On Marigold

On October 8 I went on my best date so far. He picked me up on his Triumph Bonneville and we rode up and up. Fall in its splendor along the river, aspens exploding in yellow, past Lair o' the Bair, through one-road towns, and into the mountains, cold, rocky, the distant peaks snow-capped and jagged and seeming to have violently crashed through the earth's crust just minutes before. Upon reaching 10,000 feet, my wrists ached from arms wrapped around my date's middle.

Being a passenger on a motorcycle lets you stare at the sky, the river, the far-off summits, mind wandering, dreams that you're floating while still wholly connected to the hard road beneath your rumbling seat. Your only responsibility is to hang on.

Liberating, yes. But never as good as riding your own. So after we drank Irish coffees at the Echo Lake Lodge, did some jumping jacks in the parking lot to fake warming up, we hopped back on the bike and rode down to Morrison. As we warmed up at a biker bar that smelled like 25 years of beer soaked into hundred-year-old planks, I got on the web and found a bike in the time it took the bartender to pour our pints.

I sent a text; I took her for a test ride; a week later I was cruising the city streets and mountain roads on Marigold, the Honda Shadow I'd been daydreaming I'd buy ever since selling my Vulcan, Poppy, in South Carolina and moving to Denver... gasp!... 16 months prior.

I texted just about everyone in my address book a picture of me next to my new bike. One friend replied, "Could be a motorcycle is a better idea than a man."

He's not wrong. Craigslist and OKCupid are not-too-distant cousins so it's a quick, short hop to compare one to the other. There's the same level of emotion and passion, but you - or at least I - can tell in about five-and-a-half minutes if the bike is right for me but the man? It's just one second guess after another.

While I've continued dating since buying Marigold, I haven't found much inspiration. I'm a nerdy writer girl with ultra thick glasses that keep fogging up under my helmet as I ride around town pretending to be cool and tough. It's awesome. Kissing a man is awesome, too, and there's a parallel there with the fogging up of the glasses and the noseprint smears. But when you're kissing an average Joe you met on the internet it's super easy to start daydreaming that he's Jon Bon Jovi - or any one of AARP's other 21 sexiest men over 50.

When you're on a bike in a city like 5280, as much as you'd like to believe that man on the corner turning his head as you roar by in your leather jacket with your nerd girl glasses conveniently hidden beneath the tinted helmet lens is Lenny Kravitz, you better not go too deep into the fantasy of him alongside you as you ride off into the... BRAKE LIGHTS AHEAD!

All of this is just to say that I daydream a lot when I'm on a date and I never do when I'm at the helm of my bike. I stay in the moment. I'm fully in the now. And all that other woo-woo stuff. I'm not giving up on dating. To the contrary. I'm as committed to it as ever.

It's just not as fun as riding my bike.