Category: diving

I Hate the Word “Content”

There was a brief moment where I thought maybe the next chapter in my life might be making videos of all the amazing motorcycle roads in America: how to get to them, where to stay, where to eat, and the glory of the roads themselves. Then, I made two discoveries that greatly attenuated this idea. One was Adam Sandoval: no way what I could do with my yearly vacation would compete with what he had done. The second was the fact that I hate setting up shots and editing video. I love talking, pontificating, philosophising, but it turns out I actually hate the core part of moto-vlogging. I do some small amount of video editing, but it turns out that this turns one of my favorite things into just a goddamned job.

I have a GoPro 13 Black and I capture some moments for friends and family whether it be ADV, scuba diving, or random camping shenanigans. I watch a lot of motorcycle-focused Youtubers though: Shade Tree Surgeon, Dork in the road, Ride to Food, Her Two Wheels, Off She Goes, Just G Kue, Doodle on a Motorcycle, Kidmoto22, MotoState Podcast, Whit Meza, Rever, RIDE Adventures, DanDan the Fireman, Meghan Stark, Lowbrowcustoms, Real Riders Ride, RevZilla, Klim, and others.
Jesus, just the thought of actually properly linking to each one of those channels reminds me of why I don’t produce motorcycle content.

Ugh, and there’s that word, “content”.

I have seen a number of Youtubers who ask the audience what kind of content we, the watchers, would like to consume. These words make me think of a nest of baby birds. Momma flies to the nest, and the baby birds open their mouths for momma to regurgitate whatever directly into their mouths. I went out and got this, now let me vomit this into your face. Motorcycle riding, ADV riding, scuba diving, camping, any kind of adventure travel: these are sacred things to me, the things that I wade through corporate America and 401ks to get to. When someone reduces this to “I will create the content, and you will consume the content”, it makes me sick just a little bit.

You’re on Youtube, with 300,000 subscribers, making cool videos for me to watch. You need money to do this full time. You work with companies who sponsor you. I get all that: just don’t reduce this to yet another transactional interaction. Riding across, discovering a cool restaurant in a small town, camping, seeing amazing sights: these are sacred experiences.

The Year of Too Much Work

I haven’t posted much this riding season, however I didn’t forget about the site, and I did actually do several fun things.

I went to Eurkea Springs, AR and rode around for a quick weekend.

I went to Jamaica with the Wife and did some more jumping and diving.

I went to the Five Dirty Bikers Meetup in Uranus, MO.

I’ve done some nice upgrades to The Crow.

I crossed a true bucket list item off by riding from Milwaukee to Central Florida where my folks live, and then riding all the way to Key West and back.

I spent a weekend in Northern Wisconsin hanging out on a lake and riding side-by-sides all the way to Lake Superior.

What I haven’t done is written any of this up. This has been probably the most challenging year of my life work-wise, and because I wasn’t already buried enough I also took some additional courses online that took all my “free” time from July – November.

As I wrap up my courses and work takes it’s course, I will start filling in the details, something to distract me as the snow starts falling and I’m dreaming of the day I can take the bike out in 2023.

Diving is Mindfulness

My father, Bart, and wife were PADI certified a long time ago. Give that I already had plenty of expensive hobbies that also require vacation time and weekends, and that I didn’t “feel called” to dive I left it alone for a good 12+ years.

As time went on, and I realized how many divers I knew, and I wondered how many x-country motorcycle trips I’d really be able to get Mrs. Roadrunner on, I decided to get my Open Water certification this summer. After all, The Ocean is Nature and I’m pretty much always up for new experiences. “Blue spaces” appear to be as good for your mental health as “green spaces” and connections with like-minded people are important.

Jamaica is a great place to learn to dive.

Not everyone can dive: you need to be able to equalize your ears every few feet and not panic if something goes wrong underwater. The latter is particularly important: there are several nothing-burger occurrences that could ruin your day if you panic. You must breathe deeply and slowly through your mouth at all time. You must regularly check your remaining air and depth, and you should safely ascend in a controlled fashion including a 3minute stop at 15′ if you’ve been down for a while.

Diving is Mindfulness. The attention to the current moment and the need to be Skillful puts diving right next to meditation and motorcycling. The feeling of weightlessness and the visceral motion through space belongs next to sailing, riding a motorcycle, and flying – these experiences are first cousins.

The community is similar too. Just as I can walk into a bar with my vest on and have strangers ask me about my patches, where I’m riding from and to, on the way to and on the dive boat everyone is a kindred spirit. You make assumptions about people carrying their own dive gear or wearing rented gear just as you might think about someone with out of state plates on their touring bike – everyone as at a different spot on this journey.

There’s no politics on the dive boat.

And now, I look forward and realize that just as I must have one Big and several smaller motorcycle trips every year, I also need to get underwater here & there.

You get underwater, you are forced to be alone with your own thoughts. You are in a situation that is not particularly dangerous as long as your are skillful, but this is an activity that isn’t for everyone. You must be appropriately equipped. You get to see & feel things that can only really be understood by the people who share this skill. Yea, diving is mindfulness in a way that should make perfect sense to bikers.