Motorcycles on Florin's blog

The quest for intensity

Sun, 24 Jun 2007 19:25:50 -0700

This is part 3 in the motorcycle series, and a follow-up to my essay “The decision tree” which can be found here:
The decision tree
You’re riding the sportbike on a technical road or track, quickly following the riders ahead of you, braking to shed speed, leaning through the turns, straightening up the bike, revving the engine until it’s screaming with rage and joy, and you’re propelled forward by the awesome acceleration of the racing bike, and you do it over and over again, until every fiber in your body is vibrating with the thrill of the extreme speed and the world disappears in a fast receding blur.

The decision tree

Sun, 18 Mar 2007 21:26:57 -0700

This is part 2 in the motorcycles series, and the follow-up to my essay “The engines of joy” which has been published here:
The engines of joy
This time I will examine the same themes, but from a different perspective.

The engines of joy

Wed, 18 Oct 2006 23:17:02 -0700

On January 9th 2006, while riding my motorcycle to work, I had an accident. I thought the car ahead of me in the left-hand lane was going to swerve into my lane. That was not true, but I acted upon this false impression and I hit the front brake hard. The front wheel froze, the tire lost traction, the bike fell on the left side. I hit the road and tumbled a dozen times or more. The bike was a total loss. I was rushed to the hospital - the result: broken right ankle, broken left collarbone. I underwent surgery to fix my ankle, which put a metal piece in my foot and several screws to keep together the shattered bones. I had to do many months of physical therapy to recover the ankle, which may or may not be ever the same - it’s too early to tell now, about 9 months later, although I made huge progress and the prospects look good. My own god damn fault, this whole affair, but that’s not the topic of these pages.
And yet, one of the things I often - nay, I permanently dream about is to get back in the saddle. Keep reading to find out why.