Got my groove back

It’s been a tough cou­ple of months. I’ve been pin­ing away for my Moto Guzzi, which has been in the shop. That means more than just an emo­tion­al gap in my life; I’ve been less able to get from place to place and have even resort­ed to dri­ving four-wheeled vehi­cles on occa­sion. That was an exer­cise in frus­tra­tion; not only did it take twice as long to get any­where,  it usu­al­ly took longer to park than it did to drive.

The Nero Cor­sa has had its camshaft, all four tap­pets, and a whole lot of expen­sive gas­kets replaced. It’s also had an exhaust head­er cracked and weld­ed, and the flu­id and seals of the front fork replaced. It’s tak­en over two months and lord only knows if I even remem­ber how to ride a motor­cy­cle any more (I did make it home from the shop safe­ly.) It’s set me back more mon­ey than I have, and I’m very relieved to have it back home.

While the bike was being wheeled out, anoth­er cus­tomer at the bike shop asked me how I like my Moto Guzzi. It would be wrong to say I did­n’t love it, but if I had sim­ply said so the look on my face prob­a­bly would have giv­en me away. So I told him that I love the bike, and added, «and right now the rela­tion­ship is bit­ter­sweet.» He nod­ded know­ing­ly. I wish I’d asked what kind of bike he was pick­ing up, but con­sid­er­ing that Munroe Motors is the deal­er for Guzzis, Tri­umphs, Ducatis, and MV Agus­tas, no mat­ter what he like­ly has a some­what bit­ter­sweet rela­tion­ship with his bike as well.

To keep this sort of thing from hap­pen­ing again, I’m try­ing to get my hands on a Rop­er plate, which will hope­ful­ly pre­vent oil star­va­tion dur­ing accel­er­a­tion and on hills. I can try to take it eas­i­er on the throt­tle in the future, but there’s not much I can do to avoid hills here in San Francisco.

I think cut­ting back on work­ing from home is in order, which should help my pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and over­all mood. It’ll be nice just to get out when­ev­er I feel like tak­ing a spin. A run to the gro­cery store can now hap­pen at any time. It’s only a machine that’s come back to me and I haven’t gone any­where, but I have the odd urge to declare: It’s good to be back.