It’s mid October and I am finally getting back on the saddle. It’s been a funny few months prior to this where I had doctors looking at my MRIs trying their best to figure out how best to manage a brain hemorrhage I had sustained following a road accident. My neurosurgeon was clear that he wanted me off motorcycles for a few months but I guess when you see the bikes in your garage you tend to just look at them and go I’ll be back soon(errrr). 

Turning the bikes on for the first time after a few months just felt really good. Therapeutic and cathartic. I spent most of my recovery time alternating between resting and in the garage trying to fix things albeit sometimes fix things that were not broken. What it most certainly did was keep me ‘sane’ and the people around me in good mental health too (given how crazy I was driving them). Seriously healing over time meant staying home and not being able to get my mind off of it; a visit to the garage and seeing what’s cooking sent all those negative thoughts out and kept me on track on that one goal – being able to ride sooner. 

Roaring again

That’s what I did after three months and not being on a motorcycle. I had to start small and slow and that meant riding the scooter to every place possible be it close or far, shake off the edginess amidst traffic and work on getting my bearings and balance in ‘sync’. T’was a factory reset if you must. There was plenty of good advice and well meaning folks who called and visited and offered their best (despite battling their respective pandemic-related situations); of these the one I kept close was, “When you are ready you’ll get on and away!” This was true for my first ride back on the Tiger 800 XCa. Got me some of those butterflies and nervous feet but the thrill was heightened. A few more weekend rides followed and they have made me feel why we really ride. For me it’s gotten me back to normalcy and reminded me what I irrefutably love and enjoy. 

For now, this has been my motorcycling journey in 2020; pre and post-Covid and an injury. It’s good to see motorcycling activities ramping up quite a bit around me. We have hopefully fought most part of the slowdown that has affected our riding lives but from what I have learnt is when things are down, get on that bike and ride and sense how everything changes for the better .