Tweet
Prologue
Wow, I'm writing a travelogue
. I don't remember how many years back I wrote my last travelogue. In my memory the last proper LoneWolfRides type of ride I did was the one for TW 1.0 (Search for the True Wanderers - Preview Winner) back in mid-2011. After that its just been a HUGE down slump with a few odd ball rides here and there once every blue moon. Its actually funny when I think about it, back when I made half the money I make now I rode at least 4 times of what I ride now. And the primary reason why I barely ride now is work/money Most of the rides I have done over the last 3 years have been just an attempt to make up for lost time, don't get me wrong, every ride felt amazing. But with no rides to follow up the previous rides, that feeling of "wellness" just diminishes away and much more rapidly now thanks to the increased corporate slavery. To compound the feeling, my rickety old (now almost 7) bike just has to have some minor issue every now and then. All this was enough to put me into a zombie like mode, which meant a very robotic routine of Home-Office-Home day after day for I don't know how many months. The biker in me is dying and at a rapid pace, I have a very strong feeling that I am going to one those bikers who biked for a while and then faded into the fabric of life to see the world just whiz by.
Every ride I have done over the last few months/years just have one resounding theme of questions pounding my mind at every moment I twist the throttle or hit the brakes, "Am I still a Biker?", "Can I still ride hard and long?", "Have I lost my riding endurance?" ... even now after this ride has ended I am not sure if I have answers to all these questions or if I will ever have an answer. But I sincerely hope from the bottom of my heart that "biking" was not just a "phase" in my life that came and went away. Because every time I am out there on the open road (or no road
), with or without biker buddies, my soul gets a little bit recharged. Every little recharge gives me more strength to withstand this madness called the 'corporate world' and it also helps me maintain my sanity a little bit more for everyday situations, which get more and more demanding as responsibilities pile up on the domestic front.Until a few years back, when the holiday calendar was released at the end of the year, I would be busy blocking my dates for the coming year converting all holidays to long weekends with plans to ride out for every one of those extended weekends. I don't know when this habit just died, I started taking every holiday as it came ... Sometime in February this year my manager asked to share my planned leaves for the year, the moment I opened the holiday calendar I was hit with instant nostalgia and did exactly what the 'old me' would do. I ended up blocking out of most of the long weekends for year 2014. I am not sure what actually triggered these feelings of nostalgia or even how many of those extended weekends I will actually end up converting to real riding holidays, but for now I am happy to say that I managed to make the most of the extended weekend from 27 - 31 March. And I 'was' happy to have 'most' of my bike's issues sorted out before the ride along with a new front tyre. But as we all know the universe kicks off Murphy's law into action at the 'wrongest' of moments
. The evening before the ride, I realize that petrol was leaking from the fuel pump and also from the throttle body, both jobs will take easily half a day to fix provided nothing major had broken in my ride. With this dilemma in mind my mind whether to drop the ride or spend half the next day fixing the bike, I packed my saddlebags and tank bag, and hit the sack for a night of just tossing and turning around...
To be continued ....
Extended Prologue
Day 1 : The Ride Hard, Ride Long Day
Day 2 In a Picture
while most of them have converted it to carb version.
Comment