Well, never mind that. You'll learn, I suppose. On a serious note, if you aren't
using a throttle control, you're in for a fun time, Claw-Hands.
After a few hours more, you forget you have an ass. Oh never mind! There it is.
You just shifted a bit, didn't you? Yup, that thing now full of pins 'n' needles is,
indeed, your once-glorious ass. Your thighs you haven't forgotten, at least, but
that's because they feel like you've had them wrapped around a tree bough for a
few hours. The soreness in your hands is gone, though. Whew. Wait, no. The minute
vibrations through the handlebars have utterly numbed them.
Your mind is also starting to get a bit foggy. You've been maintaining the same
posture (termed “Wannabe-Gangsta Teenager Slouched Over In a Bus”) for the last
three or four hours, on and off. Your hands are grasping the handlebars like you're a
magpie with two dimes, your ass is tingling hamburger meat, your thighs are worse,
your groin feels like two high-tension bridge cables, and your shoulders and neck
are screwed up worse than the ropes at a Boy Scout knot-tying competition. You're
half-deaf from the wind and the road sounds from other motorists, all of whom are
criminally idiotic and wish you dead. You think you're still on the right road
(maybe?) but can't be sure because you just realized you kinda zoned out there for
the last. . . uhhhh. . .
But who cares! There it is. Your destination looms before you. What had been
an indistinct mirage-like smudge on the horizon now has distinct form and
substance. The sun is waxing ruddy in the west and the air has cooled. Flip up your
visor and smile. Flex your hands (one by one), roll your shoulders, shift in your
saddle, gingerly flap your knees to relieve your aching groin, and then stretch your
legs out ahead toward your front wheel like a little kid pulling a “lookit my trick,
daddy!” on his first bicycle. (Then, after realizing how ridiculous it is, buy an engine
guard and highway pegs.) Allow your mind to be settled by the winding-down
growl of your engine as you down-shift, and pull off. Ease to a stop and baby-tap 'er
into neutral. Set down your boot heel on the rough pavement, grinding gravel, or
dirt, and swing down your stand. Turn the key to “Off” and embrace the silence that