Why do you ride?

[Hanne]

Got thinking about this the other day, my thought are posted here:
http://kiwiridermagazine.blogspot.co...y-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

[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!

[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.

[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