shakin' fakin and bacon

So I just settled into my Asheville room after driving from Marietta to Athens to Asheville on the motorcycle; about 275 miles. I've done one other day of riding that much, from Gainesville to Atlanta(I-75) in a 7 hour thunderstorm; when I got to Fuzzy's wife's graduation party it took me 10 minutes in the bathroom to wring my's elf out. Freaking Ridiculous.
Today's ride was a bit more relaxed, but still all interstate as well - yuck and boring, no fun turns. But Western North Carolina is full of fun turns i'll get to explore now.
My body is still shaking, especially my hands, from that sick Savage one-cylinder thumper that I turned 26,000 miles on today. That's just short of 4 round trip rides from Miami to Seattle. I got that bike used with 75 miles on it. The story I have in my head is some poor sap bringing home this shiny new bike and his wife hits him over the head with a rolling pin and so he takes the bike back so I could buy it cheaper.
I bought the bike because its Savage and I could tell it would handle my learning curve. It's yellow and not many bikes are that in touch with their inner flame. I've knocked the thing around and gone down twice (for real, not counting drops on gravel parkinglots or the kickstand not locking all the way, etc.) The first time was being hit from behind in an intersection - took my back tire out from under me...I was turning left, and she right...into the same square foot of road. Neither she nor I was going any faster than 10mph but still the bike and I slid 40 feet (I measured the streak of paint the next day). I had the right gear on and got some scraped skin and a sore hip. Without my full face helmet I would have left half my face across the pavement (yeah mom, I never told you about this one, sorry). I soon bought even better gear. And the Savage was still rocking it with a slight bend on the handlebar.
The second time was me being dumb and riding too late in the rain and not stopping properly on a slick downhill stoplight. I got my's elf into a situation where I could either hit the stopped car in front of me, or dump my's elf instead. It seemed better to hit the ground instead of hitting the car then the ground. All my camping equipment lashed onto the back of the bike on the badass shelf AF made me snapped out of the bungee net and scattered around the street. The shelf popped its zip ties and flew into the woods. I was helped up in a slight daze by a beautiful girl which immediately embarrassed me into action of scooping my tent, sleeping bag, hiking boots and the rest of the scattered gear and lashing it onto the bike as quick as I could on the side of the road. Did I mention it was raining? I then rode half an hour home. The even better gear only left me with a chunk of skin gone from my kneecap, but without the cycling pants with kneepads, i likely would not have said kneecap.
The next day I wake up at 0600 with the all-consuming thought that I must find the badass shelf AF took all the previous day to fashion to my specs. So I drove (my car) back down to downtown and wouldn't you know it, but at this 6am there's a roadrace around L5P down the exact street I needed to get to. So I am in my moccasin slippers and bandanna and colored glasses walking between the crowd and the runners because behind the crowd is a steep hill and my slippers won't grip the wet grass. I have to walk like this for over 5 minutes then I slip thru the crowd and into the patch of pines where I immediately head right to the shelf and grab it and then walk the opposite direction (on the other side of the road, for balance) this time facing the runners. Their faces gripped with anguish from the hill they just climbed and me swinging the lacquered wooden shelf in a circle by one of the cinch straps that stayed cinched.
So I got some more zip ties and put the shelf on for today's ride. Then I rode. Now I'm tired.