Partnership

Wet morning, roads a bit slick and a rainy start to the day. By the time I finished my long ride out to a new coffee shop I've been wanting to try, the morning sun was burning through the last of the rain clouds and pushing its way through, filling the whole east-facing shop (which is all windows with yellow and orange and white furniture) with this kind of over-enthusiastic-sun-shiny start to the day. But the coffee I'm sipping as I write this is great, with good background tunes and nice folks.

I spent my ride wondering about partnership. Life is about partnering with things, like this bike humming beneath me. Sunshine (my Bandit 1250S) fits me pretty well, but she's a spitfire for sure and still a lot of bike for me to handle. Factor in the EFI-overrides she came with from her previous owner and she's like an angry redhead, still surprising me a lot. I'm not sure we'll ever be completely compatible, but we're getting to know each other enough to make the partnership work for now. Familiarity and shared experience is bonding us together even if she's not the 'perfect' bike for me.

I've got two other bikes (yes, I know I've only been riding for a few months, but hey, they were inexpensive and I got them used), Burt (a 2003 Honda Shadow 750DC) and Lucy (a 1982 Honda Nighthawk cb650sc) and I like riding both of them, too. One is comfortable, the other a classic, but neither are the Bandit.

It seems we spend time, however long or brief, with all kinds of things just like we do with all kinds of people. And just like our people-partnerships, some things fit better into our life than others and some require a change in attitude in order to work right or get along with. And sometimes it's worth it, and other times it's not. Comfort and familiarity and acceptance are concepts that squirt grease onto our relationships with both things and people, but it doesn't really mean they were meant to last forever in our lives.

I know Sunshine and I are going to put a lot of miles on together (hell, we already have the past couple months). We will see a lot of pretty sunsets and sunrises and also face a lot of exciting mountain passes and bad weather and bad roads and getting lost and getting found, ... But is she 'the one' for me? Do all our miles together make that true, somehow, or are they just a bunch of shared experiences..?

Is there that bike out there that I'm just going to get on and ride and say 'wow, this bike totally gets me - this is the bike I've been waiting for!'..? Or am I just kidding myself?