you can’t ride because the weather is sucking…

…but not here in Mexas, I mean Texas. It was 85 and partly cloudy in Austin today. Sometimes from my window it looked as if it was 55 Fahrenheit outside, but I felt as if I was back in Honolulu when the door opened and I breathed in the warm, moist air.

For some of you, it’s not as fun to ride any more. I’ve ridden a 1999 Honda Shadow ACE in Northern Cali winter rain falling so hard I couldn’t see twenty feet in front of me as I barreled down an East Bay freeway to meet a freelance client about their design project. The water on the road was three inches high and the wind was against me. I kept it around 45 mph (72 kph). I didn’t have chaps. My face stung like a thousand Chinese pellet tortures and was beet red when I arrived.

“Hi. I’m here to create a killer poster for your event and may I please have a towel?”

If you live where it snows, I’ve ridden winters in Montana from Laurel to Billings on I-90 at 60 mph (97 kph) on roads with ice patches. It was less than 20 degrees (-7 Celcius). Wind chill at 60 was well below zero. No fun.

Please send bikerMetric photos of you riding in the rain and/or snow. It’s a good way to raise your street cred, ********.

That sub-zero day Levi’s covered my legs and thermal long johns were underneath. Cowboy boots were on me feets. No electric socks or anything fancy. My army jacket and gray construction laborer gloves covered my cracked flesh. This was way before there was a helmet law anywhere. I don’t know what was on my head but I remember as my body involuntarily shook at my destination that I was cold and worried about frostbite and my ears falling off. My tongue was stuck to the inside of my teeth when I arrived at the music shop in Billings, 25 miles away from our trailer home and modest mink ranch, to buy guitar strings.

“Dean Markley Jazz strings, please.”

Then I rode back home.

If I still lived in climates like that, there is no way I’d be riding in it every day like I used to. I’d have my motorbike in the garage with oil drained and plugs out. in my head right now i’d be thinking about cool stuff to do to it before spring.

Sound familiar?

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