if you hurt my car, you hurt my heart.

All night, after the exhausting games of canasta, we would look over the immense sea, full of white-flecked and green reflections, the two of us leaning side by side on the railing, each of us far away, flying in his own aircraft to the stratospheric regions of his own dreams. There we understood that our vocation, our true vocation, was to move for eternity along the roads and seas of the world. Always curious, looking into everything that came before our eyes, sniffing out each corner but only ever faintly--not setting down roots in any land or staying long enough to see the substratum of things the outer limits would suffice.

The road never ends ... only our vision does.

Mileage craziness is a serious condition that exists in many forms. It can hit unsuspecting travelers while driving cars, motorcycles, riding in planes, crossing the country on bicycles or on foot. The symptoms may lead to obsessively placing more importance on how many miles are traveled than on the real reason for the traveling...On foot, in a van, on a fleet motorcycle or on a bicycle, a person must be very careful not to become overly concerned with arriving.

Adventure can be an end in itself. Self-discovery is the secret ingredient...

Dad on Child-rearing: "There's no education superior to travel. Think of The Motorcycle Diaries, or what Montrose St. Millet wrote in Ages of Exploration: 'To be still is to be stupid. To be stupid is to die.' And so we shall live. Every Betsy sitting next to you in a classroom will only know Maple Street on which sits her boxy white house, inside of which whimper her boxy white parents. After your travels, you'll know Maple Street, sure, but also wilderness and ruins, carnivals and the moon. You'll know the man sitting on an apple crate outside a gas station in Cheerless, Texas, who lost his legs in Vietnam, the woman in the tollboth outside Dismal, Delaware, in possession of six children, a husband with black lung but no teeth. When a teacher asks the class to interpret Paradise Lost, no one will be able to grab your coattails, sweet, for you will be flying far, far out in front of them all. For them, you will be a speck somewhere above the horizon. And thus, when you're ultimately set loose upon the world..." He shrugged, his smile lazy as an old dog. "I suspect you'll have no choice but to go down in history.

Plans are deliberately indefinite, more to travel than to arrive anywhere.

What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua...that's the only name I can think of for it...like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. The old channels cannot contain it and in its search for new ones there seems to be growing havoc and destruction along its banks. In this Chautauqua I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness but simply dig deeper into old ones that have become silted in with the debris of thoughts grown stale and platitudes too often repeated. "What's new?" is an interesting and broadening eternal question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion, the silt of tomorrow. I would like, instead, to be concerned with the question "What is best?," a question which cuts deeply rather than broadly, a question whose answers tend to move the silt downstream. There are eras of human history in which the channels of thought have been too deeply cut and no change was possible, and nothing new ever happened, and "best" was a matter of dogma, but that is not the situation now. Now the stream of our common consciousness seems to be obliterating its own banks, losing its central direction and purpose, flooding the lowlands, disconnecting and isolating the highlands and to no particular purpose other than the wasteful fulfillment of its own internal momentum. Some channel deepening seems called for.

I am trying to get to an airport hotel. I can see it. I know it’s the right hotel because the name is shining out from the top of it in 10-foot-high illuminated letters. It is huge. It is right next to the highway. But there is no exit. I have no idea how to get there or, more pressingly, how to get off this road in the first place. There’s a lot of traffic and, worse, motorcycles with no lights are buzzing past me on the nearside. They all know where they are going and are determined to go there as fast as they can. They have no patience for a foreign visitor searching for an exit. This is no time to learn to drive all over again.

Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships. Some travel into the mountains accompanied by experienced guides who know the best and least dangerous routes by which they arrive at their destination. Still others, inexperienced and untrusting, attempt to make their own routes. Few of these are successful, but occasionally some, by sheer will and luck and grace, do make it. Once there they become more aware than any of the others that there's no single or fixed number of routes. There are as many routes as there are individual souls.

The wrought-iron gate squeaked as Lucas opened it. He lowered the rented bike down the stone steps and onto the sidewalk. To his right was the most famous Globe Hotel in Paris, disguised under another name. In front of the entrance five Curukians sat on mopeds. Lu-cas and his eighteen-month-old friend then shot out across the street and through the invisible beam of an-other security camera. He rode diagonally across the place de la Concorde and headed toward the river. It seemed only natural. The motorcycles trailed him. He pedaled fast across the Alex-andre III bridge and zipped past Les Invalides hospital. He tried to turn left at the Rodin Museum, but Goper rode next to him, blocking his escape.

Asking someone else to drive your sports car is like asking someone else to kiss your girlfriend.

I want to talk about another kind of high country now in the world of thought, which in some ways, for me at least, seems to parallel or produce feelings similar to this, and call it the high country of the mind. If all of human knowledge, everything that’s known, is believed to be an enormous hierarchic structure, then the high country of the mind is found at the uppermost reaches of this structure in the most general, the most abstract considerations of all. Few people travel here. There’s no real profit to be made from wandering through it, yet like this high country of the material world all around us, it has its own austere beauty that to some people makes the hardships of traveling through it seem worthwhile. In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty, and to the enormous magnitude of questions asked, and to the answers proposed to these questions. The sweep goes on and on and on so obviously much further than the mind can grasp one hesitates even to go near for fear of getting lost in them and never finding one’s way out.

I now know, by an almost fatalistic conformity with the facts, that my destiny is to travel, or perhaps it’s better to say that traveling is our destiny, because Alberto feels the same. Still, there are moments when I think with profound longing of those wonderful areas in our south. Perhaps one day, tired of circling the world, I’ll return to Argentina and settle in the Andean lakes, if not indefinitely then at least for a pause while I shift from one understanding of the world to another.

The best bike is the one you're on, The best road is the one you're traveling, The best destination is wherever you're headed, The best time to get there is whenever you arrive.

Among all the machines, motorcar is my favorite machine.

When Freedoms Live, We Ride; When We Ride, Freedoms Live.

Mountains slowly change, but they will always be there, defining Freedom.

No one weaves the exquisite quite like Mother Nature.

Any day is a good day to leave some miles behind.

The sky and the earth, The night and the light, The heat and the cold, The rain and the drought; Those are my demigods. But the road, The road is my mistress. Devious and open, Harsh and nurturing, She seduces me with love And dares me with death In equal measure. Just like any good woman.

During my travels in India I met a man at an ashram who was about 45-50. A little older than everyone else. He tells me a story. He had retired and he was traveling on a motorcycle with his wife on the back. While stopped at a red light, a truck ran into them from behind and killed his wife. He was badly injured and almost died. He went into a coma and it was unclear if he’d ever walk again. When he finally came out of it and found out what had happened, he naturally was devastated and heartbroken. Not to mention physically broken. He knew that his road ahead of rehabilitation, both physically and psychologically, was going to be hard. While he had given up, he had one friend who was a yoga teacher who said, “We're going to get you started on the path to recovery.” So, she kept going over to his place, and through yoga, helped him be able to walk again. After he could walk and move around again, he decided to head to India and explore some yoga ashrams. While he was there he started to learn about meditation and Hinduism and Buddhism. He told me that he never would have thought he’d ever go down this path. He would have probably laughed at anyone who goes to India to find themselves. I asked, “Did you get what you were hoping for?” He said, "Even though I lost my wife, it turned out to be the greatest thing that ever happened to me because it put me on this path.

I only had to drop acid once to know that Timothy Leary was right about questioning authority. Motorcycling is like life. There's nothing solid about it. Something not even the asphalt under your tires. Time on a motorcycle is unlike time spent anywhere else. There are moments lost in the landscape, seconds devoted solely to balance, and long stretches spent spiraling inward.

The statement “To travel is better than to arrive” comes back to mind again and stays. We have been traveling and now we will arrive. For me a period of depression comes on when I reach a temporary goal like this and have to reorient myself toward another one.

Animals travel on all fours. Mankind on two. Motorcycling is not a means of transport but an ideology, a nomadic way of life.

You travel, things change, you change, you meet new people, you get new ideas. And before you know it, your life has changed.

Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive.

I am so obsessed with the cars that sometimes I feel like my heart is not a muscle, it's an engine.

Cromwell’s statement, “No one ever travels so high as he who knows not where he is going,

If there’s a there there, there’s a road that’ll take you there.

What happened to me? I asked myself. Morris's high, smoky voice took me back to my university years, when I thought rich people were evil, a shirt and tie were prison clothes, and life without freedom to get up and go - motorcycle beneath you, breeze in your face, down the streets of Paris, into the mountains of Tibet - was not a good life at all. What happened to me?

His eyes traveled the length of me and as they were doing this, he cut me off again. “Jesus, what the f**k you got on?” I looked down at my yoga clothes then back at him. “I just got back from yoga.” His eyes took their time sliding back up my body before they locked on mine. “You finish that Employee Handbook, you make that,” he tipped his head to me, “the dress code.

And me, I’ve got to start all over. Not only build a new life, but construct a new person. I call my old self “that other guy,” for I share nothing but his memories, and everything he ever liked I’ve had to discover all over again, one by one, so that I’ve held on to, for example, reading, motorcycling, and birdwatching, but I’m not yet sure about art or music (I can look at it or listen to it, but not with the same “engagement” I used to), and I have no interest in work, charity, world events, or anybody I don’t know. In my present gypsy life, I encounter a lot of people every day, and some of them I instinctively like and respond to in a brief encounter at a gas station or small-town diner, but for the most part I look around at ugly and mean-spirited people and think, “Why are you alive?

I need to be invited onto the back of a motorcycle and taken somewhere unfamiliar now and then; I welcome a degree of disruption, need a curtain pulled back, a hallway leading into some part of the world I've never seen.

People entered the park and became polite and cozy and fakey to each other because the atmosphere of the park made them that way. In the entire time he had lived within a hundred miles of it he had visited it only once or twice.

When someone asks, "What do you do?” don't start with your occupation or family status. Instead, tell them about the "real you" with a spin. You might say, "Back home I'm run a coffee shop, but on this trip, I'm getting in touch with the part of me who wished she'd studied archeology.

There’s a vast world beyond the tiny fragment that each of us inhabits, and going out into it is the only way to understand other people, their cultures and religions: you can’t travel and have the sorts of experiences we were having without learning something from the interactions involved.

Things like quitting my job with no real plan eons before I was ready, blogging to the world the most private parts of my existence, starting a company with zero clue, having opinions that are decidedly in the margins of popular opinion, traveling with no itinerary, hopping on motorcycles with strange men in foreign countries, asking for things I’m afraid to ask for, dancing terribly in front of people. I live from a place of “Why not?” and this newfound sense of right-minded risk-taking—as in risk-taking I am fully in control and aware of—has led to some of the more fantastic moments of my life and given me major courage and freedom.

This book can't tell you how to live ultimately. However, a life of mountain biking, fishing, reading, boxing, race car driving, motorcycling, boating, swimming, traveling, adventuring, podcasting, and playing chess is a much better life than one of trying to seduce a girl at a bar or getting divorced from her four years later.

One of the top reasons women don’t want to travel solo is the prospect of eating alone in public. Take heart: no one cares, and if they do, why do you care what they think? You’ll never see those people again. Some of the most memorable meals of my travels have been in the company of strangers—often locals, including waitresses.

Bucket had started his criminal career in Braas, not far from when Allan and his new friends now found themselves. There he had gotten together with some like-minded peers and started the motorcycle club called The Violence. Bucket was the leader; he decided which newsstand was to be robbed of cigarettes next. He was the one who has chosen the name- The Violence, in English, not swedish. And he was the one who unfortunately asked his girlfriend Isabella to sew the name of the motorcycle club onto ten newly stolen leather jackets. Isabella had never really learned to spell properly at school, not in Swedish, and certainly not in English. The result was that Isabella sewed The Violins on the jackets instead. As the rest of the club members had had similar academic success, nobody in the group noticed the mistake. So everyone was very surprised when one day a letter arrived for The Violins in Braas from the people in charge of the concert hall in Vaxjo. The letter suggested that, since the club obviously concerned itself with classical music, they might like to put in am appearance at a concert with the city’s prestigious chamber orchestra, Musica Viate. Bucket felt provoked; somebody was clearly making fun of him. One night he skipped the newsstand, and instead went into Vaxjo to throw a brick through the glass door of the concert hall. This was intended to teach the people responsible lesson in respect. It all went well, except that Bucket’s leather glove happened to follow the stone into the lobby. Since the alarm went off immediately, Bucket felt it would be unwise to try to retrieve the personal item in question. Losing the glove was not good. Bucket had traveled to Vaxjo by motorbike and one hand was extremely cold all the way home to Braas that night. Even worse was the fact that Bucket’s luckless girlfriend had written Bucket’s name and adress inside the glove, in case he lost it." For more quotes from the novel visit my blog: frommybooks.wordpress.com

Mountains like these and travelers in the mountains and events that happen to them here are found not only in Zen literature but in the tales of every major religion. This allegory of a physical mountain for the spiritual one that stands between each soul and its goal is an easy and natural one to make. Like those in the valley behind us, most people stand in sight of the spiritual mountains all their lives and never enter them, being content to listen to others who have been there and thus avoid the hardships. Some travel into the mountains accompanied by experienced guides who know the best and least dangerous routes by which they arrive at their destination. Still others, inexperienced and untrusting, attempt to make their own routes. Few of these are successful, but occasionally some, by sheer will and luck and grace, do make it. Once there they become more aware than any of the others that there's no single or fixed number of routes. There are as many routes as there are individual souls.

In proportion to his intelligence he was extremely isolated. There’s no record of his having had close friends. He traveled alone. Always. Even in the presence of others he was completely alone. People sometimes felt this and felt rejected by it, and so did not like him, but their dislike was not important to him. His wife and family seem to have suffered the most. His wife says those who tried to go beyond the barriers of his reserve found themselves facing a blank. My impression is that they were starved for some kind of affection which he never gave. No one really knew him. That is evidently the way he wanted it, and that’s the way it was. Perhaps his aloneness was the result of his intelligence. Perhaps it was the cause. But the two were always together. An uncanny solitary intelligence.

Several shades of hazy blue hung over the landscape like a heavy tapestry, giving the Blue Ridge Mountains its name. I stopped at one of the scenic overlooks, switched off the bike, and sat in the absolute stillness of the mountains. Their silence was a soothing balm for my soul. The maternal rhythm of nature is a tonic that heals emotionally. I just wanted to sit still, breathe deeply, and match my heartbeat to that rhythm.

So we navigate mostly by dead reckoning, and deduction from what clues we find. I keep a compass in one pocket for overcast days when the sun doesn't show directions and have the map mounted in a special carrier on top of the gas tank where I can keep track of miles from the last junction and know what to look for. With those tools and a lack of pressure to 'get somewhere' it works out fine and we just about have America all to ourselves.

What is in mind is a sort of Chautauqua...that’s the only name I can think of for it...like the traveling tent-show Chautauquas that used to move across America, this America, the one that we are now in, an old-time series of popular talks intended to edify and entertain, improve the mind and bring culture and enlightenment to the ears and thoughts of the hearer. The Chautauquas were pushed aside by faster-paced radio, movies and TV, and it seems to me the change was not entirely an improvement. Perhaps because of these changes the stream of national consciousness moves faster now, and is broader, but it seems to run less deep. The old channels cannot contain it and in its search for new ones there seems to be growing havoc and destruction along its banks. In this Chautauqua I would like not to cut any new channels of consciousness but simply dig deeper into old ones that have become silted in with the debris of thoughts grown stale and platitudes too often repeated.

In olden times, you'd wander down to Mom's Cafe for a bite to eat and a cup of joe, and you would feel right at home. It worked just fine if you never left your home-own. But if you went to the next town over, everyone would look up and stare at you when you came in the door, and the Blue Plate Special would be something you didn't recognize. If you did enough traveling, you'd never feel at home anywhere. But when a businessman from New Jersey goes to Dubuque, he knows he can walk into a McDonald's and no one will stare at him. He can order without having to look at the menu, and the food will always taste the same. McDonald's is Home, condensed into a three-ring binder and xeroxed. “No surprises” is the motto of the franchise ghetto, its Good Housekeeping seal, subliminally blazoned on every sign and logo that make up the curves and grids of light that outline the Basin. The people of America, who live in the world's most surprising and terrible country, take comfort in that motto. Follow the loglo outward, to where the growth is enfolded into the valleys and the canyons, and you find the land of the refugees. They have fled from the true America, the America of atomic bombs, scalpings, hip-hop, chaos theory, cement overshoes, snake handlers, spree killers, space walks, buffalo jumps, drive-bys, cruise missiles; Sherman's March, gridlock, motorcycle gangs, and bungee jumping. They have parallel-parked their bimbo boxes in identical computer-designed Burbclave street patterns and secreted themselves in symmetrical sheetrock shitholes with vinyl floors and ill-fitting woodwork and no sidewalks, vast house farms out in the loglo wilderness, a culture medium for a medium culture.

From his corner office on the ground floor of the St. Cyril station house, Inspector Dick has a fine view of the parking lot. Six Dumpsters plated and hooped like iron maidens against bears. Beyond the Dumpsters a subalpine meadow, and then the snow¬ capped ghetto wall that keeps the Jews at bay. Dick is slouched against the back of his two-thirds-scale desk chair, arms crossed, chin sunk to his chest, star¬ing out the casement window. Not at the mountains or the meadow, grayish green in the late light, tufted with wisps of fog, or even at the armored Dumpsters. His gaze travels no farther than the parking lot—no farther than his 1961 Royal Enfield Crusader. Lands¬man recognizes the expression on Dick's face. It's the expression that goes with the feeling Landsman gets when he looks at his Chevelle Super Sport, or at the face of Bina Gelbfish. The face of a man who feels he was born into the wrong world. A mistake has been made; he is not where he belongs. Every so often he feels his heart catch, like a kite on a telephone wire, on something that seems to promise him a home in the world or a means of getting there. An American car manufactured in his far-off boyhood, say, or a motor¬cycle that once belonged to the future king of England, or the face of a woman worthier than himself of being loved.

When I was back in my room, I sat on the edge of my bed and stared at the floor. I took my head in my hands and softly began to weep. I tried to determine the cause for my breakdown… (but) I came to realize that my sadness was caused by my own personal angst. I had come to comprehend my own personal story in a more complete sense. I had a painful childhood, however privileged, and was now actively seeking for those things within myself that would break me away from the bonds of childhood and define me as a man. I was set on living my own life as my own man, not defined by the lives of my parents. And whether I succeeded or not, in the end I would die.

The franchise and the virus work on the same principle: what thrives in one place will thrive in another. You just have to find a sufficiently virulent business plan, condense it into a three-ring binder -- its DNA -- Xerox(tm) it, and embed it in the fertile lining of a well-traveled highway, preferably one with a left-turn lane. Then the growth will expand until it runs up against its property lines. In olden times, you'd wander down to Mom's Cafe for a bite to eat and a cup of joe, and you would feel right at home. It worked just fine if you never left your hometown. But if you went to the next town over, everyone would look up and stare at you when you came in the door, and the Blue Plate Special would be something you didn't recognize. If you did enough traveling, you'd never feel at home anywhere. But when a businessman from New Jersey goes to Dubuque, he knows he can walk into a McDonald's and no one will stare at him. He can order without having to look at the menu, and the food will always taste the same. McDonald's is Home, condensed into a three-ring binder and xeroxed. "No surprises" is the motto of the franchise ghetto, its Good Housekeeping seal, subliminally blazoned on every sign and logo that make up the curves and grids of light that outline the Basin. The people of America, who live in the world's most surprising and terrible country, take comfort in that motto. Follow the loglo outward, to where the growth is enfolded into the valleys and the canyons, and you find the land of the refugees. They have fled from the true America, the America of atomic bombs, scalpings, hip-hop, chaos theory, cement overshoes, snake handlers, spree killers, space walks, buffalo jumps, drive-bys, cruise missiles, Sherman's March, gridlock, motorcycle gangs, and bun-gee jumping. They have parallelparked their bimbo boxes in identical computer-designed Burbclave street patterns and secreted themselves in symmetrical sheetrock shitholes with vinyl floors and ill-fitting woodwork and no sidewalks, vast house farms out in the loglo wilderness, a culture medium for a medium culture. The only ones left in the city are street people, feeding off debris; immigrants, thrown out like shrapnel from the destruction of the Asian powers; young bohos; and the technomedia priesthood of Mr. Lee's Greater Hong Kong. Young smart people like Da5id and Hiro, who take the risk of living in the city because they like stimulation and they know they can handle it.

I had a perfectly serviceable bike, but I rarely got to use it because it was a regular motorcycle and therefore too slow. My travel speed was too limited by things like traffic, weather, and the laws of physics. The rest of Nemesis and Co. didn’t share my limitations. Apparently,

Its vast and jarring rhythm hammered at the fortress within me and threatened its imposing serenity.

He then pointed to the right, and I turned to look. Exactly on cue, something massive came around the corner: a snaking, vehicular army that included a phalanx of police cars and motorcycles, a number of black SUVs, two armored limousines with American flags mounted on their hoods, a hazmat mitigation truck, a counterassault team riding with machine guns visible, an ambulance, a signals truck equipped to detect incoming projectiles, several passenger vans, and another group of police escorts. The presidential motorcade. It was at least twenty vehicles long, moving in orchestrated formation, car after car after car, before finally the whole fleet rolled to a quiet halt, and the limos stopped directly in front of Barack’s parked plane. I turned to Cornelius. “Is there a clown car?” I said. “Seriously, this is what he’s going to travel with now?” He smiled. “Every day for his entire presidency, yes,” he said. “It’s going to look like this all the time.” I took in the spectacle: thousands and thousands of pounds of metal, a squad of commandos, bulletproof everything. I had yet to grasp that Barack’s protection was still only half-visible. I didn’t know that he’d also, at all times, have a nearby helicopter ready to evacuate him, that sharpshooters would position themselves on rooftops along the routes he traveled, that a personal physician would always be with him in case of a medical problem, or that the vehicle he rode in contained a store of blood of the appropriate type in case he ever needed a transfusion. In a matter of weeks, just ahead of Barack’s inauguration, the presidential limo would be upgraded to a newer model—aptly named the Beast—a seven-ton tank disguised as a luxury vehicle, tricked out with hidden tear-gas cannons, rupture-proof tires, and a sealed ventilation system meant to get him through a biological or chemical attack.

The motorcycle adds great value toward our quest for individual experience. It offers a means of recreation and self-expression that is unlike any other. The motorcyclist can experience travel without the confinement of an automobile, being able to smell the fragrances nature surrounds us with, and feel the subtle temperature changes we never noticed before when cocooned in a car. Whether its evolution, innovation, or destiny, this marriage between the wheel and the motor provides us with a remarkable vehicle for discovery that goes far beyond roads traveled—it goes deep within us.

Well shake it up, baby, now," he began to sing, but before he could any further, he was interrupted by the roar of an engine that nearly had him jumping out of his shoes. He stopped abruptly and turned on his heels, his eyes first meeting a wheel, and the further they traveled up, the more he recognized. It was a motorcycle, the color dark, but he also recognized who was on it. His eyes continued up, and he stopped when he reached the face, and even in the dull light of the street lamp he could see the green eyes of Dean Winchester.

I feel happy to be here, and still a little sad to be here too. Sometimes it’s a little better to travel than to arrive. 11

I love the wheels, I mean steering wheel.

Sometimes it’s a little better to travel than to arrive.

Contrary to what the media tell us, I can certify that there are very few rapists, ax murderers, and meth lab motels out there on the open roads. Of course, they exist—and even one is too many—but ask yourself: if something terrible had just happened in your hometown, why would your "local" news be feeding you stories about a tragedy fifteen states away? 
Crime is down overall, folks. Breathe.

If you tell yourself that you need more riding experience, more mechanical prowess, more tools, a better bike, and try to cover every single contingency you might face before setting out for a weekend on the bike by yourself, you'll likely never take a solo trip.

Sometimes you stay in a budget motel/cabin/hotel to save money, sometimes they’re the only thing available. If you find yourself in a room with questionable bedding and towels with nowhere else to go, fear not! Whether I pack my camping gear or not, I always travel with a bamboo sleeping sack (sometimes called a “sleeping bag liner”). It packs up to the size of a Chipotle burrito and protects you from scratchy sheets (among other hazards). Bamboo is one of the most comfortable fibers on the market, and is hypoallergenic, antimicrobial and antibacterial.

When Freedoms exist, we ride; When we ride, Freedoms exist.

It’s not about the bike. It’s about the ride

Motorcycling might be the ultimate collaboration between man and machine. Attack it. It is the most intimate mode of travel in which to take in both the enormous beauty and the most subtle nuances of nature. Savor it.

The joy of riding a motorcycle is out of this world. The thrill of riding in the hills and mountains is opiate addiction.

Eva stroked the back of my neck with one hand and ran her other hand up and down my chest. She broke away from my tongue and kissed my lips over and under. Then she sat slightly back and looked at my face. I looked at her presence with a flush of wonder and at her face which was partially hidden by her long, auburn locks, which had fallen in from the sides. She parted her hair away from her face deftly with her hands and then leaned forward and kissed me first under my right eye and then under my left eye. It was the sexiest moment of my life. “You should close the door,” she told me.

After the city of Nis, that is a bad road,” the manager said. “There are mountains on either side which experience rockslides. The government cannot maintain it well. A river run close alongside the road, which floods in spring, but that should not trouble you now, but there are no guardrails, so you must watch carefully for potential washouts. There are steep grades and blind curves, which are not signaled in advance… You truly take your life in your hands up there. And there is no one to come to your assistance should you need it. Now tell me, where are you going to spend the night? “In Skopje.” “Well, be sure to get there before nightfall. Do not drive at night. There are bandits in those mountains. They would love to get their hands on a motorcycle like yours.” “Bandits? Really, I asked, hardly believing. “Yes. They learned from being partisans during the war. Some never stopped being outlaws.

By the time I take a sip, the bean has been on a nine-month-long journey of 2,500 miles across the equator. It has traveled by motorcycles, trucks, boats, vans, pallets, shoulders, and forklifts. It’s been stored in buckets, bags, tubs, and metal containers the size of a small apartment. It’s come down a tree, descended a mountain, docked in ports, navigated customs, been loaded into a warehouse, rattled around on flatbeds.

It was the kind of trip, sooner or later, you have to make. Especially if you are a motorcyclist and always looking for a good reason to travel. Or in my case even a fairly mediocre reason of practically no discernable consequence or socially redeeming value.

As we got closer to Staten Island and the tip of Manhattan, the sun hung behind the dense wll of skyscrapers that defines the Manhattan skyline. Within minutes, the sun was a gigantic orangish-pink orb suspended over Gotham. I couldn't take my eyes off the scene, but there was nowhere to stop the bike for a photo. It was one of those moments seared into my consciousness for all eternity. The realization that I was riding out of the darkness and into the light of a new day ran through my head as I kept my eyes on that glorious sunrise.

Furthermore, my soul was sick, and heart shattered, seemingly beyond repair. I needed consolation. I sought redemption in the wind. I knew that on Bessie I could navigate around the soul sickness, find solace in the journey, and steer in the opposite direction of all the hefty feelings bearing down on me.

This soul-o trip on Bessie was a spiritual renewal, a healing, a time to realize that no matter what life throws in my direction, I can cope, endure, and reach the other side of any situation a stronger woman.

Then I pivoted, turned, climbed astride Bessie and rod off into the sunset, soul-o.

They used my name and permit to grow the weed and earn money to repay their debts and compensate their investors. To keep my girlfriend. To take her. I am uncertain if any of them have ever spent a minute in jail for any of these activities. Adam proudly showcases his new motorcycles on Instagram, posing on a hill above Barcelona. He also displays his brand new electric camper van, which they use to travel and transport drugs across Europe and Iberia, as well as his gigantic marijuana cultivation located in Portugal. People like Ruan and Martina admire his public images. I came across a picture of Ruan and Martina together in Berlin, where their mother Fernanda visited them. Martina became member of the Evil Eye Cult, and the custom made mafia group in Spain, which used her as a pawn in their porn and drug-related activities. She now operates as their representative in Berlin. Martina and I have lost the ability to genuinely smile. Her social media posts only show disinterest or a malicious demeanor. ‘A boot stomping on a human face.’ In a picture with her brother and mother, she puts on a forced fake “good vibe” and “happy” smile, revealing her flawless teeth and the subtle lines of aging. With each passing day, she bears a greater resemblance to her rich and so happy mother, the bad person. As far as I know, none of these individuals have faced consequences for their actions, such as having their teeth broken. As I had. Innocently. Taking care of business and their lives. With love. I find this to be incredibly unjust. In the 21st century. In Europe. On planet Earth. By non-EU criminals. “Matando – ganando” – “killing and gaining” like there were no Laws at all. Nowadays, you can observe Sabrina flaunting her fake lips and altered face, just like Martina her enhanced breasts. Guess who was paying for it? It seems that both girls now sustain themselves through their bodies and drug involvement, to this day, influencing criminals to gain friends in harming Tomas and having a lavish lifestyle filled with fun and mischief. Making a living. Enjoying Spain. Enjoying Life. My money. My tears. This is the situation as it stands. I was wondering what Salvador Dali was trying to tell me. I stood in front of the Lincoln portrait for a long time, but I couldn't grasp the point or the moral behind it. I can listen to Abraham Lincoln and ‘trust people. To see. If I can trust them.’ But he ultimately suffered a tragic fate, with his life being taken. (Got his head popped.) I believe there may have also been a female or two involved in that situation, too, possibly leading to his guards being let down. While he was watching: Acting performances, he was facing a: Stage. Theater. It is disheartening, considering he was a good person. Like Jesus, John Lennon and so on. Shows a pattern Machiavelli was talking about. Some individuals are too bright for those in darkness; they feel compelled to suppress those brighter minds simply because they think and act differently. Popping their heads. Reptilian lower brain-based culture, the concept of the Evil Eye, Homo erectus. He couldn't even stand up properly when I was shouting at him, urging him to stand up from the stairs. ‘Homo seditus reptilis.’ But what else was there in the Lincoln image that I didn't see? What was Dali trying to convey or express or tell me? Besides the fact that the woman is in his mind, on his mind, in the image, exactly, his head got popped open. Perhaps because he was focusing on a woman, trusting her for a split second, or turning his head away for a moment.

Perhaps then, the most important tools for achieving our goals, ('singing our song' as the poet might say), may be a wall calendar and a permanent marker. Just circle a date and decide to go. The decision to act becomes more important than all subsequent decisions because it is the one that made all the other decisions possible." (Molded on a Motorcycle, page 17)

He loved talking to the mountains. He loved talking to the breeze. He loved to drift. And he loved to ride his motorcycle.

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The main thing spring preload adjustments really do is change the ride height. A change in ride height affects what percentage of suspension travel is available for absorbing bumps and for extending into holes or dips in the road surface.

Hey, you,” a voice calls out. I turn to look, and find Bob Caster perched on a gleaming motorcycle with wide, shiny handlebars. I point to myself and ask, “Who? Me?” “Yes, you,” he says. He squints at me like he’s trying to look inside me. I cross my arms under my breasts to block his piercing gaze, and his eyes drop down to my boobs. He licks his lips ever so slowly, and then his eyes travel back up. Heat creeps up my cheeks, but I refuse to fidget on my feet. I stare straight at him. “You want to take a ride with me?” he asks. He revs the bike. I point a finger. “On that?” He grins that sideways grin again. “Well, I wasn’t offering my personal services.” He glances down at his button fly, and then he laughs. He runs a hand lovingly down the shiny chrome handlebar, his touch reverent and respectful. “Of course on this.” I point to the center of my chest and then at the bike. “You want to take me for a ride on that?” He stares at me. I finally let that feet fidget thing happen and want to kick myself. “Is it safe?” He shakes a cigarette out of a pack and takes his time lighting it. He inhales deeply and holds it for a moment. Then he blows it out and says, “I won’t let you get hurt.” I look at my car and then at him. He revs the engine again. “Where are we going?” “For a ride,” he says with a shrug. “When will we be back?” I step closer to him and his eyes light up a little. And I like it. “When we get done.” Be still my heart. He flicks his cigarette into the grass. “Are you coming or what?” “Okay,” I say. He looks surprised. “Yeah?” “Yes.” He takes the helmet off his head and holds it out to me. I pull my ponytail free and tug the helmet on. He reaches out to buckle the strap for me, his fingers gentle. “How old are you?” he asks, his voice strong but quiet. “Nineteen.” “Good.” He grins. He motions for me to climb on behind him and I do, my thighs spread around his hips. He lifts my feet and shows me where to put them. “Why is that good?” I ask close to his ear. He looks back over his shoulder. “Because I don’t want to go back to jail.” He doesn’t wait. He hits the gas and I shriek as we take off through the parking lot and onto the open road. He reaches back with one hand and puts my hand on his waist, and I automatically follow with the other. I hold on tightly to the man who just told me he doesn’t want to go back to jail, and I wonder what the heck I just got myself into.

Don’t think I’m getting on that thing.” His left eyebrow raises a fraction. “Why not? Julio’s not good enough for you?” “Julio? You named your motorcycle Julio?” “After my great uncle who helped my parents move here from Mexico.” “I like Julio just fine. I just don’t want to ride on him wearing this short dress. Unless you want everyone riding behind us to see my undies.” He rubs his chin, thinking about it. “Now that would be a sight for sore eyes.” I cross my arms over my chest. “I’m jokin’. We’re takin’ my cousin’s car.” We get in a black Camry parked across the street. After driving a few minutes he pulls a cigarette from a pack lying on the dashboard. The click of the lighter makes me cringe. “What?” he asks, the lit cigarette dangling from his lips. He can smoke if he wants. This might be an official date, but I’m not his official girlfriend or anything. I shake my head. “Nothing.” I hear him exhale, and the cigarette smoke burns my nostrils more than my mom’s perfume. As I lower my window all the way, I suppress a cough. When he stops at a stoplight, he looks over at me. “If you’ve got a problem with me smokin’, tell me.” “Okay, I’ve got a problem with you smoking,” I tell him. “Why didn’t you just say so?” he says, then smashes it into the car’s ashtray. “I can’t believe you actually like it,” I say when he starts driving again. “It relaxes me.” “Do I make you nervous?” His gaze travels from my eyes to my breasts and down to where my dress meets my thighs. “In that dress you do.

Mountains like these and travelers in the mountains and events that happen to them here are found not only in Zen literature but in the tales of every major religion. The allegory of

If you know where you’re going, you can get there; if you don’t know where you’re going, you can get everywhere.

I live in the Temple of Winds; Amid the night, Amid the light, Amid the half-light.

If you want to outrun your Destiny, first choose a different road to run on.

Find Beauty in all things: The grand and the trifling, The sacred and the profane.

It truly is an odd thing we bikers do, riding through miserable conditions like this. We don’t invite then or look for them, surely, but when they are upon us we relish the challenge and silently claim the superiority of adventure over comfort, wilderness over warmth, discovery over certainty.

Riding is a sacred place.

Wherever your heart reside, go there.

I want to talk about another kind of high country now in the world of thought, which in some ways, for me at least, seems to parallel or produce feelings similar to this, and call it the high country of the mind. If all of human knowledge, everything that’s known, is believed to be an enormous hierarchic structure, then the high country of the mind is found at the uppermost reaches of this structure in the most general, the most abstract considerations of all. Few people travel here. There’s no real profit to be made from wandering through it, yet like this high country of the material world all around us, it has its own austere beauty that to some people make the hardships of traveling through it seem worthwhile. In the high country of the mind one has to become adjusted to the thinner air of uncertainty, and to the enormous magnitude of questions asked, and to the answers proposed to these questions. The sweep goes on and on and on so obviously much further than the mind can grasp one hesitates even to go near for fear of getting lost in them and never finding one’s way out.

I feel happy to be here, and still a little sad to be here too. Sometimes it's a little better to travel than to arrive.

I walk up the long main street in the gathering dusk and feel the presence of the mountains even though we talk about other things. I feel happy to be here, and still a little sad to be here too. Sometimes it’s a little better to travel than to arrive.