{"id":15858,"date":"2024-01-19T01:31:04","date_gmt":"2024-01-19T06:31:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/aleta.life\/?p=15858"},"modified":"2024-08-13T13:55:34","modified_gmt":"2024-08-13T17:55:34","slug":"plain_motorcycling","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/aleta.life\/index.php\/2024\/01\/19\/plain_motorcycling\/","title":{"rendered":"Plain Sailing<\/del> Motorcycling"},"content":{"rendered":"
Position: 47\u00b045’30.8″N 120\u00b039’19.9″W<\/a><\/h6>\n

In the spring a fuller crimson comes upon the robin’s breast;<\/em>
\nIn the spring the wanton lapwing gets himself another crest;
\n<\/em>In the spring a livelier iris changes on the burnished dove;<\/em>
\nIn the spring a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of motorcycling. <\/em>\u2013 Alfred, Lord Tennyson, <\/em>Locksley Hall<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

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Love. Tennyson actually wrote, \u201c\u2026a young man\u2019s fancy lightly turns to thoughts of love<\/em>.\u201d Had the motorcycle existed in 1835, I\u2019m sure he would have written \u2018motorcycling\u2019 instead. But it didn’t, so he had to rely on a tired, hackneyed trope of his own creation. He might have known about velocipedes<\/a>, I suppose. But rhyming \u2018velocipede\u2019 seems about as much fun as rhyming \u2018orange\u2019.<\/p>\n

\"Eisspeedway_Journal\"<\/a>What, after all, is spring for? Why, getting out into the fresh air after months of shivering in cold, draughty houses where the shutters bang along to the metre of nor\u2019easters, of course! What better way to ease into summer than on a motorcycle? Besides, riding anything with two wheels in winter is imprudent. Bicycles, if you\u2019ve forgotten, are less stable than four-wheeled vehicles. That\u2019s what makes them fun. In winter, when ice and snow reduce your traction to zero, you can expect to fall over. So, unless you are fortunate enough to own a pair of spiked tyres and live near a frozen lake to race on, you\u2019d best hitch a lift in something with more than two wheels. Like a motorcycle with a sidecar. Now we\u2019re talking!<\/p>\n

Siberia<\/h6>\n

\"zimnik-siberia\"<\/a>Eleven years ago, I motorcycled across Siberia<\/a> to the Arctic Circle. In February. It wasn\u2019t as bad as it sounds. The thermometer only dropped to -25C\/F at night. During the day it hovered around 0F. And the snowy scenery, far from bleak or blank, was a mirror to the day\u2019s shifting colours. Warm golds in the morning, cool blues during the day and back to gold in the long, lingering sunsets.<\/p>\n

My vehicle? A 1990s-era Ural<\/a> with a sidecar and. Three wheels are better than two when you\u2019re riding along the zimniks (roads formed by snowploughs on Siberia\u2019s frozen rivers). I only flipped the Ural once \u2013 without injury. I also narrowly avoided getting crushed by the Chelyabinsk meteor<\/a>. Ah, adventuring\u2026<\/p>\n

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