Motorcyclists are iconoclasts. We willingly welcome risk in a risk-averse world. We forsake comfort for visceral experience. But I think we’ve drifted from what motorcycling can teach us. An oblivious, entitled, unobserving motorcyclist isn’t long for this world. And yet isn’t that—as a group—what we’ve become? We blame everything from the Deep State to Chinese operatives to uncomfortable OEM seats for our displeasure. Where is the outsider’s perspective? How did we become so banal? So easily led. So utterly predictable?
When I read this, I thought of the rider aids that every new motorcycle has. Why are they there? I think it is for marketing purposes...and to protect us from our own stupidity.
We have chased "specs" in our pursuit of new motorcycles. Partially because that helps the marketing department entice us to buy a new motorcycle. Partially, so we can justify to our friends (and wife) why we spent as much on a new motorcycle as a car, and why our old motorcycle just won't do anymore.
Pre-lockdowns, I rode with a group of Canadians. Most had Kawasaki C14s. One had a BMW K1600 and another an ST1300. Most of those bikes put out about twice the hp as my BMW F800GT did. You would think they left me behind. It didn't happen. There's a limit to how fast you can ride on a twisty curvy road that is limited by your tire's contact patch and your skill level, more than the engine hp. Later that summer, I met up with some Ducati Multistrada riders. Again, I found there's a limit to how fast you can go, no matter how fast your bike is. Even in the straights, you reach a point where you don't want to lose your license and have your bike towed away. Sanity prevails...or you won't be doing it for long.
My latest bike has all the bells & whistles. For instance, cornering ABS and cornering Traction Control. I think the first traction control was introduced because motorcycles had become so powerful that mere mortals (i.e. not professional riders) could easily wreck their bike before leaving the dealership parking lot. It also gave the Marketing department a way to give the buyer a little one-upmanship. "Oh, your new bike only puts out 150 hp. Well, my new bike puts out 160 hp." With the idea that mine is superior.
And the "cornering" ABS and TC is there for when I really get stupid and try to race through those twisty curvy roads. I'm depending on the bike getting me out of the trouble I put myself in...not my own skills. I don't need those skills...I can depend on the bike to cover for me. I want my motorcycle to take away the risk for me.
Being a little nostalgic, in a lot of ways, I miss my F800GT. Yes, it had TC and ABS, but only the most rudimentary versions. I still had to be so totally aware of what it was doing that it became an extension of me. I was riding a motorcycle...not a two-wheeled car.
Here’s what I’m doing about my role in the malaise. In the past year, I’ve reconnected with many old motorcycling friends I’d drifted from. To a person, I was welcomed back in as if I’d never been away. It was as if each one had been expecting my call. And this, truly, is motorcycling. It’s not the bikes we ride and it’s certainly not the fears we have that someone or something is going to come along a take it away from us.
This is one of the blessings of being part of a group like this. Motorcycling is by nature a solitary activity. Unless you have comms set up, you can be riding the same road with others, but you are riding alone...just going on the same road at the same time. And yet...when you stop, there's this feeling of comradery built upon a shared experience. I can go to National or WeSTOC for instance and not know the others there at first. But we all had a love for riding that meant we were willing to ride across several states to gather together. And within minutes, we're forming new friendships and new relationships that will last till the next time we meet together.