Get Motivated

 Executive Report by John Reblin

The cooler weather is not cool. I am looking for some sunshine and t-shirt weather. Or at least just a long sleeve shirt and not having to worry about a hoodie or jacket to keep me warm. The late snowstorms dumping wet heavy snow and having to clean it up, even though you know warmer weather is right around the corner, can get you down. But the sunshine and warmth are a great motivator to getting things done either inside or outside.

What motivates you? What gets you up in the morning to do whatever it is you do?

Is it going to work and making money so you can pay the bills, or going for a walk to ease the pains or lose a couple pounds? I suppose it depends on the day of the week. During the week I am up pretty early. Going through emails, the paper, some sort of a workout, and it is off to work. Weekends the times get shifted about, but I still follow a plan for the day. I am starting to block out time in the day to make sure I have time blocked off for different things going on. The “Little Flower” has a list of to do’s for herself written every day in her planner. I have tried and need to work on this, because I let other goings on in the day take up too much time and I fall behind on other things.

I get different newsletters and things for various things, and one is a newsletter for a running club here in town that I have helped out with on one of their fund raisers. The writer has been talking about motivation for the last couple weeks. He wrote, “It happens… I admire people who can figure out a training plan and schedule out the days to make sure they get their daily workout done. I think I used to be one of those people and hope to maybe be one again. In the meantime, I’ll get back on the horse and try and keep my running schedule and email sending on track. This did make me think about how sometimes we fall behind a little with our running schedules as well. Work, family, or just plain life gets in the way of getting in our daily or weekly miles. We miss one day, then we miss two days, then a week. Once we have too many days off, it becomes harder and harder to get back into the routine.”

But what motivates me to be involved in ABATE of Wisconsin? What keeps my focus? Right now, it is what is the future of motorcycling in Wisconsin or in this county. And I hope if you belong to ABATE of Wisconsin, hopefully the future of motorcycling is your motivation. As we look around, we see what is going on with the auto industry. The push for electric vehicles to reduce dependence on fossil fuels. Many states are enacting laws that will ban the sale of new fossil fuel vehicles in a few years. As I walked through the local big box hardware store going through the lawn and garden department the number of electric lawn mowers is crazy. And of course, motorcycles are dabbling in this now also. But what happens to the motorcycles we currently own? Will we be able to find safe and legal fuel for them at the pump? As the addition of other mixed blends of fuels become available, will the stations limit the number of hoses available for us to use? When you need fuel will you need to go the hardware store to buy the gallon can of “good fuel?”

This is why this year’s Lobby Day was so important. We have heard for years that Lobby Day is the most important day of the year and this year it is again, a fact! We are at the point where it could be the start of the end of motorcycling as we know it.

The government is trying to make vehicles safer for the driver and passengers of that vehicle. The goal is to have zero preventable crashes. With people using their cars and trucks as mobile offices or as a social center being on the phone texting, assisted or self-driving is their solution. With the self-driving technology that is coming will that vehicle be able to recognize a motorcycle next to it going down the road? We are starting to see these issues pop up, so will the government mandate some sort of tracker that sends a signal for it will be seen? What happens if we are hit by one of these vehicles? Where does the liability for this lay?

We saw a few years ago here in the United States “cash for clunkers,” paying people for older, probably poor conditioned vehicles, which took them off of the streets forever, as they are shredded and cubed for recycling. This goes on overseas now. As the vehicle is getting toward the end of its life, it is removed and recycled. Is this going to happen to the motorcycle that you ride now or to that older motorcycle that you hope to get running as a collector? Maybe they won’t like all that blue smoke coming from the tailpipe from those older 2 stroke bikes. So, will those get shredded?

Within the next few years this will be the fight that we need to face. It will be the start of our being able to keep doing what we enjoy and to pass it on to the next and future generations, or to pack it in and just reminisce. All of the members of the motorcycling community, boating, off road, and just about everything else needs to join us to start pushing back or we will be just a pleasant memory.

Get motivated and Ride Your Own Ride,

John