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From the Yamaha triples list:
Message: 10
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 13:57:11 GMT
From: "Jean Aker"
Subject: Re: [ytriples-l] The truth about cycling
To: ytriples-l@cerebro.cs.xu.edu
Motorcycle truth
There is cold, and there is cold on a motorcycle. Cold on a motorcycle
is like being beaten with cold hammers while being kicked with cold
boots, a bone bruising cold. The wind's big hands squeeze the heat out of
my body and whisk it away; caught in a cold October rain, the drops
don't even feel like water. They feel like shards of bone fallen from the
skies of Hell to pock my face. I expect to arrive with my cheeks and
forehead streaked with blood, but that's just an illusion, just the
misery of nerves not designed for highway speeds.
Despite this, it's hard to give up my motorcycle in the fall and I rush
to get it on the road again in the spring; lapses of sanity like this
are common among motorcyclists. When you let a motorcycle into your life
you’re changed forever. The letters "MC" are stamped on your driver’s
license right next to your sex and weight as if "motorcycle" was just
another of your physical characteristics, or maybe a mental condition.
But when warm weather finally does come around all those cold snaps and
rainstorms are paid in full because a summer is worth any price.
A motorcycle is not just a two-wheeled car; the difference between
driving a car and climbing onto a motorcycle is the difference between
watching TV and actually living your life. We spend all our time sealed in
boxes and cars are just the rolling boxes that shuffle us from home-box
to work-box to store-box and back, the whole time, entombed in stale
air, temperature regulated, sound insulated, and smelling of carpets.
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. But 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 th
e 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 half 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 one of the best things I've done.
Cars lie to us and tell us we're safe, powerful, and in control. The
air-conditioning fans murmur empty assurances and whisper, "Sleep,
sleep." Motorcycles tell us a more useful truth: we are small and exposed,
and probably moving too fast for our own good, but that's no reason not
to enjoy every minute of the ride. Author unknown.
Message: 10
Date: Tue, 21 Sep 2004 13:57:11 GMT
From: "Jean Aker"
Subject: Re: [ytriples-l] The truth about cycling
To: ytriples-l@cerebro.cs.xu.edu
Motorcycle truth
There is cold, and there is cold on a motorcycle. Cold on a motorcycle
is like being beaten with cold hammers while being kicked with cold
boots, a bone bruising cold. The wind's big hands squeeze the heat out of
my body and whisk it away; caught in a cold October rain, the drops
don't even feel like water. They feel like shards of bone fallen from the
skies of Hell to pock my face. I expect to arrive with my cheeks and
forehead streaked with blood, but that's just an illusion, just the
misery of nerves not designed for highway speeds.
Despite this, it's hard to give up my motorcycle in the fall and I rush
to get it on the road again in the spring; lapses of sanity like this
are common among motorcyclists. When you let a motorcycle into your life
you’re changed forever. The letters "MC" are stamped on your driver’s
license right next to your sex and weight as if "motorcycle" was just
another of your physical characteristics, or maybe a mental condition.
But when warm weather finally does come around all those cold snaps and
rainstorms are paid in full because a summer is worth any price.
A motorcycle is not just a two-wheeled car; the difference between
driving a car and climbing onto a motorcycle is the difference between
watching TV and actually living your life. We spend all our time sealed in
boxes and cars are just the rolling boxes that shuffle us from home-box
to work-box to store-box and back, the whole time, entombed in stale
air, temperature regulated, sound insulated, and smelling of carpets.
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. But 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 th
e 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 half 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 one of the best things I've done.
Cars lie to us and tell us we're safe, powerful, and in control. The
air-conditioning fans murmur empty assurances and whisper, "Sleep,
sleep." Motorcycles tell us a more useful truth: we are small and exposed,
and probably moving too fast for our own good, but that's no reason not
to enjoy every minute of the ride. Author unknown.
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