Dancin’Dave’s
Mileageslaves
Challenge Ride Witness.
When I turned around just
before the state line instead
of continuing on to Michigan,
it’s because I suddenly had
an over-powering desire to
visit Greg for dinner near
Greenwood. You get the
point.
It would all be over in 16
hours or less as long as I just
gassed, got a receipt,
snacked, and pee’d.
To make things a bit easier, I
decided to start in a part of
the state that I didn’t know
well—an area that might in
fact be new and even
interesting. The best we have
is southern Indiana. I’d do
well to spend time in that
neck of the woods, because
once I left there I would soon
enough confront the
inevitable mind numbing re-
hash of familiar mile markers
offering no surprises while
triggering an unconscious
awareness of time still left to
ride - just like your daily
journey to work tells you
whether you’ll be there on
time and you know just by the
bill-boards and junkyard dogs
you pass. Maybe down here
in the south I could find that
feeling of time suspended.
Maybe I could achieve that
oneness with the road driven
by the wonder of new sights.
Maybe I could get in the zone.
Quite addictive.
Maybe it’s time to finally talk a
bit about addiction. I’ve been
credited with inventing the
term “mileage slave” some
decades ago, when I used it
for the first time as part of the
title of this MOA column. The
recent October ride makes me
wonder if there’s a darker side
to this mileage infatuation; that
October ride and the
circumstances surrounding the
death of Amy Winehouse.
I know what you are
thinking. Where the heck is
that segue leading?
You see, it was different down
there in southern Indiana that
cold morning. It was pitch
dark. The Interstate was
empty. My headlight carved a
tunnel in the night and many
portions of the road were cut
into low hills so there was no
horizon line on either side, but
just a wall. My ride would go
down into gullies and rise up
again and drop.
Do not call it hypnotic.
I looped from Corydon, where
I started, and went west
toward the state line, getting
off in Cynthiana where
MapQuest said I’d find a gas
--4--
station. That meant I could
get a receipt even at that
early hour and then turn
back east reversing. Then
do this loop again because
it felt good and only leaving
once the sun came up and I
could see my surroundings.
This gets hard to explain as
there’s more.
I ride with ear plugs and no
sound; no music, no
nothing. So in that pitch
dark there was nothing but
the roar of the night and
that strong beam of light. In
the zone. No time. Moving
through a landscape with
no familiarity and no cues
and no memory triggers
and no innate awareness of
the distance to the next
turning, so no impatience to
get there as there was no
“there” anyway and no time
for me.
It’s all about time.
So I am wondering now
about the newbies starting
on their first journey via this
past October ride and about
myself. I am considering
this bit of news about Amy
Winehouse. It seems she
died because she relapsed
into drinking booze after an
absence and her system,
once able to handle it in
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