GET LOST? DON'T HAVE TO TELL ME TWICE. For many folks, riding on a motorcycle or any motorsports machine means freedom and fun wrapped into one. It may get a bit more interesting if you're a professional get-lost-er, like Ron Davis. (Submitted photo)

Though it might appear as if any fool can easily get him or herself lost on the road, or really anywhere, losing one’s way consistently on a motorcycle, at will, actually takes careful study, and above all a special, God-given talent for being totally oblivious to how one got anywhere or where anywhere happens to be. At the risk of sounding immodest, I am such a one.

Before I became a rider, I became aware of my special talent when my dad first took me trout fishing. We separated, him headed upstream and me down, and he told me I couldn’t get lost as long as I stayed next to the creek. After an hour of fighting tangled fishing line, hooks snared in trees, and catcher’s-mitt-sized mosquitos, in my abundant 10-year-old wisdom, I decided to head back to the car, disregarding my dad’s instructions and cutting cross country. Within minutes, I had lost sight of the creek and everything took on an alarming state of sameness: no country road, no car, but lots of trees, swamp, and ominous-looking thickets presumably harboring bears, rattlesnakes, and that hideous Creature from the Black Lagoon which had been giving me nightmares. My talent for getting lost not fully developed yet, I didn’t blunder blindly on, but started yelling for Dad. “Help!” seemed appropriate, and Dad was able to come to a somewhat-less-than-nurturing rescue.

Motorcycling opened a whole new universe of possibilities for honing my talents. More than once I found myself in the bowels of the labyrinth-like roads that snake through Wisconsin’s Driftless Area south of Eau Claire (a two-wheeler’s mecca). Looking for virgin trout water or the mother of all twisties, I often jumped without hesitation from state highway, to county trunk, to town road, to gravel and finally to cow pasture track. I found farmers quite helpful in directing me out off their property.

Lately, with an even more finely developed skill at getting “displaced,” I’ve become a genius at turning short motorcycle rides in northwest Wisconsin into unplanned “detours.”

Lately, with an even more finely developed skill at getting “displaced,” I’ve become a genius at turning short rides in northwest Wisconsin into unplanned “detours.” When my wife, who’s never been impressed with my exceptionalism, calls to ask where I am and if I remember where I’m supposed to be going, my usual response is “Of course I know where I am, I’m right here!”

The absolute first rule in getting lost is going where you’ve never gone before. This spring, after mentioning I was looking for some new lakes to explore with my kayak, some kindly moto-compadres took me back into an area near Bloomer littered with some of Wisconsin’s more than 10,000 lakes (Cheeseheads are a bit more liberal with the definition of “lake” than Minnesotans). After miles squirming down nameless gravel roads chasing my guides’ taillights through the clouds of dust, I began to get suspicious, wondering if these guys were actually bent on playing some cruel prank. Were they trying to get me lost? Please, they could have deserted me after the second turn, and I’d still be out in the sticks subsisting on grubs, talking to a pet wood tick and wearing my bike’s tank bag as a rain hat.

And speaking of being stranded, an expedition last year reminded me of the old Kingston Trio song where the hapless “Charlie” is doomed to ride Boston’s MTA for the rest of his life for want of an extra nickel to get off. I was trying out a BMW in Santa Fe with home base in the famous Historic Plaza District. After frolicking for a day through the nearby mountains, I found myself exhausted and clueless as to how to find the casita where my wife and I were staying. If you’ve ever been in that area, you know many of the streets are basically 400-year-old goat trails, some close to single lane with no sidewalks. The “roads” randomly become one-way, sometimes inexplicably dead-end, and stream with cell phone zombies wandering among the 5 million tea houses, craft stores, and art studios that blanket the area. Everything looked familiar, which was the problem. The exasperating search was capped off while I waited at a red light and spotted my wife across the intersection on her daily two-mile walk. I couldn’t hear what she was saying over the traffic, but could read her lips as she yelled, “Do you know where you are?” Of course I did.

Ron Davis is author of two books – Shiny Side Up and Rubber Side Down – both of which are available at The Local Store, 205 N. Dewey St., Eau Claire.