WEBSLINGER
MAKE EVERYDAY AN ADVENTURE
ED SUBIAS
ONLINE EDITOR
ED.SUBIAS@BONNIERCORP.COM @EDSUBIAS #BROWNBEARRACING
A
short while ago I changed my place of residence farther away from the Hot Bike offices. This meant more time commuting, which meant more time behind some handlebars. Sure, more time on a motorcycle is always a good thing, but doing so during peak traffic times is less than optimal. In fact, it can downright drive one cuckoo. Luckily I have figured out a few ways to make it a bit more entertaining and started making my midweek office rides into mini adventures. I had been living in Orange County, California, with a commute of about 20 miles one way, and my new ride is about 56 miles. Essentially tripling the distance but not necessarily the time. You see, that previous 20 miles was in highly congested urban conditions, basically white-knuckle lanesplitting, dodging big rigs and motorists texting, on an insanely crowded freeway for about 30 to 40 minutes. While my new commute from the Inland Empire in Southern California is a lot more miles, it offers numerous routes and with a wide variety of highways, roads, and scenery. It can be done in 50 minutes if I’m heavy on the throttle. One thing all these routes have in common is that there are plenty of different surface streets, highways, dirt roads, and just plain bad roads spiderwebbing into and out of them. This is where my daily exploring has taken place. Each day on my commute, I map out a slightly different route and explore some different streets or roads that I have never been on. These usually add a few minutes extra to the ride, but it’s entertaining because it’s fresh and can be exciting at times. I have found breathtaking scenic overlooks, fantastic taco shops, cool little hardware stores, independent motorcycle shops, pegscraping twisty country roads, and plenty of other pleasant surprises on my small-scale escapades. I encourage you to go out and try a slightly different route on your routine motorcycle commute. You will find that you can have a flavorful little slice of weekend riding right in the middle of the bland weekday pie. HB
88 / HOTBIKE.COM
“I ENCOURAGE YOU TO GO OUT AND TRY A SLIGHTLY DIFFERENT ROUTE ON YOUR ROUTINE MOTORCYCLE COMMUTE.”
