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Motorcycles represent different things to different people. For some folks, they represent basic transportation. To others, they represent the exhilaration of power and speed. To the humorless, they represent a societal irritation. To me, motorcycles represent pure freedom. Growing up on an isolated farm in northern Minnesota, I had a rather lonely childhood. Our nearest neighbor was several miles away, and I could go weeks or even months without seeing another kid once school let out for the summer. That changed during my eleventh summer, when I got my first motorcycle. My life has never been the same. That was more than 25 years ago, and since then I've traveled hundreds of thousands of miles on a dozen different motorcycles. I've visited every contiguous state west of the Mississippi and a bunch to the east. I've lived in different cities and held different jobs, but the one thing that has remained constant is my devotion to the sport of motorcycling. As I write, the exhaust pipes on my motorcycle are cooling in my garage, having just returned from a 150-mile ride. (I ride year-round, which is no small feat, considering I live in Minnesota.) I never feel more alive than when I'm riding a bike. For me, traveling in a car is too much like watching television: I feel as if I'm viewing my surroundings through the end of a glass tube. When I'm on a bike, I feel as though I am actually there, experiencing the world. Not only do I see my surroundings, but I feel them, smell them, and taste them. I feel a part of something larger, something complete, instead of feeling like an uninterested voyeur. I derive great comfort from that feeling. Sometimes when I haven't ridden for a while, I start to feel disconnected. I don't notice it while it's happening, but when I finally get back out on the road, when I run my bike through the gears and watch the city disappear in my rearview mirror, I realize how out of touch with myself I've been. When I start to feel that way, I know it's time to go for a ride. Because the sport of motorcycling has brought me so much pleasure and satisfaction, I want to share this activity with others; my goal is to bring as many people into the motorcycling community as I can. But it is not a community to be entered into lightly. As rewarding as motorcycling is, it comes with risks. This is especially true for new riders. Your chances of getting in trouble decrease as you become more experienced.
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