The Adventure of the Ride

© Flickr / certified su

Every motorcyclist gets asked why they ride. It comes with the territory. Hang glider pilots, who also hear that question a lot, have a name for the people asking: Whuffos. That’s as in “Whuffo (what for) you risk yo’ life flyin’ aroun’ in that thang?”

In the biker community that question often elicits a bit of smugness, a bit of pride, and the feeling that, “If you have to ask you wouldn’t understand.” The real question in our minds is “Why don’t you ride?” Because it’s so clear to us that riding is one of the best things in the world, and we can’t imagine not doing it.

Non-riders may not realize it but bikers tend to be a pretty philosophical bunch. After all, we’ve got all those hours just living in our own heads going down the highway. It gives you time to think. And one of the most common things to think about is how much you love riding. It’s a very “in the moment” sort of thing.

Well, inevitably, some of these deep thinkers put their thoughts down on paper, and these make the rounds. Here then are some responses to those who ask.

“Life is an adventure, and I refuse to live a boring one.”

Or, to put it a little differently, “I refuse to tiptoe through life only to arrive safely at death.”

Those are really stripped down versions of a basic attitude. They get more colorful.

“Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in one pretty and well preserved piece, but to skid across the line broadside, thoroughly used up, worn out, leaking oil, shouting HOLY CRAP!”

“We, the few, the proud, the motorcyclists of the world, refuse to sit down in comfort, insulated from the environment. We run the gauntlet of life with a front row seat. And we wouldn't want it any other way.”

Sometimes the thinking gets a bit spiritual, because riding a motorcycle truly feeds the soul. And if you doubt that then you really don’t get it.

“I'd rather be riding my motorcycle thinking about God than sitting in church thinking about my motorcycle.”

“Four wheels move the body. Two wheels move the soul.”

“You never see a motorcycle parked in front of a psychiatrist's office.”

“Sometimes it takes a whole tank of gas to leave your troubles behind.”

The view of life as an adventure is a recurring theme.

“Sometimes you end up going down the wrong road. That's an adventure.”

“If you're lost, you're most likely off the beaten path and that's the best path to be on.”

“An inconvenience is an adventure wrongly considered.”

And then there’s a quote from Anthony Hopkins, in the movie The World’s Fastest Indian, about a motorcycle fanatic who brought his largely homemade Indian motorcycle to run on the Bonneville Salt Flats: “You live more in a few seconds at 150 miles per hour than most people do in a lifetime.”

I’ll leave you with the quote that, in my mind and the minds of many others, sums it up pretty nicely.

“There are two types of people in this world, people who ride motorcycles and people who wish they could ride motorcycles.”

Which one are you?