Its 6:30 in the morning, the time when the morning mist is just about to clear and the sun is sleepily peeking out from the clouds, the air is cool and there is an ethereal golden glow lent by the sun’s ray’s shining through the clouds. My bike is standing there as if greeting me with a morning pleasantry, the light makes the body look as though the paint is still fresh, I have a small smile in my heart. I get on top of it and thumb the starter; the engine comes to life with a metallic whirr and then settles in to a baritone idle. The engine note blends in with the sounds of the morning along with the rustle of the trees and the chirp of the birds. I let it idle for just a few more seconds before I engage first and roll the bike out smoothly and amber about till I get onto the nearest tarmac (Since where I live most roads are still dirt tracks). Then I slowly start increasing my speed, the revs increase between my shifts, clutch gets dumped, shifting becomes quicker, braking becomes stronger. The bike now starts to demand that I put my full attention to it, I immediately and get into a position where the bike responds the best to my inputs. Heart beat rises, pupils dilate taking in as much information as it can, muscles tighten and the communication delay between my bike and me reduces to a minimum, my motor actions start to work involuntarily and react so quickly, that if I happen to see a obstacle the motor nerves almost instantly makes me drop a gear, start braking and maneuver around whatever is there in my path. The bike compensates wherever me as a rider lack and I compensate wherever the bike lacks, it’s a symbiotic relationship like every other where matters of the heart are involved. You are awarded when you trust the machine and when you do trust, it affirms your faith with the bike.

Hence I’ve actually learnt to, If can say this so myself, become a better rider just by listening to my bike better. And in my opinion in order for the rider to improve in his quality, his bike is very important.

And this brings us to the actual thing I was wanting to discuss on this thread here, all relationships both with man and machine are bound to sometimes draw thin with time, sometimes you are just bored by the monotony of it all, especially in my case.

As I narrated in the previous paragraph, I would actually at one point of time look forward to go college just so I could ride the bike a good 12km flying at 70-80kmph. But as time wore on with the pressures of the mundane lives catching up to you, I could no longer hop on my bike and just ride away from it all every weekend. Blame the rising expenses or society’s view on what I do, but whatever it was I simply couldn’t continue doing what I once thought would never be taken away from me. Generally I’m not someone who romanticized my bike, I’m maintaining it well but I didn’t look beyond the fact that for all it was just an inanimate object, because I thought it would be silly to get depressed whenever I crash my bike, in turn it was my ability to communicate with my bike that I nourished and loved my life with.
And this “communicative ability” in my case, is starting to wane out slowly. When I started to confine my riding from any extraneous activities, other than running errands for myself or for the family. But I still try to take it and turn it around, because we as riders seem to love the connection with our bikes, so no matter what I’m still loving my bike. Lately the bike fell under the weather what with the badly worn out tires, and everyone knows you can’t give it your full with tires that don’t grip, so when I changed my riding style to a slightly milder tone. I immediately found that albeit being comfortable, a small wall started creeping up between me and my bike, if you see any everyday commuter on his bike you can see that the rider is not actually “riding” it but just making it “take” him from here to there by effective use of the bike’s controls, it’s like how some of us work, we may not love our jobs but still be able to do it. And I slowly started falling into that vicious cycle, try as I might I just couldn’t find the urge or passion I used to have when I first started out on my then brand new bike. I was always finding ways to re-invent but am just falling short of the required standard.

Time can be cruel mistress, therefore when my bike happens to break down or needs a periodical part replaced I’m finding it hard to fight for my bike with the rest of my family, because when my bike creates expenses it means that I’ve not been maintaining properly and that irritates. And the new bikes on the street doesn’t make things easier either, so when I’m standing at red-lights and the guy next to me pulls up in a bike that is less expensive but with better features than mine.

And I know this phase will come to pass when the years roll on, but the remaining time with my bike depends on how I handle this particular obstacle between me and the bike. And I can be very temperamental when I no longer seem to have interest in the things I own, and if I get temperamental on my bike it’ll affect the rider in me. And to me the rider quality is what defines me as a person, people find it easier to associate me with my bike, and I like that. So I would like others like me here to put up their opinions on this matter and tell me how you overcame this phase when it occurred to you.