Two wheels and an engine have freed me from the earth, and have given me the earth at the same time. With hardly any effort at all, I can cross mountain ranges and prairies and a continent that took men of a century and a half ago weeks and months and years. This simple, uncomplicated, mechanical device is often overlooked for the miracle it is..... It isn't transportation, it's transformation. To ride across this nation in a box, or, even worse, to fly over it in another shinier box, isn't the same thing, not by half. To ride in the open air alongside the Oregon Trail ruts, the explorer rivers leading west, and the great seashores is perhaps the most vibrant way to link the past to the present, and perhaps even to the future .... at least I've found it so. I'll ride until I die. Free range is what the motorcycle gives us, free range..... And for some of us, the blessed, or perhaps the cursed, free range is as necessary as oxygen.