It gets easier. It gets better. All except for my backside - the seat on my motorcycle has not grown any more comfortable with the passage of time.
Where once the spectre of a ride down a virtually deserted highway kept me up nights, I now recognize the highway for the expedient that it is. The highway is rarely the most scenic of routes but it is the fastest way when trying to skip from northwestern New Brunswick to southeastern Ontario in a single day.
In short, I now love riding my bike.
A and I have travelled the width of Ontario three times, and out to Nova Scotia and back to Ottawa, since my leaving Toronto at the end of May. A thinks I still slow down too much on gravel (and chipseal), and I still don't especially enjoy blustery days, but with 12,000kms under me now, I feel ready to tackle riding overseas.
Riding a motorcycle is a visceral experience. Everything vibrates, from the helmet on your head to the foot pegs under the soles of your feet. I was taught to stay relaxed when passing large trucks pushing a wall of air and to ride out the turbulence that swirls around them. But ghost trucks are another matter. These hit on blustery days when sudden gusts joggle the bike under you unexpectedly. At least you can see regular trucks and brace yourself for the swirling air! Ghost trucks are invisible spectres hiding in the gusts of wind that sweep across the road on unsettled days.
Smells define a journey. The expected smells that penetrate even the shell of a car, like angry skunks, are even more pronounced when riding in the free air. (Rarely do we spy skunk corpses, just the smell from presumably angry animals that have since slinked away. Porcupines are sadly another matter - we see too many of these dead on the road.) When lilacs are in bloom, whole towns smell lovely, and we can tell if you've put too much softener in your laundry. The smell from over-perfumed dryer exhaust really carries. My favourite are the logging chip trucks in Northern Ontario which smell like the most exotic of botanical gins.
Somehow, almost three months have fled during all this riding and seemingly suddenly, we've handed over our bikes to Air Canada cargo and have boarded a flight to London. A and I aren't quite sure what we're going to do with ourselves for the next year or so, but we hope to have fun doing it. We get to collect the motorcycles the morning after landing at Heathrow so then my current preoccupation will be answered: does the maximum allowable quarter tank of fuel allow us enough range to fill up at the nearest petrol station?
