My addiction.

Hello.
My name is Nunrider.
And I'm a motorcycle junkie.

I had a life before I bought my Bonneville. I had a vocation, avocations, hobbies and pastimes. Now all I do is ride my motorcycle or think about riding my motorcycle. Motorcycling has ruined my life.

That's overstating it, but there's some truth in it.

When I bought The Chrome Nun, my 2008 Triumph Bonneville T100, in April of 2009, I had a number of interesting hobbies, including publishing, distributing and writing most of a popular humor newspaper in Central Illinois. Two months later I had one hobby: motorcycling. And things have pretty much stayed that way for nearly two years. I don't have time for anything but my totally necessary job and riding the Nun. I don't even write anymore, except for writing about motorcycling. And that's only when for some reason I can't be riding instead.

I'm not complaining. The reason that riding has taken the place of all my other hobbies is that it satisfies the needs that made them necessary. Riding a motorcycle on the high twisties is like a wonderful fantasy, except that it's really happening. And it's interactive, meaning that I'm writing the script as I'm living it. So why would I want to play a video game or watch a movie or read a book or even write a book when I can live/create an adventure?

I suit-up like a knight or a super-hero, then walk to my beautiful machine. I don't need theme music playing in the background because when I push the starter The Nun makes her own music. Then I turn out of the driveway with or without a destination, knowing that if some new road beckons I'll be ready, willing, able and eager to explore it.

And no matter what happens, it will be a new adventure. When you're on a motorcycle even the same old roads aren't quite the same from one ride to the next. Different lighting, temperatures and traffic patterns make each ride new. Like one stepping into the ever-changing river of Heraclitus, a motorcyclist cannot ride down the same road twice.

I was never a proper hippie, but whatever I am I resonate to some of the hippie philosophy. I enjoy being alive in the moment, awake and aware in the ever-changing now. And for me, that "now" is best during motorcyclng... and that other thing that requires a partner and privacy.