Good motorcycle morning

Durn it- I still need to get a fresh motorcycle icon. This'll do.
Since I'm out and about this evening on the far side of town and it's a gym day, I was out on the road by 6. The sun was just pinking up the sky, and wearing 3 layers of pants (turns out my workout pants fit under work fit under riding) plus a leather jacket and a scarf. So cozy! I still have issues with the sleeves of my Vanson being too long, but I love my jacket too much to alter it now. I keep hoping with time the leather will scrunch enough to work better. Or beefier gauntlets.
I know from here on out the roads are going to be overrun by crazy students and their crazy parents in overstuffed cars or -god help us- moving vans. But not at 6, oh no. It was deliciously empty most of the way. The only eeeeeep moment was when I was taking one of those somewhat narrow laned curves on Fresh Pond Pkwy. See, there's this imperfection in the road just as you take a curve on the inside- if you're not on the high part of that imperfection, you slide off into the other lane a bit. Augh! By the grace of the motor gods, the lady next to me was chill and not crowding the lane. Also, it's clear I'm not quite savvy as I'd like with left turns and curves as much as I'd like on 'Trix. Geh. (if I'd been riding the past month that wouldn't be a thing at this point. Fail!) Aaaaanyway- the Charles was looking so very beautiful with the sunrise and buildings reflecting off the water. I took lightniing  and bryttan 's advice and parked over by the Marriott in Kendall. Mind you, I was the first bike in (at 6:25), but the spot I picked had the look of bike parking. So, for those not doing the math: it took me about 20 minutes to drive from Lexington to Kendall Sq. And that was with an overshoot at MGH, too. ^_^
The gym- despite a creaky and crampy start successfully woke me up and I'm entirely loving the variation in my breakfast right now- 1/3 the amount of yogurt & granola I normally  eat, half a croissant (with lemon curd!), and one hard boiled egg < /Groucho >. But there really is a hard boiled egg. Just the one. snerk. And obviously- coffee. This ramble is entirely fueled by coffee.

Worth posting the bookend from this morning

Today was one of those freakishly productive days. Most of it was planning stuff and writing stuff. There was so much of it that I didn't get to finish before I left. At both lunch time and quitting time, I had to force myself to stop what I was doing to eat / leave. This absolutely makes up for a whole week of apathy, IMO.

So, the motorcycle- that's the point of this post, really. The parking situation turned out to be a success, but next time if I'm the first one in, I'll back in and a lot closer to the inside curb. My ride to Everett was painful. My clutch hand went claw-like after a while :/ But now I have a few pointers on which way to go next time, so yay. I got to help Danny for only an hour and a half, really, but it's rare that we get to spend time together these days and inevitably there's fun to be had coming up with schemes and designs. -

But really! The ride! The ride home was by far the best I've had in recent memory. It currently reads 47 degrees according to my weather bug app. With my leather (vs. synthetic) jacket and riding pants, 100% comfortable. There's a route between Malden/Medford that branches off from the 28/93 rotary that does this unbelievably awesome sinuous thing for miles. The posted speed is 30, so it might be good that it was a regular caravan of cars. I'd have liked to have set my own pace. Thanks to sweetmmeblue  for pointing out that path- I'd not have thought to try it. Eventually it dumps out into Woburn. I wasn't particularly lost at any bit, but I've not gotten the middle bits down quite yet. I'm looking forward to trying different variations on the theme. That's one of the things I love best about motorcycling: I actively look to find different ways to travel. And that's saying something for someone who defaults to a set routine.