Done and Out

Quite a few years ago, when I was still a young 69-years-old, I gave myself a set of criteria, “Creating A Baseline,”  for knowing when my physical capabilities and skills were no longer up to the challenge of riding a motorcycle on the street. (You might notice that I gave myself a slight out there.)  My skills were still pretty sharp when I wrote that article and I was being brutally critical and honest about how lame I think the Minnesota motorcycle license test is.  Today, having watched the collection of losers and fools who parade through Red Wing pretending they are big brave biker gangbangers for 9 years, it's way worse than I thought it was then.  Wobbling to a stop, wandering into a ditch, crashing into telephone poles and houses, and falling over trying to traverse a low speed intersection are unattainable “skills.”

A few weeks ago I took a 40 mile round-trip ride for lunch with a friend.  On the way there, my hands gave me some pain and aggravation.  On the way back, they were practically paralyzed by the time I turned on to my street.  It turns out—one more old fart thing—I am developing severe carpal tunnel in both hands.  It’s been severe enough that some mornings my hands hurt worse than they did when I had broken fingers.  At the end of that last ride I couldn't feel the throttle the brake or the clutch, and I was operating totally on memory.

So, after putting it off until it looked like we might start to get actual motorcycling weather, I rode over to the nearest ex-range (no longer used, due to the decline in motorcycle license applicants), warmed up for about 20 minutes, practicing the exercises I was about to run on myself, and went through the 10 exercises of the Minnesota motorcycle license test.

I failed.

I didn't fail the way you might have, given the same situation, but I failed under my 2017 standards. And that's the deal I made with myself. If I cannot ride that idiotic and easy course perfectly, I'm done. I didn't have anyone there scoring me. And I am a pretty harsh judge of myself, but by my scorecard, I picked up three points: infinitely worse than perfect.

I thought about making another pass at it. Giving myself the exact same second chance I would not give a student. Honestly, my hands hurt so badly. by the end of that practice session and the failed test, that it was just obvious to me that I'm done. I'm 76, this isn't going to get better, if I'm lucky it won't get much worse. 

My good friend, Andy Goldfine, regularly tries to encourage me with stories of his 80-and-over customers who are still knocking out a few thousand miles every year. I've looked into some of those guys and they all ride in a group. So that, if something goes wrong, they have someone to help pick up their bike, to haul their withered butts to hospitals, and even to help them  mount the motorcycle in mildly difficult situations. I'd rather walk than ride in a group.

So, after stewing in disappointment and recriminations, today I started planning up my 2012 Suzuki TU250X for sale.  And the recent past, a half dozen people have expressed interest in my TUX and I'll offer it to them before it goes up on the half dozen sale sites I'm likely to use.  The rest of my motorcycle pile—jackets, riding pants, all-weather gloves, boots, parts, accessories, and tools—will be sold or given away at the same time.

That's going to clear a lot of space in my lower garage.  For that matter, in the upper garage too.  Part of that Swedish Death Cleaning routine, I suppose.

I have been riding motorcycles since my first exposure at 15, in 1963. I am not one of those cool guys who has logged his life’s mileage so that I can brag “real numbers.” I didn’t even own a motorcycle with an odometer until 1983. By then, I’d been on (and off of) motorcycles for 20 years. That same year, 1983, I bought my first Aerostich Roadcrafter when I went through my first southern California monsoon season. I’ve been wearing helmets anytime I’m on a motorcycle since 1971 and assorted protective gear since race tracks started insisting on it in the early 70s. It will be weird not having a motorcycle and gear in my garage and basement, but I still have eBikes and that will have to do.

What We Don't Get

This winter, my wife and I took a cruise to Central America. While we were exploring Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, I found this flyer on a park bench. Practically every place we went I saw motorcycles that I've never seen before. All of those cool sub-500cc bikes that I've lusted after when I read British or Euro motorcycle magazines and stuff I didn't know existed. My wife got more than a little tired waiting for me to take pictures, ask questions, and ogle motorcycles.

I guess Katana is a ROW Suzuki label? There are so many models on this sheet that I'd like to test ride that I'm thinking a winter in Costa Rica writing about local motorcycles might be next year's plan.

For me, the CR-1, CRM, SMX-200, SM-200, CR5 250, SX2-250, CR6 300, and EN-125 all look aimed right at my target zone.

Costa Rica has great roads, paved and unpaved, amazing destinations, wonderful food, and incredibly friendly people and NO WINTER. I might have played out my interest in living through winters that get colder than 30-40F. I could see taking a couple of winters to explore the places we visited on our cruise.

We've never done anything like the cruise before. Hell, other than Mexico and Canada we've never traveled together outside of the US; most west of the Mississippi. The upside is that all forms of travel could be experienced on a cruise: from ocean liners to mini-taxis to trains and ziplines. The downside is the ship never stops at a port for more than a day, usually 8 hours of less. You don't get to know a place much in that little time, but we did learn that we love those islands, Aruba and Carsou, and the highlands of Panama and Costa Rica.

#119 Dark Side, Bright Side

http://www.amazon.com/Geezer-with-A-Grudge/dp/B007RPQJ24

All Rights Reserved © 2013 Thomas W. Day

Some of you might know I had a heart attack right after Thanksgiving (Ironic, I know.) in 2012. You'd think there is no upside to that story, but you might be wrong. There was plenty of downside, for sure. I experienced the joy of the world's most expensive, least efficient, "health care" system and will be paying off my debt to that industry until I die. That is a definite downside. There was a brief moment in my 4 days of hospitalization where I was operated on by an incredibly efficient, upbeat and motivated surgical crew who epitomized the tiny core of the best our retroactive medical system has produced. Outside of that 20 minutes, what "cared for" me was a bureaucracy that is obsessed with drug and device sales, expense and income management, procedural and legal paranoia, and obedience to years of poor science and misinterpreted data.
So, a hip replacement (Classic "old guy" surgery.) in 2011 and a heart attack in 2012 has made for two depressing years and overwhelming evidence that I have earned the "geezer" title. No motorcycle content here, at all, I know.

As much as I realize I should be a motorcycling homer, I tend to read only two motorcycle magazines semi-cover-to-cover, MMM and Motorcycle Consumer News. Even in those favorite rags, there are things I just don't care about and can't find the motivation to read: cruiser reviews, road race bike reviews, rich guy custom bike articles, and farkle previews for those sorts of machines. I'm old, I only have so much time left and I don't waste it on crap I don't care about; that includes most of the television shows my wife watches in the morning. (I soundproofed my "man cave" attic studio to be able to avoid the slightest bit of noise from that stuff.) Two of the MCN semi-motorcycle related columns I read religiously are Mark Barnes' "Mental Motorcycling" and Dr. John Alevizos' "Medical Motorcycling." The reason for that focus is that unlike the majority of the medical practitioners, these two guys are unrelentingly scientific. Because of that, their data is credible and their opinions are unconventional.

In other words, they are never boring. Not boring is a big deal. If I could manage it, I would.
So, with that in mind, this GWAG is about something other than old guys stories or wildly unpopular political opinions. It's about a classic old American guy thing; getting fat and being pissed off about it. Post-surgery, I read everything I could find on cardiac and respiratory disease. What I learned was that if you have enough time you can find a book that will justify any damn opinion you might have about diet, exercise, drugs and surgery, and all related subjects. In otherwords, hardly anyone agrees with hardly anyone else.

In my first follow-up with my cardiologist, I got a collection of drugs added to my already mile-long collection of prescribed poisons, some 1960's dietary advice, a book recommendation (How We Get Fat by Gary Taubes), and an odd comment: "About 40 years ago, American doctors and European doctors got into a war about diet and the Americans won. And we were wrong." He added,"Everything we know about diet is in Taubes' book." I went from the cardiologist's office to the library. 

I've read How We Get Fat three times in the last two months. I'll probably read it again. I might even buy a copy, since the library seems to have a constant demand for the book. The thing that I'm having a hard time coming to grips with is the fact that physics and biology are only loosely connected. My old "calories are calories" belief in diet and weight management is pretty much the American medicine mantra, but the fact is there are "good calories" and "bad calories" and my diet has consisted of way too many "bad" calories for 65 years.

Close to the end of Taubes' relentless argument that we've been fed a steady diet of bad information, he says, "We are told to eat less fat and more carbohydrates, and rather than avoid heart disease and get thinner, as the authorities had hoped we would, we've had as much heart disease as ever, and dramatic increases in obesity and diabetes . . . A more insidious problem is that all involved--the researchers, the physicians, the public-health authorities, the health associations--commit themselves to a belief early in the evolution of the science, arguably at the stage at which they know the least about it, and then they become so invested in their belief that no amount of evidence to the contrary can convince them that they're wrong."

Even the ones who know they are wrong can't change directions. My doctor aimed me in one direction, but his clinic tried to send me in another. Unfortunately, I don't take direction well. I may not know much, but I do know old information when I hear it. My memory is still pretty good. So, I went the low carb, no sugar, no drugs, "if it's not leafy and green or protein don't eat it" route and I have lost 20 pounds since January and 34 since the previous January. More importantly, I have gone down 4" in belt size. The doc and I are still arguing about which numbers I'm supposed to care about; HDL, LDL, triglycerides, cholesterol in general, blood sugar, and a variety of things I think he should be measuring but isn't and the usual list of stuff the clinic monitors that doesn't mean crap. Lucky for me, it's my life we're gambling with and if anyone gets to decide how that die is tossed it's going to be me. If I have to start carrying a .32 in my pocket like my old cowboy hero, Karl, I will.

For now, the goal is 180 pounds by August and I'd like to be able to do at least a dozen pull-ups. I'm still working on the theory that being shot out of a cannon is better than being squeezed from a tube.

March 13

December 14, I gave up on the idea that I'd be able to physical therapy my left hip back to functional. It took me all of the 3 months of the period between when I met my surgeon and my scheduled surgery date to decide I was going to risk getting cut. A couple of months ago, It was hard for me to see this decisions made a lick of sense. Today, it all came together. Today, Tuesday, March 13, an insignificant day in an insignificant year for most everyone but a day I expect to remember for years, for the rest of my life.

Today it was 52F just before I needed to leave for work. The weather man guess-timated the day's high would be 65F. My leg is stronger than it has been in a couple of years. So, I moved the cage to the driveway, to get it out of the bike's way, and I rode the WRX to work this morning.

If you weren't a motorcyclist, you'd be amazed at the difference 20 minutes on a motorcycle makes in a day. If you are, I'm probably wasting your time here. Today, I handed back about 75 midterm exams, a few of which were pretty damn miserable. I usually put int a fairly long, intense day on Tuesdays. In good times, it's not my favorite day of the week. I won't get to leave before 9PM. For the last 2 months, I've been getting more and more bored with life in the frozen north on four wheels. Overall, I have a pretty good life, a pretty good job, and any half-intelligent guy would be satisfied to plug along just being able to walk at 64. I'm ashamed to admit I'm not that guy. It turns out, a lot (I mean A LOT) of my declining attitude has to do with not being able to ride a motorcycle.

I get bored with the predictable nature of a predictable life. My wife says I was born to be a sailor. My cousin says most of our line, on my father's side, were drowned sea captains. The closest I've been to either was when I was on the road 100,000 miles a year back in the 70's when my kids were little and we were living from check-to-paycheck and for short segments of my engineering and musical career. But the closest I've been to being a sailor is on my motorcycles. Even the lousy commute to work is like a quick fishing trip. A summer road trip is my version of going to sea for a month. It's all I have and it's all of that I have had for almost 50 years. The only other thing I've done for that long is music and eating and sleeping. Not just that, though, I need it. I need the thing I get from being on two wheels. Imagining the rest of my life without a motorcycle is like asking a sailor to give up his boat.

I'm writing this in my basement surrounded by other bits of my life; the exercise equipment that helped me get my leg back, my Dobro (the instrument I most naturally reach for when I'm pissed off or bummed out), and a pretty decent AV system. Between mid-December and today, I've probably watched Faster and Dust to Glory a dozen times. I've grown tired of Faster's sound track, so I watch the movie playing along on my Dobro. I watch those guys ride half-expecting that could be the extend of my motorcycling from here out. Not today. Maybe next week, next month, next year, or most likely in the next decade, but right now I'm wallowing in the feeling of having two-wheeled myself around the city for the day and that's all it takes to get my sailor on. And I'm going to do it again tomorrow.

Cuttin' to the Bone

I'm on two legs now, walking around the house and using a cane when I go out for distance (1.5 - 2 miles a day average last week). Five weeks out from having my leg cut off and the jury (me) is still out on whether this was a good idea. I am a miserable cripple. I hate being unable to put my own socks on, let alone tie my shoes. My left leg jiggles like my belly, something that drives me crazy (both the leg and the belly). I lost about all of my muscle mass in the surgery and that comes back glacially at my age.

There is a great website, Edheads - Virtual Hip Replacement Surgery, that provides a complete look (less gore) of the procedure. Too many people, in my opinion, minimize the severity of this surgery and toss themselves into the hands of surgeons without a second thought. Go through the whole procedure, then decide how you feel about getting your leg cut off compared to whatever pain you're experiencing and disability you're suffering. If you don't have the stones to do the virtual procedure, I suspect you won't do well with the real thing. Lots of people don't.

I was in the garage earlier today, moving the battery tender from the V-Strom to the WR, and trying to imagine being able to swing a leg over either bike. It's impossible today. It's more possible today than last week, though. My wife cautions "patience." Patience, my ass. I want to ride something.

Doin' It for 45 Years?

If you read my last Geezer column in MMM, you know I've been on the tipping point for a hip replacement for a couple of years. I tipped over last week and had the old hip cut out and replaced with what I hope is a high tech prosthetics. So, I'm stuck in the house suffering the great views of a warm Minnesota December while my bikes wither away in the garage. What to do?

So far, that's easy. I have a handful of physical therapy routines to work on, I upped my Netflix DVD allowance so that I can choke on all of the western movies I can't get on-line, and I'm too doped up on morphine and oxycodone-actetaminophen to worry about anything for long. One of the movies that passed a bit of time was "Bustin' Down the Door," a documentary about the origins of pro surfing in the 1970's when the Aussies took the sport away from Hawaiian control and surfing went big-time worldwide.

There are two motorcycling-similar stories in "Bustin' Down." One was the reaction of the old-time, biker gangster types (called the "Black Shorts" and headed by a surfing Hell's Angel stereotype named Eddie Rothman in the film). Rothman and his gangbanger buddies view the beach and surfing as their territory and fought back against the Aussie invasion with the only tools they had; violence and intimidation. "If you can't beat 'em, beat 'em up" has been the gangbanger chant for centuries and, as usual, laws and the cops proved to be as useless in Hawaii as they are everywhere else. The gangbangers kept the Aussies out of championship events until 1975. The Aussies couldn't even get into major events in 1974. In 1975, they won every event they entered and major press attention (and big event purses) followed. Even in their own words, the Black Shorts characters were about preventing change, true conservatives. They wanted to maintain control of the dinky surfing pond they'd managed to create and the Aussies wanted to put surfing into the ocean. Literally, the Hawaiians were afraid to attempt the maneuvers the Aussies were introducing, so their solution was to chase the Aussies out of the sport.

In the end, the Black Shorts sort of won. Hawaii is no longer the hub of surfing. The Harley gangsters managed to pull of the same kind of coup in the US. By creating "Harley-only" race venues and through rules and intimidation, the 1960's US motorcycling gangsters drove anyone who wasn't a gangbanger to the other side. Today, the US makes marginally functional hippobikes and practically every country in the industrialized world makes real motorcycles. The conservatives won and the nation lost.

The other similarity between motorcycling and surfing was pointed out by South African, Michael Tomson, "Very few people can look through their life, and say they've been doing something for 45 years. What have you been doing for 45 years? I will surf till I die."

Before this surgery, my wife tried to reconcile me to the possibility that I'm going to have to quit riding a motorcycle some time. "You can't ride forever." I can't live forever, either, but I can keep riding for a lot more years and you may as well assume that I will ride till I die.