touchy feely poetic BS

Why ride? Simple... CARS SUCK

Nope.....That story doesn't describe why I ride.

Back in the 70's I was a 135 pound teenager with a Suzuki TM125.  We spent countless hours together in the strip mines, woods, and race tracks. Most weekday evenings I would spend 2-3 hours riding....weekends it was often more like 6-8 hours a day.  That bike and I had a complete understanding of each other, and we knew what each other was capable of doing......I have never had that kind of a relationship with another mechanical entity since then.

The last couple of years I am coming back into riding motorycles after a 35 year absence.  I bought a trials bike in 2009 and started riding off road again, and in 2012 I bought my Savage.  So far I have only put about 3,500 miles on my Savage, and about 1,500 were in the stock form and 2,000 since the Cafe' conversion.  We are still getting to know each other.....it is starting to feel like "my" bike........but we have not yet developed a thorough understanding of each other.

I went out for an hour ride last night on a curvy country road with little traffic.  No blasting down the straights or corners....just a nice smooth 50 mph down the straights and through the curves.  We are currently dating........I believe it is going to be a nice long romance!

PS.....The Dragon Rides are a great way to spend some quality time with your bike.  It starts to feel a whole bunch more familiar when you spend 4-5 days riding!    

 

Re:  Why Ride?

"To get my nuts in the wind."

WD wrote on 05/06/14 at 09:16:34:
Ditto!
I hate being in a cage.

I do not do "the ritual", do the maintenance when I remember, rarely clean the bike and never polish anything.
I have no need to go fast, car or motorcycle.
I have never learned to "finely balance on the razor's edge" because I do not want to crash.

I simply need to be go places further than I can walk, and I really hate being in a cage.  Same as my dad -- he did not want to sit at a desk, he did not want to sit in a squad car, he rode a Servicar and didn't even were a motorcycle helmet.

When you ride as opposed to drive, you experience the ride with more of your senses than when you drive. The smell of the air, the sound of the road and everything else, the vastly increased view of your surroundings, the feel of the machine, and even the taste of the bugs ( ).
You are also controlling the machine much more actively, and getting much more feedback from it. That is also why I chose the S40, as opposed to a larger, heavier bike.
My brother-in-law has raced just about everything with a motor, and his favorite is flat track. He says it's because you have a more intimate sense of being one with the machine than you do anywhere else.
The only thing I can think of that I have done that is more of a total experience is sailing.

RatdogWillie wrote on 05/06/14 at 17:49:37:


Just a figure of speech.