| Today�s topic is motorcycles. People are always asking me why I ride one with accompanying remarks such as �well I am sure that they must be fun, but don�t you think that they�re very dangerous� (the question mark is deliberately omitted). Most of the time my interrogator has a cigarette in their mouth; the irony apparently lost on them.
Well there�s no single reason why people ride motorcycles - - indeed every person you ask has a different motivation. A lot of it depends on the style of the bike � ride a crotch rocket, you like the adrenalin; ride a chrome-covered Harley, you think you look cool, ride a mid-sized Honda, you�re either experimenting to see if you like it or you�re poor and the gas and insurance are much cheaper. I rode 180 miles on my bike yesterday and I thought about why I ride a motorcycle. Part of it is as my friend Diane says �when you�re on a motorcycle you�re not a lawyer, you�re a biker.� There�s a pleasing anonymity, conversations begin and end with whether I should put a custom exhaust on my bike, or if the seat is comfortable. It never occurs to anyone to enquire what my day job might be. Secondly, there�s a quote that keeps coming back to me from Robert Persig. I can�t remember it exactly but it goes something like this �when you�re in a car you see the scene around you through glass. It resembles watching something pretty on TV. When you�re on a motorcycle, however, you are part of the scene.� I think that about describes it. I could drive along a road 20 times in my car and miss many of the things that I�ll see the first time I take a motorcycle down that same road. A cardinal flying by, its feathers a burning red, a dip in air temperature, some sunlight peeping through on the road ahead, a camber, the shade of green in the roadside grass changing, all of these go unnoticed by the 4 wheeled traveler whereas the motorcyclist will not fail to miss it and, indeed, it becomes a landmark such that directions to fellow bike enthusiasts will be relayed using these casual nuances. What I love about riding my motorcycle is the paradoxical serenity. You�re racing down a road with the engine roaring and yet, there�s a stillness, a sense of tranquility. The cellphone isn�t ringing (or at the very least if it is you remain gloriously oblivious), there�s no one chittering in your ear, no radio, and the cares of the world just melt away as you enter your own little trance-like equanimity from which only a pothole or an inconsiderate car can stir you. So are they dangerous � well probably but some risks are worth taking. I know that my sanity demands it of me to hit the road every once in a while. I have all of my best ideas on a bike and I have no doubt that my blood pressure plummets as the miles roll by. One last thought � another answer my friend Diane often gives when quizzed about why she rides a bike is �if I have to explain it, you wouldn�t understand,� so, if the foregoing might as well have been written in an obscure Sumatran dialect, then just live and let live and at least do me the courtesy of watching out for your two-wheeled friends. After all we are your bank managers, your estate agents, your computer experts, and yes your lawyers. |
| MOTORCYCLES |