Once upon a time I had built a camper van out of a Mercedes Sprinter and had a Honda PCX 150 motorbike.
It’s a unit that came from the Purdue Campus, it was a little rough in the fine details, but some goo-gone and a deep clean sorted it out.
One random morning the day after Mother’s Day, everything was totaled out. All of my work, Lo’s car, the motorcycle, gone.
Queue the irony of Lo and I literally having a conversation the night before about the discomfort of things being calm and an invitation for things to feel safe, if not a bit boring.
Behold! The PCX 150 wrapped up in a more “rugged” shell with more suspension travel and Anti-lock brakes. The power plant is exactly the same with possibly lower gearing and some tech upgrades to bring what was my 2016 into the 2020s.
I considered, and opted out of a Zuma 125 due to leg and foot space and the paltry 3″ of suspension travel, it was also doubtful that the bike had ABS, even if the signature tone ring was up front. The ADV, sadly, has a rear drum brake, corpo cost cutting on the smallest of real-world scales.
I’ll once again have a scoot that can top out around 70MPH, which is more than enough for me as I will not be bumbling around on the interstates, this time, with a bit more off-road “adventure” positioning.
I’m going to throw a hitch on the front of the truck and carry it to campgrounds.
The bike weighs around 280 so it’s not like I’m throwing a Goldwing on the front, more like an additional American sized passenger with Big Macs. A cover will be needed and thought about headlights, salt spray has already started to rust my electric bike.
What is it, 23 fatalities per million miles of cars, 1,100 fatalities for motorcycles? You’d think that someone with agoraphobia/anxiety would avoid motorcycling like the plague.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_findings_in_the_Hurt_Report
“In the single vehicle accidents, motorcycle rider error was present as the accident precipitating factor in about two-thirds of the cases, with the typical error being a slide-out and fall due to overbraking or running wide on a curve due to excess speed or under-cornering.”
Holy shit, yeah, I’ve done that exactly once before, lol. The feeling of taking a curve too fast and barely making it out of it.
Anyway, I think it’s fun; especially bumbling around campgrounds. The goal is to have an inexpensive and fun way to encourage me to get out and do things and I think this fits the bill for me. One of the things that got me driving as much as I did was the self driving car hobby, I was up at all hours of the night, during work during the day, I basically lived in my car for a few months.
6,000-10,000 miles later of driving alone, yeah. If not a bit extreme in some people’s eyes, but I was basically cured of my anxiety. I drove from Indiana to Key West that following summer, across Indianapolis, from Indy to Lafayette many times, just anywhere.
Just like when I lived in Peru and worked in Kokomo. I worked a delivery gig for auto parts and drove all over the city. Also, I did Pizza Delivery in Carmel.
Wait, you’re telling me that when I have a lull in my life and just stay home for months on end that driving becomes more difficult? That the pandemic led a whole bunch of people to have anxiety and agoraphobia, what?
The goal will be to get my ass out there as much as possible between now and summer, ever increasing my discomfort and radius until it becomes more comfortable. Eventually, discomfort will turn into surprise, then boredom. Finally, I’ll hit comfort when I can drive anywhere again and be so comfortable that I’ll be more concerned with keeping boredom at bay with podcasts.
This is a great watch. It’s hard to be distracted and kept in a state of being emotionally numb by technology when you are forced to pay attention and be mindful of your environment. So much so that a lapse in attention can lead to injury or death. Fucking around with your phone in the country on the drive back and hit a deer? Yeah, it sucks, but you are very most likely fine. Hit one while on a motorcycle? Ha, you’re fucked in some way.
I remember zipping around on the PCX and being forced to be with myself, in my thoughts. At the time was quite uncomfortable with the divorce and all, but it’s the type of mindfulness that’s healing over time.
Anyway.
- More than half of the accident-involved motorcycle riders had less than 5 months experience on the accident motorcycle, although the total street riding experience was almost 3 years. Motorcycle riders with dirt bike experience are significantly underrepresented in the accident data.
- Lack of attention to the driving task is a common factor for the motorcyclist in an accident.
So many interesting tidbits. now I need to find some good gloves, armored jacket, and some pants that’ll save me from road rash.
Ross Fisher 