Well, it took some time, but exactly one week short of six months since "my unfortunate accident" back in May, I awkwardly swung my bad knee over a bike and went for a ride yesterday. I had been anticipating this day with a strange combination of teenage excitement and an uneasy fear that I might not be physically able to do it. But I was bound and determined to give it a try.
Saturday morning, bright and early, Pattimarie and I drove from our house in Greenville, SC to Winston-Salem, NC to see our good friend (and R65 owner) Steve Lehman. The plan was to have a nice lunch together and then see if I could sit comfortably on (ironically) my old '84 R65, "Britta". I was pretty nervous as Steve parked the bike in his back yard and motioned me to hop on.
I slowly lifted my right leg up, bad knee and all, and managed to ease it over the Russell saddle Steve had put on my old bike. I was a little worried that the new seat might be taller than the stock one and I would have trouble balancing the bike, but I found I was able to support the bike OK. While I sat on Britta and shifted the bike from side to side, Steve got his 2000 Moto-Guzzi California Jackal ready and donned his helmet. Britta fired up easily and settled into her soft idle. I had placed my right boot up on the footpeg, which I wondered if this would cause my knee to begin aching soon, from the angle my knee was placed. Steve smiled and nodded, and put his Guzzi in gear and slowly edged out of the backyard through the gate. I felt the "clunk" of first gear and let out the clutch and lurched forward suddenly (but didn't stall it out, at least) and aimed for the gate. I glided down Steve's rather steep driveway and into the street, and pulled up beside Steve, who said, "Everything OK?" I gave him a thumb's up, and replied, "Yeah, let's go!"
We rode around his neighborhood for a few minutes to let me get back into the swing of shifting and braking at stop signs. We then started out of town for a ride in the country. I had an ear to ear grin on my face that would not go away. I was actually riding again.
I won't bore you with the details of our all too brief ride, a 30 mile ride to Lexington (the BBQ capital of the world, according to Steve), where we parked the bikes and walked around town to give my knee a rest. After about a half hour we saddled up again and rode back to "the big city" again, and stopped at the local Honda dealer and spent an hour looking at various bikes before heading back to his house again. All in all, we spent about three hours out and rode about 60 miles total. To most folks, this would be just another afternoon's tooling around. But to me, it meant I can still do what I have enjoyed since 1971. Ride!!
