Long, Good Day

Today ripped! Started off with one of the strongest Basic Rider Classes I've ever taught. If "teaching" is what I'm doing here. The worst rider in this class would be the strongest rider in some past classes. The average age of this group is probably about half of the current rider average for the US, which always accounts for a quicker class. Even the older students are listening and working hard at learning the skills. Nobody scared me at all anytime this morning.

I'm battling one of the many fine adventures of aging, arthritis, these days. My hips and low back have been grinding away bone-to-bone for a few years and about two years ago I think my lubrication system ran dry. I wasted a lot of time and a few thousand dollars on a doctor who didn't seem to know anything that hadn't been fed to him by his HMO directors or the drug distributors and after a year of assuming I was just going to grind to a halt, I changed doctors and lucked into a guy who pinpointed my problem immediately, talked me out of using my home surgery kit (an X-ACTO knife set and a bunch of dental and surgical tools I picked up at Axeman) to fix my back myself, and shipped me grumbling all the way to a physical therapist. Four weeks ago, I couldn't move quickly without feeling like I'd freshly broken a rib. Today, I'm getting better every day and almost feel human again. An old human, for sure, but at least not like I'm heading for the crematorium willingly and fully awake. Physical therapy rocks.

After my therapist appointment, I hung out at Barnes and Noble sucking down coffee and scanning the latest in western novels (a contradiction in terms, if there ever was one) until it was time to head south to Dakota Country Tech College for the rider-coach get together. First time to work out the new WR on a closed track. What a great bike. The usually boring ride down 52 to the school was at least slightly more interesting because of the bike's maneuverability. The first few laps around the course were the easiest I've ever taken on that course, including a KTM outing a few years back where I got to play with all of KTM's supermotos. Honesty, if I had to pick one bike to own for the rest of my life, the WR250X is damn close to perfect.

To top it all off, one of my favorite people from my years in Minnesota, Pat Hahn, showed up on break from his new job with Team Oregon. Honestly, I'd have ridden the 50 miles just to get to hang with Pat for a while, but getting to play on a twisty closed course and catch up with Pat was the topping on a beautiful day.

Today almost made me forget I'm old.