4×4

I can haz tag!

Betme (have I mentioned how glad I am you’re back?) tagged me with a photo meme. I am apparently horribly susceptible to blogger peer pressure.

Rules of Ye Meme:

1. Go to your pictures file.
2. Go to the 4th file.
3. Go to the 4th picture.
4. Post it and tell the story.
5. Tag 4 more people.

Hmm. You would think this is straightforward, but my fourth folder is empty. I can’t post NOTHING. Should I take the next folder? The fourth folder with something in it, skipping all of the empties? Hmm. The fourth pic in the fourth folder after I skip all the empties is one of the Jonny Lang shots I’ve already posted, so I figure there’s no need to go there again. So I decided to go with the fifth folder.

But wait! I have two subfolders in that folder! And one of those has subfolders that has subfolders! (Occasional OCD, you got me.) How does this all work?

Well, the fourth pic in the main folder is this one. Kinda dull, but it does have a story.

This is a 2003 Aprilia Tuono. As I will soon be discussing when I pick up my Diaries of a Newbie Biker series again, I had the pleasure of riding one of these bad boys at a demo day at a local dealer. It was like my SV…on steroids. Wow that was one badass bike. I lusted after one. But they’re expensive, mildly rare, and difficult to find parts for. Since I was still a new rider, I thought those were a bad combination. Turns out I was right. They’re still awesome bikes, and in a perfect world I’d love to own one.

But that’s not much of a story, is it? And it’s not really my picture, it’s one I nabbed from the ‘net a few years ago when I was trying to show somebody what the bike looked like. So what the hell, I went into the first subfolder and grabbed the fourth photo there. Yep, this is a bit more like the meme had in mind, I think.

Okay, so I modified it a bit. Not only for the anonymity thing, but because this was before I started shaving my head, so the Bad Hairline was in full effect. In addition, it was near the end of an ill-advised (I think, Dys didn’t think it was so bad) attempt to grow a full beard. So I think all in all it’s a goofy picture of me. And from the bike in the picture, it’s also obviously not recent.

It’s from April 2005. It was a gorgeous Wednesday in early spring…notice the grass in my backyard is still about half dead. But it was forecast to be unusually hot – in the low 80s for the first time that year – on a Wednesday. I took the day off and arranged to meet a local-ish fellow from my motorcycle board to go for a ride. Dys came out and shot this picture of me just before I left, wearing my “summer” perforated leathers and all ready to go with my tailbag full of water, etc. Hell, the picture was even taken with our ancient 1 megapixel Kodak digital.

The day really was ridiculously gorgeous – after a long winter, it was a motorcyclist’s dream. My riding partner was itching to show me one of his favorite routes through the hills, and I quickly knew why. The route, also, was a motorcyclist’s dream. Long stretches of two-lane road between little podunk towns with little traffic; occasional passing lanes to get around what little traffic we did find; tight banked S-turns, elevation changes, hills and plains, and curves and curves and more curves.

The other rider was more experienced, knew the route better, and was just plain faster than me. I let him go; he knew he could run ahead of me if he wanted and wait for me at other places. He was a good partner on a new route like this. And the route itself…it became my favorite, the route I regularly rode anytime I had a sunny Saturday morning. I must have done that 100-mile trip over a dozen times that summer. And, in the early fall, that’s where I crashed and destroyed my motorcycle.

I have lots of photos of my motorcycle, just not many pictures of me with it. This one is one of my favorites, because it reminds me of that beautiful day. It’s even enough to make me overlook the bad hair and scruffy beard.

So there ya go – two pics for the price of one!

Tagees – bah, y’all are grownups. Take it if you’d like, leave it if you don’t. It’s all good.