An Early Spring Ride

It's one of those Saturdays where the sun is out beyond the patch of white clouds, warm enough for a t-shirt. There is a nice steady breeze wiggling the plants as they stretch their early Spring extremities. Ace straddles his rumbling hawg, kicks it into gear and rolls off. The air is cool on his bare arms as he slices through the shadows of the trees. A few degrees less and he'd wished he had a long sleeve shirt on, but for now it's comfortably tolerable. He knows that the day will warm as his attention turns to the traffic. There are lines of bikes headed towards town; he figures that most are aimed at hitting several of the barroom events, but not Ace, he's headed out of town. He is looking forward to jumping on the nearest 2 lane byway and get the hell out of Dodge. Within moments he's rolling out where the houses get more and more sparse and the cow population takes the lead. Mile after mile he covers countless acres as his tires cut a thin slice on the tarmac. It's a spring day that smells of new plant life and pollen. Warm pockets of air spring his mind forward to thoughts of summer. Nature is timeless and if one can look past mankind's scars and piles of crap on the earth it can be seen. It's there, right around the next bend in the road and over the next hill and it's Ace's aim to find it.

Long Way Round

If you haven't been turned onto the TV show / documentary titled "Long Way Round", then you need to find it. It's the story of Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman as they ride motorcycles literally around the world. Their challenge is to bike 20,000-miles, cross 12 countries and 19 time zones in just 115 days. Riding their BMW GS R1200s, they crossed Europe, Ukraine, Russia, Kazakhstan and Mongolia to ride the Road of Bones through Siberia, over to Alaska, through Canada, North America and finished in New York. This experience is the quintessential essence of the Brotherhood of One--to ride, to experience.

In looking up the show on the web, http://longwayround.com/ I discovered that there is another journey that I must see. To quote the site, "After the epic Long Way Round journey, Ewan and Charley decided to ride 15,000 - miles the Long Way Down from John O'Groats, Scotland to the Southern most tip of Africa, Cape Agulhas and then on to Cape Town."

Hats off to this team for doing what we all wish we could do.