My January Airhead article.

[Nik Rende]

Good morning all!

I hope this holiday season found you opportunities for celebration and  
"normal".  I for one am looking forward to 2020 being over and done 
with.  I've decided to look forward to 2021 and make some plans to do 
something!

There are a couple of things in the works, well, one one in the works 
and one on the books.  The one on the books is the BMWRSM Down East 
Rally at Hermit Island.  We're scheduling it a week earlier in May than 
normal (the 14-16 vs 21-23) as the latter date conflicts with the BMW RA 
Rally in NC.  The date has already been cleared with the campground 
folks so I've decided to look forward to it.

The second event that is in the works is an open house of sorts at 
Barringting Motor Works in Barrington NH.  The Region 4 airmarshals have 
started meeting virtually once a month to gab about and coordinate ideas 
for things to do.  I reached out to Ande at Barrington and he is 
completely on board.  We're thinking late spring or early summer. It 
won't really be a tech day, more of a ride-in and meet up.  We even 
talked about a food truck or something.  Stay tuned.

Lastly, if you got your January Airmail, you saw the article I 
submitted.  I sent it to B. Jan after the November meeting of the RSM 
and he wrote back that he'd been thinking of the exact same concept for 
an article himself. Apparently he decided, either for brevity or fit or 
simply editorial license, to rework what I wrote and I think he cut up a 
bit too much.  I'm not upset, he's the editor, it's his job.  But if 
you're interested in what my original thoughts were, the are below.

Happy New Year all!

Nik
Maine A/M


	

	

	

	

Jan - Had this go through my head last Saturday morning while riding to 
our club breakfast.


As we were getting ready to leave, my wife asked (told) me "If you and I 
are connected, I can't connect to Wendy."  I replied with "Fine, I'll 
leave mine off so you and Wendy can yak."  We were preparing for a ride 
to our November club meeting, taking advantage of some unseasonably warm 
temps on a weekend to get in one last ride.  Our riding friend Wendy's 
bikes were already put up for the winter and her partner was hunting so 
she asked if we had something she could use.  I managed to get the K75, 
the 1100RS and the Vstrom out and ready to go.  We all have some model 
of Sena and Wendy and Kathy like to chit chat while they ride.  The two 
of them rode together last year from Maine to Lebanon TN for the MOA 
rally and I'm surprised the batteries are still good!

So I was left alone with my Sena switched off.  That was OK tho as I 
don't typically listen to music much when I ride and the sound quality 
of the SMH-5 is horrid, especially with ear plugs and wind noise.  We're 
going to upgrade, probably with the next set of new helmets in a year or 
so.  Being able to communicate with my wife or son while we're on a ride 
is important to me as is my elderly parents' ability to get in touch 
with me whenever necessary.  Anyway, it was a lovely ride, I could catch 
the girls' headlights in my rear view every once in a while but for the 
most part I was in my own little world.

The sun was still low as its rise was only half an hour old by the time 
we got on the road.  We were slabbing it to meet some club friends for 
breakfast before the meeting, held outside in a parking lot near the 
breakfast place that had been our meeting home for a slew of years.  The 
air was warm, cold, warm, repeat.  I wasn't over dressed or under 
dressed,  just comfortable and the hand warmers on the 1100 were taking 
the edge off.

I'm sure I'm not the only one who has felt that feeling of self 
awareness while riding.  The feeling like you're in every single moment, 
every molecule of air whipping by, every grain of asphalt under the 
tire, every spark of the plug   I guess it's called "being present" by 
the millennial generation.  There was nothing else going on in my world 
at that singular moment except what I was engaged in, the engine noise, 
the heat from the grips, the cool air on my knees.  There were no 
distractions, no worries about work or family.  For a brief time, it was 
just a series of moments engaging me and then releasing me.  I started 
to think about how I was feeling when I caught sight of the girls in my 
rear view again.  I could almost hear them gabbing on about something, 
who knows what.  It makes me happy that they have each other as riding 
buddies.  But the distractions of conversation or music overtake those 
moments, relegating them to "other" status.  That got me to thinking 
about the generations who have been brought up with no concept of their 
own moments and their place in them;  they're missing out on being 
present in their own moments because they are so involved in someone 
else's.

Social media has boiled down attention spans to literally seconds or the 
time it takes to read 144 characters.  My family isn't immune, I have a 
21 year old.  I've seen it.  I used to say to him "It's amazing how 
what's on that little screen is ALWAYS more interesting than what is 
going on around you right now."  I sat in the drive through lane at 
Dunkin Donuts last week and watched in my mirror as the driver of the 
car behind me, the minute she pulled up and stopped, was on her phone.  
She would glance up, edge forward and then phone.  I could see her thumb 
flicking pages by as she looked for something worthy of more than a 
millisecond of her time.

It saddens me that we have several generations for whom just being in 
whatever moment is engaging them isn't good enough anymore, they 
absolutely HAVE to be in someone else's.

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