Lessons from the Road

I recently rode with some friends up to, around, and back from Alaska. After 8,400 miles of riding over 3 weeks, my reflections and thoughts for those that desire to read on:

• There are “talkers”, and there are “walkers”. Whenever we start planning a long motorcycle trip, there are always plenty of “talkers” who are “in”. As the dates get closer and it gets real, most are revealed to be just “talkers”, not “walkers”/riders. Life is more enjoyable with “walkers”/riders than “talkers”. Quit yammering on about what you want to do, and go do it. Do not let others waste your finite life yammering on about things they are never going to do.
• You rarely have all the information. One rider wants to eat breakfast, then fill-up, instead of filling up, and then eating breakfast. So hungry, he cannot wait 5 minutes to fill-up first, so we do not have to backtrack to a gas station after breakfast? Turns out, he overfills his tank, and fuel leaks from the vent tube when the tank is overfilled. After breakfast, the pool of gas under his bike makes this obvious. He also has the smallest tank / shortest range. That is why he wanted to fill-up after breakfast. He failed to say why. I failed to ask why. Make sure people understand the “why” behind your desires and actions. Own understanding other people, and own helping people understand you.

• Shit happens. One rider had a bike die on him about 60 miles south of Calgary and had to get towed. Turns out the cost of repairs would have been more than the repaired bike would be worth. Later in the trip, we had 2 other bikes and riders passing a tanker truck just north of Whitehorse, YT, when the tanker truck decided to pass the car in front of him, without checking for traffic passing next to him. The tanker truck ran the 2 bikes into a ditch. Luckily both riders survived. One is recovering well. The other more beaten up, but out of the hospital and recovering. Both bikes totaled. We had a Cardo PackTalk intercom unit fail, a Bose QC20 fail, an action camera and tank bag lost, a Nikon camera begin failing to charge. We had bad “premium” gas from one fill-up. We had various coverage and network configuration/international plan issues with Sprint, Verizon, and T-Mobile. You can piss and moan when “shit happens”, or you can deal with the inevitable surprises and still enjoy the ride. Different riders took some time here and there to cancel reservations for the riders that wiped out, buy another bike and ride hard for a couple days to catch up to the group, expedite a PackTalk replacement to one of the motels a few days ahead of us, etc. We dealt with the inevitable surprises, and went back to enjoying the ride. How many people do you know in your life or organization that waste their (and thus your, or the organization's) bandwidth pissing and moaning? What can you do to change that?
• Only the paranoid survive. Ride like everyone else is intentionally trying to kill you. e.g. tanker trucks! Good book by this name, by the late Andrew Grove. Competition is always coming after you. Only by being vigilant, pushing forward and avoiding pitfalls, can you survive. As true on a bike as it is in life and in business.
• Take advantage of the opportunities you get--do not assume you will get more. You never know how much time you are going to have, nor how much time others have. One of the motels at which we were staying messed up our reservation, and so our rooms were not adjoined. We just relaxed in our rooms and did not converse much between rooms that evening. We figured we had many days left on the trip, and did not think much of missing the opportunity for one night. The wreck occurred the next day, and the two riders involved were medevaced to Seattle. All opportunity for relaxing, evening conversations with those two, on the rest of the trip, was suddenly gone . . . and it could have been worse. Capitalize on good opportunities immediately. They may not be there if you wait.

• Into each life (and ride), a little rain must fall. Our big sight to see on the trip was Alaska, specifically Denali. It was totally fogged in. We could not even see a small piece of it. We rode into Denali NP, as well as to the north and south viewpoints on the highway along the park's edge. The peak was totally fogged in at all viewpoints. I have to admit, for a period we succumbed to “pissing and moaning” as a result. You have to let it go, and move on. You cannot let bad things that happen takeover your ride, your business, or your life.

• Life has some good surprises. The Lodge at Skeena Landing in Thornhill, BC was an inexpensive place we stayed that turned out to be surprisingly comfortable, clean, pleasant, and relaxing. Another was Jack Gunness, to whom our group referred to as “the one man show”, at the Double G for breakfast in Muncho Lake. He greeted us, took our order, made breakfast, served it, took our payment, and saw us off. He did everything. No one else was there. He baked the bread daily for the toast, he freshly sliced the pork belly for the bacon for each order, he freshly sliced the cheese for each order, he freshly grated the potatoes for the hash browns for each order, he cooked everything himself, right before our eyes and ears. Of course, that is all just show, unless it makes the meal better. It was great! Enjoy the good surprises. These can help keep momentum through the more challenging times.

• Sometimes the side trips and detours are the best part. We added a side trip to Whittier, AK, and it turned out to have some of the best scenery and weather we saw on the ride. Another was Boya Lake Provincial Park in BC. Things do not always go in a straight line towards the goal. Enjoy the ride, wherever it takes you.
• Sometimes rides are littered with gravel and chip-seal roads. There are going to be some not-so-good surprises and rough spots. Often you cannot get to the good stuff without these. Do the things you need to do, in order to be able to do the things you want to do.

• Stop and smell the roses. We saw lots of great scenery and wildlife. Glaciers, canyons, mountains, rivers, lakes, trees, moose, bighorn sheep, black bears, herds of bison, even an eagle and one grizzly bear. We stopped and took lots of pictures. Take brief moments to enjoy the positives in business and in life, when these happen.
• . . . but do not stop to smell every rose. Unless you want to get nowhere. There were times we just rode through picturesque scenery and by wildlife without stopping. Stopping for too many pictures makes days too long and you see more of the back of your camera or phone than seeing and enjoying with your own eyes. If you are capturing something unique, stop and take the picture. If there are already thousands of other people who have taken that same picture and posted it on the web, why bother stopping to take another? If all you are doing is stopping to smell the roses, you are going to start smelling fertilizer.
• Enjoy the people who come into your ride and your life. We met folks from all over the globe. Besides the locals in each place we rode, we met folks from places as far away as Boston, China, and Switzerland. The folks from Switzerland spoke a little English. I spoke a little German. We were able to communicate at least on a basic level. Luckily the folks from China spoke English, as none of us knew any of the Chinese dialects. Many have different perspectives on the scenery, wildlife, and life. On the last day of the ride, a long, high mileage day, through hot weather back to Vegas, I failed at this. I was having lunch in Ely, NV. I was tired, hot, thirsty, hungry, and just wanted to eat and run. A Harley rider came up and asked me where I was headed. This is typical, when riders meet each other on the road, and starts a conversation. I answered Vegas, but did not ask him where he was headed. Effectively, I blew him off. I should have been nicer. I regret that. What knowledge, insight, connection, etc that might have come from that encounter, I will now never know.

• Try new things. – we tried reindeer sausage, at a pizza place outside Denali National Park. It was great. Do not tell the kids, but Rudolph is good on a pizza! In life and in business, ruts can lead to obsolescence. Get out of your rut.
• Sometimes you have to make-do with what is available. A high-compression motorcycle engine with a highly tuned ECU, requiring at least 91 octane, pulls up to the only gas station in a hundred+ miles, and they only have regular gas . . . now what? Filling up and being gentle on the throttle beats walking with a gas can. Sometimes a good solution is not available, but you need to keep moving forward.
• Getting screwed is sometimes still the best option. Clothes dryers in hotel laundry rooms always seem to run short. Almost like they plan it so you have to pay for an extra cycle. Paying for a second cycle is still better than wet underpants or hauling weeks worth of extra clothes. I have seen too many leaders get “stuck” like a deer caught in headlights when faced with only lousy choices. Often the best, lousy choice to move forward is better than not moving forward.
• With age, often comes wisdom. The older riders often know better. 300-400 mile days vs. 600+ mile days. I am glad we trimmed the days down to allow for more time to stop and smell some roses, to get off and stretch, take long lunches, etc. They have just been through more than you. It is not magic. All you have to do is listen to benefit from their experience.
• Automate the trivial but necessary, so you can enjoy the best of life. Having GPS navigation made it a LOT easier to take back roads without having to remember all the turns, and even routed us all the way to the motels and cabins each day. We were able to spend more time pondering the scenery and life, than having to remember the route and each turn. Do not waste bandwidth on manually doing the trivial. Eliminate, reduce, then automate any necessary, remaining minutia, and focus your talent on doing bigger things.
• Plan well, but remain flexible. Planning ahead has its advantages and disadvantages. Having to make each location each night / stay on schedule no matter what the weather does, means sometimes riding through some lousy conditions. Reservations do not account for broken bikes and wipe-outs. No matter how good the plan, you usually have to improvise, overcome, and adapt.

• Keep going. Bike broke down, lost a rider. Two riders wrecked. Go home? Sit around and mope? No. Keep going. Do not let the unfortunate things that happen to people you know, be an excuse for you not moving forward.
• Someone has to lead. It is easier to follow, than to lead. You can see what the leader's bike is doing. You get more warning to changes in the road surface, traffic, animals on the road. The followers do not need to be quite as alert, or react quite as quickly. It is more relaxing to let someone else do the harder work of leading, but someone has to lead.
• We are all ignorant jackasses. We are. Each ignorant on certain subjects. Each sometimes acting foolishly. An example from the trip: when all the business and engineering “knowledge” we had was sitting uselessly in our minds, while two fellow riders were wrecked in a ditch waiting for someone who knows how to care for them, this reality is quite clear. We think we have knowledge of some things, but no one has any significant knowledge and understanding of the vast universe of what there is to be known and understood. And we all screw up; we all do stupid things. If you deny this, you are doing it right now! You can be mad at the tanker truck driver for screwing up and running the riders off the road, or you can accept that “shit happens”, forgive others (and/or forgive yourself), and move on. You cannot control everything that happens to you, nor what has already happened, but who controls whether you waste your life getting (and staying) upset with others, or forgive, let it go, and move on instead?
• Some things may have no lessons, but are funny:
• Walking into The Bear's Claw Lodge in Cache Creek, BC, one of the riders read the chalkboard for the special of the day and thought it sounded perfect. When the waiter made it to our table and the rider triumphantly proclaimed he wanted the special, our waiter informed him: “Sorry, sir, we no longer have that special. I have been meaning to take that down off the chalkboard for days.”
• After one rider's Cardo intercom had failed, he was unable to hear what was happening on the intercom. When the wipe-out happened outside Whitehorse, he and I were ahead of where it happened, but I heard it happen over the intercom and looked in the mirror just in time to catch a glimpse of a bike leaving the road. I quickly pulled off onto the shoulder to let the traffic behind us go by, so I could make a U-turn back to the wreck. Riders like riding, not stopping. I received an emphatic “What are we stopping for now?!” from the rider whose intercom had failed. 99% of me was worried about the wrecked rider(s), wanting to get back, and get medical help ASAP, but the other 1% was laughing at the absurdity of his question. After getting the riders taken care of, and looking back, it just gets funnier.

Wherever 2-wheels or life may take you, make the most of it and enjoy the ride!