I’ve been living in a small college town in southern Ontario for almost a decade. It has everything I need, and then some. I sold the bagger, knowing I was content and happily ensconced. From a successful career in aviation, and another lifetime of riding, I’ve garnered enough material to keep me happily clacking away on that typewriter thing forever and a day. Anonymous fiction, of course.
Because reasons.
My aviation life was spent in the deserts of Africa. I have flown in the Canadian bush as a fire pilot. I’ve been a mountain and an arctic pilot. I managed to stay away from the jungle. Because more reasons.
As a biker, I was an Independent. I traveled highway and byway and the old blue highways from Canada to Mexico and places in between. I loved every precious minute of it all, even when, well, that’s for me to know and others to read about.
As to my writing, on average, I get around 12,000 downloads a year, every year. My biggest kick was seeing 60 down in Kazakhstan last year. Normally, it’s only ten or so in that bleak wilderness. I do POD sales as well, courtesy of Ingram Spark and Amazon.
Switching gears, my last bicycle was a red and white CCM 3-speed from Simpsons-Sears. I think I might have been 12, or thereabouts.
I remember my old man putting that thing together, not fast enough for my liking. Finally, off I went. The bike wasn’t anything too fancy – as best I can recall. Hitting the binders required one to stand on the aft pedal and push down hard.
So what’s next, I asked myself, because with me, there is always a next.
Answered, I replied, to no one in particular. I like it that way.
The bagger has been replaced!
COSTCO came up with a sweet deal on a CC50 e-bike. No surprise that I couldn’t resist or refuse. Of course, I needed a helmet. Chain lube. A pump. A sizeable hard bag to sit on top of that rack. Some sweet panniers, too. And an alarm. I dug out my leather gloves and a couple of old Slippy Brim helmet liners. Some faded bandanas.
That CCM bicycle was my first taste of freedom. As I got older, I tasted more, and more. And now, I have come full circle. I am still tasting, though. I will never give that up.