I live in a small city with about 150,000 people. Where I actually live I can be out of the city and on to country roads, usually with very little traffic, in about 5 to 10 minutes max. But the other day I had to drive into the heart of urban Chicago to see my eye surgeon for my semi annual follow up to my partial corneal transplant surgery of a few years ago. From the doctor's office it took me over an hour of driving (my car) to get out of the urban mess that is suburban Illinois north and west of Chicago. It started me thinking about being a motorcyclist and living in that urban jungle. I thought the same thing when visiting my brother recently who lives on Long Island, outside of NYC. Getting from his house to "the country" would be at least a 90 minute ride in heavy traffic, stop signs or stop lights every block or so, and especially in the summer heat would likely just be a misery rather than fun. I think that if I had to live in those environments I would have to seriously consider giving up the motorcycle. In truth, because I love riding I would never even consider living in a dense big city environment, even if my wife would be in heaven if we moved to that type location. This makes me admire the tenacity of inner city motorcyclists whose love of riding overcomes the environment that they undoubtedly spend most of their riding time, but I'm not sure I would put up with it.