Cold Cycle

  Winter has come to the moderately large north eastern city in which I live.  Now, being from the Viking stock I welcome the cold.  However the motorcycle that I use for transportation does not.  When the temperature drops below freezing, as it did today, my cycle complains to the point of defiance.  I understand it is simply a machine.  But when its really cold outside, the motorcycle does not want to come out to play.
  So I have to force it into compliance.  Mostly that means that I have to jump start the cold cycle.  Sadly I have had so much practice that I am pretty good at it now, but that was not always the case.  The first time it happened I was in a bit of a bind.  Here’s how it went.

 I was about half way through my trip to work, just about to Broad St. and I ran into a small problem.  The bike stalled out.  Not a "you didn't give enough gas when you let out the clutch" sort of stall, but an "I'm sitting at a red light and the bike makes a sputtering noise" and then no noise at all.  No noise, none at all.  So I tried to start it again, small noise, but none of the really thick noise I’d grown accustomed to.
  At this point of the trip I am on a larger street, but one chosen for its lack of traffic.  However, I am approaching Broad St.  So named because it’s big and wide with many cars, all of them moving with the loud thick noise I was hoping for.  I realized after a few more tries that I had flooded the engine and the best thing to do was to let it sit.
  So I positioned myself out of traffic and decided to call my wife and let her know what had happened.  She offered to come get me, but that suggestion didn't help the larger plan or my ego.  So I said not to come, I would try to pop the clutch again in a minute.
  My father in law taught me how to pop the clutch, letting me know that he has done it many times on this bike.  To demonstrate the process he ran down the driveway pushing the bike while holding the clutch in, got to a certain speed, pushed the ignition button, released the clutch, big noise ensues, and then he got on the revving motorcycle.  To get a clear picture of how he got on you should image the old west and a cowboy jumping onto a galloping horse.
  You know the one, the guy that needs to get on the horse while it runs by; he whistles for the horse, it comes running, but the horse doesn't stop and the cowboy does not need it to, he just jumps up, plants a foot in the stirrup, swings his body up and over and they are off to carry the mail to Montana.  If my father in law and I were in the wild west together I’d be the guy sitting in Montana that receives the mail and says, "well, we didn't expect to see hide nor hair of you till sundown." and he would smile and whistle for his horse.
  I am considerably larger and less agile then he.  Although to my credit and I am improving.  But there was no way I was going to run down the street and jump onto a revving motorcycle.  Its simply was not going to happen.  I settled for the next best thing, which is considerably more foolish looking.  I ran beside the bike, pushing the nearly 400lb sleeping beast until the right time to shock it into action.  The bike did respond, roaring and ready to go.  But instead of swinging my leg over and riding into the morning sun, I opted to put the bike in neutral, adjust my helmet, and mount the motorcycle in a measured and distinguished fashion.  My ego lay down at the side of the road and shrugged as I rode down to Broad St. and stopped for oncoming traffic.