On Motorcycling

The following quote from actor and cycling enthusiast Ewan McGregor sums it up...

"When I leave work on a motorbike, pull on my helmet and move off, it doesn't matter if I've had a good day or not.  With no phone, no stereo and no traffic to sit in for forty minutes, contemplating what's happened during the day, I am concentrating so hard on what I'm doing and where I'm going, and making sure that no one is pulling out to kill me, that by the time I get home my mind has been cleared of any troubles.  Motorcycling gives me anonymity and I don't have much of that in my life.  It's an escape from being stared at.  When I'm flashing around on my bike with my helmet on I'm just another geezer on the road and that's nice.  But, above all, there's something about riding a bike - the concentration and the single-mindedness of it, and the desire to get it right, taking a corner fast without losing control, doing it beautifully, getting into a groove and winning the battle between your head telling you to do one thing, the bike wanting to do another and your body in between - that I miss like hell if I don't get to ride it every day."

~ Ewan McGregor, Long Way Round, p. 18.

McGregor's adventure (with Charley Boorman) riding from England, across Europe, through Russia to the far east, taking a plane to Alaska, and then riding from there to New York is chronicled in the DVD series of the same name: Long Way Round.

There is no greater way to travel - whether across time zones or just going to work.

Here are a few pics from an adventure I enjoyed with my dad in 1981 visiting Spruce Knob, the tallest peak in West Virginia:

Larry Beane, Sr. and his Suzuki GS 850 L

Larry Beane, Sr. 

Larry Beane II