OutForADuck
3rd October 2008, 11:06
As summer approaches and the tarmac gets warmer.... I was wondering if we all needed some inspiration to get out and enjoy the roads. So here is a first contribution as we sit stuck behind our desks... Please feel free to contribute :rockon:
Warning this is longish, but worth the read if you have a love for....
TWO WHEELS AND RHYTHM
Unknown date (2000?)
Is there any way I can articulate the sheer joy that can be obtained from a bike, a sunny day and a road laid down without the aid of a plum line.
The task is likely to be beyond the most gifted wordsmith, let alone my own meager talents for capturing the human spirit. But close your eyes and let me weave onto this page the emotions of a perfect Sunday ride in the hope I may be inspired enough to let you glimpse the joy of two wheels and rhythm.
The sun is out and caresses the back of my leathers. My spirit could be lifted high by just sitting in view of the smiling bright globe, yet there is even more here to entice my smiling child out to play. There is magic at play with my soul and the child dances and giggles with excitement.
Sitting stationary in the driveway the bright glistening paint of my pride and joy sparkles in the sun. It looks purposeful and aggressive and speaks with a language most understand. Pressing the button to start the motor simply raises the volume with which the message is conveyed from a quite statement to a demanding growl.
The effect is as a challenge to my being, "Tame me if you dare". Each caress of the throttle pounds this message home as the bark snaps back at me as if I were taunting a caged dog.
Gently I start out into the country lanes, the pace building slowly from the gentle trot laced with potential into the roaring gallop of a beast allowed to run, but still harnessed and struggling to be free.
At first there is an uneasy alliance between man and machine. Each time I let the bike run further into it's true potential I am rewarded by a steadily increasing heart rate and still narrower focus of mind and soul. The child is bubbling with joy. But slowly a measure is found, a sense of fear concurred
The road lays out before me, coiled and twisting with a life all its own. Bordered by small hedgerows the effect is not unlike that of a luge run, yet at times that view is opened up into a vista of beauty, of rolling hills and greenery, of shimmering road and enticingly black tarmac.
The pace builds higher and higher and the back of the struggle is broken. Slowly the experience transforms itself from one of master and reluctant servant into a single purposeful being. The howling growl of the animal that chases me down the lanes is as much part of me as the hand that guides the beast is part of the animal.
As tires scrub against heated tarmac and struggle to hold on against the ever increasing forces of the charge, I feel each melted piece of rubber as it departs from the fury in a sacrifice to traction and control. I no longer need instruments to understand how the heart of this beast beats or feel any sense of struggle against it. We are one; we are attacking the road with a common purpose.
The sway from left to right and back again becomes a dance as the traveling black ribbon of the road disappears beneath me in an unending procession, changing only in speed and texture. The rhythm takes control of me and the bike and soon it is not us that weave, but the scenery and the horizon itself that dips and bobs to allow our passage.
The child is out to play, the concentration absolute so that both man and machine are lost in the now, lost in the procession of rhythm.
The body is not a conscious part of this dance but exerts itself in an effort to keep up with the demands of both road and machine. Never a minute allowed to rest against the seat or pause to take a breath, the limbs struggle on unnoticed.
But eventually, as with all escapes from reality, there must be an end and the rhythm slows till all eventually stops. Then and only then are the complaints of the body heard and the limbs allowed to rest.
As I sit in a coffee shop sipping an invigorating brew the adult I have become analysis's the ride. The way a corner was entered or how well a certain overtake was executed. But it is all meaningless really as the child who still lingers deep inside knows all too well, this is not an experience of fact but one of beauty.
As every rider knows, I am alive because I have faced the shimmer of my own exertions and ridden the waves of my heartbeat. I have been and endured. I have faced up to the expectation of life…. To be lived without control or limits, to exist in the now.
And my carriage into this nirvana has been, Two wheels and rhythm.
Warning this is longish, but worth the read if you have a love for....
TWO WHEELS AND RHYTHM
Unknown date (2000?)
Is there any way I can articulate the sheer joy that can be obtained from a bike, a sunny day and a road laid down without the aid of a plum line.
The task is likely to be beyond the most gifted wordsmith, let alone my own meager talents for capturing the human spirit. But close your eyes and let me weave onto this page the emotions of a perfect Sunday ride in the hope I may be inspired enough to let you glimpse the joy of two wheels and rhythm.
The sun is out and caresses the back of my leathers. My spirit could be lifted high by just sitting in view of the smiling bright globe, yet there is even more here to entice my smiling child out to play. There is magic at play with my soul and the child dances and giggles with excitement.
Sitting stationary in the driveway the bright glistening paint of my pride and joy sparkles in the sun. It looks purposeful and aggressive and speaks with a language most understand. Pressing the button to start the motor simply raises the volume with which the message is conveyed from a quite statement to a demanding growl.
The effect is as a challenge to my being, "Tame me if you dare". Each caress of the throttle pounds this message home as the bark snaps back at me as if I were taunting a caged dog.
Gently I start out into the country lanes, the pace building slowly from the gentle trot laced with potential into the roaring gallop of a beast allowed to run, but still harnessed and struggling to be free.
At first there is an uneasy alliance between man and machine. Each time I let the bike run further into it's true potential I am rewarded by a steadily increasing heart rate and still narrower focus of mind and soul. The child is bubbling with joy. But slowly a measure is found, a sense of fear concurred
The road lays out before me, coiled and twisting with a life all its own. Bordered by small hedgerows the effect is not unlike that of a luge run, yet at times that view is opened up into a vista of beauty, of rolling hills and greenery, of shimmering road and enticingly black tarmac.
The pace builds higher and higher and the back of the struggle is broken. Slowly the experience transforms itself from one of master and reluctant servant into a single purposeful being. The howling growl of the animal that chases me down the lanes is as much part of me as the hand that guides the beast is part of the animal.
As tires scrub against heated tarmac and struggle to hold on against the ever increasing forces of the charge, I feel each melted piece of rubber as it departs from the fury in a sacrifice to traction and control. I no longer need instruments to understand how the heart of this beast beats or feel any sense of struggle against it. We are one; we are attacking the road with a common purpose.
The sway from left to right and back again becomes a dance as the traveling black ribbon of the road disappears beneath me in an unending procession, changing only in speed and texture. The rhythm takes control of me and the bike and soon it is not us that weave, but the scenery and the horizon itself that dips and bobs to allow our passage.
The child is out to play, the concentration absolute so that both man and machine are lost in the now, lost in the procession of rhythm.
The body is not a conscious part of this dance but exerts itself in an effort to keep up with the demands of both road and machine. Never a minute allowed to rest against the seat or pause to take a breath, the limbs struggle on unnoticed.
But eventually, as with all escapes from reality, there must be an end and the rhythm slows till all eventually stops. Then and only then are the complaints of the body heard and the limbs allowed to rest.
As I sit in a coffee shop sipping an invigorating brew the adult I have become analysis's the ride. The way a corner was entered or how well a certain overtake was executed. But it is all meaningless really as the child who still lingers deep inside knows all too well, this is not an experience of fact but one of beauty.
As every rider knows, I am alive because I have faced the shimmer of my own exertions and ridden the waves of my heartbeat. I have been and endured. I have faced up to the expectation of life…. To be lived without control or limits, to exist in the now.
And my carriage into this nirvana has been, Two wheels and rhythm.