The Catalyst - Post #22

Oddly enough, about a month earlier, I had been sitting in a restaurant with a colleague of mine, talking about what's next. I told him I was unclear but I sure did love riding. That Angel and I were thinking about heading back to Arizona in the near future. He says, "Why don't you just buy one of your own if you are that committed"? I say it's hard to justify such an expense when faced with all other obligations at the moment. And I don't know if my back would hold up over time. He says get over it and just do it. "Yeah, yeah, easy for you to say, but I doubt I could ever convince Angel on that whole program".

He asks, "What would you buy if you had the chance"? I tell him oh that's easy. There's only one bike in the world worth owning and that's a Harley Davidson Heritage Softail Classic in burgundy red. With fuel injection. Fuel injection. He asks if he was to buy a bike, given my understanding of him and my experience with bikes, would I recommend the same ride for him? I reply without any hesitation "Hell no. You'd kill a Harley in your first year. You demand so much from your machines and equipment, you'd flog the thing to death. You need nothing less than a BMW".

This guy is a completely possessed nut case. (Herein after referred to as "Nut Bar" or "NB" for short). I have never met anyone so driven or overwhelmingly focused on the job at hand. He is completely obsessed with any task he gets his mitts on, to accomplish it in the face of total adversity. This boy needs high performance. Nothing "touring" about him. He needs the Panzer tank of cycles.

And true to form, about four weeks after our lunch, I'm sitting in my living room one Saturday morning, sipping my coffee, reading the morning paper and the dog starts barking her freaking head off in the window, 'cause of some commotion in the driveway. I get up and go to the window and here is the Nut Bar stepping off a brand new, emerald green, BMW RT 1100!!!! The part that is somewhat incredible is that prior to our lunch, (so he tells me later) he had never even thought about riding, let alone buying a bike.

Immediately following our lunch he signed up for the motorcycle licensing course. He completed it in three weeks, bought the bike and showed up in my drive way asking, "Have you got yours yet? C'mon man!! What are you waiting for?? Let's go!! Git 'er done!"

Yikes! How shitty do I feel now?

So with the peer pressure in my face and Angel's big payday, the stage is set, the path is cleared and I boldly set out for where I thought I would never get to go.

But when you have wanted something so badly for most of your life and it suddenly comes to fruition, you can't just walk down to the corner store and pick one out. No siree. This is a massively huge deal. And the actual acquisition has to be as epic as the overall conclusion. I realize very quickly that my next major obstacle will be convincing Angel that this bike needs to be purchased about as far from home as I can possibly get. That way I can fly to her and ride her home. Vancouver should do nicely, me thinks.