Motorcycling: A reinforcement of your mortality?

[TheTengTheory]

So in another thread, somehow the topic of my mortality and how I see it came up. So this is my question for old or new riders alike.

Has and if so; how has motorcycling increased or reinforced your perception of your mortality?

I only just got my 6L over a month ago. Have been riding as often as possible and so far have clocked up over 2k in the last month. I noticed this perception if you could call it, the few times I had to drive my car. After learning to ride a motorcycle and doing it often. I seem to be improving my awareness of the situation around myself as I am traveling along the road. Everything from my cornering, position on the road to overtaking or changing lanes. It's not to say I didn't take all these things into consideration before I starting riding bikes. Just that I never thought about it as much or as detailed.

Seems riding my bike has reinforced my mortality and allowed me to better judge risks I may take. I'll go as far as to say I've improved my driving habits and how I interact with the world around me.

[Hitcher]

If one wasn't aware of one's mortality, one wouldn't ride motorcycles. It's the inherent risk and danger that gives motorcycling its appeal. If it didn't, everybody would want to be driven around in buses.

[FJRider]

A reliance on safety devices to keep you alive will fail.

[bluninja]

When you are about to crash and know that you may die then it gives you a perspective on what's important to you.

If you survive it does change the way you think....especially when you listen to someone die a curtains thickness from you....they collapsed outside the hospital on an evening stroll. Within 6 months of that I started motorbike racing...clearly I wasn't meant to die on a bike.

I consider the stress build up when I'm not riding more dangerous than the risks when I am riding. I ride bikes to be involved in the riding experience and to sit in my little bubble of focused concentration, blocking out all the crap that is modern life.

[FJRider]

When you are about to crash and know that you may die then it gives you a perspective on what's important to you.

If ... when riding a motorcycle, you realize if you crashed ... you would die.

Would the perspective be any different .. ???

[Hitcher]

When you are about to crash and know that you may die then it gives you a perspective on what's important to you.

Death gives you no perspective whatsoever. Well, your own death, to be specific. The only perspective you have is when you're alive. Once you're dead everything you have ever experienced, enjoyed and imagined is gone. Forever. That's a great reason to celebrate life. Well, your own life, to be specific.

[paturoa]

If one wasn't aware of one's mortality, one wouldn't ride motorcycles. It's the inherent risk and danger that gives motorcycling its appeal. If it didn't, everybody would want to be driven around in buses.

Not this one, not even close. The thought does occur, but I see it as the reason that I'm still riding rather than being another statistic.

[Akzle]

Has and if so; how has motorcycling increased or reinforced your perception of your mortality?

riding bike= better driver =good.

my mortality is just fine, thanks for asking.

[bluninja]

Death gives you no perspective whatsoever. Well, your own death, to be specific. The only perspective you have is when you're alive. Once you're dead everything you have ever experienced, enjoyed and imagined is gone. Forever. That's a great reason to celebrate life. Well, your own life, to be specific.

I disagree. Even IF death is the end result ones perspective may well be changed. I agree it's a bit hard to see evidence of that in a corpse The next line of the post, that is not quoted, explains about the surviving part

[TheTengTheory]

I disagree. Even IF death is the end result ones perspective may well be changed. I agree it's a bit hard to see evidence of that in a corpse The next line of the post, that is not quoted, explains about the surviving part

I think my mortality is in a blunt sense related to my fear of the unknown as well as leaving loved ones behind. Also a sense of responsiblity. Wouldn't want to waste the 18 years my parents spent raising me on been silly and getting myself killed.

With a motorbike, I feel alot more exposed to the environment. I find the stimulation keeps me grounded. The improvement in my awareness seems to come from the extra exposure to the environment riding a motorcycle entails. All very well appreciated.

[nzmikey]

Meh if it's my time to go .... it's my time to go, does not matter if I am walking down the road , sitting in my lazy boy or doing flat stick somewhere

[James Deuce]

TheTengTheory must have something to do with sweeping generalisations and massive overconfidence.

[Karl08]

Riding a motorbike has not increased any sense of my own mortality; it developed nicely by itself having to ride a 10 speed bike to college (from Ngaio to the Basin Reserve) in peak hour traffic in the 80's. I think it was also helped along by my first major skateboard accident (close call with truck wheels passing my face).

[bogan]

Depends how you think about it after the ride; if you're thinking about life's big issues such as mortality while riding, you may meet your maker sooner than expected. However, riding does 'reinforce' the risks on the road, being more exposed to the conditions makes you more aware of them; which translates back to other forms of transport.

On the wider subject, feeling mortal is a symptom of living a good life imo, the risk of motorycling is but a small chance of the ultimate realisation of mortality. Though the safety nazis would have you think otherwise, so perhaps this is what has you thinking about it more than the risk itself?

[scumdog]

Once you're dead everything you have ever experienced, enjoyed and imagined is gone. Forever. .

Which is why I when I see messages to a dead person at the site of a fatal crash - or in the back of the newspaper etc.

"Ride Free Bro" - pfft, like 'Bro' is ever going to read THAT!

Dead is dead, brown-bread dead.

Forever. (Just to repeat Hitchers message.)

So enjoy your lack of dead-ness while you can.