A year later that sentiment seems foolish at best.

Nothing so dramatic happened over the past twelve months that it forever altered the landscape of my life nor did turning thirty forcibly predetermine a set of choices or send me down a path I didn’t want to go down. Don’t get me wrong, in-between birthdays there’s been extreme ups and downs — but then there always are in life, that’s sort of the way it works…

As I’ve been running around this morning, I’ve been struck with the thought that the perception of age is a funny, funny thing. Looking back it seems I paid so much attention to those nameless faceless fully permeating major life milestones that society churns out that it never even dawned on me to question the magnitude of the moment for myself. Was I really feeling an immense moment or was I simply buying into the hype that surrounds big even numbered chapters in our lives? In retrospect if I’m honest, the Richter Scale barely fluttered in any real, tangible way. Instead I would submit that I created drama to fit the occasion.

After re-reading several of my posts from last July, I’m struck by how much mental energy I burned falling victim to the big 3-0. How many things I questioned, how much time I spent taking personal inventory on life and wondering ‘what comes next’, instead of simply enjoying where I’d gotten at that point in life. A year late I find myself struck by a sense of accomplishment and a feeling of ease for where life has lead me. Things aren’t perfectly clear at the moment, but they’re far more put together then dissembled and that strikes me as something worth remembering for when I hit thirty-five or forty.

The upshot of all the introspective personal upheaval last year was the decision to purchase a Ducati ST3. Close to four thousand miles later the bike has done nothing but reaffirm my belief that it’s a superior machine whose greatest fault wasn’t mechanical but rather marketing. It has done everything I’ve asked of it with a plume and successfully offered a worthy compliment to the 1098S that has allowed me to open up my personal riding vistas with far-flung trips that are honestly unfathomable to me on a full-blown sportbike (see Mesmerized by Majesty, Chapters of Life: LA to Carmel, and The Trip Home)…

Of course while I’ve enjoyed the ST3 immensely, truth be told I’m a sportbike guy at heart, so tomorrow MotorMilt and I are headed off to Buttonwillow with The Track Club folks to celebrate thirty-one years of growing up, getting wiser and continued foolishness… Oh, and his new F4 too

* This of course sets an interesting precedent as now both the 1098S and the F4 will have had their first break-in rides on tracks… Shshhhh don’t tell DNA

Thanks for the kind words Jim

The previous night the old man and I had acted like starry-eyed children waiting to unwrap the next mornings’ presents, idly kicking around roads and routes with glee. Yet five minutes into our morning, the idyllic image of a maiden voyage (and a much needed ride) came crashing down with the click of a single garage door button. Instead of hearing the well worn chug of the metal chain, the door squealed to an apathetic, wailing halt. Four inches above the ground. Quickly hands moved, metal bent, grease and oil spread like a wildfire — but to no avail. The door had called it quits. Gone off and retired before the race was run and on the very day when it was going to give birth to a brand new motorcycle memory… Thus proving that it’s possible to have an Italian Motorcycle moment that has nothing to actually do with the bike… Finally, once the anger and anguish of the moment subsided, I found myself pulling on a deep drag from a smoke and thinking to myself, some days just aren’t meant to be… And so it goes…

Every so often those random cogitators and somewhat divergent particulars swimming around inside your head can come together in such a way that you stumble on to an idea that seems so right, so timely, so true, and so unequivocally correct, that no matter what might stand in your way you just know deep down in the soul of your soul that it not only makes sense but is something that you’ve just got to do…

Several weeks back while rolling around in bed at 2 AM, with a mind full of a thousand different thoughts running in a million different directions, I found myself replaying all the various bits from the day and in the darkness of the night it dawned on me that it was time to set the ultimate secret-ops plan in motion — to surprise the old man, MotorMilt, with a once in a lifetime kind of birthday present. The kind of out-of-left field shocker that on one hand doesn’t seem real (nor necessary but that is another thought for a different day) and yet on the other hand crystallizes in a tangible form all the words one wishes to express to someone else about their lifetime of selflessness, security and compassion.

You see the old man is not only my father but also my best friend — It is a relationship that I thank my lucky stars for on a daily basis and one which transcended the more typical parental-child logic or rational quite sometime ago. If every action has a reaction, then every act I’ve taken through out my life is directly based on a concrete foundation of logic and love that he helped mold. When I look in the mirror or perhaps more importantly backwards in the past, I cringe at the thought of what it would have been like to pedal up the hill of life without him — not that I couldn’t have but rather I wince at all the memories that would have been lost, the life lessons that I would have had to learn the hard way and the core, basic human interaction that I would have missed out on. Our lives, individually and collectively, have not been all spades all the time by any stretch of the imagination, but rather as I believe is true for the vast majority of folks, a series of staggered ups and downs that together represent what life is really about — the gradual up tick on the timeline of life.

Of course the irony is that up until my teenage years I barely knew the man. He was a ghost for all practical purposes, running around the world at the Network News level, traveling to far off destinations for world changing events that a child simply can’t comprehend. While I was screwing around in middle school or the like, he was watching the Berlin Wall fall as it happened, broadcasting bits of information from then closed-societies such as Russia, Cuba, Manila and the Philippines. In an era when domestic threats were easily definable and the news was still seemingly important appointment viewing television, he was part of a unique group that dropped what they were doing at a moments notice to chase the adrenaline kick that comes from being a witness to history. Of course to do that successfully one has to put everything else on the backburner - that’s how it works and that’s the lifestyle you lead - you know it going in when you get the gig. Yet somewhere along the line the old man broke from the mold, so-to-speak, and stepped back. Making a conscious decision to pull out and put his dreams on hold for mine — it’s a basic philosophy and one which has never wavered from that day forward, which in an era when personal ego rules I find rather incredible.

With the hustle and bustle of the rat race now squarely in the rear view mirror he set his attention towards me, not only helping in every way imaginable to give my dreams the chance to succeed but also setting a love for things with engines in motion. He consciously devised a gearhead-based strategy to bring us together, which not only taught me valuable life lessons for then and now but also cleverly created common ground between us. It was in many ways the beginning of the shorthand instinctive language that we share together and it’s amazing to me just how strong you can forge a friendship when you’re wrenching under an oil dripping straight-six with someone else.

Yet creating a motor-based playground was just the start. One of MotorMilt’s more magnanimous acts was always letting me do the actual wrenching. Much like today, he was there to support the task but not take it over. Teaching as opposed to ‘doing’ has been just one of Milt’s trademarks over the span of my life, yet I think it speaks to a fundamental truth about him. He always seems to put others ahead of himself. Sometimes, as happens in life, you begin to take brilliant attributes like this for granted and while I consider myself a thoughtful individual, I feel fairly certain that I pale in comparison to the altruistic standard that he’s set.

When you really get to it, he is the rock that I depend on every single day and while at times we have our arguments or disagreements, they never linger. They never twist from one subject to another or infiltrate other parts of life. There are no head games or hidden meanings. No darkness where there should only be light. Yet words, whether spoken or written, can’t adequately describe or detail what he means to me, what he’s done for me, who he is or what he stands for. These are the big ticket issues and they’re always paid on time and in full.

So with the old man’s birthday approaching, I thought if ever there was a time to condense all the thoughts and feelings one can’t easily say into the personification of a dream — his dream — now was the time.

Ever since we got back from the Italian portion of the Twist The Throttle shoot, whenever we’d shoot the shit or have an ad hoc bike discussion, Milt’s mind would seemingly drift to the MV Agusta F41000R. He’d talk about the craftsmanship, the details they got right, the emotions the bike presents, the way it felt like to ride. Time and again it felt like he was not describing a mere sportbike but rather the gal of your dreams that got away. And it was also something I knew he’d never get for himself. That’s simply not how he was wired. And while neither one of us needs a new motorcycle at the moment that’s not really the point. Rather it was time to help him live one of his fantasies… So happy birthday old man, may this be your golden chariot…

* Before I sign off the night, I’d like to throw a big shout out to Bill Nation and the boys at ProItalia — they got it on this one, understanding the situation, keeping the surprise and making everything easy. Thank you.

On Monday I once again found myself standing at the edge of a pit wall watching the best of the best in this country lay down sizzling lap times during an AMA testing session at Laguna Seca. As long time TwistingAsphalt readers might remember a few years ago, when we were working on Speed On Two Wheels, I was fortunate enough to spend some time at Road Atlanta during a completely-closed-to-the-public testing session and I found it a more or less mind-blowing experience. This time around was both better and yet a completely different entity.

For starters the event was actually open to the public - I think much to the teams dismay actually - and that created an ‘in the know’ atmosphere. Back at Road Atlanta everyone’s guard was down because it was just the teams doing their thing and the event had a bit of a ‘club house’ feel. Monday everyone seemed a touch more guarded, a touch more reserved and generally more intense, which is both understandable in my opinion and yet I think also highlights a need to ‘perform’. The Pro’s not only want to be fast but they want the fans to enjoy it and that added a certain extra element to the day.

We were there to do some additional pick up shooting for the yet to be named project and the folks at the track were kind enough to let us set up in our own garage at the end of Pit Row, which selfishly allowed me the chance to see guys like Mladin, Duhamel, Hodgson, Bostrom and Hacking do what they do up close. It’s a remarkable thing to stand mere feet away from these guys (behind the pit wall of course) when they hit the front straight and head into the Turn 1 left kink full out. The speed is ferocious. And wickedly instantaneous. Just bam. Yet the part that truly stood out was seeing these guys interact when they were off the bikes — the typical race day TV coverage never completely catches their focus, dedication, effort or intensity. You tune in and see forty-five minutes of racing and then it’s over. But a test session is different because it’s an all day affair where the guys put down hundreds of laps, tweaking each part of the bike a millimeter at a time to see what works best. Physically I’ve got no idea how they do it. This isn’t like an average track day or even some of the club races I’ve seen, it’s a constant whirlwind of movement and it’s all got to be done at green flag racing speeds, which amazes me. They seem to work at a level of perfection that is completely unobtainable in the ‘real world’.

In the meantime if you head over to the Discovery Turbo website, you can see our latest project, Amazing Machines, which launched a little while ago. It’s not as comprehensive as Twist The Throttle was, but still good fun for the whole family — assuming that they’re into things with engines … So enjoy…

The exhaust is bellowing with deathly, evil notes of noise – big throaty gasps that come and go with increasing frequency - as the engine continues to blast away. The nearby canyon walls letting each breath live just a tad past their prime on exit, as the sounds echoes from one cliff face to the next.

The power plant turns over again, and again, and again as the throttle continues to evade logic by simply pushing on — Harder and faster then each previous bend in the road. Continually building the momentum and moving it forward. With a hurried, frenzied sense of pace. Each series of newfound revolutions foreshadowing the next pulsating sense of purpose that’s come to life beneath me.

It’s a feeling of excess that while unexpected for today seems utterly, and perhaps surprisingly, ‘comfortable’. As if it’s always been here, always been along for the ride. Then the corner comes to its natural conclusion. Dying out before altering its path completely. The change of plans evoking a series of actions and then reaction that all ultimately plant the 999 squarely on a path of conquest. Knocking off sections of road one by one as it tally’s the score.

It’s an inspiring sensation — The kind that rekindles the mean of the word ‘passion’ with each crack of the throttle. Each brash graze of concrete. Each new moment bringing the sport of sportbike riding back in vogue once again. Ultimately reminding me why I got hooked on this kick in the first place.

It’s an attraction that starts innocently enough, brimming to surface somewhere down low, before it ascends through the crankcase, climbs into and then out of the chassis, before finally working its way into the rider. A rustling, wicked, throbbing sense of promise. As if today, of all days, you simply cannot do any wrong.

And so goes the life of riding the 999 once again.

In all honestly it feels like it’s been quite awhile since I last slide my leg over the 9 – and perhaps it has been or perhaps it hasn’t - my sense of time and space right now is frankly a jumbled mess. Days and weeks don’t seem to hold much meaning at the moment because it’s one big continual blur. The framework for life has dissolved in to a never-ending to-do list that only seems to get added to, not reduced.

So today after deciding that I had to snag a few hours of daylight for myself, I entered the garage and looked at both the 1098S and the old man’s 999 – each proud, strong, deviant motorcycles in their own right – yet I couldn’t help myself. I couldn’t resist the temptation to climb aboard the 999 and take it out.

Having been off the bikes for awhile, my initial rational was that taking the 9 out was a safer choice – still plenty fast for the day, but less extreme, less powerful, even less dangerous. Of course all sportbikes are dangerous, so this wasn’t exactly a lucid line of reasoning. It was a reactionary line of reasoning – because I was searching for a rational motive to explain an illogical decision.

Grabbing the keys, it occurred to me that whenever I’m in doubt and both bikes happen to be at my disposal, for some reason I always seem to be drawn to the ‘9’. Logic would seem to suggest there’s something wrong with this sort of choice – the 1098 is a substantially better motorcycle. It’s lighter, it’s faster, it’s more powerful, it stops better. It does everything the 9 does in spades. Yet since when has riding been exclusively about pure logic?

Several miles down the road, when the asphalt transformed from a docile conduit for mainstream transportation into a curvy avenue for the adventuresome, I was rewarded for the choice. It took just two mild corners into the ‘real’ part of the ride to intrinsically understand that this was going to be a great day. The weather was perfect, the asphalt was good, and perhaps most importantly, the bike was effortlessly moving. Making a complex world seem simple and easy again.

It’s a sensation that quite frankly has eluded me for what feels like eons. That sense of omnipresent individual control – when you’re so locked into the ride that the bike no longer acts as if it were merely a mechanical object but rather behaves as if it were an extension of your own body and soul. So what then is it about this particular bike that somehow always seems to get me going? And why do I so strongly gravitate towards it?

I suppose there are dozens of real quantifiable reasons; My first trip to the Ducati factory coincided closely with the release of the 999 and 749, I came of age as a rider on this bike, I’ve always appreciated it’s sense of style and grace. Certainly I owe much of my sense of sportiness to this bike. Yet ultimately the deeper I looked in that dark place that sits somewhere between our hopes and dreams, near the pit of our existence and just beyond our ego, there was only one reason that really mattered – I know that this bike will always protect me. It never does anything wrong, it never upsets me or worries me, it never acts out, it never asks for to much or puts me in harms way. It just lets me ride it. Any way I want…. Which ultimately begs the question; can a motorcycle be your Guardian Angel?

More picts after the jump…

Stray shards of light bounce off a twinkling black asphalt as the bike tips into the corner once more and I make yet another pass on this life. It’s an exaggerated, pendulum like movement that quickly tosses me from one side of the saddle to the other — with forceful haste and while it seems wildly chaotic and intrinsically unsettling, ironically it feels exactly the opposite… I haven’t felt this planted all day…

The far-flung movement, which at first seems overstated and highly saturated, somehow allows me to just ‘let it go’ and wrap my fingers around the moment. To exist alone among that rare blend of solitude and loneliness, where your best friend and greatest enemy is the desolate concrete realty that’s slicing, cutting and transcribing the outer confines of the countryside. And as I begin to forge a directly correlated relationship with the machine, I start bending the bike in easy, simple, graceful movements that seem so matter of fact and so sincere that I swear the tires are actually contort their contour directly to the road itself. The rubber morphing to the moment as the complex compounds cave in on the weight of the work week. Tossing out the pent up emotions of the past several days with each tilting pass. A wonderfully repeatable transfer of kinetic energy that’s called release – and today that’s worth more then any help a celebrity shrink could possibly offer, on TV or in real life…
A few miles down the line, I’m standing by the bike, peering out over the endless expanse of a California country abyss that’s in the midst of swallowing an entire farmstead whole, while taking a long, slow drag on the last smoke in the pack as the final embers of self-preservation fall away. Bright flakes of my soul that immediate illuminate before quickly dissolving into nothingness as they float away in the light ambling SoCal wind.

Looking out over the nearly infinite vista, it finally feels as if I’ve touched a bit of luck.

Not within the ride itself but rather because of it. Just a few hours ago this felt like a day that was tied in knots, straining for each breath and chasing what has to be done tomorrow, yet over the course of just a few canyon roads the Hypermotard has slowly peeled back the layers. Removed the angst, the concern, the ‘what have I got to do next’ mentality, until all that’s left is a raw, exposed, emotional tap on my humanity – that odd place where there is no clock, just pure emotions free to fumble towards enjoyment.
Shaking my head, I listen to the cacophony of canyon silence, which is intermittently interrupted by the odd cow that starts singing or the errant bird flapping away from Point A to Point B, when it slowly begins to dawn on me that the vast majority of time whenever I’ve tasted luck that meant it was just about to expire. ‘Luck’ after all is not an inception emotion. It’s not something we feel when it begins, but rather a reflection emotion which you feel in the afterglow. The kind of post-conceived feeling that you remark about after the fact. Yet here, today, on this road, in this canyon, seemingly miles away from everything else, there’s a palpable sense of ‘luck’ in this day and from the day and it’s the best thing I’ve felt in quite awhile… Because to champion lady luck is to avail yourself of the potential in what might be standing around the very next bend in the road…
More Picts after the Jump…

Photo by Scott Craven

The road is bending over itself; twisting, turning, and tumbling towards the edge. Off in the not so distant future lies fragments of tree tops. Big, green conifers that are a visible reminder that a whole new kind of experience awaits on the other side. A hundred foot plus free fall, which from a distance allows one to see the magical expanse of California and yet up close also plainly exposes the danger of the moment. The danger of life. It’s an Alice in Wonderland rabbit hole that if visited will surely take you on a trip down a different path.

Seeing it, you hesitate. You hold your breath. You try to tell yourself you’ve been here a million times before — you can do this. The tires will hold. The bike will survive. The moment will pass. There’s pleasure in this… Really…

Quickly, the engine winds up, spits fire and tosses you towards the apex. It’s a heartwarming experience on a day when the heat stifles even the most hardboiled of riders. Waves of vapor rise from the tarmac. Big, proud, optical illusions that in an flash alter what’s real and what isn’t. It’s all about perception now — even though it feels almost uncontrollable. The corner which looked so conducive to pleasure suddenly seems snake bitten and you don’t know why…

So once again, you force yourself to remember that every problem has a solution, every moment a meaning, each challenge a victor… And as the perceptual clock in your head counts down the possible solutions dwindle. Until you find yourself having to acknowledge that there’s only one course of action left.

To toss the bike into the bend, to ignore the apprehension, and to let go of the emotional baggage from the recent work weeks.

With frayed nerves, the bike continues to hustle onward. Hitting the apex before you even realize it. And when it does life changes once again. The impending doom suddenly seems like a distant memory. Your only recollection the realization that somehow, some way, you’ve survived yet another frantic moment near the edge.

Once again we’re hawking goods! Slightly redesigned Twisting Asphalt T-Shirts are now available for just $22 bucks via CafePress… Check’em out and support Twisting Asphalt — *well the run away hosting fees anyway

A few weekends back I was kicking tires and telling lies inside the paddock during the AMA races at Fontana when the topic of Honda Motor Corp’s rapid historical ascent to the top spot in worldwide manufacturing came up in conversation. Even though I’ve clearly been hooked by the uniquely articulated passion of the Italian motorcycle industry, I’m not naive enough to ignore the tremendous historical contributions and implications that the Japanese motorcycle industry, and the Honda Motor Corp. in specific, has offered to motorcycling in general. In relatively short order, a mere twenty to thirty years post World War II, Honda went from a bit player in Japan to a dominant force worldwide. That’s an amazing amount of growth and a tremendous story to say the least.

My fascination with the brand’s history undoubtedly hit a high point during the Twist The Throttle shoot, when we visited one of the Honda factories in Japan and spent time with some of their folks inside their Tokyo headquarters. The way their “associates” (what Honda call its employees) spoke about the brand seemed remarkably different then the rest of the companies we visited. They were equally as passionate, but in a much more concrete way - almost as if the presence of Soichiro Honda still existed.

The tangible nature of the old man’s impact is one of the key differences that separates Honda from the other brands, partially I suspect because unlike the founders of Suzuki or Kawasaki for example, both of which started in the late eighteen-hundreds and in completely different business, Soichiro is still part of the company’s relatively ‘modern’ history. In the grand scheme of things, he really hasn’t been gone all that long. Therefore the fact that his drive and ambition still strongly echo probably should be all that surprising to the general motorcycle fan.

As I recounted my respect for what I’d seen and for what Soichiro accomplished, one of the folks I highly respect in the moto-landscape suggested that if I really was curious about how Honda got its start, then I ought to pick up a copy of “The Honda Myth: The Genius and His Wake” by Masaaki Sato (a former writer for the Nikkei paper in Japan, which is effectively their equivalent of the Wall Street Journal)… More After the jump…

Now normally an AMA paddock is the last place on earth I’d expect to find someone tossing out suggestions for books to read – but in this case, my curiosity was peeked – and after all curiosity is the key to life. So the second I returned home, I fired up Amazon.com and threw down for a copy. Originally published in Japan in 1995 and subsequently updated in 2006 for the American market, “The Honda Myth” is an amazingly fascinating and insightful read that details not only how the company grew into a world leader but also how it internally works. Sato traces the company’s growth through the eyes of every single Honda president up through 2006 (in the updated version) and along the way artfully details how Soichiro’s mechanical genius and ambitious drive, which while the most publically known facets of the brand’s history, are just part of the overall story.

In many ways the real genius behind the Honda marquee is not Soichiro Honda himself, but rather the symbiotic relationship that he had with Takeo Fujisawa, an industrial banker with whom Soichiro co-founds the Honda Motor Corp. The fact that today Fujisawa is utterly unknown is not a mistake, but rather part of a concrete plan to establish ‘The Honda Way’, both inside and outside the confines of the company.

As Sato points out the unique entity that today we know as Honda, was in effect two separate companies from the start; with Soichiro running the ‘Honda Tech’ side while Takeo ran the ‘Fujisawa Trading Company’. Interesting both men decided early on that they would never meddle in the other’s area of expertise and this intentional split eventually leads Takeo to actually spin off Honda R&D off completely. (Eventually the R&D would come back under one roof when the fifth company president tossed out most of the founding principals in an attempt to modernize the company).

Subsequently Takeo tasks himself with not only selling Honda’s ever increasingly diverse range of products but also preparing the company for the eventual lose of its two founders. Both men agree early on to eventually retire together.

One of the great surprises Sato offers is not only a detailed description of how the company grew, but also a very in-depth look at the business philosophy used by top management through Honda’s ascension to the top of the manufacturing world. At times part of this philosophy seems slightly more like conjecture, especially when Sato explains what certain individuals were thinking at a given time, but a great deal of what he details are the very business theories that Takeo created to build the brand. Some like his ‘Law of Transience’ (which states that all companies eventually fail) or Honda’s “Three Actualities Principal” (going to the site, focusing on the actual situation, and making decisions based on actual facts) are a mixture of common sense and well thought out business practice, while others such as the need for ‘minor hero’s’ to emerge after Soichiro leaves are much more prudent.

Sato also makes it abundantly clear that while Soichiro’s charisma took on a life of its own, that was not unexpected or by mistake. Early on Takeo spends a great deal of time crafting the image and public persona of the face of Honda. While Fujisawa was equally as important to the company’s success, what he realized was that both the employees and the public needed a single entity to rally around and that would be Soichiro Honda.

Since the book was first published in Japanese there are a few expected areas where the syntax gets slightly confusing and at times the basic facts repeat themselves, but those are minor criticisms for a non-fiction novel that offers this kind of insight behind one of the greatest corporate success stories of the twentieth century. If you’ve got any interest in a detailed history of the motorcycle and/or automotive landscape, I’d highly recommend picking up a copy of Masaaki Sato’s “The Honda Myth”. It’s truly one of the most unique reads I’ve picked up in quite awhile and well worth the time taking in.

[Photo by Rick Clemson]

The sun is well past its prime and I’m feeling unbelievably angry — angry at the motorcycle, angry at the mountain, angry at myself, even angry at the new CRG levers…

Because I waited to long to get on the bike and just go…

I let the day slip past me under the false pretenses of a cloud-covered disguise and a morning filled with wasted time. Now halfway through the ride, my penance seems to be a road that’s permeated by an apprehensive collection of near constant tension.

It’s the kind of strain I try to avoid by going for a ride in the first place – but today it lurks under the asphalt like a hunter stalking its prey. Holding low, hiding out, just waiting to see your weaknesses. Waiting for that one single mistake when it capitalize and take charge for the foreseeable future.

And I can feel it bearing down… With each flick of the front end…

The strain of its eyes. The heat from its breath. The emotional turmoil it creates within. It’s the kind of foreboding thought-process that somehow ensnares you - traps you in a self-fulfilling circular prophecy written in your own continual failure.

Worst of all, you witness at each bend in the road; within a missed mark or an overtly loose line or that one stone that somehow stand tall right at the apex… And right now I find myself feeling this amazingly powerful sense of internal rage – the kind of raw, bitter, unrelenting anger that I haven’t felt in ages – because I can’t shake this feeling, I can’t just enjoy the ride, and perhaps most importantly because I – and I alone - created it in the first place…

I decided far to late in the day to go for a ride when I clearly lacked the mental space to enjoy it, and now I’m paying the price, one corner at a time.