Accumulating miles on the bikes this year started off great with a 1200-mile, week-long road trip to Death Valley and Las Vegas for my 40th birthday. Progress quickly fizzled.

Let’s get the excuses out of the way. After returning from the road trip and a side quest to ride my new-to-me Goldwing back from Phoenix, riding mostly stopped. I started prepping my deck for new paint in July. All of my free time has been spent working on it and the work never seemed to end. Between working on the deck every weekend and every day after work, there was no time left. I also work remotely. Being a remote worker is awesome and convenient but I can’t ride to work if my commute is down the hall from my bedroom to my home office. I could have ridden more but I didn’t.

I finally had an opportunity to get out of my house and take a ride last month. My employer had scheduled employee appreciation day 50ish miles away. I took the least reasonable option in the garage… the Ural.

As is normally the case, choosing to take a vehicle that isn’t really great for California interstates added 50% more travel time. I hit every red light on a 26-mile stretch of secondary road. The temperature was in the upper 80s and humidity was high (for us). I was hot and sweaty on the way there and it was even worse on the way back in the afternoon. I got sunburn on my face from leaving the face shield on my full-face helmet open at all the stop lights.

When I finally got home, I was exhausted.

It was the best commute to work I’ve had in recent memory, possibly ever. Motorcycles are certainly a less-comfortable/convenient way of travel than cages.

While the deck project is finally winding down, other projects are piling up that need to get done before the holidays/end of year. Now that Halloween is over, de-decorating Halloween and decorating for Fall has commenced. Also in-flight is cleaning the house in preparation for Thanksgiving. After Thanksgiving is decorating for Christmas and snow has been in the forecast for the last two weeks. I don’t quite know how much riding I can fit in between those projects and foul Winter weather but I’m hoping that the weather cooperates enough for me to at least escape again and take less than 4 wheels to the office in a couple more times in 2022.