Why do you ride motorcycles?

[tsp]

Let me hear your reason for riding motorcycles. Go to

 

swriding.blogspot.com

 

and click on the article on "Why do you ride a motorcycle?". Scroll down to read it and give me your reason for riding. Also include how many years you have been riding. I think our reasons mature just as we do.

 

Thanks,

tsp

 

[Mister Tee]

Um, okay. I've been riding for 30 years, although not continuously.

 

The primary reason I ride is out of practicality. I do it to get around traffic - it's really very bad where I live and work. The secondary reason is it's a fun way to get from point A to point B.

 

Although it was never really a consideration in the past, fuel economy is starting to become an issue and yet another reason to ride vs. drive a car. I may get another, economical bike or full size motor scooter (Honda Wave type like a motorcycle, not a Vespa style) for local commuting and riding.

[MT Wallet]

Because I can.

[DaveinNCMn]

To me, when on a motorcycle, the journey becomes just as important (or many times more important) than the destination.

 

There's nothing more satisfying then being all packed and suited up, then throwing your leg over the bike and heading out to make some more memories...

 

Dave

[UberXY]

I ride motorcycles because pushing them for any distance makes me tired.

[mrduck]

I enjoy scaring the crap outta myself at high speeds, and all the anti social behavior the BMW faithful provide!

 

 

 

Don J

[upflying]

I ride because they provided me a paycheck for many years.

Riding off and on for 40 years.

[Danny caddyshack Noonan]

I ride because it reminds me of how good I used to look in reflection of store fronts windows in my Dehner boots, shades and uniform.

 

Actually, ridden for years. I just enjoy it and it lets me in the carpool lanes to pass the Subaru Foresters holding up traffic in the #2.

 

1991

[Paul Mihalka]

I might end up with a list. It started with mechanical interest. Have something I can take apart and put together again and it still works - some times even better. Then riding I felt good at it, so some racing with good results. Then came the simple joy of riding, depend only on myself, do some stupid things if I really want to - this phase still goes on. Then came making the right kind of friends. This happened in both important periods of my life - Venezuela and USA. Being in touch with all of you who read this is a blessing. Lately a very important condition added to all: Riding my motorcycle is the only time when I don't feel like a real old fart - too bad it comes back again when I have to get off.

Motorcycle riding has given me a lot. Sports success. Making new friends when I was down after divorce. I would have never met my loving wife if I would not have been riding. My love of motorcycles gave a great "retirement job" for over 25 years. Last but definitely not least, meeting all of you my greater family, be it on the keyboard or in person. I don't know what my life would have been without the motorcycle thread through it.

Hope to see many of you at BRR/Torrey/UN!

[Shaman97]

Chicks dig it!

 

What with ATGATT and all, how can they resist?

[cali_beemer]

Chicks dig it!

 

What with ATGATT and all, how can they resist?

 

Nothing says sexy quite like cordura 1000........

[4wheeldog]

I ride because risk (Within reason) adds spice to life, plus there is a contact with my surroundings that is lacking in "Indoor" transportation, and last but not least, there is a practicality that appeals to the cheap bastard that I am. And I am good at it, have been for 40+ years. Not fast, just good.

[ShovelStrokeEd]

Same reason a dog sticks his head out the window of a moving car.

[pokorskij]

I ride because I like the feeling of being a part of the machine, not a passenger inside of something. I like the ability to blend with the surrounding/environment including the sights and smells.

 

I am 60 years old, and have been riding since I received my first license, however I am a re-entry rider having always had a motorcycle but very limited riding until after the kids grew up.

 

And the reason I ride had not changed at all.

 

As an example of other activities that equate to this for me, would be when my wife plays the piano, she almost becomes engrossed in the playing while excluding just about everything else.

 

While I must concentrate while riding, it helps to exclude other things and clear the mind.

 

Sorry for the lengthy response, but it all reflects me and why I ride.

[Antimatter]

Because the airforce won't sell me a used F-16 cheap.

 

Seriously, when I was 6 I saw an older kid riding a CT-70 around the campground we were staying at, and immediately wanted one. I've been obsessed with two-wheeled motorized conveyances since.

[KDeline]

Freedom of the rode baby! Live to Ride, Ride to live........Oops....wrong crowd.

[4wheeldog]

Because the airforce won't sell me a used F-16 cheap.

 

Seriously, when I was 6 I saw an older kid riding a CT-70 around the campground we were staying at, and immediately wanted one. I've been obsessed with two-wheeled motorized conveyances since.

 

When I was 4, I had a small plastic toy motorcycle (Probably an Indian, best I can recollect), with a rider equipped with a yachting cap and goggles. It spoke to me of speed and wind. Motorcycles still do, 55 years later.

[tsp]

This is about all the excuse I need to buy that expensive BMW jacket that I have been lusting for recently....

 

tsp

 

Chicks dig it!

 

What with ATGATT and all, how can they resist?

 

Nothing says sexy quite like cordura 1000........

[kmac]

I ride because it is the one thing on the planet that clears my head. Some golf, some play ball of some sort, others watch TV. But when i do any of those things I can still think about what is bothering me. Whatever that is. Wheter its work problems, family issues, money trouble, or my own mental health problems they all are still on my mind when im doing anything else. But when I ride, especially MX or dirtbikes, I get a break from my own brain. It is fully focused on the trail/track ahead of me. It clears my head and blows out the cobb webs. Even street riding and touring helps push problems backwards and gives me a break.

 

Clear head equals happy ME and happy marriage....all good

[Pat Buzzard]

I love the way I feel when I'm on any bike. I figure it's the closest I'll ever get to sprouting wings and flying...

[malcolmblalock]

I love the power, speed, stopping ability, and leaning ability of a good bike. The surge of acceleration, whether from stop or at 70mph, is exhilarating. And, on the other side, the stopping ability is awesome. Great for the senses! And don't forget the leaning. While I don't drag knees or bike parts, the feeling I get when leaning as far as I feel safe is fabulous!

[Lawman]

I don't know. I think it's nuts..

[Groanup]

I ride motorcycles because at the age of 4 my father picked me up and set me on the gas tank of his Triumph and gave me a ride around the neighborhood.

I loved it. Chapped lips and all.

 

At the age of 16, I took the $150 dollars I had saved and bought a Honda 160. I have never been without a motorcycle since...

I still love it...

[Selden]

Riding is my zen and my psychotherapy. I get depressed if I don't ride for more than a month.

 

A guy named Dave Karlotski wrote what I still believe to be the definitive essay on why we ride, "Season of the Bike." In 1998 he wrote an extended essay about seeing how far he could go on $751 that he found in a puddle. Quite far, as it turns out. See: " The 751."

[dba]

"Season of the Bike."

That is a great read.

[Bill246]

I have ridden over 40 yrs on kinds of bikes... it started when my dad stuck me on a dirt bike at 5 and said don't fall over it hurts ..lol been riding from then on. I ride because nothing clears my head and relaxs me more than just enjoying the ride. your more in contact with mother nature and the views seem to be more clear and the destination does not seem to matter anymore.

[Urban Surfer]

It sets me free of all my daily troubles, and sometimes puts me on the edge where I am completely alive.

[Boffin]

This piece of writing sums it up for me:

 

THE ROAD

 

T.E. Lawrence

 

 

 

The extravagance in which my surplus emotion expressed itself lay on the road. So long as roads were tarred blue and straight; not hedged; and empty and dry, so long I was rich. Nightly I'd run up from the hangar, upon the last stroke of work, spurring my tired feet to be nimble. The very movement refreshed them, after the day-long restraint of service. In five minutes my bed would be down, ready for the night: in four more I was in breeches and puttees, pulling on my gauntlets as I walked over to my bike, which lived in a garage-hut, opposite. Its tyres never wanted air, its engine had a habit of starting at second kick: a good habit, for only by frantic plunges upon the starting pedal could my puny weight force the engine over the seven atmospheres of its compression.

 

 

 

Boanerges' first glad roar at being alive again nightly jarred the huts of Cadet College into life. "There he goes, the noisy ," someone would say enviously in every flight. It is part of an airman's profession to be knowing with engines: and a thoroughbred engine is our undying satisfaction. The camp wore the virtue of my Brough like a flower in its cap. Tonight Tug and Dusty came to the step of our hut to see me off, "Running down to Smoke, perhaps?" jeered Dusty; hitting at my regular game of London and back for tea on fine Wednesday afternoons.

 

 

 

Boa is a top-gear machine, as sweet in that as most single-cylinders in middle. I chug lordily past the guard-room and through the speed limit at no more than sixteen. Round the bend, past the farm, and the way straightens. Now for it. The engine's final development is fifty-two horse-power. A miracle that all this docile strength waits behind one tiny lever for the pleasure of my hand.

 

 

 

Another bend: and I have the honour of one of England's straightest and fastest roads. The burble of my exhaust unwound like a cord behind me. Soon my speed snapped it, and I heard only the cry of the wind which my battering head split and fended aside. The cry rose with my speed to a shriek: while the air's coldness streamed like two jets of iced water into my dissolving eyes. I screwed them to slits, and focused my sight two hundred yards ahead of me on the empty mosaic of the tar's gravelled undulations.

 

 

 

Like arrows the tiny flies pricked my cheeks: and sometimes a heavier body, some house-fly or beetle, would crash into fact or lips like a spent bullet. A glance at the speedometer: seventy-eight. Boanerges is warming up. I pull the throttle right open, on the top of the slope, and we swoop flying across the dip, and up-down up-down the switchback beyond: the weighty machine launching itself like a projectile with a whirr of wheels into the air at the take-off of each rise, to land lurchingly with such a snatch of the driving chain as jerks my spine like a rictus.

 

 

 

Once we so fled across the evening light, with the yellow sun on my left, when a huge shadow roared just overhead. A Bristol Fighter, from Whitewashed Villas, our neighbour aerodrome, was banking sharply round. I checked speed an instant to wave: and the slip-stream of my impetus snapped my arm and elbow astern, like a raised flail. The pilot pointed down the road towards Lincoln. I sat hard in the saddle, folded back my ears and went away after him, like a dog after a hare. Quickly we drew abreast, as the impulse of his dive to my level exhausted itself.

 

 

 

The next mile of road was rough. I braced my feet into the rests, thrust with my arms, and clenched my knees on the tank till its rubber grips goggled under my thighs. Over the first pot-hole Boanerges screamed in surprise, its mud-guard bottoming with a yawp upon the tyre. Through the plunges of the next ten seconds I clung on, wedging my gloved hand in the throttle lever so that no bump should close it and spoil our speed. Then the bicycle wrenched sideways into three long ruts: it swayed dizzily, wagging its tail for thirty awful yards. Out came the clutch, the engine raced freely: Boa checked and straightened his head with a shake, as a Brough should.

 

 

 

The bad ground was passed and on the new road our flight became birdlike. My head was blown out with air so that my ears had failed and we seemed to whirl soundlessly between the sun-gilt stubble fields. I dared, on a rise, to slow imperceptibly and glance sideways into the sky. There the Bif was, two hundred yards and more back. Play with the fellow? Why not? I slowed to ninety: signalled with my hand for him to overtake. Slowed ten more: sat up. Over he rattled. His passenger, a helmeted and goggled grin, hung out of the cock-pit to pass me the "Up yer" RAF randy greeting.

 

 

 

They were hoping I was a flash in the pan, giving them best. Open went my throttle again. Boa crept level, fifty feet below: held them: sailed ahead into the clean and lonely country. An approaching car pulled nearly into its ditch at the sight of our race. The Bif was zooming among the trees and telegraph poles, with my scurrying spot only eighty yards ahead. I gained though, gained steadily: was perhaps five miles an hour the faster. Down went my left hand to give the engine two extra dollops of oil, for fear that something was running hot: but an overhead Japanese twin, super-tuned like this one, would carry on to the moon and back, unfaltering.

 

 

 

We drew near the settlement. A long mile before the first houses I closed down and coasted to the cross-roads by the hospital. Bif caught up, banked, climbed and turned for home, waving to me as long as he was in sight. Fourteen miles from camp, we are, here: and fifteen minutes since I left Tug and Dusty at the hut door.

 

 

 

I let in the clutch again, and eased Boanerges down the hill, along the tram-lines through the dirty streets and up-hill to the aloof cathedral, where it stood in frigid perfection above the cowering close. No message of mercy in Lincoln. Our God is a jealous God: and man's very best offering will fall disdainfully short of worthiness, in the sight of Saint Hugh and his angels.

 

 

 

Remigius, earthy old Remigius, looks with more charity on me and Boanerges. I stabled the steel magnificence of strength and speed at his west door and went in: to find the organist practising something slow and rhythmical, like a multiplication table in notes, on the organ . The fretted, unsatisfying and unsatisfied lace-work of choir screen and spandrels drank in the main sound. Its surplus spilled thoughtfully into my ears.

 

 

 

By then my belly had forgotten its lunch, my eyes smarted and streamed. Out again, to sluice my head under the White Hart's yard-pump. A cup of real chocolate and a muffin at the tea shop: and Boa and I took the Newark road for the last hour of daylight. He ambles at forty-five and when roaring his utmost, surpasses the hundred. A skittish motor-bike with a touch of blood in it is better than all the riding animals on earth, because of its logical extension of our faculties, and the hint, the provocation, to excess conferred by its honeyed untiring smoothness. Because Boa loves me, he gives me five more miles of speed than a stranger would get from him.

 

 

 

At Nottingham I added sausages from my wholesaler to the bacon which I'd bought at Lincoln: bacon so nicely sliced that each rasher meant a penny. The solid pannier-bags behind the saddle took all this and at my next stop a (farm) took also a felt-hammocked box of fifteen eggs. Home by Sleaford, our squalid, purse-proud, local village. Its butcher had six penn'orth of dripping ready for me. For months have I been making my evening round a marketing, twice a week, riding a hundred miles for the joy of it and picking up the best food cheapest, over half the country side.

 

 

 

[plext]

Because they're a fair bastard to carry.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Oh and overtaking, thrill, feeling etc.

[artig]

Because horses are too heavy, too slow, and too expensive, have limited range and poor economy, their exhaust emissions are hazardous, and they can't be parked in the garage.

[Pup.]

I have been riding bikes since I was 4.

Don't remember how it started, just could never stop.

[tallman]

So slow riders can be faster than at least one other person.

[Mister Tee]

Because the airforce won't sell me a used F-16 cheap.

 

Yes, that's why I got the gsxr.

[bentnail]

I ride to step outside of the rut. Most of our lives are lived in the

rut and to step outside of it is nice. Every morning I ride to

work for 20 min I get to get out of the rut. I go into

work and sit in an office for 8 hours and then walk out to the

bike and ride out of the rut for 20 min if i go stright home or

longer if i decide to ride to the mountain for a short time.

 

So I guess I step out of the rut twice a day

[Knifemaker]

Why I Ride Motorcycles

 

The early morning sun starts lifting itself above the horizon, the exhausts of my motorcycle are warm too warm to touch but warm enough to hear the tones of the engine’s song. A burst of golden light in the form of fine silk threads streak through the purplish grey morning clouds filling my eyes with colors beyond description. The universe has opened itself to me as I let off the throttle just a little bit just to take the splendor of it all in. This wonder does not last very long but I am going to enjoy every sparkle of this light show as its reflections dance across the polished chrome and paint of the motorcycle’s gas tank.

 

 

The slight chill in the air is fine by me knowing that when the sun comes up in its full glory it will bath me in the light of warmth. I open the throttle back to where the motorcycle is feeling strong and exciting to me. Time and distance seem to melt away along with any other thoughts that have nothing to do with the ride that I am experiencing. Smaller objects in the distance are becoming larger and the larger items that pass by me become smaller and smaller until they disappear in the blur of distance.

 

 

The massive over hanging oak trees are glittering with different shades of green leaves and mixed in between is the agelessness of the old Spanish moss hanging down like great beards of grey color. The trunks of the oak trees are a mixture of soft hues of brown to deep blacks forming never ending trails through the bark that reminds me of the road that the motorcycle is traveling on. A turn to the left, a turn to the right, and a slight straight away keeps me on the road through my mind and the next small town ahead.

 

 

I slow down the motorcycle down even though I do not see a speed limit sign as I approach the small town. The town seems deserted. I see no one driving down the streets or walking the over grown weed infested sidewalk passing through what I perceive as Main Street. I stop the bike in the mangled looking parking lot of a broken down gas station. The gas pumps have been rooted from the broken up concrete slab that once held them. The bolts that bound the pumps to the concrete have turned to just a fine power of rust and the cracks of the concrete are filled with weeds and ants carrying out their daily activities. Still I have seen no one come through this small desolate Alabama town.

 

 

The more I looked around this town the more I saw. I now focused on what made me stop at this gas station to start with. Lining the streets are dilapidated old houses most with tired peeling paint and several with signs of self destruction. The view reminds me of some landscape from a previously read horror book. This is a sad town one that seems to have been lost. Lost in history and from the minds of all those who once lived in this small town except for one thing. The flags. Small American flags on the edge of every driveway approaching each house and pressed deep into the ground. I walked across the street to look closer. Each small flag had a cross and when I read the short painful words on the cross tears came to my eyes. The words on the signs were saddest words ever written. Each cross and flag was a marker for each man in the town who had died in war. The man’s name, his age, and the war he served in were placed on the marker, hand written in black paint on a simple white cross. As I cross the street to continue my journey I notice a couple of vehicles coming down the road and I snap a photograph to remember the site, as if I could ever forget it.

 

 

I get on the motorcycle whispering a small prayer in my mind for this small town, never wanting to forget this small town or what this town gave up for me to be able to continue down the road and enjoy THE RIDE.

 

 

 

 

[Mark Mayo]

 

That says it all!

[OlGeezer]

Mark -

 

Soooo....where was this picture taken?

 

Hwy 33 by any chance?

 

[Dave39]

I ride for many of the reasons given above ...and because it makes so many of the non-riding geezers my age jealous as hell.

[Frank Cloud]

The answer is a two parts.

 

1. Because I really enjoy it.

 

2. It's the only thing other than trout fishing that totally occupies my mind. It allows me to escape the rat race.

[Mark Mayo]

Mark -

 

Soooo....where was this picture taken?

 

Hwy 33 by any chance?

 

Road to/from Big Sur and Point Lobos - I am sure you have passed it and been pleased to see it whizz by.

[Ron_B]

Riding is my zen and my psychotherapy. I get depressed if I don't ride for more than a month.

 

I've always joked, half seriously, that riding is therapy for me. Now, having had a great deal of conventional therapy following the stroke, I still think that riding is the best. My life could be falling apart, but a cross-country ride sets my mind at ease. All is right with the world.

 

I know I've mentioned it here before, but Ishmael's feelings for the sea in Moby Dick captures my feelings about riding perfectly:

 

Call me Ishmael. Some years ago -- never mind how long precisely -- having little or no money in my purse, and nothing particular to interest me on shore, I thought I would sail about a little and see the watery part of the world. It is a way I have of driving off the spleen, and regulating the circulation. Whenever I find myself growing grim about the mouth; whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul; whenever I find myself involuntarily pausing before coffin warehouses, and bringing up the rear of every funeral I meet; and especially whenever my hypos get such an upper hand of me, that it requires a strong moral principle to prevent me from deliberately stepping into the street, and methodically knocking people's hats off -- then, I account it high time to get to sea as soon as I can. This is my substitute for pistol and ball. With a philosophical flourish Cato throws himself upon his sword; I quietly take to the ship. There is nothing surprising in this. If they but knew it, almost all men in their degree, some time or other, cherish very nearly the same feelings towards the ocean with me.

[Ron_B]

Andy, here is another gem from 'awrence:

 

(Lawrence Of Arabia)

 

"When my mood gets too hot and I find myself wandering beyond control, I pull out my motorbike and hurl it top-speed through these unfit roads for hour after hour. My nerves are jaded and gone near dead, so that nothing less than hours of voluntary danger will prick them into life."

 

[ka5ysy]

Because the airforce won't sell me a used F-16 cheap.

 

Seriously, when I was 6 I saw an older kid riding a CT-70 around the campground we were staying at, and immediately wanted one. I've been obsessed with two-wheeled motorized conveyances since.

 

Same thing actually. I have a commercial pilot certificate, and the bike is the closest thing to flying without actually doing so one can do. It is cheaper than flying by a long shot too.

 

My obsession started at about age 8 with a neighbor's son who had a Cushman scooter of some kind, and hung out with a gang of Cushman riders on similar bikes. Parents being anti-bike, I had to wait until Army time to actually start, some 45 years ago, and got hooked on BMW R bikes in Europe. A really, really bad addiction too !

[Antimatter]

Riding is my zen and my psychotherapy. I get depressed if I don't ride for more than a month.

 

A guy named Dave Karlotski wrote what I still believe to be the definitive essay on why we ride, "Season of the Bike." In 1998 he wrote an extended essay about seeing how far he could go on $751 that he found in a puddle. Quite far, as it turns out. See: " The 751."

 

Thanks for the link. I've been looking for that story after having read it a few years ago. The chapter about the Badlands in South Dakota has always spoken to me, and made me want to load up my DR-650 and head out to parts unknown.

[Kitsap]

It reminds me of playing music with my horn, but with better scenery. I have an instrument in hand that will only perform as well as the musician/rider holding it, the road/music is there to be played. Some days it's beautiful, other days I finish shaking my head knowing the composer/road engineer deserved better.

[Big_Gray]

I don't know why I ride. It just doesn't make any sense. 47 years except for a couple when the kids were young and I still haven't figured it out. I'll keep trying until I do.

[outpost22]

Blame it on the 3 h.p. mini bike my dad got us when my brother and I were 7 & 8 years old. Helmet? What's a helmet. We used our Flip Flops for brakes.

 

Escaping Darwinism was a miracle (yes, a play on words).

 

A better question may have been: So how much money would you have now if you never spent any on motorcycles?

[Quinn]

Swinging my leg over the motorcycle is the equivilent of yelling "Shazam!" I'm suddenly transformed into a quick, powerful, lithe creature with powers and abilities far beyond those of normal, mundame me. All my Clark Kent problems (okay, Billy Baxter to keep up the Captain Marvel analogy) disappear and my focus narrows to the present and the ride. I've entered the alternative universe where everyone is out to get me and only my exceptional skills and abilities will keep me alive. I've got to out-swashbuckle Errol Flynn, out-think James Bond, and out-react Bruce Lee. My reward is an experience unavailable to nonriders; the smells, the clarity, the crispness, the feeling of conquest.

 

I also need to confess that I'm not a very good rider. The first six months after I bought my bike and got back into riding, I keep expecting BMW to send someone out to my house to take it back. I also need to admit that I enjoy doing things I'm not very good at and am often amazed when I succeed at some activities. You know, the feeling you get when you finally sink a shot playing pool after knocking the balls around the table for twenty minutes. Well, that's the feeling of setting up and executing a perfect corner.

 

Only thing I'm disappointed with is that I don't look like a Power Ranger in my hi-viz.

 

----

 

 

[RockBottom]

It's the closest I can come to flying while awake.

[OlGeezer]

Let me hear your reason for riding motorcycles. Go to

 

swriding.blogspot.com

 

and click on the article on "Why do you ride a motorcycle?". Scroll down to read it and give me your reason for riding. Also include how many years you have been riding. I think our reasons mature just as we do.

 

Thanks,

tsp

 

My reasons haven't matured. I was addicted the first time my friend gave me a ride on the back of that Honda 50 with the step through frame when I was 13. Today's ride, more than 45 years and 341,000 miles later was merely my latest "fix".