Motorcycles and Being Fully Present

I love to ride my motorcycle.  It's something in my blood.  My dad (who's also a motorcycle enthusiast and still riding at 74 years old) likens it to a thirst.  I must have gotten this thirst from him. The highlight of my childhood was a three month, cross country ride with my dad on his Honda 750 when I was 14 years old.  We went from California through the south and into Florida, then up the east coast into New York and Canada, and finally back across through the mid west to California.  It was the trip of a lifetime.
(Note: Yes I do know riding a motorcycle is dangerous.  Yes I do know that statistically it is highly likely that i will go down at some point.  Yes I always wear protective clothing and yes I have taken the CHP safety class.  I ride aware of the risks). 

Recently I got my bike running again after 9 months of it just sitting in my garage.  Once again I am experiencing the jubilation of riding.  Cutting through the mountain roads, leaning, anticipating, feeling the wind and the road.  On a highway with the sun shining on my face.  It is hard to explain the joy I feel. 
Motorcycle enthusiasts call cars "cages."  The driver is enclosed in a "cage" of steel, glass and plastic.  Because of this, it's easy to be distracted by other things: to talk on the phone, listen to music or an audio book, eat a hamburger, or carry on a conversation.  You really can't do this on a motorcycle.  On a motorcycle, all of your attention has to be fully focused on the ride.  It's life or death.  Anticipating what drivers will do, plotting exit strategies, scanning the road ahead, checking mirrors.  Riding a motorcycle forces you to be fully present in the moment. 

This is actually part of what I love.  I tend not to live fully present in the moment.  I joke that I live in the worlds of "ideas" and "relationships," so i tend to go through life distracted, not fully aware of what's happening around me.  Riding my motorcycle forces me to go against this tendency.  It forces me to notice what's right in front of me (and behind me).  I feel the wind, smell the flowers (or brake pads from drivers riding their brakes), hear the engine rev, and feel the vibrations as I lean into the turns. 
It probably seems like I'm stretching things to call riding my motorcycle a spiritual discipline.  How very convenient, someone might smirk.  Yet I find that it helps me be fully present in the rest of my life.  And being fully present in the moment is exactly where God is found.