Why do I love bikes so much? Dave Karlotski says it well

Life Cars & Motorcycles
1

I read this somewhere, thought it was very well written and knew some of you would appreciate it.

[b]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 sunlight that fall through them. I can see everything in a sweeping 360 degrees, up, down and around, wider than Pana-Vision or 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 the smells evoke memories so strongly that it

2

Yup.

3

I’ve fallen asleep riding a bike more than once. It’s an interesting experience. Especially when you wake up.

4

:laughing: I did that just the once. Quite enough for me thanks! :astonished:

5

Never really thought about bikes in such a philosophical way. Just lik’em cause they are cool and stupidly fast and dangerous.

6

How far did you travel while asleep? I reckon I did about a kilometer once, traveling at about 230 kph. Never try to ride from Frankfurt to Marseille in one go!

7

[quote=“sandman”]
How far did you travel while asleep?[/quote]I’m not sure. I was cruising at about 80mph when I blinked my eyes. When I opened them again I was on the hard shoulder, going 110mph, and about to go straight up and then presumably sail right off a grassy embankment about 30m high.
I was only going a few hundred miles that day, but it was on the heels of a three day weekend of epic proportions with a houseful of nymphomanic nurses. :smiley: :blush: :smiling_imp:

8

I had a friend that would drive home from work to her house in the country. She’d fall asleep so often behind the wheel…that she’d wear a motorcycle helmet in her Toyota.