Brisk Morning Commute

[KingBear]

I'm a fairly early riser, often awake before my radio comes on at 5:00am. But not today. It's a Monday morning and I hit the snooze bar on my 30-year-old Realistic once before rolling out of bed. As I shower I begin my mental transition, from how I need to replace the trap in the shower drain to the shipments I need to send to the engineers in New Hampshire.

I dress with my ride to work in mind. Summer is giving way to autumn and the temperatures are falling fast. If I had a choice I might reconsider riding at all, but with my Toyota in the body shop because of damage from a falling pine tree during a recent storm, the Bonneville is my primary form of transportation. So substituting my usual shoulder bag for a backpack I roll her out of the garage. Damn, it's colder that I expected. I wish I had something other than my perforated Rochester jacket to cut the wind. Fifty degrees will feel like forty once I get going.

The sun is still below the horizon as I set out. The wind stings on my freshly shaven face, unprotected by my Bell Custom 500 open-face helmet. It feels good, invigorating. This is going to be a good morning.

I flick the headlight to bright. The trees lining the country road I live on block most of the ambient sunlight, and there are no street lights or houses to provided illumination. But that's what I love most about living out here, close enough to the conveniences of the suburbs and city, but dark enough to see the stars on a clear night, and quiet so I can hear a train a mile or two away.

I break out of the trees alongside a field and the red horizon comes into view. The surroundings become visible, including the wildlife. I stare down a deer, freezing her in place so she doesn't jump out in front of me. They are my greatest concern for the first half of my journey. Hitting a deer with an automobile is an inconvenience, but hitting one on a motorcycle could prove fatal.

 

[KingBear]

The scene brightens quickly through the clear lenses of my riding goggles as I continue on my way. This is the best part of my morning commute, riding the winding roads and rolling hills of rural Montgomery County, usually in relative solitude even at midday, and at this hour I am completely alone. In fifteen minutes I arrive at White's Ferry, a little cable-guided barge I've been riding across the Potomac for most of the last thirteen years. Feuding between Maryland and Virginia has prevented the building of bridges, so there is no other crossing in the nearly forty miles between the Washington DC beltway to the south and Point of Rocks to the north.

The ferry operators are pretty cool to motorcyclists. Cars are loaded in three rows beginning with the middle and are unloaded the same way, but this early there are only five or six cars and I am last to board. Although there is room for me in the middle I am directed off to the side, so when we are docked on the other side of the river I am allowed to leave the ferry first, getting a jump ahead of all the others. I easily negotiate the ramp and tight hair-pin turn onto the long straightaway that runs along the river, accelerating quickly to see if I can reach the end and take a tight right turn before the first car behind me comes into view around the hairpin. And this morning I do.

 

[KingBear]

Once across the river I am in a completely different state, both geographically and mentally. Lonely rural Maryland roads give way to the bustle of suburban Northern Virginia where I join the masses as they make their way toward the Capital. I take a circular ramp onto route 7 and find myself behind a sea of red tail lights three lanes wide. But not for long. At the first opportunity I bail out onto one of my side routes, circumventing the hoard of zombies and heading to my usual coffee shop. Once there I back into the primo parking space right outside the front door, and the barista begins preparing my usual the moment I walk in.

I refer to it as the "Lansdowne office." It's about ten minutes away from work, but once I settle in there I might stay for hours, frequently the most productive time of my day. From my seat I can see my bike parked out front and glance up occasionally to see a passer-by admiring her. "That's right," I think to myself, "pretty cool, eh!"

It's not yet seven o'clock here but past lunchtime at our headquarters in Germany, so I fire up my BlackBerry and start reading through the e-mail responses to the messages I sent last Friday. One of them warrants a phone call, which is answered on the second ring. "Gut morgen, Herr Werner," I say, despite the time difference and utilizing fully half of my non-technical German vocabulary. The other half is just sufficient to order a beer, which is all the language skills I need to survive my occasional business trips.

I'm known to the staff and several of the other regulars, and some of them are government or civilian customers of my company which is conspicuously identified by the big red "HK" on my black shirt. I chat with a couple of them, review the postings on FedBizOpps, check the news, and complete all the work I can do from this location. Time to move on to my regular office, nearly two hours after opening but not late for work. My boss knows where I am, when I got here and what I am doing. He approves.

 

[KingBear]

The traffic has cleared so I get back on Route 7 for the remainder of my ride into the office. The highway has been streamlined since I started my job here back in '99 with most of the stoplights having been replaced by overpasses, so I'm able to move at a pretty good clip. I take advantage by getting on the throttle a little more, and by the time I pull into a parking space outside my office window I'm riding on a nice little caffein/adrenaline rush.

A temp is at the front desk so rather than being buzzed through the front door as usual, I have to fish through my backpack for my pass card. The office is in full swing, or as swinging as a half-dozen people can be. Much of our operation has been moved to Georgia and New Hampshire, so all that remains here are the executive offices, some administrative functions, and of course the U.S. Government sales staff. I'm hoping we will retain this office because it's nice to have government sales near, you know... The Government! But also because this is such a great place for a motorcyclist to live and ride. I don't ride during the winter but we have at least seven months of riding season each year, fantastic roads and beautiful scenery. Including this view just outside my office window.

 

[2Monkeys]

Wow. In the words of Mel Brooks,"It's good to be the King(bear)".

 

[koifarm]

Wonderful saga of your workday KB..... More !!

 

[BlueJ]

I love crossing at Harper's Ferry! Would be nice to have that as my commute, but I am probably just rolling out of bed while your BBerry-ing, and my 23 mile, 42 minute eastward blast through 2-lane rural Montgomery and Howard counties includes 2 regular speed "traps" (yeah yeah yeah Dude I know, they aren't "traps" but that's what us civvies call them), one of which has gotten me once and one 3 times in my cage so I slow for them. For reasons I cannot explain, I will not pass a slow cager across a double yellow even though I'll blow the speed limit by 40+mph, so my passing opportunities are limited to one light where it's possible to be first in line at the left turn land and easily take the hole shot, 2 places where I can pass in the widened right-hand turn spot (one of which is sometimes occupied be one of the aforementioned traps) and a short spot of dashed line passing allowed road that is made more challenging by limited viz due to overhanging trees.

All in all, a terrific ride. No interstate whatsoever, just about 4 miles of divided highway at the end that is never crowded. I invariably arrive at work wishing my commute was longer!

 

[Roger]

Although this post is almost a year old, it's still a good read. Cool story! You are fortunate to be able to split your office space like that. My office is my service van. That being said, I don't get to ride my bike to work.

 

[bikeypikey]

Wow! I've not checked or posted here for quite some time and after reading KB's words and looking at the pics, I'll make sure to hang around more often. Excellent!

Cheers,

Pikey.

 

[bonZa]

Wow! I've not checked or posted here for quite some time and after reading KB's words and looking at the pics, I'll make sure to hang around more often. Excellent!

Cheers,

Pikey.

ditto, fantastic story and words

 

[JimmyR]

I work from home so never get to ride to the office. :-( I make up for it with riding to drop off work and ride to the beach on the way back. It never gets old. But this is a better story than mine. How cool.