Motorcycles and Moderation

Some people think of moderation as identifying the things you shouldn’t do, or at least the things you should minimize. While it is true that the goal of moderation is to avoid extremes, I tend to think of it in terms of what you can do. In other words, it’s a way of focusing on what can be accomplished by setting boundaries.

The first motorcycle trip I took was on a 1999 Honda Shadow 600 that I bought for $800. It needed new tires and some carburetor maintenance, which my father-in-law and his friend helped me figure out. I wanted to get out and experience the open road on two wheels but I didn’t have paid vacation time or much money, so I rode from Coeur d’Alene to Boise for a weekend (approx. 800 miles round trip). I’ve driven this route a hundred times and yet it felt totally new on a motorcycle. I didn’t have any saddlebags so I strapped my duffle bag to the sissy bar. And that was it. Nothing extreme, just a little trip to clear my head. I didn’t take unpaid time off or convince myself to buy expensive saddlebags, which free’d my mind to focus on enjoying the trip. 

I think it’s a common human experience to get into something new and go all out. In that way people tend to learn their boundaries by testing out extremes. Some folks buy a fancy motorcycle thinking they’ll ride it across the country or even across the globe. While that’s fine for Ewen McGregor and Charlie Borman, you don’t need an expensive bike or epic journey to enjoy life on two wheels. 

I should know. I fell into that trap when I planned a trip with a couple of friends (Tom and Greg) to ride 5,000 miles in 17 days to Alaska and back. I bought a nearly new BMW F650GS (the twin cylinder, not the thumper) with BMW Motorrad panniers and many other accessories. We built it up in our heads as this epic journey to the Arctic Circle. I don’t think we realized the gravity of riding over 300 miles a day for two and a half weeks with no downtime planned. We only knew we wanted to reach the Article Circle and we didn’t have much vacation time to take off. The more we talked about our daily mileage and the shrinking prospect of a buffer period, the more I realized it wasn’t going to be the kind of trip I expected, with time to explore and get lost or just lose track of time. We would need to be diligent about getting on the road everyday and sticking to a schedule. As much as I like to ride my motorcycle, the best part is the freedom. Sticking to a rigid structure and timeline is for the work week.  So I started making my own plan for what to do when we reached Alaska. 

I tried to convince my riding buddies that while reaching the Arctic Circle would be pretty sweet, actually experiencing the parts of Alaska we would be passing through would be more fulfilling. But when your mind builds something up as a challenge, anything short of that goal can feel like failure. And I get why they wanted to reach that point. How do you bring an ADV (common abbreviation for adventure) bike to Alaska and not try to ride the Dalton Highway? For me the appeal of reaching a sign and turning around to go home was not glorious. Instead I bid my riding pals farewell in Cantwell where I picked up Andrea, who rode the train up from Anchorage to meet me. We explored Denali National Park and then rode to Anchorage and stayed a couple of nights. We rode through a mountain to the port town of Whittier and took a jet ski tour of Prince William Sound and the Blackstone Glacier. 

Meanwhile my pals had some trouble when they started the Dalton Highway. Greg’s bike was having mechanical issues and they decided to abandon the Arctic Circle. Defeated and muddy, they limped the bike back to a shop in Fairbanks and awaited some news. The shop couldn’t quite find the problem but they said the bike should be fine to make it home. They were ultimately proved wrong in the aptly named Destruction Bay in the Yukon. Greg had to trailer his bike home from there. He was devastated. We planned this trip for months. We made shirts and stickers and had cigars to celebrate after they made it to the Arctic Circle. (Check out our entire trip Denali ADV on YouTube)

That trip had a profound impact that shaped my philosophy of moderation and motorcycling. Keep it simple, focus on what you can accomplish and you’ll avoid the consequences of extremes. The real tragedy was not that Greg couldn’t finish the trip or that they didn’t make it to the Arctic Circle to take a picture in front of a sign. It’s that once the trouble began, Greg was no longer able to focus on enjoying the trip. We didn’t need to go to Alaska to be adventure riders. There is plenty of opportunity near home. I don’t regret that trip one bit. I can’t speak for my friends, but I can say we may have bit off more than we could chew at the time.

I sometimes wonder what our trip would have been like if there was no destination planned. Where would we have chosen to stop each day, and how far would we have pushed when we felt like we could make it further. Moderation and motorcycles doesn’t have to mean you do less, it just means focusing on what is achievable and in my opinion, what is enjoyable.