Why I ride
Different for everyone?
My uncle back in the 70s was a biker. He went by the road name of “Buddha”. He never joined a club that I know of. He was also a welder by trade, which came in handy around motorcycles.
Him and a friend built his motorcycle from the ground up in a garage shop behind my grandmother’s house where he lived. Once he was done, he decided to take it out for a test ride. Plenty of back roads to ride in where he lived.
Coming around a corner, he hit some loose gravel, and went flying off the road, hitting a telephone pole guy wire on the way down the embankment.
His friend, back at the shop, began to get worried when my uncle didn’t show back up after a couple hours, so he went to go looking for him. Luckily, he found my uncle unconscious and badly injured. My uncle survived, but was in a coma for six weeks as his body slowly repaired itself.
I don’t know if he ever rode again after that.
It was stories like that which kept me from ever considering riding motorcycles.
Until my midlife crisis came along.
Several guys at work rode, and their constant talk about how much they enjoyed it pushed me into getting into the lifestyle. I saved up what little cash I could afford, and bought a used Suzuki Boulevard 800cc cruiser style bike. It was a decent choice as a first bike. It was well maintained and not very expensive. I still have it, slowly rotting away in my garage as I’ve moved on to bigger and better bikes.
What I discovered was how much of a mind cleansing experience riding a motorcycle was. All of the stress and pressures of life are alleviated by the constant focus on not getting killed by someone in a car not paying attention. You are more aware of your surroundings, and can enjoy the sights, smells, and air blowing over your body, feeling changes in temperature as you move in and out of shady spots, or riding next to bodies of water. It’s such a neat experience to ride across the hood canal bridge, because it feels like the temperature drops 20 degrees as you get down to the bridge.
And smells. My motorcycle at the time had a headlight modulator that during the day, would alternate between high and low beams, sort of a way to catch drivers attention, sort of a life saving device. The biggest problem with riding is that drivers in cars literally will not see you, as their brain is actively engaged in looking out for other cars, not some scruffy dude on a bike. With this modulator it draws the car drivers attention to you, so it’s less likely they will turn left in front of you, which happens far too often.
So I’m riding along and suddenly I got a whiff of that sickly sweet smell of marijuana. But it didn’t go away. I kept smelling it, and as I rounded a corner, there was the source, a car travelling about 15 miles slower than the speed limit with two guys obviously enjoying their weed as the drove. All of a sudden the car swerved, and pulled over, probably thinking I was a cop. I merrily continued on my way.
That actually also came in handy riding on two lane country roads and getting behind some jerk taking in the scenery and driving at or slightly below the speed limit. On a twisty road, there are few opportunities to pass, and inevitably these drivers would speed up when the road straightened out then slow down once they leave the passing zone. Maddening. And for some reason, our culture has lost the ability to pass. Many a time I’d come around a corner and see a line of cars stacked up behind one car in front refusing to pull over so faster traffic can proceed, and the 2nd car refuses to pass, making each subsequent car less and less likely to pass the whole lot. But more than once when I pull up behind someone puttering along, eventually seeing my flashing headlight, they would pull off the road to let me by.
But I digress.
In a car on a long drive, I’ve found myself more than once becoming a zombie, on sort of autopilot, as I’m speeding along at 70 MPH. You just can’t get away with that on a bike. One little mistake and you can die. It’s that hyper focus that helps keep your head clear and not being distracted by work, bills, relationships, whatever. And when you’re done for the day, you are both physically and mentally spent, but in a good way.
I’m definitely not a year round rider. I didn’t spend all that money just for the experience to suck, and I have zero *ahem* about what other riders think. The so called hard core bikers ride in all sorts of weather. Not me. For this I do not embrace the suck, as my military friends would say.
And lastly, let those who ride, decide.
I totally get it. I was around motorcycles since I was a kid, as they were very popular in the 1970’s, from the larger 4-cyl bikes like the CB750, to the motorcross bikes like the Honda Elsinore. Lots of the “ring-a-bing-bing” in my neighborhood. Some of my peers learned how to ride motorcycles before they learned their ABC’s!
I did ride 2-up as a passenger when I was a kid on my uncle’s 1978 Kawasaki KZ200. That was cool, but I don’t think that’s what got me hooked on the motorcycles, although since that time I have indeed ridden that bike as the rider. I think part of it was when I got the grease-monkey bug when I was 10-11 years old and learned how to work on small engines. That engine work eventually crept into motorcycle engines, and testing my mechanic work meant I was to ride them to make sure they ran right. As such, I’ve ridden MoPeds and scooters, as well as larger bikes, and the tried-and-true Trail 90 and 110 “step-throughs,” of which I own one of each. I commuted on my 110 from 2003 to about 2022 on weekdays. It’s got almost 11,000 miles on it.
“All of the stress and pressures of life are alleviated by the constant focus on not getting killed by someone in a car not paying attention.” You’re not kidding here. As a cyclist, you’re the “Mosquito” out on the road. Nobody’s looking for you or sees you. As such, you must assume you’re invisible and ride accordingly. Leave more distance. Assume everyone’s going to run the stop sign. Also assume people don’t know you’re stopped when you’re waiting to make a turn. That move is crucial, as I almost got run down by a kid in a tan F-150 who didn’t realize I was stopped, awaiting a left turn. I think he pissed his pants. Good! Maybe he learned something, but if I wasn’t assuming he was going to misjudge the speed, I would have been seriously injured, if not killed. But rather than stop riding, I chalked that up to a learning experience.
Another benefit of riding, based on the above comments, is that you carry over that diligence to your automotive riding, particularly if you ride on a regular basis like I did. On a motorcycle, as you note, you develop good riding/driving habits by necessity, and that carries over into your automotive driving. I’ve caught people blowing stop signs and red lights that I might have missed otherwise.
“On a twisty road, there are few opportunities to pass, and inevitably these drivers would speed up when the road straightened out then slow down once they leave the passing zone. Maddening. And for some reason, our culture has lost the ability to pass.” Believe it or not, I have passed slow motorists on my 110!!! No jest. You are correct, that people crawl through the curves and stomp on it on the straights, only to slow back to a crawl for the next set of curves. I have found a good way to pass is to lay back when you know a straight stretch is coming, and when it comes into view, accelerate hard. If there’s oncoming traffic, you can simply slow back down and stay behind the slowpoke, but if you have a clear road, you will have at least 15 MPH on top of the person in front of you when you initiate the pass, so you’ve already overtaken him by the time he starts speeding up. I’ve started doing that, even with my slower vehicles (my Ranger with the 2.9L and mud tires has acceleration that can best be described as glacial, and I’ve succeeded in passing cars this way.) I’ve had people tell me that motorists that speed up when they’re being overtaken are being aggressive, and I think a few might be that way, but I think most are in zombie mode and simply speed up because a car next to them is also accelerating and they’re subconsciously matching the acceleration. I’ve don’t this a lot on I-5, where I’m in the center lane on cruise control and coming up on a slower motorist, and I signal into the left lane to pass the slower motorist only for that person to speed up and match, not pull away, just match. Then I accelerate, and they accelerate with me. When I accelerate hard to pull away and get clear of them, they stay with me for about a quarter mile, then Ping! They snap back to their old speed, then I do the same, and I continue to pull away. Weird facet of human behavior.
“I’m definitely not a year round rider. I didn’t spend all that money just for the experience to suck, and I have zero *ahem* about what other riders think. The so called hard core bikers ride in all sorts of weather. Not me. For this I do not embrace the suck, as my military friends would say.” The coldest I’ve ridden in is either 22 or 24 degrees. Dry pavement. I’ve also ridden in complete downpours because I wasn’t paying attention to the weather forecast (or more commonly, they got it wrong.) Riding in a downpour is NOT fun. You can’t see well, you’re soaked, I don’t care what you’re wearing, and with the totally wet pavement, you KNOW you’re not going to be able to make an emergency stop without putting the bike on the ground. You just know it. So you’re playing it super-safe, and if possible, you’re taking roads with less traffic. Fortunately I haven’t had a situation where I’ve put the bike down in traffic. But you’re right. You can’t worry about what others think when you ride.
Interestingly, the 2-wheeled vehicle I’m most likely to dump? 50cc scooters! The neighbors get a kick when I come down the main road and turn onto my gravel road with too much speed and too tight an angle for those tiny wheels, or when I do a u-turn on the road. Same thing. The scooter goes one way and I go another. I’m just too big of a gorilla for those tiny scooters. A couple of them I had to reassemble the fairing, actually gluing one back together. They’re not meant for big galutes, but at the same time, I have to test-ride them. They’ll do 30-35, but along with their tiny frames and tiny tires are tiny brakes. And they can’t quickly stop a vehicle where the rider weighs almost twice as much as the scooter. I’ve gotten more cautious with them, but never underestimate the danger of even “dorky” scooters.
“let those who ride, decide.” Agreed, from all angles. I know what you’re talking about.
Keep the rubber side down, Brother.