Why do you ride?

[Hanne]

Got thinking about this the other day, my thought are posted here:
http://kiwiridermagazine.blogspot.com/2011/02/last-week-i-was-asked-by-careers.html


There are many other elements that could come into play in my list, and do for a number of riders. The adrenaline rush accessible when two wheels meet speed, the technical challenges associated with motorcycle maintenance, the camaraderie and life long friendships that being a part of the motorcycling fraternity entails...

Why do you ride? What elements of riding are most important?

[White trash]

Wheelies. Only in it for the wheelies.

Oh. And the bitchs.............

[slofox]

Coz I like it.

[superman]

Business or Pleasure :p

[raftn]

All the same reasons , but I would add.

Cause I see places that I would never see, or go in a car.

Meeting like minded people who understand and share my passion, those that don't ride just don't get.

Freedom/ the fun/ the challenge...................and cause I like it!

[mashman]

I attain a serenity I can't explain.

[Whynot]

Why not ??

[Pogo2]

I'ts my happy place!

[Gremlin]

I like it. Most important is the riding part.

[Swoop]

To get to chat with the police.
Driving the car I have not had decent chin-wag sessions. Riders are being presented with the opportunity of being a persecuted minority of the public and targetted selectively. I like the odds more!
:corn:

[bogan]

Weekend rides for the enjoyment (could go into more detail, but it's the sort of thing you either get, or you don't), weekday commute cos it's the best option (no teleporters yet you see)

[wingnutt]

I didnt write this, but it sums it up for me:

On a motorcycle I know I'm alive. When I ride, even the familiar seems strange and glorious. The air has weight and substance as I push through it and its touch is as intimate as water to a swimmer. I feel the cool wells of air that pool under trees and the warm spokes of that fall through them. I can see everything in a sweeping 360 degrees, up, down and around, wider than Pana-Vision and than IMAX and unrestricted by ceiling or dashboard. Sometimes I even hear music.

It's like hearing phantom telephones in the shower or false doorbells when vacuuming; the pattern-loving brain, seeking signals in the noise, raises acoustic ghosts out of the wind's roar.

On a motorcycle I hear whole songs: rock 'n roll, dark orchestras, women's voices, all hidden in the air and released by speed. At 30 miles per hour and up, smells become uncannily vivid. All the individual tree- smells and flower- smells and grass-smells flit by like chemical notes in a great plant symphony.

Sometimes the smells evoke memories so strongly that it’s as though the past hangs invisible in the air around me, wanting only the most casual of rumbling time machines to unlock it. A ride on a summer afternoon can border on the rapturous.

The sheer volume and variety of stimuli is like a bath for my nervous system, an electrical massage for my brain, a systems check for my soul. It tears smiles out of me: a minute ago I was dour, depressed, apathetic, numb, but now, on two wheels, big, ragged, windy smiles flap against the side of my face, billowing out of me like air from a decompressing plane.

Transportation is only a secondary function. A motorcycle is a joy machine. It's a machine of wonders, a metal bird, a motorized prosthetic.

It's light and dark and shiny and dirty and warm and cold lapping over each other; it's a conduit of grace, it's a catalyst for bonding the gritty and the holy.

I still think of myself as a motorcycle amateur, but by now I've had a handful of bikes over a dozen years and slept under my share of bridges. I wouldn't trade one second of either the good times or the misery. Learning to ride is one of the best things I've done.

[phill-k]

The pleasure bought about by the feeling of isolating all else with the need to focus and perform single mindedly at your best whilst riding, and almost as much the state of mind I am left in for a period of time afterwards. :scooter:

[steelphoenix]

Same stuff Hanne says - but mostly the immediacy of experience/being in the moment. Driving a car seems so much more dulled after the bite of the wind under the helmet, the growl of the motor right there between your knees, the feeling of leaning with the bike. The intense focus required chases away other thoughts and helps the subconscious to do its thing. The experience of Zen riding is a beautiful thing - I always feel better after a ride.

Edited to add: Wingnutt, that's beautiful, and really captures it.

[jim.cox]

Why do I ride ?

'cos I like leaning for corners :)

[oldrider]

Coz I still can! (just) :yes:

[pc220]

Too lazy to walk.:facepalm:

[Blackbird]

I had this published in Bike Rider magazine 3 or 4 years ago:
http://geoffjames.blogspot.com/2009/12/why-do-we-ride.html

[SPman]

Beats sitting on yr arse on the road, going brm brm!

[Rhys]

so I don't have to follow F**k wits at 1/2 the legal speed limit :yes:

Yellow lines what yellow lines officer :innocent:

[Laava]

So I can use some of the points in my license

[avgas]

Because sex is way too expensive

[The Pastor]

I have a small penis and it makes me feel more manly.

[scumdog]

To get to chat with the police.
Riders are being presented with the opportunity of being a persecuted minority of the public and targetted selectively. I like the odds more!
:corn:

Wow, I must move north, I miss out on so much stuff down here...

So see, there's ANOTHER reason for me to ride - apart from fun, the smile factor and the camaraderie..:woohoo:

[sunhuntin]

i honestly think biking is in my blood. been around bikes my whole life. got a pic of my aged 2 sitting on the tank of one of dads wearing one his old red open face lids, lol. it seemed normal for me to learn to ride. i often hear of mothers forbidding their adult kids from riding, and im so greatful my mum had more sense than to try and stop me. [family of 4, and shes the only one without class 6]

[AD345]

I ride because the future is here and there is still no fucking air-cars!

[MadDuck]

cos I look hot in leather :shutup:

[AD345]

cos I look hot in leather :shutup:

PICS! or it never happens

[Dave Lobster]

Because I'm Carl Fogarty.

[ttmadness]

2 reasons, knee down and braking hard into corners.

[schrodingers cat]

I ride to escape from self indulgent and mawkish blogging

[The Pastor]

What does mawkish mean?

[rocketman1]

Don't know really.
But could be something to do with "freedom" on my "steel horse" that takes me where ever I want to go, that doesn't complain, whine or make me do something I don't want too, goes as fast or as slow as I want and only needs to watered occassionaly at a gas station. And now and then you have to tell it that you love it, and thats makes you feel all the more as one with it.

Deep as I want to go this thread, more to come..........later

[\m/]

Because I couldn't afford to get a 13B or 4G63T engine swap done in my car.

[gatch]

Cause the bitches love a mad mother fucker on a bike.

[jack_hamma]

Cause I can :)

[crazyhorse]

Its undescribeable - fun, exciting, thrilling........... cause I can :scooter:

[KiWiP]

Waving isn't normal on the bus :wavey:

[short-circuit]

so I could post on Kiwibiker

[Oakie]

Originally because I couldn't be arsed push-biking anymore. Had no one to teach me to drive a car so I thought "well a motorbike can't be much different from a push bike" so I got my bike licence. Nearly 33 years later and I've still never owned a car of my own (had a few in joint ownership with Mrs Oakie).

[Usarka]

It gives me wood.

[trailblazer]

I like the freedom you get while out on a ride and the way it seems to make you focus and think about every entry and exit of every corner. When the ass steps out now that is some adrenilian you will never get when a car steps out.

[Crisis management]

My wife makes me.





Every time I leave home she waves me off with a happy smile and the tender sounds of, "Have fun dear, the insurance is paid up."

[Fatt Max]

It gives me wood.

It gives me a woody

[Nasty]

had to think about this one ....

I started riding cos I wanted to .. for no other reason.

I continue riding cos it is time for me to have time for me doing something I just love.

[Fatt Max]

I ride because it stops me from dicking around on internet forums........erm......wel, it's raining, eh.....

[Latte]

Seemed like a good idea at the time. And now I cant be seen to change my mind.

[Mungatoke Mad]

To Escape Quickly from those annoying red & blue Fkn Lights that that keep following me for not paying my government protection money Instalments for riding on the road

[baptist]

Because I'm Carl Fogarty.

Foggy, man what a rider, used to watch him around Britain and Europe....

Why do I ride? well it is a time I can focus on something that I enjoy, it is a peacful time as well, a time I can forget the normal mundane things... also it is my only means of transport so I am stuck with it :blink:

[PuppetMaster]

I bought a bike so I could join these forums.

[The Pastor]

What does mawkish mean?

having a mildly sickening flavor; slightly nauseating.

[javawocky]

Im in it for the corners. Executing a corner smoothly and coming out the other end with the power on with the bike pointing sweetly down the road is like a drug to me. Speed is easy - give me corners any day!