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Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Motomynd: When in doubt hit the throttle and hang on

Photo just for thematic decoration,
not Motomynd's actual shortcut
On randomness and natural selection: The brain ages, our thinking allegedly evolves, but do we really learn?
    Back in my high school and college days, we had a favorite out-in-the-country place to hang out. It was a BYOB semi-private cabin where people went allegedly to meet compatible people of the opposite sex. In reality it was mostly a place to party, drink too much, and on a too-regular basis to get into a fight. And on very rare occasions to actually meet someone of the opposite sex who was worth spending time with. You know how it is in the 16-22 age group; does anything really make sense?
    One friend was infamous for literally drinking himself under the table. He would show up on his motorcycle with a six-pack and a bottle in his backpack, drink for a while, then curl up under the rustic table in front of the fireplace in the main room and go to sleep. When it came time for us to either leave willingly or be thrown out, we would wake him up, help him get to his bike, get it started, and give him a push. He couldn't walk on his own, mind you, but when he got rolling he could ride that bike home no matter how sleepy or drunk.
    Amazingly, even though he did this for several years, our friend only had one mishap. There was one left turn on his way home, and at three in the morning, just one time, a car happened to be coming the other way as he approached the turn. He had to stop and he toppled over into the roadside ditch. We came along an hour or so later, saw him there, and feared he was dead. No, he was just sleeping. So we woke him up, got him on his bike, got it running, wished him well, and gave him a push toward home. Then we turned the other way and headed home ourselves.
    This sounds horribly insensitive and even inhumane by today's enlightened standards, but that is just the way things were back then. That was an era, after all, in which we would pack a dozen people into the back of an open pickup so we could all afford to drive across town and go to a drive-in or a race at the fairgrounds. Try putting that many people in the back of an open pick up today and see how far you get before flashing lights show up behind you. Yes, times have changed. No one today would dare act in such an unenlightened or ignorant manner.

Or so I thought, until I rode my motorcycle from home in Roanoke, Virginia to my house in Chapel Hill, North Carolina this weekend and had a vertigo attack on the way. Vertigo is nothing new to me: I used to race mountain bikes (the kind you have to pedal) all over the country and rock climb and such until a head injury and recurring vertigo forced me into milder pursuits. With it mostly in remission I got back on a motorcycle last year for the first time in three decades after promising my wife I would be careful. As in, I would stop and call her for a ride if I got dizzy. I even told her about my friend who used to drink himself under the table then ride home and assured her that I would not do anything like that. My wife, being nearly two decades younger than I, and being from more of a country-club than a fight-club upbringing besides, could make no sense of why people would have gone to such a place in the first place, much less put a drunk friend on his bike and give him a send-off.

So, yesterday, I got up with a headache from too much loud music at an event I was photographing the night before, decided to do the 140-mile commute on the motorcycle instead of in a car—despite the ringing in my ears and mild dizziness—and sure enough, half way to North Carolina I realized I was struggling to keep the horizon level. And I noticed this while doing 70 miles per hour and battling wind gusts on the U.S. 220/58 bypass around Martinsville. Which is not the best idea to begin with since my moto is a small sport bike set up for racing and weighs barely 300 pounds. Since I don't weigh much over 150, as a package we are fodder for turbulence and being blown around like the proverbial kite.
    So what to do? Simple, just stop and call my wife, right? Oh, if it really were only that simple. Even I was shocked to find that a brain under siege, trapped in the head of someone eligible for AARP membership, reacts exactly like the brain of a drunk 20-year-old. Eyeing the several-inch drop from pavement to gravel shoulder, I reasoned that if I pulled over I would most likely also fall over. So, the brain under siege reasoned, better to keep rolling, but at least I slowed down to 60 or so.
    After merging onto 58 there were several paved parking lots where I could pull over, but the brain reasoned that if we could just get closer to North Carolina, my wife would not have to drive so far. Then there was the place I usually stop for gas in a car, but I didn't want to stop there and risk falling over and embarrassing myself in front of people I knew. Finally, I was on the 58 bypass around Danville and there was an excellent exit basically in the middle of nowhere. I pulled over there.
    And no, I did not fall over. And yes, I did call my wife. And...and...I told her I was running late because the turbulence from the wind was a struggle and I was a "little dizzy from a migraine." Immediately her voice took on a tone that only a redhead can muster: "Don't lie to me. Are you having a vertigo attack?" My answer? "Well, not exactly a vertigo attack, but I do have a migraine. And I am a little dizzy."
    After a few moments of back and forth I was back on the bike and heading toward Chapel Hill, dizzy from my headache but no vertigo. I can assure you of that.
    When I hit my favorite back-road shortcut, I was even able to lay the bike into some turns and make up some lost time. When I pulled into the driveway my wife said, "You must be feeling better. I could hear you hitting the throttle going into those last turns and I heard you downshifting coming out of them."
    Leaning casually against the deck railing so I wouldn't risk falling down now that I was off the bike, I said, "See, I told you I was just a little dizzy. No vertigo. Did you really think I would be dumb enough to ride if I felt that bad?"

14 comments:

  1. And your wife... does she know this post exists?

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  2. How did I guess that would be the first comment? Answer: Yes, had her proof it. And the next question is perhaps how did she react? Walked off shaking her head...and laughing. Mumbled something about "it is a good thing I didn't know at the time."

    For frame of reference, my wife and I were friends for 14 years before we got together as a couple, during a time we were both in other relationships and first marriages. She used to help proofread many of my articles and review photos from my travels across the country (photographing grizzly bears,for example, and kayaking whitewater)and my travels to trouble spots around the world: Central America, Congo, Rwanda, Zimbabwe, etc.

    On the one hand she says I should have had her come pick me up. On the other she says that since I have survived bluff charges by grizzlies, a real charge by a lion in Kenya, and have extricated myself from would-be hostage situations on two continents, she assumes I will find a way to survive riding a motorcycle, dizzy or not.

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  3. Moristotle, the best human interests story you've posted.

    Motomynd, thanks for sharing. When I was a lad living in the SF Bay Area, I had a Honda Scrambler. First and last bike. I've kept my Motorcycle license up to date with the thought of buying another bike. But age and the ocassional bouts of vertigo that has come with it, tells me it's not to be.

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  4. Steve,thank you for the note.

    What size Honda Scrambler? In my post-college days I had a CB350 set up as a cafe racer, but the bike I wished I had was a Scrambler! It was the 350 dumping me on the interstate something around 2 a.m. on a bitter cold morning that put me off road bikes for decades. It wasn't so much the fear of being injured or killed, it was just the realization I had a lot of more important things I wanted to do before I again risked being injured or killed in that fashion.

    Do you know what creates your bouts of vertigo? Have you experimented with steps to prevent it? In this forum We may never settle any arguments about the path evolution took a few million years ago, but we may actually come up with some information we can use today.

    Uhmmmm...you don't by any chance still have that Scrambler lurking in a garage somewhere do you?

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  5. Motomynd, it was a 305 bought in 66. When I went into the army the next year, I had my Dad sell it.

    My vertigo usually shows up when I'm on a ladder or a high spot looking down. Normally no problem.

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  6. I also have vertigo at times. Probably the result of being kidnapped by extraterrestrials in my youth and subjected to medical experiments.

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  7. Steve, A 305! A REAL Scrambler. I envy your riding experiences on that beast. Any interesting memories or tales to tell?

    Ken, From the planet Vivushka, with those dreadful barbed probes?

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  8. No rectal thermometer. They inserted a welding torch.

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  9. Yeeouch! Did anyone else just feel their voice change? Maybe that is what happened to Sid Vicious of the Sex Pistols. He always said sex wasn't worth the bother. Maybe he got probed too...

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  10. Motomynd, I don't know about it being a beast, but it was a lot of fun for a 16/17 year old. I cut the muffler off and put in Snuff-or-Nots. Got quite a few second looks and laughs from some of the local Hells Angles when they heard and saw me drive by. Hard to go out on a date, but my older brother would give me his car for the weekend for the bike. Worked out great. I was invinceable back then. Driving the freeways, no helmet, no leather. Having a great time. Good memories.

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  11. Steve, that 305 was a beast in its day. Sounds like you were too. No helmet? That is bold. Being in the Bay area, did you know anything of the writer Hunter Thompson and his work during that era? I knew him many years later, but have always wondered what people thought of him before he became famous.

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  12. Motomynd, it was many years later when I became aware of him.

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