The spirit of riding - share your tales!

[Machiavelli]

Hey all,

A friend & I just went for a sunny lunchtime cruise down the south end of Christchurch - why waste this beautiful sun!

At some lights we rode up next to a Katana. We acknowledged each other & the Katana stayed a while, dragged us at the lights (we had no chance on GNs!) & had some fun. A little while later & what do I see in my mirror? A cruiser! Now we have four!

Everywhere I go other bikers wave, nod, flash lights or even ride with me a while. Some people on KB do the brooding "Ah ride alonnne" thing but when *I* ride I sense the community we all make up. To me, that's the true spirit of riding.

If you have any light-hearted stories of what YOU think describes the spirit of riding, feel free to join in posting it here.

Have fun!

[Griff]

Hey all,
.......
If you have any light-hearted stories of what YOU think describes the spirit of riding, feel free to join in posting it here.

Have fun!

I always remember this day with a kind of warm fuzzy fondness… :hug:

I was riding down the SH1 on the left hand lane of the Harbor bridge, heading southbound towards the city.
It was a clear, sunny day and traffic was busy (as usual). I like the left hand lane as I can look over at the CBD waterfront and the Sky Tower, breathe in the fresh salty air and really come to terms with the “oneness” of the Universe. :hug::hug:

Once off the bridge, I proceeded down the centre lane of the 4-lane section, whilst maintaining appropriate speed and distancing from those around me in various vehicular guises. When lo and behold, a black Ute speeds dangerously close to my spatial location and with no visible signs of caring for my well-being. Quick as a flash I signal right (for the allotted 3 seconds (Officer)) and move into the next lane on my right.

Within the next ten meters, all lanes grind to a near standstill (due to the volume of traffic).
I have time to gather myself and to reaffirm the fact that no harm was done and all is still well with the world. :hug:

I drop into 2nd gear and maneuver myself parallel with the Ute driver and begin pointing at him in a friendly manner, to attract his attention. Then I proceed to “give him the finger” whilst informing him in no-uncertain terms that he is in fact a “Fucking Nobber and that if he does that again I will twat him so hard that he will stay twatted!”

You are right, it is good to share these “Joys of Motorcycling”

:hug:

[007XX]

I always remember this day with a kind of warm fuzzy fondness… :hug:


Bwahahaha...Nice one! :lol:

Been very tempted to do the same so many times, but cos I'm a girl and I don't ride that fast (yet), I'm always worried that the nobber in question might be able to catch me and give me a piece of his mind :p :laugh:

My favorite memory of the spirit of riding is being about 7, riding pillion behind my Dad...

We'd just moved in together in a new appartment after my parents separated and Christmas was just around the corner. So away we went on the bike to get a Xmas tree, on the bike of course as we didn't have any other vehicle.

So, carrying this little tree on the bike, I can remember that all the bikers we passed that day tooted and waved at us, and it made me feel part of a big family.

Which (without wanting to sound dramatic) was just what I needed at the time, as my own family felt quite broken.

I did forget about that story until last year when my Dad spoke to me about it again.

Since , I have found people on this site that I consider now to be family...:2thumbsup

Love ya all lots :hug: :love: :sunny:

[Griff]

My favorite memory of the spirit of riding is being about 7, riding pillion behind my Dad...

We'd just moved in together in a new appartment after my parents separated and Christmas was just around the corner. So away we went on the bike to get a Xmas tree, on the bike of course as we didn't have any other vehicle.

So, carrying this little tree on the bike, I can remember that all the bikers we passed that day tooted and waved at us, and it made me feel part of a big family.

Which (without wanting to sound dramatic) was just what I needed at the time, as my own family felt quite broken.

I did forget about that story until last year when my Dad spoke to me about it again.

......

:niceone: Nice memory.

[007XX]

:niceone: Nice memory.

Yeah, cheers Griff.

It's funny how the smallest thing can sometimes make you feel really good, isn't it?

I haven't tried dragging a tree on the bike yet, but my 10 year old son is a bikey in the making, so the enxt generation is taken care of! :D

[vifferman]

When lo and behold, a black Ute speeds dangerously close to my spatial location and with no visible signs of caring for my well-being.
Hmmmm...
I had a similar Black Ute Experience.
I was riding down Onewa Road in the right-hand a few years back, and I could see the left lane ahead was blocked (maintenance truck). This knob end in a black ute is in the left lane, behind me, and when he (finally) sees the truck, he plants his foot, and passes me, then whacks it into the right lane. I was very lucky my Knob End Sensor was activated, and by whacking on the brakes hard I managed to avoid getting my front wheel taken off by Mr K E Black-Ute.:mad:
I was really angry, as it was stupid, dangerous and deliberate.

Oh... sorry.... you wanted happy HAPPY tales of motorbicycling....

Lesseeee....
Happy tales... think happy thoughts....

Once upon a time, the vifferbabe decided it would be nice to go for a ride, because the weather was nice. So I said, "OK - lets pop in on your folks!"
So we did, and headed off to Papamoa.
When we got to the Hills Of Bombay (that mark the outer reaches of D'Auckland), I spotted a couple of bikes with pillionists ahead of us - a BMW and a Yammerer. So, I popped in behind them, and hello! (Hello yourself :wavey: ) they turned off towards Tauranga (or as I like to call it, "Roundabouta") too.
So, we sat in behind them, and they were travelling at just the right pace, so it was all good.
At the next Turnoff to Roundabouta, they turned! Off even! :eek:

At Ngatea, the nice weather looked decidedly dodgy towards the Karangahake Gorge, so we stopped to stare at it, and suss it out. So did the other bikers (!)
We got talking to them, and it turned out they'd both gone, "Hey - the weather's nice; let's go to Tauranga for the day!" too (as well).
So, we had a wee conflab, and decided to chance the weather, which turned out to be wet, so we all stopped at Waihi and suited up.

Tauranga was fine though, which was good. We all stopped at The Mount and had another wee conflab, shook hands and stuff, swapped phone numbers, vowed to coninue being best buddies, and WentOurSeparateWays.
And we never saw each other again.

But that's not the end of the story. :no:
On the way back, we got wet again, and also stopped at that feedery at the top of the Bombays, to gird our loins for the motorway onslaught, and to FeedOurFaces. Parked on the footlingpath were seventy bazillion bikes (or thereabouts), and evnetually (after stuffing our faces) we got talking with the riders and pillionists, who were a bunch of Ulysses people who'd been TouringAroundAndAbout, and who were very friendly.

But that's not the end of the story either. :no:
As a result of meeting two (2) lots of strangers who were instantly our best buddies just because we all had motorbicycling in common, the vifferbabe was gobsmacked, as she never realised motorbicycling was like that, and decided she very much wanted to carry on being my pillionist. :niceone:

And then we got married, had three kids, and lived happily ever after. No - wait; that happened before the motorbicycling bit. :blank:

THE END

[Griff]

Dude..... Wow......

:crybaby:

That was a moving story...

I kinda wanna go and wave at some bikers and smile at them...

This is becoming such a warm thread.

Big Hugs! :hug: (Manly hugs though).



Slow down, you move too fast.
You got to make the morning last.
Just kicking down the cobble stones.
Looking for fun and feelin' groovy.

Ba da, Ba da, Ba da, Ba da...Feelin' Groovy.

Hello lamp-post,
What cha knowin'?
I've come to watch your flowers growin'.
Ain't cha got no rhymes for me?
Doot-in' doo-doo,
Feelin' groovy.

I've got no deeds to do,
No promises to keep.
I'm dappled and drowsy and ready to sleep.
Let the morning time drop all its petals on me.
Life, I love you,
All is groovy.

[007XX]

Big Hugs! :hug: (Manly hugs though).

Oh me too, me too....:grouphug: (except, I can't be manly about it...:p)

[canarlee]

not from me but from an american friend, this guy writes stuff like this all the time. most of it is damn good.

Fogged



I had to be in Seattle, 115 miles away by four-lane and over a high mountain pass, to teach a Red Cross CPR/AED class at 8:00am in the morning. At 5:45 sharp, I kissed Red, backpedalled the Wing off the patio, and rode off into the dark. The weather report said clear and sunny, with unseasonably high temperatures, but it failed to mention the thick, cloying morning fog and vapor.

The Wing has good lights, even better than most cars I've owned, but, as fog riders will attest, good lights in fog don't mean spit. The traffic thinned as I began the climb to the summit, and one by one, the red tail lights with dewy red rings and the white head lights with dewy white rings pulled off and disappeared, leaving me with nothing but the fuzzy grey tunnel offered up by my own lights. Bad news......

After awhile, it was like boring through cotton. I became disoriented and began to suffer vertigo. It was very similar to entering a tunnel from bright sunlight. I had the vague sensation that I was continuously leaning to the left, and that sooner or later, I would lay the big bike down on its left side. I suddenly became convinced that I couldn't do this, that I couldn't continue, that I had to park the bike on the paved shoulder and wait for better conditions. My speed slowed from 70 to 60 to 45 and then to 25. I found the white line and pulled the bike to a stop. I switched it off.

Around me the fog twisted like something alive in the sudden silence. Evergreen trees, spectral in the non-light, appeared, disappeared, changed and evolved. It was hard for me to accept that they were real, that they actually existed. I dug for my cell phone, but it offered no service, just a faintly glowing faceplate. And then something, something alive and real, crossed the road in front of me. I couldn't see it, but I knew that it had happened. My breath fogged my faceplate and chills marched up and down my spine. "Shit," I muttered into my chinbar.

I was beginning to experience the onset of real fear, when, suddenly -- salvation. Deep in the valley behind me I heard the heavy pounding of a powerful diesel engine, a truck, an eighteen wheeler...... I often curse the big commercial tractor-trailers, but I now felt blessed. I fired up the bike and waited. Soon, a fearsome glow appeared in my mirrors, yellow, white, and red, the truck -- lit up like a carnival on all hard edges -- came plowing through the fog like the Second Coming. He slowed passing me, but then got on his throttle again, the sweet sound of the huge engine throbbing in the night. I waited a few moments and then pulled out into his wake. His huge, lighted presence brought the road back to me. I could see now the lanes and the markers and the pavement and all things made sense again. I tucked behind my warm fairing and grinned in relief. He took me clear to the summit of the pass, slowly but steadily; where the fog ended like a line of fence, and the world reappeared. It was nothing more than a cold morning west of the summit, and as clear as a bell. I got the Wing up to speed again and passed the truck, waving as I did, and sped toward Seattle. All was right again............

[Machiavelli]

Presumably the topic isn't so threatening that you can't post a serious response to it.

Theoretically, you do enjoy riding. This is an invitation to post about a moment that defines motorbiking fun for you.

If you don't have any such clear moments, it's not a requirement that you take the piss just for the sake of it. :Playnice:

[Machiavelli]

not from me but from an american friend, this guy writes stuff like this all the time. most of it is damn good.

Awesome, cheers Canarlee

[canarlee]

Awesome, cheers Canarlee

no worries, i will see if i can find some more for you. i got loads from him in e-mails, they make me smile and i know he wont mind me sharing.




and where do you see a capital "c" in my username huh? lol

[SVboy]

About 400 years ago, we we touring the SI on big trailie singles and I was pillon on the back of an XL500, with pack rack. We were coming back to Nelson from Takaka hill and Motueka on the Mot/Nelson road and decided to share biker love with cage owners.......! We stopped, I turned around-facing backwards on the pillion and away we went! Cars coming up behind were greeted with a big smile,n,wave, which caused much merriement. One Corona fulla family was laughing so hard, they had to pull over to the side of the road! Oh, and the packrack meant 2 up wheelies while facing backwards were achievable![Not that the mature and sensible me would ever condone that behaviour these days....]

[canarlee]

another......



addiction
Twenty three million years ago, Pleistocene glaciers carved out huge u-shaped valleys in the uprearing, towering Cascade Mountain walls of Oregon and Washington. Now, these great, deep mountain valleys are laced with hardtop roads, great roads winding through some of the best Alpine scenery in the world – roads perfect for a motorcyclist. I am haunted, addicted, and enslaved by the roads lacing these valleys, veining around these great peaks. I ride as many of them as I can , as often as I can, some seasons up to 20,000 miles annually, most of the time on an older, well-maintained Honda Goldwing. I am not a person who rides motorcycles; I am a motorcyclist who pretends sometimes to be a person.

Every ride to me is a miniature life, a life with a birth, a maturity, and a death. I await the birth of a ride with great joy, and I grieve when a ride ends. I grieve because I know someday I will not be able to ride.... and I will end, and each ride finished is therefore a tick of some damnable celestial clock.

A ride to me seems very like a fast-lived life. Existence in milliseconds.. Almost every eye blink, I am faced with a decision fraught with consequences: turn here....no, there.....slow here....accelerate here...... decisions are made by me instantaneously, in just a tick of time, a nanosecond of eternity. And once that microscopic sliver of time is gone, the decision made – it is truly, irrevocably gone; the outcome of the decision as permanent as crystals in granite, and I am diminished.

Sometimes, I even weep behind my face shield. I hear voices of dead friends in the wind’s roar, youthful laughter long hushed, the moaning of wounded soldiers. I can almost see every decision in my life that was a mistake, every missed turn, every unopened door...but the moment that spawned that decision is truly, irrevocably gone; the outcome of the decision as permanent as crystals in granite. And I am diminished.

Every ride I make is a life lived, and I am haunted, addicted, and enslaved by these roads.

[uNople]

not from me but from an american friend, this guy writes stuff like this all the time. most of it is damn good.

Fogged
All was right again............

I've had an experience like this. My old man, a mate and I were coming back from palmerston (on our 1000K ride). It was later in the day, after dark when we stopped in timaru for some tea. We joked about how we had beaten all the bad weather so far.

We set off again, and about 20K out of timaru we hit fog. Pea soup fog. We all pulled over, because Stu and Dad's visors were a bit old, and the lining on the outside had gone - the water from the fog just turned in to a smear, making them not being able to see shit. We pulled into the next gas station, and they tried some of those "bead up wipes" (I can't remember what the hell they're called) and that helped a little bit, but they said I had to lead, as I was the only one who could see.

We set off again. Again we stopped because, I started to not be able to see. It was cold, wet and miserable. Then, salvation came in the way of a celica roaring through the night. We hopped back on our bikes and gunned it, hoping he was going at least as far as ashburton. He was. We got out of the fog about 10-20K out of Ashburton, and oh man, we were all stoked. We were yelling and screaming and waving our arms, it was awesome to finally be out of that fucking fog.

After that, we stopped about 5m past a gas station in ashburton, and who do we see? the guy in the car we were following. Dad goes up to him, and thanks him for being our guide - turns out he was a biker! Showed him a pic of his bike that he just keeps in his wallet for occasions like that :)

So yeah, fog sucks, but riding is awesome, no matter the weather. Once you get past whatever's shitty (weather, gravel on the road, etc) then you get this awesome sense of relief, and you feel great for the next few K's. And remember, there's always another biker around the corner somewhere.

[canarlee]

more.........



Rivers and bikes....

In the unsettled American West, the first roads were rivers. Explorers, trappers, mountain men, soldiers, and the early entrepreneurs were more likely to ply canoe and paddle, rather than horse or moccasin. Lewis and Clark, Fremont, Frazier, Carson, Bridger, and Powell – boatmen all.

And the American West was blessed with great rivers: The Mississippi, the Missouri, the Platte, the Colorado, The Columbia, the Snake, The Clearwater, the Yellowstone.....great foaming highways, on either side of the great mountain divide, storied in both fact and legend.

Those rivers are still there, and, as the American West became more inhabited, the early settlers built roads alongside them; and, by and large, the roads are still there.... just as convoluted and twisted as the rivers they parallel.

In the latter half of my life, my great joy has been to run these roads on my motorcycle. With the bike, I can compress miles, years, even centuries into hours and days; and, if I am careful, I can see what they did see. I can almost experience their romantic, mystery-shrouded lives, where every day was a lottery.... survival being the main prize, freedom from starvation and Indian attack the consolation awards... this I sense through the hum of the bike’s power, the blur of it’s speed......

Some of the rivers are dammed now, and controlled, but enough survive for my needs. Highway 35 along the Mississippi (The Great River Road); Highway 12 along the Lohtse (LoLo Pass, Idaho), Highway 14 along the Columbia River, Highway 1804 along the Missouri, I-90 along the Yellowstone and crossing the Little Bighorn, Highway 299 alongside the Trinity, Highway 50 alongside the Arkansas ........

Ride these early roads, these ancient rivers, just once, and you will be changed forever. Your bike will merge your soaring blood with those who have come before... and you will be blessed, blessed by the rivers and blessed by the roads......

[canarlee]

last one for now, i will find some more later............




oncers.....
Sometimes, when Red and I are out on the prairie, we'll stop at some greasy spoon and walk in, helmets dangling from frozen gloves, rain still running from our jackets, and most of the people inside will look away, and will try not to notice us.......will try to get back to where they were before we arrived.... before we came, all free and wet and alive......


But, also, sometimes... I'll look across the tense dining room, and an old boy will slowly raise his head from his Senior Special bowl of soup. He'll look out the foggy window at our loaded bike, at my smiling partner, and the fire will begin to rise again in his rheumy eyes, and he will begin to nod to us.... At first barely perceptively, and then with increasing vigor, and we can see him sitting straighter, and breathing faster... calling on us to talk to him, to notice him and this joy rising in him like something long dead but rediscovered...... and so we do.


"G'day, Sir!" I'll say, sitting as close to him as possible. "Kinda wet out there!"


And then he and another one or two old boys, will come and talk to us. Really talk to us. They will speak of the bikes they had after the war, the Harleys, the Indians, the BSA Goldstars....the saddlebags of Mexican tooled leather, the shaved and ported heads, the Great Hillclimbs....


"I loved that damned BSA! Loved it so much I was always afraid of it!"


And they will talk of touring from sea to sea, from border to border, when the roads were all lumpy and nearly impassable, and when the sleeping bags were always wet and cold, their girls' mothers so terrified of them and their bikes. They speak of great bonfires on prairies and woodland, and of the beer, and of the joy of being young and free, free from war and alive .... and the misery now of having lost it all. And I listen to them with all my heart, for I am them, and they me.


And when we finally leave, waving to those who still have the fire, those with eyes still gleaming, we feel alive and reborn......and blessed. And the prairie calls to us anew....


"Ride, ride, my children. It will not be forever, ride, ride.... my laughing children. Ride!"

[vifferman]

Presumably the topic isn't so threatening that you can't post a serious response to it.

?
What's that all about? :spudwhat:
I love it that wherever you go, there you are, and if you meet a fellow motorcyclist, it's really special.
Like last year, when as part of the continuation of wanting to do more pillioneering, the vifferbabe arranged a 5-day trip around The Far North for us at Easter. It was a fantastic time, but one of the standout moments was meeting a guy from Glenfield on a Yamaha at the Rawene ferry, getting chatting to him, and running into him again at Ahipara, Cape Reinga, and a few other places. Another was calling into the chocolate factory at Kerikeri and being delayed for ages, happily chatting to the manager (owner?) who was a motorcycling immigrant from the UK.
Or having to stop for a rest on the Helena Bay to Kaimamaku road, because my arms were so tired from an overabundance of corners!

But one of the things I like most when riding two-up, is when the vifferbabe gives me a great big hug, just because she's so happy to be sharing the experience with me!:hug:

[banditrider]

Rusty rides are the ones that bring out a bunch of pretty like-minded riders. Everyone is keen as to put on the miles and always have time for a gidday at stops etc. The Southern Cross in particular is good for this is there is a bit more time waiting around at check points etc. Everyone has a yarn to tell.

But this years GC really brought it out. Truly crap weather and still everyone smiling and having a laugh, keeping an eye out for each other etc. Can't wait for The Mini's Return...

[Griff]

Presumably the topic isn't so threatening that you can't post a serious response to it.

Dude you are right. It's time to get back in touch with my sensitive side.

:innocent:

Riding a Bike is like playing with a cat.
------------------------------------
If you stroke your throttle, like you would stroke a cat's paw, then the engine purrs and all is sweet and mellow.

But if you wrench open the throttle, then it is like violently twisting a cat's paw. It isn't nice and you may come off worse.

I tried this on a stray cat as a "MythBusting Experiment" and I did in fact come off worse.

[Machiavelli]

What's that all about? :spudwhat:

Mostly about a post that doesn't seem to be there now, edited perhaps? :Pokey:

It's cool, though, I know you guys are all crazy anyway :2thumbsup


one of the standout moments was meeting a guy from Glenfield on a Yamaha at the Rawene ferry, getting chatting to him, and running into him again at Ahipara, Cape Reinga, and a few other places. Another was calling into the chocolate factory at Kerikeri and being delayed for ages, happily chatting to the manager (owner?) who was a motorcycling immigrant from the UK.

Yeah, that's what I'm talking about - that's the cool thing about bikers. Take CHCH, for example. There are really not that many of us here, so it nice to be able to think that perhaps you can spot a bike and realise that it's somebody you know and maybe have a little chat with them. It's different with cars, it's not like you could get to know everyone in the city that drives one!

I put the importance of the biking community down to the fact that it's more dangerous, so it's good to keep an eye out for each other.

[vifferman]

I put the importance of the biking community down to the fact that it's more dangerous, so it's good to keep an eye out for each other.
I think it's more that most bikers realise they're doing something special. Bikes are usually more than just transport, due to the viscera nature of riding them: you feel and sense more than a car driver does, and you're much more connected to your machine: every little input you make effects a response in the machine. And when it all comes together to work perfectly, it's very much a right-hemisphere activity, and gives you an amazing zen-like "in the zone" experience.
That's all very addictive.