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Riding Colorado |
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A horse is willful, while elements have will. There is a difference. Of course, the wind and waves are occasionally willful, but the intimacy is different. I submit that the nature of participation is different. It's rare that you would push a horse to the edge of what is possible, to the edge of life, and generally this means both of yours. However, with equipment in relation to the elements, this is what you are always doing, as a rider. Unless you're laying back, just skimming, also a pleasant experience. Actually, is just riding ever going to be relaxing, if you don't know about the higher level of edge? softer hips On a bike, relaxation comes in two flavors: relaxing due to backing down, or relaxing because if you're not in that zone, you're either foolish or about to die. The zone is the edge, where one reality melts away and another takes its place. It's the point of rolling contact and the nature of grit on the road, its depth, granularity, consistency. It's the next curve, and the several after that, the perfect line (including the ability to micro-correct) that allows for the flick within the fulcrum of the straight as you switch to the reverse curve—inside the meta-curve of time. For instance – A bike is multiple. On the highway, away from traffic, you have road surface and speed. It's one creature at 2, another at 30, quite another at 90, and a bloodthirsty vampire at 120 and above. On a long haul you always meet up with weather. You can never really know your bike, though you can know the heart of it, the soul of it. A horse may know you within instants or minutes, a bike takes much longer. It will participate in you, but you have to go a long way in its direction first. A bike reveals itself over a year or two of time. We're talking here about a bike that is worthy. A bike with character. Few are, and of those, only some are affordable. Also, you have to know what is yours. I would never be happy with a Harley, except in short spurts. For me a Harley is just a rush. Great for a day, a weekend maybe. Living with a motorcycle gang, saw my share of Harley stunts: creating an island Though I cannot entirely reject twins of any stripe. I believe in twins. The power of a twin and its nomenclature grab me. So this makes me a BMW man (but not the K-bikes), a Ducati man, a Moto-Guzzi man, and lately, inspiring twins from Japan. I am also a cafe racer. I am loath to drive pure sport bikes, because there's not enough road for them—they deserve more than I can allow. They desire track. Myself, sure, I've had the wanderlust just to ride. But just riding, you get involved with fatigue, the weather, the possibility of making a mistake because you aren't right after 18 hours (or 4, whatever) of bone vibration over 80 mph. One asks whether one is a fool. If you're smart you find a place to regroup before the flashing red light is accompanied by the needle resting on the lower pin of the gas gauge. This has to do with how far out you go. With drugs or bikes or anything else. How far out you go. in you the glass Media folks will talk about risk and risk takers and adrenalin. Doesn't this kind of language seem a bit impoverished? This idea of gambling, of odds, is a paradigm that masks worlds of human experience. Risk is a word we use to handle our anxiety at the sudden visibility of death—though death is everywhere shot through. It's in the glass you hold to your lips. At your front step. In the weather, in space. It's in your body, and the way you might fall. It's even in your emotion, whether you love or withdraw. You can walk into the desert, quite far. If you go far enough you leave one reality and enter another, and another, and it goes on like that. Maybe, lose it several times and find more than you knew before. The point of going, the pain of feeling you must journey seems related to reward, one of the deeper mysteries of being. Who knows what it's like to go as far as you can, quite as far as is necessary, to meet the possibility of life that is beyond yourself? If we are the lovers, what or who enables our love? lines blur When do the clouds become psyche? When does the sky become heart? When does the wind become breath, and the breath become blood, the blood become wind? Love may be an infinite variety of things, but to know love, the ground of love, I must return to the land. To step down. You know, to be cool, on a heavy bike, getting off that dead weight, balancing the bike with one hand, as your right foot lifts up, puts pressure on the horizontal bar of the kickstand, swings it in an arc with a vector of decreasing acceleration. Did I come out of the living room, having just watched three hours of tv? No, off the peak-to-peak, up the canyon, twilight, then dark, the piercing eyes of advancing headlights, the sandtraps, roughest tarmac—sudden freeze of devil nightwind under the collar then down. Whole right leg vibrating a little, it's not a time to drop the bike. Not after that, but the bike isn't a piece of china, neither am I. We're all somewhere in between, bearing the life of an art that brings us beyond known bounds. by owner to sell: The bike is always waiting for tomorrow. A threshold is crossed and for a moment the universe spins again. There is no message. Satisfaction is too cheap a word; 'not-desiring' is closer. It's a whole lot better than war, and a world away from competition. Of all the journeys taken, the best were those where I became alive, and where I came to was the next moment, whatever it was, and among those the banked fire of the multiple aftermath provided the necessary stamina for a heart of glowing coal, an ember, not so bright as to attack the night, or cool as to sputter in smoke. Whinnies from the field, bird calls, voices, the joy of knowing a certain warmth. Few things last, few things carry us beyond the grave. Maybe I've stepped too far into religion. You can kiss my ass. Circles are good for a spin, they get you around. Returning is a different thing. It's always hard to pull up stakes when it's time to go. Though often dangerous to stay—it's nearly a law. Can't live on the sea, at 85 mph, or on scorpions or cactus for long without a serious lifestyle change. Surely, goodness and kindness follow in the wind. Richard Gilbert |