Vulcan Drifter Riders

Ever have trouble focusing while riding?  You hop on your bike, a million things on your mind, and before you know it, you are an hour away but don?t recall much about the trip.
A motorcycle ride is the perfect time to practice mindfulness. 
Mindfulness: bringing one?s complete attention to the present experience.  A useful component of mindfulness is careful attention to the senses.  This is excellent practice early in the season when your thoughts might easily drift from the ride at hand.


Here are my mental notes from this weekend?s ride to the seacoast; the ride out to the coast is rather dull. I decided to practice my skills, taking mental inventory of the four senses used while riding.

Smell

Brakes burning
Wood stoves
Exhaust fumes
Steak grilling
Salt air

Sight

Clear skies
Tires breaching my lane
Tach stead
Tree buds revealing
Tolls ahead

Sound

Gears shifting
Wheels on the road
Wind in the helmet
Engine drone
Far off horn

Touch - Feel

Jacket scratching my arm as the wind hits
Wind buffeting my head, the cheek pads pressing my face
The wind on my face as I notched up the face shield.
Faint vibration of the hand grips in my palm
The subtle drop in temps as I approached the coast.