Waking up Tired

Its day 8 of my 9 "vacation". My trip is almost at its end. Today, I ride back to Amsterdam from Paris. Although Amsterdam isn’t very far, I still have to stay awake during the ride and I haven’t slept much in the past several days. I've spent a lot of time sightseeing and feeling jetlagged. What I have on my hands is a recipe for potential disaster on a motorcycle.

The idea of crashing out on a bike because of fatigue is something many riders have felt. The small muscles in your face gets beaten down by the sun and all you can think about is getting some shut eye. Even if it's not to combat sleepiness, to at least relieve some of the strain on your face. It’s like holding a plank, you want to give in, but you have to beat the clock, except the clock meant crashing...

7AM, Alarm goes off

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I’ve use the same damn tone for years and the thought of waking up is annoying at best. This time, it’s damn near haunting.

Have you guys heard of the saying "starting off on the right foot"? Well, let me say that my first thought of the day was already how miserable the ride will be.

“Will it rain? Will it be hot? How long will it really take with all the stops I need to take? Is this going to be the first time I get into an accident because I’m too tired?”

Definitely not the right foot!

Having crashed several times before, both onroad and offroad without any significant injuries, my imagination took my past experienced and dismissed the possibility of crashing. Maybe this is reckless of me. Maybe I’m that confident..strike that…foolish to the idea that I will never crash due to me being tired. Regardless, I hate starting my day with negative thoughts since it becomes difficult to switch mindsets without a positive event triggering a positive thought.

8AM, Beat the morning traffic

I geared up and spent the first few hours getting out of Parisian rush hour and getting some highway miles out of the way. The French seem to look at the speed limit as a mere suggestion, so I took this opportunity to go as fast as I could without alerting any police of my potential speed however, I feel this is an American mindset. I didn't see a single highway patrol vehicle with a radar detector throughout this whole trip. It doesn't seem like its a thing around here.

Packing my gear on the bike for the last time.

Traffic wasn't all too bad when leaving Paris.

11AM Breakfast

Hungry for caffeine and food, I arrived at my first stop, Lille, Northern France. A small but popular town that I originally planned to spend the night in if I rode my motorcycle up the previous day. But the lack of room accommodations prevented me from doing so. Because it was between breakfast and lunch, It wasn't very easy finding a place that was still serving anything at all. I did eventually run into a breadshop where I settled for a coffee and delicious croissant. Halfway into my breakfast, my GPS reminds me of my arrival time in Amsterdam, so I took it as a sign to inhaled my breakfast and haul ass.

A buttery French Croissant

I had a lunch date in Delft, so I had a schedule to keep. But the reality was that I was exhausted. My mind was beginning to numb out, and everything was on autopilot. In some sense, a good thing is that my autopilot has 100,000+ miles of motorcycle riding experience, so the muscle memory of operating a motorcycle is there. I would however, never tell anyone to do what I do since it is dangerous.

I hardly took photos during the ride up. I was focused on staying as alert and going as fast as I reasonable could have. Because I was traveling faster than the speed limit, by a considerable amount, I took the time I banked to get 5 minutes of shut eye at rest stops.

At the French/Belgium border, I ended up laying on the uncut grass of an abandoned exit, trying to catch some ZzzZz's when a police officer in pulled up next to my lifeless body on the side of the road and asked if I was okay, to which I replied "Wi!" before he went on his way.

Riding long distance is tough. It's physically not very difficult, but the mental strain is massive. Imagine how mentally strenuous it must be to race a MotoGP or F1 vehicle that's constantly trying to go faster than your mind. I feel like being able to ride through those situations might not be the smartest thing, but it builds mental stamina.

Luckily the ride up was uneventful and I made it to my lunch date and back to the shop without a minute to spare and without incident.

With the bike returned, I had 20 hours to kill before my flight out the next day. I didn't want to book a hostel because of how loud they are on a friday night, so I spent 6 hours roaming downtown Amsterdam trying to see every last bit, but I was mentally checked out.

I ended up catching the midnight train to the airport where I slept on the cold concrete floor until the next morning. In total, I logged about 5 hours of sleep on the concrete floor and 4 more hours on a wooden bench.

Check out my video and let me know about the last time you guys had this feeling while riding!