Pabs and I ride together. It is the number one way we play. I remember the very first ride we took together. She was on her FX07 and I was on the Goldwing. We weren't very far from the condo when a car pulled out in front of Paula. I was pissed. My commitment to non-violence was being severely tested. You know how I ride. As we entered Multnomah Village, there is a light and it was red. The car stopped at the light behind another car. I pulled around him and got off my bike. It was the middle of the summer so I was undoubtedly in a sleeveless teeshirt, tats showing and I think I still was rocking my long hair. One thing I liked about my long hair was I looked a lot scarier than you know me to be. Can you imagine being the driver with tatted, long-haired me pulling around him at the light and getting off my bike to stare him down? Don't mess with Pabs. She is my life. I didn't say anything. I just stared, and he waited. I think I knew right then that my primary job when we ride is to make space for Paula. That is how we ride. I make space for her to ride safely. It is how I try to live. I make space for Paula wherever I can.
That means that if we are tooling up the road and a car pulls up and tailgates Pabs. I drop back and she takes the lead and I back the car well off.
I remember chasing the Harleys down the freeway in Montana, and when it is straight, they tend to fly. So we are all doing about 85-90 MPH down the freeway, east of Missoula, passing cars in the slow lane. Colleen is leading, Jim is next. I follow him and then Paula is taking up the rear. Suddenly she reports and I see a lifted pickup pull up on her -- tailgating her pretty badly. OK, so I am noticing a pattern. I got a little pissed. I said, "Babe, pass me and switch," so we can stay in formation. She did. I let off my throttle. I think I slowed all the way to 50, creating some distance between the bikes and the truck. I turned around and glared. Then I throttled up to leave the lifted Dodge 2500 and rejoin my friends.
Riding in Portland traffic is never one of our favourite things to do. You know how the if you take the Ross Island Bridge the road winds into downtown Portland. It is kinda funky and Pabs and I were stuck in a lot of traffic. When we ride, we are talking a lot, probably more than when we are in the car. And we can be silly together. On this particular day, words escaped us at the time, and so we created our own lingo. On this day, we created the term, "Hootie-haw." There was a truck in the left lane. We were in the right. I was riding the lane lines and Paula was riding the shoulder line. She was at about four o'clock to me. The truck had space in front of him and there was a tiny gap between his front bumper and the bumper of the car in front of Pabs and me. So, I pulled in front of him and took my hand off the accelerator, widening the gap. Paula then shot in front of me into the lane. We did our first, "Hootie-haw." Now we just have to say, "Hootie Haw" and the other knows the maneuver. Hootie haws are nearly always done to the left because someone is not moving fast enough in the fast lane. They end up slowing up even more than they wanted to go. Such is the cost of cruising too slowly in the fast lane or the middle lane as the case may be.
Though neither of us likes traffic, it has taught us how to communicate more effectively. We need to make sure that the other sees what we are seeing as we ride together. So, she might say, "Let's get in front of that red truck up there." All of a sudden she has let me into her thought process. I will often ask, "Do you want to pass them?" She will tell me, yes or no. Then we can move in concert with one another.
All these examples transfer to how we communicate at our best in regular life as well. When we know what the other is thinking, rather than assuming we know what they are thinking; we don't make the blunders that we might otherwise make.
We still fail. I get impatient much more easily than Pabs. I want to be able to see and I hate sucking diesel fumes. If there is a truck or van in front of us, I will want to take the first opportunity to pass. Paula can be much more content to lay off and fall back, not pushing it. Sometimes I want to pass, and she doesn't Very rarely she will want to pass when I don't. It has happened but I always follow. She doesn't. Then we have trouble.
I'm sure that translates somehow too, but I'll let you figure that out.
We've had five bikes together. We currently have three. Here they are:
This is Paula's FZ07 and my 1986 Honda Goldwing InterState 1200.
This picture was taken across Lake Cour D' Alene from Harrison, ID on our trip to Banff/Canmore, Alberta. Paula was riding her silver 2010 Honda NT700VA, that she purchased to tour with me. We still own it. It is a fantastic bike.
I remember that first day, we rode the back roads to a friend's house on the west side of Lake Cour D' Alene. It was exactly 400 miles. It was her first-day road tripping. It was way too long. Now we try to keep our days under 250 miles, just so we don't have to push so hard. We were smart enough to take a day off before pushing north. But man, we learned a lot that day too. It poured on us as we crossed the continental divide, and before we got there we rode for at least 20 miles on heavily grooved pavement that was under construction. While not pleasant and something that wouldn't bother us now, this was Paula's second day of road tripping and it was not fun for her at all. We never did see the tops of the mountains that trip. When we crossed back a few days later, it was pouring with rain again. We didn't take our rain gear off until Ravenstoke, BC. Now that is a cool town! By the end of that over 2000 mile trip, Paula was a different rider, and we'd figured a lot out about how we interact and communicate as we ride. So, every year we take off again on a different road trip to chase and create some more beauty together.
Here are our Triumphs, taken at the McClellen View Point in the Gifford Pinchot National Forest, Skamania County, WA. Paula rides a 2011 Bonneville America. It is an 869cc bike. I ride a 2010 Thunderbird 1597cc bike. It is my dream bike. I hope I will be able to keep her the rest of my life, even if I purchase other bikes to be my daily riders. Also, notice the UW sticker on Paula's helmet. You can take her out of the UW, but you can't take the UW out of her. I guess they did pay tuition for four years as long as she hit golf balls for them. And, boy, did she ever! I married an amazing woman. She is officially my Ninja Badass (#NBA)
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