The Long Road
The road is a text, a dense book waiting to be discovered, examined, and evaluated. Riding opens the door to a learning process that promises a rich reward of experience and insight.
At least that’s how I see it.
I know riders who experience none of these things. Their motorcycle or scooter may be a means to invoke an adrenaline rush. Or perhaps an excuse to socialize. Or posture and strut. While I’ve felt the thrill of adrenaline, interacted with others, and have proudly displayed my hi-viz jacket, none of those actions are what motivates me to ride.
The road is a landscape for learning.
Early Morning on the Road
Dawn is my favorite time to ride. At least in fair weather. My ability to experience the world is sharpest in the early hours. Senses are sharp and my head absorbs information freely. It forms the richest experience. Even on the dull, overcast days of late summer.
Looking at a map the previous evening didn’t help determine where to ride. Like so many mornings, I just head down the road and let my gut determine a direction. The BMW K75 is faster and more powerful than the Vespa. Routes that might give me pause because of traffic pose no concern on the motorcycle. And just like that I’m parked along a four-lane highway admiring the faint glow of sunrise through the gloom.
I feel alive.
Dead Ends
For a short time I consider taking the BMW through the mountains on gravel roads. I’ve done it before but gravel and the K75 is work. And on this morning I preferred to keep my mind occupied but something other than a line through piles of gravel on winding forest roads.
Before the state planted concrete barriers you could drive down the old road to the edge of a reservoir. It was a beautiful place surrounded by water and mountains. And despite the four-lanes of traffic roaring by it seemed a wilderness. The last time I parked next to the water was in my 1970 VW Bug.
That was a long time ago.
Alternate Universe
I stopped for breakfast at Sheetz. The doors were covered with posters requiring masks to enter. Aside from the employees, I was the only one who seemed to be able to read. I’ve spoken to people who refuse to wear masks during the pandemic. Their reason is that wearing a mask won’t stop them from getting COVID-19. I agreed. And then said, “You know, I wear a mask so I don’t infect you. It’s for your protection, not mine.”
The perplexed look and shrug told me what I needed to know.
No Where Special
Racing up the mountain. Racing is a word I seldom use and I suspect it has no real relevance here other than I felt a giddy excitement from the fluid flight on an asphalt ribbon in the Appalachian Mountains.
Sometimes that excitement justifies exaggeration.
View From the Top
The summit of Jacks Mountain is a spiritual place. The sweeping view makes the world seem insignificant in the face of nature. Quite an accomplishment in the hubris of the Eastern United States.
At some point, a religious organization must have sensed the same thing I have and erected a Christian sign acknowledging the presence of God in this place. Or at least that’s what I think must have happened.
Fifty feet away on the center of the road is another symbol saying something entirely different. I know not what.
In the rocks are markers of sentiment and loss, indicators that memories will linger and loved ones, human and animal, meant something. And then just a few feet away is something entirely different.
For a moment the world seems a broken, desperate place.
Erasure and Relief
Riding can wipe away the worst stains. Whatever I’m thinking or feeling evaporates as the motorcycle moves along the road. It’s perhaps the best medicine I have. Riding down the road, converting the motion, the visuals, the sounds and the scents into something new. Otherworldly. Different from whatever reality I emerged from that morning.
It’s good to ride.
Buzzing
Transmission towers have always fascinated me. As I kid I used to climb one in the neighborhood, one of the many activities unknown to my parents. I no longer climb but the fascination remains. I think it’s the size of these electrical pylons that enthrall me. That or the sound of electricity buzzing overhead. I bewildered by how something so ubiquitous can be so mysterious.
Riding is a lesson. A lesson in learning to appreciate the world around me with whatever warts and faults it has. And for a few moments, it opens me to a childish curiosity that life has endeavored to kill.
It’s good to be on the road.
Sitting alone in my motel
Looking in the mirror, wondering, “well
After all this time
You never thought you’d still be out on the road”
Like a gypsy I was born to roam
Like a wanderer with no fixed abode
I think about the friends I’ve left behind on the road
Well, the road gets rocky along the way
It’s been a long, hard haul on the motorway
But when it gets too smooth, it’s time to call it a day
– The Kinks, The Road
I’ve thought about this song since it came out over twenty years ago, when all my primary two-wheelers were pedal-powered. But the emotion brought forward in this song still resonates. Moving myself along, though places familiar and less-so, always clears and refocuses my mind. It’s been an odd form of therapy since my preteen years, although I hadn’t realized it until sometime in my mid-twenties. Having a camera at my side at the same time has offered visual evidence to galvanize my convictions.
And…reading your words and looking at your photographs further reinforces this: a method of taking in the world, by a means perhaps more visceral than Thoreau could possibly have imagined, but undeniably affecting in the most-positive sense. You can increase or decrease the intensity almost at-will, but the multi-sensory experience is something no VR headset could come close to replicating, and whose aftereffects linger wonderfully. THanks again for this vital reminder.
And there’s gas in my tank, and I still have a way to go.
Nicely said!
Songs, stories, and memories, all inform our understanding and experience of the world around us. The road as we witness as we ride is just one special example. Taking in the world… Something I feel grateful to be able to do.
They say all great country songs are 3 chords and the truth….l say all great rides are 2 wheels and twist the throttle…. Thanks again Steve for getting in our heads and hearts …Man your BMW just howls hop on and head out to me..Great photos as always …Keep taking the medicine ,scooter or cycle the dosage is the same my friend…Thanks a million!!!
Thanks for your kind words Don. I’m thrilled each time I roll the BMW or the Vespa out of the garage. Riding remains a simple, powerful pleasure.
I was thrilled to see your email this morning. I was so in need of a calming story about riding since I am off the scooter at the moment and I have had to live vicariously through you and others, mainly Bill. But Bill’s story send chills down my spine as I see him out with large groups of riders, as many as 19, and their covid protocols are much different than mine,
So, I knew you would bring me joy and peace to my riding soul. That is, until you threw in the mask bit. Yes, they are idiots and my desire, forgive me Buddha, that they get the virus, take it home to their mothers, and have to watch her suffer great pain for rising such and idiot of a son. See what it does to me!!
It was a great story but I could never get the mask part out of my mind. So, I will do some meditating, spinning biking for my knee, a nice walk in finally cool weather and try to clear my mind, to await your next riding story. Please make it quick.
ps: My best calming memories are rides at daybreak. Especially those out west when I would leave right before twilight and head across the desert or arid lands. Absolutely spiritual and just typing about them are bringing back from the mask debacle.
Ken, I have to say I understand how you feel. And I’m glad I could provide a little calm in your world. I’m still riding and making photographs but sadly my own state of mind has seemed to have frozen my ability to create a cogent story. But I’ve not given up. Sorry it’s taking so long!
Stay well and keep up the fight. The sun will shine again.
Photographing is a lesson. A lesson in learning to appreciate the world around me with whatever warts and faults it has. And for a few moments, it opens me to a childish curiosity that life has endeavored to kill.
It’s good to be on the road.
I agree with everything you’ve shared in your comments Frank. It’s work to find that childish curiosity but worth the effort.
Here’s my takeaway from this tome. It’s tone was much happier and upbeat than the ones written after a scooter ride. There are even a couple of typos. Since you spend time watching the tach, listening to the engine when it asks for a gearshift and analyzing what you need to do for the next curve to perform it cleanly your mind stays more active. On a scooter you just twist the throttle and let it do the rest. Dopamines flood the brain and adrenaline pumps you up on a bike. It’s one of motorcycles rewards to its owner.
It’s okay Steve. I experience the same things when I jump from the scooter onto a shifty bike. A completely different state of mind each time.
Entirely a coincidence Jim in terms of upbeat and happy. The only difference I find between the scooter and motorcycle is how much more I stop to make photos on the scooter. There is little difference for me in the operation of either machine. Granted there are more things to do on the motorcycle but there’s a lot of muscle memory in play.
All that said, the experiences are different. But they are the same. Weird huh?
The paved road and where it may lead has always amazed me. At a very young age I thought, “If the pavement were a conductor you could be in New York, touch two wires to it and talk to someone in LA! Or
send an electric current all that way!” Point being that it connects all that way without a break, and there’s many different directions you can take! Amazing. Somewhere I have a collection of articles and bits of wisdom concerning roads, meaning to write a piece about same. Don’t know if I can find it anymore.
Roads are magic. I still get excited when I’m on the road.
That was a long ride. There are many scenes. I like the county’s ‘suggestion’ of a dead end, two 15 ton boulders in the road. Also the pussy rock is funny. I can’t figure out who did that why they selected that word and how it fits into the vernacular of the current political flow or perhaps it is part of the new social paradigm.
Paul “Pussy Questions” Ruby
It’s a wonderful world Paul. And full of a wide range of different people. Some make me smile while others make me mad. I’m happy to experience them.
There are two things I love about riding.
I love the feel of it, the experience of outperforming urban traffic and congestion, the experience of changing lanes, the angle of the bike and the feeling of acceleration and centrifugal forces at play.
I also love how the bike encourages me to explore, to go to places I otherwise might not get to, the way I can always find parking within steps of any destination, to roll into spaces I wouldn’t even consider in a car knowing that getting back out will never be an issue.
In both cases my mind is singularly focused on the experience, assessing threats and opportunities, revelling in the ride.
It’s an experience that is very different from the one you describe because the environments have so little in common. One dominated by nature, the other by humans. One where silence and stillness take over the instant you hit the kill switch, and the other that is never quiet and always in motion.
What they have in common is the therapeutic benefit.
It is a blessing to have ridden with you. When I read your posts it’s almost like dropping by to say hello.
I agree David that there’s a compelling physical experience while riding for all the reasons you outline. And also how the bike seems to open me up to exploration. Kind of amazing.
Therapeutic benefits — absolutely. As the old saying goes, you never see a motorcycle parked outside a psychiatrist’s office.
I’ve enjoyed the time we’ve spent together on the road David. I hope we can do it again someday.