Motorcycling redux

The final issue of my “Cycle World” subscription arrived the other day.
Replete with a screaming declaration Armageddon would begin if I didn’t renew immediately.
Tire-smoking burnouts, chesty tarts displaying acres of cleavage, scantily-clad vixens, heavy with mascara, beg to be “driven-wild.”
So ends 30+ years of subscribing to motorcycle magazines. My motorcycling was over last year when I gave my motorcycle, a 2003 Honda 600cc Double-R, to the classical-music radio-station out of Rochester I listen to.
I hadn’t ridden it in years. I preferred writing. To be a motorcyclist one has to enjoy riding. Just dressing to ride takes 10 minutes. That’s 10 minutes I don’t need to hop into my car.
Riding motorcycle is pleasant, but writing more pleasant. Ten years ago I was down to riding once per year: up the street for inspection, then maybe 10-15 miles to warm it up. My Double-R was at about 2,200 miles when I gave it away.
A friend wanted to buy it, but I didn’t wanna sell to someone I knew.
I could bore everyone with my motorcycling history, which began when I started driving bus in 1977. I befriended another rookie about to sell his Triumph, but I ended up buying a used 850 Norton.
I had read Robert Pirsig’s “Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance” much earlier. Pirsig took his son cross-country on motorcycle from Minnesota to northern California. It sounded interesting.
I’ve had six motorcycles since, none of which I toured on. They reflected my changing tastes. I became obsessed with weight. My Norton was insanely heavy, and having ridden bicycle, which I can carry, I wanted a motorcycle that was light.
My Double-R weighed about 400 pounds, my Norton maybe 600. My lightest motorcycle, a two-stroke, weighed maybe 360, but that’s still way more than a bicycle.
Adventures occurred along the way. I could recount my “motorbike trip from Hell,” where I went off the road near Harrisburg, then nearly dropped it after skimming an unseen curb in the dark in Gap, PA.
I also did an earlier trip by motorcycle returning to my youth in south Jersey. It was so depressing I cried in a diner. I recently returned to my south Jersey youth by car. Never again! Again too depressing.
I also think the reign of the internal-combustion piston engine is over. We piston-slappers are dying off. Soon electric motors will replace the internal-combustion piston engine. This computer is more fun than laying rubber. Plus overcooking a corner can put yer lights out.
That friend who wanted to buy my Honda is about 60. He claims he’ll never give up motorcycling. I used to say that. “Cycle World” recedes into my filmy past.

• RE: “up the street for inspection......” —A motorcycle-shop is about 1,000 yards north of my house.
• For 16&1/2 years (1977-1993) I drove transit bus for Regional Transit Service (RTS) in Rochester, NY, a public employer, the transit-bus operator in Rochester and environs. My heart-defect caused stroke October 26th, 1993 ended that. I retired on medical-disability, and that defect was repaired. I recovered well enough to return to work at a newspaper; I retired from that over 13 years ago.