Gone Riding, Part 1 – Why do I ride?

This is the first in a series of blog posts about my summer motorcycle travels. It was written in a motel room in Idaho Falls, Idaho.

Me with Doug & Telisha Williams (AKA Wild Ponies) near the start of the Natchez Trace.

There’s an old Harley/motorcycle meme out there that says, “If I have to explain it to you, you wouldn’t understand.”

Now I get how that might make a rider feel like a “bad-ass biker,” but since I was washing my socks and undies in the sink of my motel room this morning while on a two-week motorcycle trip, I guess that doesn’t really describe me.

To tell you the truth, understanding why motorcycling means so much to me is not that hard to understand. So let me explain…

This spring and early summer I’ve been working around the clock, finishing a draft of the seventh edition of my textbook Mass Communication: Living in a Media World.  Each edition is a two-year-long process that culminates in several months of feverish writing after reading, reviewing and tagging more than 1,000 articles that provide the background for it.

Once I delivered the manuscript, I’m not done, but I’m on a looser schedule.  So come late June, it’s time to go riding. This year I had two trips planned, probably a little too close together. This is the story of the first.

Me and Bishop Matthew Riegel

In late June I rode east to meet with Bishop Matthew Riegel to ride down the Natchez Trace Parkway as His Grace was on his way to the national Lutheran youth gathering in Houston. I rode there from central Nebraska by way of the southeast Missouri Ozarks – an underrated area of great twisty roads with very little traffic.

The Natchez Trace is not as well-known as the more famous Blue Ridge Parkway running through the southeast, but it’s a gorgeous, relaxing route to ride from just south of Nashville to Natchez, Mississippi.  It’s essentially a national park that’s 50 yards wide and 440 miles long. It’s a winding, rural two-lane road that’s controlled access.  There’s no trucks or commercial traffic.  The speed limit peaks at 50 MPH, so it’s not a place for excitement. It’s a place to relax, enjoy the scenery, and travel through the country where Elvis grew up.

This trip was the third time I’ve ridden at least part of the Trace, and I’m already looking forward to the next time I can make it over there.

The Loveless Cafe

Before meeting up with Matt, I had breakfast and a Sunday morning of riding with my Nashville friends, Doug and Telisha Williams AKA Americana band Wild Ponies. (Musicians who live in Nashville… whooda thunk it?) We met for breakfast at the incomparable Loveless Café located a block away from the northern end of the Trace.  Country ham, biscuits, eggs, sausage gravy for me (though red eye was an option), and hash brown casserole.  A proper southern breakfast!

I got to the café a bit head of the Ponies, so I grabbed a free cup of coffee from the café’s store (You can buy whole country hams there at prices I don’t want to think about), and sat and waited on the porch. A perfectly pleasant way spend the time.

Then, after breakfast, we rode together. Telisha on her BMW R850R and Doug on the R1150R. Me, I’m on the Yamaha Super Tenere, AKA Big Blue. Had a great ride down the first 100 miles of the Trace. D&T headed on south, and I headed back to Nashville to meet up with Matt Riegel.

Doug and Telisha with their BMW oilheads getting ready to ride.

Matt got in late that night after having dinner with friends in a nearby city (Hi, Cheryl and Eric!). Monday morning we had a great, if hot, day riding the Natchez Trace. The Trace has more subtle charms than the more flamboyant Blue Ridge Parkway. The first 20 miles are quite twisty, and it stays quite amusing down to Tupelo – Elvis’s birthplace. Then the road straightens out, but goes through some beautiful forest areas. The last 20-30 miles were almost like going through a tunnel of trees. It smelled so good and fresh.

On Tuesday we made it to just north of Jackson, Mississippi where we stopped for brunch. Then I had to head home to get  some family things taken care before starting off on my next trip to ride the backcountry in Idaho.

You can’t argue with this kind of weather.

That evening, I had to follow my motto of “Proceed as the way opens” (from William Least Heat Moon’s travel book Riverhorse) when a line of heavy thunderstorms blocked my path ahead and required me to stop 150 miles before I planned to. But from Arkansas/Missouri border, I had an easy trip home without being menaced by any more hail or tornados.

So as you can see, it really isn’t that hard to explain the joys of riding.

It’s time to spend time in your own head away from work. It’s time to enjoy the physicality and mental challenge of riding a motorcycle down a twisty road. It’s enjoying the smells, sights and weather up-close-and-personal. It’s meeting with friends who share your passion.  It’s getting to eat in local restaurants and cafés that aren’t part of a homogenized national chain.  It’s a chance to see this gorgeous country we live in without be separated from it by glass and steel.

I’m so lucky to have the time and resources to go riding in this beautiful country we have. (And a Dear Wife who supports me doing this!)

This is the SPOT satellite track of my trip to the Trace. The map was created using the service Spotwalla.com.