I’ve been a Riter all my life, a motorcycle rider for 49 years, and a published writer for 25. So when Todd Hafer, an acquisitions editor at Harvest House Publishing, asked if I had a book idea for bikes, I hopped on board with a grin and a silent shout of joy. That became the book God, a Motorcycle, and the Open Road, with an earlier working title of Easy Riding. Yeah, an allusion to the old film Easy Rider and my name. That book unofficially releases tomorrow, April 1, and officially on Tuesday. Obviously, I’m excited to blend my loves of
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Image from Motorcycle Philosophy
Adapt, Don't Quit
Somewhere on the Going to the Sun Road in Glacier National Park lies an otherwise nondescript turnout, much like above. No monument marks it, tourists don’t drive by to gawk at a historical site, and honestly, few would care to see it even after this story. But asphalt can teach a lesson. I’ve known Jerry since high school daze; he’s one of my best friends and we regularly take long rides on the bikes each year. But his very short legs have led to…
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Walden Pond by Literary Hub
Risky Business
This hippie biker, shoulder length hair and a beard uncut for several months, pulled his semi-chopped Honda 750 with an Easy Rider paint scheme, into a parking spot at a Howard Johnson in Massachusetts,as a family with a dad and mom and 5 year old boy pulled alongside in a sedan. They struck up a conversation, intrigued by a trip with no set destination, just a desire to see America, so they asked me…
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image by SnoCountry
Disoriented
I began skiing in my early twenties at the old Blue Ridge Ski area in SoCal, and then thought that our California Concrete—heavy, icy, and packed—was normal. Then I moved to Taos and discovered powder. Totally different than California Concrete: so dry you could hardly pack it into a snowball, so soft you’d sink a foot deep as your skis compressed the fluffy cotton. One night Taos got inundated with over four feet of snow so I grabbed my ski gear and headed up the mountain.I exulted in unweighting and making S turns, until…
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Tim Riter, age 45
Gear Up!
I’ve played a lot of football. Pickup tackle games in HS and college and later, wearing just T shirts and shorts. Intramural in college, even several seasons in a competitive flag league in my mid 50s. But the pic above depicts a different way to play football. In my mid 40s, Temecula had the Over the Hill Pigskin Shoot Out, where guys over 30 strapped on pads and played for charity. The pic above was the first game—and the first time I…
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image by scroll.in
A Challenge
Graham Staines left his Australian homeland in 1965 to minister to the least in India—the lepers and tribal poor. His goal: to demonstrate God’s love. The Least of These, a film based on his life, premiered this week: showing him tending the wounds of lepers, traveling to jungle camps. Even more, he contributed to translating the New Testament into the Ho language of India, and proofread the entire text. He met Jesus often along the way, since …
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image by Pass My Exams
Shattered
Sheila and I have built a tradition of a day trip on our birthdays. In May, we usually hit the beach or coast. For her. For January, I choose the mountains, usually wherever we get the most snow. This year, four days of storms preceded the day, but the storms stayed in liquid form. So between Big Bear and Julian and Idyllwild, I went with the latter. The Cranston Fire devastated the region last summer so I wanted to discover the extent of the damage, hit the local candy store and our favorite mountain restaurant. South of town…
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image by silvertoneworld
Rock Star!
The guitar in that pic above was to be my ticket to fame and fortune. Determined to become the next big rock star, back in high school I bought a guitar. A Sears Silvertone, black with an orange starburst . Pretty cheap, about $25. My good friend Ken and I began practicing, and the first obstacle emerged. I couldn’t tune the blasted instrument! Oh, I knew where to press the strings and frets to match the tones of adjacent strings, but my ear couldn’t hear the differences. A minor obstacle, but…
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