Europe 2013: The Wrap-Up

September 19, 2013

I've been back in my house for around a day now. I've been back on my motorcycle (although only briefly). Much of the stuff is put away. I've eaten food I cooked myself (as opposed to preparing it with a pocket knife, precariously balancing things on a sloping motorcycle seat). I've slept in my own bed. I've retrieved and unpacked my new cello.

I am, in short, back.

This is the spot where I should utter whatever profound insights I must have gleaned from my trip. I should be thinking deep thoughts about the nature of culture and human behavior, or reflecting on the insights I've gained into myself.

Thing is, I've kind of already done that in these missives, and I don't really feel I have anything new to add. In any case, my insights and deep thoughts have been relatively limited. As I've discovered on past occasions where I should be changing my character or growing as a person or whatever, it does indeed happen, but never in a way that is immediately obvious.

I do have some final observations, though. The biggest one is as regards my motorcycle.

In Europe, I was on a Suzuki SV650, which is a fairly "normal" bike, in terms of power output. It handles better than many bikes, is lighter than many, and is dramatically underpowered when considered in light of the real high-performance bikes. I found it daunting at first, since I had a heavy load to carry, and with more power comes a greater manifestation of bad habits.

My bike here is a Kawasaki Ninja 250, which weighs about 50 lbs less, and has about 1/3 the power of the SV650. It also delivers that power very differently, concentrating its output in the upper RPM range, where the SV650 has a remarkably even power distribution. The Ninja has smaller tires and wheels, a smaller engine (both in bulk and in any important measure of performance), smaller brakes, a narrower seat, etc. etc. It's a small bike.

Still, I wasn't prepared for the experience of getting on the Ninja 250 today. I have gotten into the habit of "short-shifting" the SV, shifting up through the gears as quickly as possible, to avoid increasing my fuel consumption too much. It responds admirably to this scheme. The Ninja 250 does not. I did it out of habit, and felt like someone had put a 50cc scooter motor in my bike.

Even when I remembered to wind out the motor, the Ninja felt very underpowered. I know it's not, I know this is just the distortion of expectations that comes from riding a much more powerful bike. It's an interesting trade-off, though. The SV got about 45 MPG riding fairly conservatively. The Ninja 250 gets 48-55 in my normal riding scheme. The SV drops down into the 30s if ridden aggressively. If ridden aggressively, the Ninja drops down to 47. Maybe 46 if all I'm doing is stop-and-go. In the same conditions I experienced in Europe, I would expect the Ninja to turn in about 55-65 MPG, possibly with a peak up towards 70 on the day riding to Vienna, when I had nothing but a huge tailwind (the SV turned in 52.4, the highest mileage I saw on the trip).

The thing is, that 25% increase in fuel mileage comes with a 66% penalty in power. The math kind of doesn't add up, although it goes to a lot of factors, one of the important ones being that the Ninja 250 is an old design, dating back to the late 80s.

But that's all a side-issue. The thrust of my comments is that riding an SV650 for 6 weeks, something I've been wanting to do for most of a decade, was a good experience. I have to consider now whether I want to change the arrangement at home or not (something I was considering before I started the trip, since one of the first ideas was to buy a new bike in Germany, ride it around, then ship it home at the end). It still deserves some serious consideration, and I don't know yet how that will work out.

One of the things I've noticed in past trips is that I'll come back after some period away, and notice all the little changes that have happened since I left. This time, that hasn't really happened. Either everything is the same as when I left, or I'm not aware of the changes. I'm not sure which is true, although there must have been alterations to the landscape of Seattle in my absence.

I find this a little disappointing. However, I also have to remember that some of the trips I'm thinking of spanned most of a year. I was also half my current age. I have certainly changed in that time, and perhaps my perception of these things isn't the same as it used to be.

My jetlag experiment seems to be going well. I have felt tired since 6 pm today, but not badly so, and even now at 10:30, I'm finding it more compelling to write than to go to bed. So, the trick to avoiding jetlag is either to have something really engaging to do when travelling to Europe, or to go through a somewhat tortuous series of sleepless nights before returning. Easy, right?

I was able to pick up the cello from the UPS Store in Fremont today, and am happy to report that the box was unscathed, and the cello inside was in exactly the condition it was when it left Vienna. Anyone need a cello-case-sized box, or a small mountain of packing materials? I may actually take the box to David Stone, one of the local violin makers, since I'm considering taking my old cello there to consign.

I was right, by the way, about it being laughably easy to fall into previous habits. I've already eaten double today what I ate on any day in Europe. And that's with me thinking consciously about eating less. This is going to be a real challenge, and one I don't want to answer with a perpetual diet of bread, cheese and tomatoes, with chocolate bars thrown in to satisfy the sweet tooth. A delicious menu to be sure, but lacking in variety, and deficient in actual complete nutrition.

This will be my last trip-report message to the list. As I mentioned in my brief note saying I had arrived safely, I'll be turning these messages into a web page, with the photos from each day (and possibly others) integrated into the text with appropriate annotation. I want to do this mostly for myself, so I have a good record of the trip I can refer back to, but I'm sure other people will be interested to see it too. I'll also post galleries of all the photos I took, which I'm sure number in the thousands, for those who are sufficiently masochistic.

So, it is with mixed feelings that I wrap up this little series of journals. On the one hand, I will be feeling the afterglow of this trip for months. Seeing old friends and visiting old and new places was a very positive experience, for the most part. I'll quickly forget the troublesome bits (although the image of the tent bucking and snapping in the wind of the northern French west coast will probably be a funny story for years to come). I will treasure the good bits. On the other hand, the banality of being back and facing my normal day-to-day life again on Monday is discouraging. I'll have to find ways to make that life a bit less banal.

Thank you for reading, and living this little bit of personal history with me.

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Created by Ian Johnston. Questions? Please mail me at reaper at obairlann dot net.