Meditations in Motion
May. 30th, 2010 12:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
pecuniumI've got two motorcycles now. In fact I've had two for about 6 weeks. While Marna was here we spotted one which looked really good for the road trip. An older BMW K100RS, low miles (43,000), in good shape (some parking lot drops, nothing to write home about). The motor sounded good, the previous owner sounded good, and the price was right (tax, title, transfer, and she cost about blue-book. She also had a $600 aftermarket seat, and about $600 worth of side-cases/luggage rack).
So I bought it. Then the Seca decided to need a clutch. So I've been riding it. I've put about 1,500 miles on it, in rain, wind and winding roads. I've had a couple of tip-overs, but despite being about 600 lbs, she's easy to handle.
Leah and I were talking about adrenaline, and I realised I don't really get adrenal on the bikes. I've had some spikes of adrenaline; and some white-knuckle moments (almost all related to wind on bridges), but once the moment is past, the adrenaline wears off. It's much less than the same sorts of event in a car.
Riding a motorcycle is a lot different from driving a car. There is a certain mindclearing ritual to getting ready. There is, for me at least, a ritual to starting to drive too. I get in, fasten my seatbelt, put on my driving gloves, check the mirrors, start the engine, look around me and go.
At which point there things like the radio, conversations with the passenger, the AC/heater, etc. Operating the vehicle is not quite autopilot. I aim the car, change gears, check the instruments, etc,. largely by habit. I've got a few hundred thousand miles of doing it. I've, long ago, crossed the 10,000 hours threshold.
To get going on the bike is different. I have armor to don (pants, jacket, helmet and gloves). All of which is specially designed to protect me. The pants have padding, and are abrasion resistant. The jacket has padding, and armored inserts, as well as being abrasion resistant. Both are proof against the wind, and they are both resistant to water. The jacket has gores which have zippers, to allow wind through, without exposing me to the road should I go down.
The gloves are much the same (and I have three sets, one for everyday, one for cold, and one for rain). I wear boots.
The helmet a padded rock I strap to my skull. It's close-fitting, has a windshield, and various vents. It straps to my chin, so that, should I go down, it won't come off.
Then I have to mount the bike, flip the switches, check the gauges balance it, raise the kickstand and start it.
Operating it is the same, and different to cars. I have to use all four limbs (just in a manual transmission auto), but once I'm moving all of the familiar changes because I also have to balance myself, and use my body weight. Most of the time I steer by pushing the bike to the direction I want to go. To make a curve to the left, I push out on the left handlebad/pull in on the right. If I am going slowly I do the opposite, and pull the wheel to the direction I want to go. I also have to, when I'm doing that, lean against the direction of the turn.
I am more stable at faster speeds, and most of the time I don't think about it. As with a bicycle I just sort of think, "I want to go left," and I do.
And the road is more visible. I can tell you where the mildly rough strips are on Bayshore, near Embarcadero, and where the huge pothole is on Oregon Expressway. These are both features one would never notice in a car. On a bike the first makes me think about gravel, and the second is something to be completely avoided. It will swallow the front tire of a bike and dump the rider.
Cars a psychologically closer, even when they are further away. Drivers don't see me, or fail to realise how close/fast I am (and on surface streets, I travel right about the speed limit). I get cut off more, or squeezed, or generally not noticed.
There is no radio. There is the wind, and the sound of the bike, and the sound of the road, and the sound of cars. I also have my thoughts. I think about the road. I try to see as far into the turn as I can; staring for the stopped car in my path, or the rock, or the water slick. I "spook" a bit like a horse (a strange shadow might be water, or oil, or a hole in the road). I think.
I do a lot of thinking. It's not like my sermonizing in the shower. The thoughts don't really move below the surface. I am too busy being in the now (what am I doing, this moment with the bike, where are my RPMs, how does she sound, do I have enough lean for the turn, am I too fast, not fast enough, how much time until the light changes, what is that truck going to do, is someone approaching from that side street, how about the guy in that parked car, etc.), and the not-quite now (is there someone on the other side of the hill, where is my turn; shall I go left, or make three rights, after this turn what is the next one, what is the transition from 17 to 280 like, how is the traffic on 280, etc.).
So I have this running dialogue with myself about, actually, I don't really know what, it's a sort of mushin where my mind is free to go where it will. I am tolerably sure that, as I get closer to the 10,000 hour mark I will have more thoroughly burned the leans, and the speeds, and the situational awareness one needs, and so have more mind to spend on deeper thoughts, but I don't know. I can see the trees, and the horses, and feel the wind, and the heat from the road, and the pressure of the wind off the coast, and that takes thought too.
So, I kind of hope I manage to maintain this sort of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Management.
So I bought it. Then the Seca decided to need a clutch. So I've been riding it. I've put about 1,500 miles on it, in rain, wind and winding roads. I've had a couple of tip-overs, but despite being about 600 lbs, she's easy to handle.
Leah and I were talking about adrenaline, and I realised I don't really get adrenal on the bikes. I've had some spikes of adrenaline; and some white-knuckle moments (almost all related to wind on bridges), but once the moment is past, the adrenaline wears off. It's much less than the same sorts of event in a car.
Riding a motorcycle is a lot different from driving a car. There is a certain mindclearing ritual to getting ready. There is, for me at least, a ritual to starting to drive too. I get in, fasten my seatbelt, put on my driving gloves, check the mirrors, start the engine, look around me and go.
At which point there things like the radio, conversations with the passenger, the AC/heater, etc. Operating the vehicle is not quite autopilot. I aim the car, change gears, check the instruments, etc,. largely by habit. I've got a few hundred thousand miles of doing it. I've, long ago, crossed the 10,000 hours threshold.
To get going on the bike is different. I have armor to don (pants, jacket, helmet and gloves). All of which is specially designed to protect me. The pants have padding, and are abrasion resistant. The jacket has padding, and armored inserts, as well as being abrasion resistant. Both are proof against the wind, and they are both resistant to water. The jacket has gores which have zippers, to allow wind through, without exposing me to the road should I go down.
The gloves are much the same (and I have three sets, one for everyday, one for cold, and one for rain). I wear boots.
The helmet a padded rock I strap to my skull. It's close-fitting, has a windshield, and various vents. It straps to my chin, so that, should I go down, it won't come off.
Then I have to mount the bike, flip the switches, check the gauges balance it, raise the kickstand and start it.
Operating it is the same, and different to cars. I have to use all four limbs (just in a manual transmission auto), but once I'm moving all of the familiar changes because I also have to balance myself, and use my body weight. Most of the time I steer by pushing the bike to the direction I want to go. To make a curve to the left, I push out on the left handlebad/pull in on the right. If I am going slowly I do the opposite, and pull the wheel to the direction I want to go. I also have to, when I'm doing that, lean against the direction of the turn.
I am more stable at faster speeds, and most of the time I don't think about it. As with a bicycle I just sort of think, "I want to go left," and I do.
And the road is more visible. I can tell you where the mildly rough strips are on Bayshore, near Embarcadero, and where the huge pothole is on Oregon Expressway. These are both features one would never notice in a car. On a bike the first makes me think about gravel, and the second is something to be completely avoided. It will swallow the front tire of a bike and dump the rider.
Cars a psychologically closer, even when they are further away. Drivers don't see me, or fail to realise how close/fast I am (and on surface streets, I travel right about the speed limit). I get cut off more, or squeezed, or generally not noticed.
There is no radio. There is the wind, and the sound of the bike, and the sound of the road, and the sound of cars. I also have my thoughts. I think about the road. I try to see as far into the turn as I can; staring for the stopped car in my path, or the rock, or the water slick. I "spook" a bit like a horse (a strange shadow might be water, or oil, or a hole in the road). I think.
I do a lot of thinking. It's not like my sermonizing in the shower. The thoughts don't really move below the surface. I am too busy being in the now (what am I doing, this moment with the bike, where are my RPMs, how does she sound, do I have enough lean for the turn, am I too fast, not fast enough, how much time until the light changes, what is that truck going to do, is someone approaching from that side street, how about the guy in that parked car, etc.), and the not-quite now (is there someone on the other side of the hill, where is my turn; shall I go left, or make three rights, after this turn what is the next one, what is the transition from 17 to 280 like, how is the traffic on 280, etc.).
So I have this running dialogue with myself about, actually, I don't really know what, it's a sort of mushin where my mind is free to go where it will. I am tolerably sure that, as I get closer to the 10,000 hour mark I will have more thoroughly burned the leans, and the speeds, and the situational awareness one needs, and so have more mind to spend on deeper thoughts, but I don't know. I can see the trees, and the horses, and feel the wind, and the heat from the road, and the pressure of the wind off the coast, and that takes thought too.
So, I kind of hope I manage to maintain this sort of Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Management.
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no subject
Date: 2010-05-30 05:55 pm (UTC)As a teenager, I wanted a motorcycle (or -bike or -scooter), and I used to dream about making a long trip. Mostly this faded but enough stuck that I was actually able to hold a conversation about various brands back in the day.
The one time I was actually on a motorcycle, however, my God, the ground moves fast, doesn't it.
Vicarious Zen is about my speed.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 07:33 pm (UTC)Seriously, I don't really notice the speed of the ground, nor so much that of the things moving past. I sense, in a way, the mass of the things. Cars, and trucks, are "larger" when I'm on a bike than they are when I am walking, or in a car.
I am sort of croggled that I am looking at being on a huge road trip, in about a month.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-30 12:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-05-30 05:24 pm (UTC)I'm aware that I will never be a motorcycle person -- I'm sufficiently risk-averse that the stakes of catastrophic failure don't appeal to me -- but with a good manual automobile I can zone out and get out of my own head. I think everybody needs that sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 07:36 am (UTC)Chapter 7
Riding at night.
Don't ride at night.
I am not sure how to measure the way I handle risk now; it's different than it was seven years ago. I know that I am aware of the risks on a bike (and they are different risks to those on a bicycle), but they don't give me the willies.
I can get the willies when driving a car.
I also know about getting into the zone when driving. I really like getting snugged in, and taking a car out to hang on the edge. It's exhilarating; but the sensations are different. I don't want to take my bike to the edge of the envelope. It helps that the envelope is larger, but the amount of work is so much different.
In some ways a motorcycle is more like a horse.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 05:22 am (UTC)Interesting piece. I enjoyed it.
no subject
Date: 2010-05-31 07:39 am (UTC)I do get a bit more respect on the BMW than I ever did on a bicycle. This is not really enough.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 01:34 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 02:52 am (UTC)It may also be I am far more familiar with fear than I used to be.
Are you in/about Memphis? I'll be passing through in late June/very beginning of July (it's one of the layovers on my Road Trip)
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 04:43 pm (UTC)Beautiful. Take care of it, you will? It will take care of you.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-01 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-03 02:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-04 09:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-04 09:46 pm (UTC)In essence I preach a sermon to the walls. Apparently I don't feel at all self-conscious about it, because Les asked me; as I was prepping for something I was going to be doing a paper on, if I was talking to her (I think it was my Ethics paper on capital punishment).