Motorcycle Musings

The weather has been beautiful for the past week, and T.S. and I have been roaming around a lot. On the way into work this morning, I was thinking about some of the "surprising" differences that I've noticed between riding a motorcycle and driving a car.
Of course, there's the obvious - you're on two wheels - duh! But what I'm really talking about is the enhanced sensations that you have (or as John Travolta said in Pulp Fiction, "It's the little differences"). Here's 3 things:

1) The Wind - OMG! When you're riding around on an asphalt parking lot in training class, with maximum speeds of about 18 mph, you have NO idea what riding at 60 mph is going to feel like. The first ride for me was a shock. The first stretch of Airline Highway where I got up to about 45 mph scared the crud out of me. I still don't have a windshield, but I'm considering getting one this fall.

2) The Temperature - Even though I was told that the temperature feels about 15 degrees cooler when you're riding, I still wasn't prepared for last winter. I mean, I got this information during training class, which was held on the last weekend in June on a tar covered parking lot. At that point, the concept of a 15 degree drop in temperature still equated to "hot as hell"! Flash forward 6 or 7 months to early morning rides when Diane Deaton is saying that the temperature is 36 degrees. There were many December and January mornings when I arrived at work not sure if my fingers were still attached. I've upgraded my gloves since then. The other thing about the temperature is coming across cool spots. It's really neat to be riding down the street and all of the sudden hit a small patch of cooler air. That happened this morning - although since the temperature was about 55 degrees to start with, I wasn't much of a fan of the cool spot today.

3) Smells - All that metal and those windows really block out a lot of the "fragrances" of the world around us. And sometimes, that's a good thing. Skunks and roadkill - nice. This morning, I was 2 vehicles behind a big garbage truck. It wasn't terrible, but every now and then, I'd catch a whiff of that unmistakable scent. Then I passed through an oily/gassy smell. A little farther down the road, I could smell the unmistakable grease of McDonald's. When I was almost to work, I passed by somewhere bread was being baked. I don't think I've yet to encounter the scent of a field of flowers yet - something to look forward to.