Born to be Mild.

This is a picture not too different than yesterday's. So now I look cool and bought my first piece of leather clothing ever in my life. I live near a place that sells all sort of clothes and a few bike parts. Virtually everyone I talked to suggested riding jackets. So logic seemed to indicate leather for its skidding capabilities and other protection. (The guy that owned the leather shop for twenty-some years told me it was good for eighty yards of asphalt.) Plus, I froze my butt off yesterday, and I really have no jackets for fifty-plus miles per hour. A Patagonia anorak may be good for skiing 5,000 feet of vertical, but not riding at fifty miles per hour.

So at any rate...today. I intended on riding to Concrete, Washington. Things were going fine, although I got a flat riding down old US99, north of Sedro Woolley. A crummy hand, but as luck would have it there was a huge motorcycle shop less than a mile down the road. I can change a car tire, I can change a bicycle tire, but I cannot change a motorbike tire. So after an hours or so I was back on the road, unfortunately aborting the ride to Concrete. But instead, I was able to ride up Chuckanut Drive. One of the prettiest roads that I've ever been on in my life. (Well, except for the trophy homes built by retiring selfish idiots scarring the land forever. They trashed California, let them proceed to trash Bellingham. And now the droves of Canadians, only to get worse with the continued decline of the US dollar...oops, there I go again. Ack!)

In retrospect a great day. And I must've looked cool in my jacket, as other most bikers seem to wave at one another. Cruising along at sixty-plus with the putter of this old VW-sounding motor right beneath you is quite a sensation. I can easily see the passion arising of this unity of person and machine. I might go out back to the garage and look at it one last time tonight.