{"id":19251,"date":"2022-12-31T00:01:44","date_gmt":"2022-12-31T08:01:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/?p=19251"},"modified":"2022-12-31T11:18:05","modified_gmt":"2022-12-31T19:18:05","slug":"nobody-needs-an-excuse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/2022\/12\/31\/nobody-needs-an-excuse\/","title":{"rendered":"Nobody needs an excuse…"},"content":{"rendered":"
By Joe Berk<\/h6>\n

…to go for a motorcycle ride.\u00a0 On the other hand, I’m always finding reasons not to go to the gym.\u00a0 But I think I found a solution.\u00a0 Lately, I’ve been riding the Enfield to the gym.\u00a0 \u00a0I’m more interested in getting on the motorcycle than I am in going to the gym, but if I ride the Enfield to the gym…well, you get the idea.<\/p>\n

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My Enfield at the gym.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There are usually two or three other guys who ride to the gym.\u00a0 Two have Harleys, another guy has a new Guzzi, and there’s even a Yamaha V-Max parked there on occasion.\u00a0 I’ve spoken with a few of those guys, and like me, they’re not spring chickens.\u00a0 I think they’re younger than me, but I suspect we’re all qualified for the Silver Sneakers subsidy.\u00a0 We’re old and we’re all trying to stay young.\u00a0 Such is the way of the world.\u00a0 The motorcycles help.<\/p>\n

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A Guzzi at the gym.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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These things are wicked fast.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

We’re lucky here in California; we can ride pretty much year round.\u00a0 I’m at about 1700 feet above sea level, right at the base of the San Gabriel Mountains, and even in the winter months it’s usually in the high 60s or low 70s during the day.\u00a0 That’s perfect riding weather.\u00a0 It can get cold at night, but who rides at night?<\/p>\n

Well, I guess I do, sometimes.\u00a0 Always by myself, and if it’s a night ride, it’s always short.\u00a0 There’s something about a late night ride that’s simultaneously invigorating and relaxing.\u00a0 \u00a0The last few nights, it’s been warm enough.\u00a0 \u00a0Everything seems more focused on a motorcycle at night.\u00a0 I hear the engine more clearly, and I see what the Enfield’s headlight wants me to see.\u00a0 I love the Enfield’s instrumentation, especially at night.\u00a0 It’s a simple two cup cluster…a tach and a speedometer.\u00a0 Just like my Triumphs were in the 1960s and 1970s.\u00a0 I really don’t need anything more.\u00a0 \u00a0I rode a new motorcycle for one of the manufacturers a couple of weeks ago and the instrument cluster was way too complex.\u00a0 It had a brilliant TFT display and computer game graphics, but overall it was distracting and actually took away from the riding experience.\u00a0 Just a tach and speedo is all I need or want.\u00a0 Even the tach is kind of silly (I never use a tach to shift).\u00a0 But it looks, you know, balanced with the matching speedometer.<\/p>\n

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Cute, but a bit much and a bit distracting.\u00a0 Way more than I want in an instrument panel.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

When I lived in Fort Worth about 50 years ago, I rode a Harley Electra Glide. All that motorcycle had for instrumentation was a speedometer and I never felt an info deficit.\u00a0 Late night solo rides were my favorite rides.\u00a0 Fort Worth summers were brutal (well over 100 degrees during the day and very humid).\u00a0 At night it would drop into the high 90s (still with tons of humidity), but it felt way cooler.\u00a0 Sometimes I’d stop for a cup of coffee at a 24-hour donut shop on Camp Bowie Boulevard.\u00a0 Sometimes I’d just ride, heading west toward Weatherford and the great beyond (once you pass Weatherford, there’s pretty much nothing until you reach Midland\/Odessa). One time I realized it was time to go home when I saw the sun coming up.<\/p>\n

Back to the Enfield:\u00a0 It’s a much better motorcycle than the Electra Glide ever was and it’s a hoot to ride.\u00a0 Circling back to my opening line, riding to the gym makes for a good excuse to get on the bike.\u00a0 \u00a0Not that anyone ever needed an excuse to go for a motorcycle ride.\u00a0 But it defeats the excuses I make for myself when I don’t feel like going to the gym.<\/p>\n

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By Joe Berk …to go for a motorcycle ride.\u00a0 On the other hand, I’m always finding reasons not to go to the gym.\u00a0 But I think I found a solution.\u00a0 Lately, I’ve been riding the Enfield to the gym.\u00a0 \u00a0I’m more interested in getting on the motorcycle than I am in going to the gym, … Continue reading “Nobody needs an excuse…”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":19252,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[392,96],"tags":[3140,311,419,3141],"class_list":["post-19251","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-back-in-the-day","category-feel-good-stuff","tag-gym","tag-moto-guzzi","tag-royal-enfield","tag-silver-sneakers"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/10\/IMG_3972-900.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19251","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19251"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19251\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20626,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19251\/revisions\/20626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19252"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19251"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19251"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/exhaustnotes.us\/blog\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19251"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}