I am so far behind on posts that I am not sure if I even know where I am right now. You will need to be signed up to my blog posts if you want to be kept informed real time. I will only post links to FB or E-Mail when I have a long boring post.
So, as posted earlier, after 27 days of riding together, Nancy and I went in different directions. When you set off alone after being with people for a long time, there is always a short period where you feel a bit lonely. You have to re-learn how to enjoy eating alone, making decisions alone and riding alone. For me it takes a day or two at most. I like travelling alone for the most part.
Riding alone is the easy part. When you ride with others, even if you are riding with a passenger, you are still kinda’ alone. I have never had a twinge of loneliness when riding.
Until now that is. I could not understand it. A few times during the first two days I had that feeling of loneliness while riding. That makes no sense. I have voices in my head to keep me company. Music that is produced in my head to sing to. Or maybe it is more like yelling. I can’t hear myself, so I think I sing wonderfully.
Then I realized what was going on. My helmet was silent. Where were the voices? Where was the music? It was terrible. How could I be all alone in here?
During our trip, Nancy loaned me a Sena Helmet Communicator. This allows piping of music and GPS instructions through bluetooth to speakers in your helmet. It also allows bike to bike communications. I have never used anything like this. I thought the idea was terrible. I once suggested to Irene that we get a pair of them. She said I was only allowed to get one. For MY helmet.
As it turns out, it really is a great device when riding with others. You can let the other people know if you are pulling over, getting ready to pass, completely F’N lost or whatever. It greatly enhances safety. It is also nice to be able to point out interesting things on the side of the road, finding out if anyone else thinks that roadkill looks fresh enough to harvest, or if anyone is in need of gas.
What it does not do is let you talk to yourself. It is hard to know if the other rider turned on their Sena in getting ready to speak. So if you are doing what I sometimes do, yelling (I call it singing) random phrases from whatever song is bouncing around in your head, it can seem really weird if the other riders get to hear you yell BAT OUT OF HELLLLLLL or something like that.
So the voices in my helmet, and my talking and singing to myself stopped for 4 weeks. It was not until I realized it that they started to come back. I was no longer alone. Unfortunately, the first bit of music that came back was the theme song to the Laverne and Shirley Show. At least it wasn’t ABBA.