Re: 'No Contest' Motorcycling

What a write, sir!! Can't expect less thant this actually. The sense of competetion is just everywhere. "Push the egg off the nest if you have hatched before" is what it matters most nowadays, unfortunately. But very rightly said that while riding it should be taken more of an Art & not Science. The Hill ride should be more of Japanese Calligraphy rather than a sword fight.

Re: 'No Contest' Motorcycling

Thanks Dipankar. And I quote from your comment above "The Hill ride should be more of Japanese Calligraphy rather than a sword fight." - Beautiful words these. I couldn't have put it any better.

Re: 'No Contest' Motorcycling

nice post there.... any specific incident that triggered those emotions, that came out in the form of words...

Re: 'No Contest' Motorcycling

Helmets off to your effort and specially to the quoted part. These preaching are really helpful for a new guy like me to align my soul to the purpose while I am still learning the art.

Sir, after reading the post, I feel if there is any possibility of running a program by xBhp under the shadow of Delhi Traffic Police ? This may really bring great education (if not the art) towards safety to many. When I was in Pune during my engineering, I had attended a few sessions in the college premises by the Pune Traffic Police. May be, if things turn out to be on a straight path, we may altogether push it with an effort.

Thank you again for en lighting us with the update.

Re: 'No Contest' Motorcycling

Riding in itself has the charm of commitment and responsibility. A person who is responsible and committed while riding enjoys the pleasure and joy of riding. It is a whole new world where you and the bike merge together and become one. The person riding will know all the weakness and the strong points of his bike and I strongly think vice-versa. When this merger happens which is for sure. The person cannot be irresponsible. He will definitely take care of his surroundings (fellow riders). The problem lies in the merger. Many even myself took so much time to find that merger. Only time and awareness by fellow riders including forums like our own XBhp will help in creating this merger. Thereby learning to ride and not compete with each other

Cheers

Mathews

Re: 'No Contest' Motorcycling

Hey, what brought this on, old chap? Just a realization of the futility of it all? No, you are too OWS (Older, Wiser, Sadder) for that. I think it is more of a call for the resetting of the moral compass, for the young and impressionable on this forum, of what riding a motorcycle is actually all about. Figures are fatally fallible - BHP, Nm, time to speed, time to stop et al, mechanisms of sellers to seduce buyers. And many of us equate the numbers with the riding. Sad but true. The numbers game reigns supreme - politics, academics, biking...

The pure essence of slinging a leg over a bike, cranking her to life, and riding away without getting temporal about power and speed and time to ABC seems to be really lost, Old Fox. Back in '84, I was in Std IX. I had a deal with my dad - if he sent me to the Officer's Mess for some daroo after 2000h, I would have to be given the scooter - Bajaj Super (booked in '76; you will understand completely, I cannot think of how to make the post 91ers understand...). So, when some ferry pilots were in station, they used to come over to our place for shop talk and I was given the info by my buddies and was lost till precisely 2015h. My dad, real sport, used to give me a knowing look and the keys of the scooter and then it was me and the road.

The feel of the machine beneath me, living, breathing, was such a high as no white stuff will ever give. I used to treasure those brief minutes of moving on a two wheeler without working my pants off hammering the pedals. The sound of the machine, the power in it, the feeling of liberation, the wind in my face, the "Oh f*****g s**t" moments. That, truly for me, for biking. Getting my a**e whupped for taking the scooter on my own (a man/boy has to have his women/girl(s), you see...) was all part of the package deal. Life itself was like that, OF, unencumbered by layers of paint and electronics and LCDs... you know it as well as I do.

And that is why, I lament the non-arrival of the Bonneville and the V Strom 650 and others of the ilk. Honest, truthful, simple motorcycles which take you places and make you smile in that knowing way whilst they are thrumming away - "I know you love me for being different from the others. Do you know that I too love you the same way?" No boasts of any type other than the ultimate - make the rider have that typical lopsided grin on her/his face which says "this is it. This is riding a motorcycle and NOT riding a bike."

A re-calibration of motorcycle riding is needed. Prescient of you to fire the first salvo.

Regards.

Re: 'No Contest' Motorcycling

I always called myself as a lazy rider. Because I just do not like the stress of riding at high speeds which also costs me some great inexplicable interaction with nature around.

I remember a trip to western ghats with few friends. To me slowly (Not extremely slow, you can say responsibly slow) climbing up and down the ghats, on those narrow and treacherous lanes, mainly to enjoy the beauty around, and of course with safety in mind, was the priority and motive of the ride. But, to my pals, how fast they rode and how soon they reached the destination, how quickly they conquered the corners, mattered more. Once at the destination, when I was discussing about a small water stream on the way or a beautiful view point, their only response was 'where was it?' or the fake 'Yes! I saw it too! what is so special'. Since then I have been riding alone most of the time.

Thanks for your simple master piece of a write up. I stand corrected now. I have never been a lazy rider. I have always been a motorcyclist.

Re: 'No Contest' Motorcycling

Thanks xpranav. Glad to have been able to get across what I felt. As for the possibility of running a safety awareness drive in association with the Delhi traffic police, we have something of the sort on the cards and hope to get it rolling in the near future.

The merging, the oneness, the flow....it all deals with a certain honesty of purpose and feeling for riding. Competing outside a competition is actually dishonest. It doesn't need to be. Good words those from you above. Thanks.

To be honest, it is an 'attempt' as resetting the moral compass. The present attitude towards making motorcycling too an extension of that world of only 'winners and losers' is upsetting. It sullies riding. To the truly passionate just riding is a complete act in itself. What the other measures say is immaterial if those scales inside are settled.

Your reminiscence flips open similar memories in me too. Yes, life was simpler and closer to 'life', the synthetic embellishments that cover it now being absent. I remember putting down similar feeling in an earlier write-up titled Choices. And a fervent appeal to ridding motorcycling of that unjustified stigma of being a life-stealer in Custodians of Life.

Hope never dies, at least in die-hard optimists like us that motorcycling makes us out to be. Why? Because riding can only be done on the hope that we'll live through it .

Few can express the way you have done it above [MENTION=33779]icemang[/MENTION]. Put in your share of that 'honest exhorting' in Hard Torque here. It does matter.

You made my effort truly worth its while. And the way you have 'realised' within is the greatest compliment I could ever get for what I have written. Thanks a ton [MENTION=49942]experimentalhead[/MENTION] for re-defining a 'motorcyclist' in tandem with my definition of it.

Re: 'No Contest' Motorcycling

Really sir?! Good to know this because we started something of that sort with half success as far as I know but glad to hear about it.

Re: 'No Contest' Motorcycling

Yes Dipankar, this is the same thing that you were instrumental in initiating. Things take time in building up with the authorities here. A full fledged safety ride and campaign is association with the Delhi Traffic Police is still a priority and an 'on the list' job.

Re: 'No Contest' Motorcycling

I am not plugging the Bonneville or any of that nonsense. Just that, this chap has touched upon some issues which are the base of why the OF wrote this thread.

For persons not in their Fifties and not in a midlife crisis, you will be there before you can find your way to the loo. Believe me when I say this - it happened to me too!

Re: 'No Contest' Motorcycling

Me and my feelings apart, I do fervently wish the youngsters learn that it is OKAY to slow down a bit, at least in and for certain 'bits' of their lives. All right, they want a posh flat, a swanky car and holidays abroad while they are still 'young'. But what the heck - where is the need to stay primed with guns cocked any where, everywhere, any time and all the time. Life happens just once - living it and experiencing it are two different things.

Aw! all right - I guess now I am getting into the dreaded 'old man rant' mode

But all said and done - the Bonnie IS a good one and I am looking forward to Triumph coming in here.

Re: 'No Contest' Motorcycling

Venerable Old Fox Sir, astonishingly impeccable penmanship as always. You hit the proverbial nail smack on the head, we all need to "slow down" and enjoy the nuances of life which are unique to each one of us and extraordinarily beautiful in their own. What is the use of that posh flat, swanky car and all if one has no one to share them with. The mechanization of the youth of this country is proceeding at an alarmingly rapid rate and woefully there are no checks in place to prevent us from becoming automatons to be toyed with. This "competizione" spirit that is being engraved into the psyche of a few kids of today is going to have a derogatory effect on the denizens of our country.

Maybe people need to be shocked out of their self centric worlds and into reality, and i believe motorcycling will do just that. People are quick to jump to conclusions and critique on every tourer and biker they see around them. If one lone biker has the ability to make even one person think "why the hell are people going through all the trouble to ride a motorcycle in the sweltering heat and brave the roads in pitch black nights and come such a long way from their home" their conscience will provide the answer:

We ride not for the fun or relaxation of the ride,
We ride because this country is fracturing along unseen political and financial fault lines,
We ride because we all have stopped "being human" and motorcycles among other things provide a means of connecting people
We ride because in this age of the internet we are closer to a person miles away from us than with our next door neighbours
We ride because we have the will and the determination to get this putrid society rid of fractures and bias
We ride with the hope that one day along the way we will start seeing people "being human"
We ride because we know the destination is never going to be as beautiful as the ride
We ride because we care...

Well that is what I have always believed growing up watching Street Hawk. Maybe i am an old soul for thinking this way...just my humble opinion sirs...