A tacit premise in the writing of this erstwhile blog is that I will inevitably contradict myself in what I choose to discuss, in the main, with myself. This may happen here. I don’t know yet. Maybe.
I’m finding riding a bike to be an evolving (and involving) pastime with many pleasurable and quite a few beguiling aspects. Having wondered in the past what sort of rider I had the potential to become, I think the answer is becoming clearer. I think it’ll be quite evident by the end of this.
I went on a ride today. An organised run. It turned out to be a mistake. It wasn’t what I expected and I’m having some difficulty processing my feelings over it, and where it leaves me. And the bike. You lucky reader.
A fact or two – to begin with. Motorcycling is a high-adrenaline, high-risk, physically demanding sporty diversion from what could otherwise be a mundane life. It ranks with climbing up things, jumping off or out of things etc as a fast and effective way to commit suicide if you choose, or to die anyway if you just make the wrong thing happen once to often.
I don’t know much about those other things, but I would say that biking seems to be the least regulated of them all. Not only do you not have to carry a large amount of personal injury insurance, but you get to perform in the public space with massive potential to involve the innocent public. You might think that would impart a sense of social responsibility. Another thing about those other things – experienced practitioners don’t take uncalculated risks and don’t have much time for those that do. Nobody in those other sports bangs on about personal freedom either. By the by, speaking to a highly experienced sky diver recently, among many other insights he revealed that he had never been near a motorbike – too dangerous apparently.
So, to get to the nub of it. The ride. No names. But lots of bikes. Twenty or more, sporting, snorting street-legal racing machines. Not all of them, but a fair few. And all capable of 130mph or so. As is mine. But. What’s a fair speed in a 50mph zone? 100mph? More? After all, if you form a pack of 20 or more bikes the follow-my-leaders are having to go some to keep up. But what harm if you get away with it and don’t present a danger to Joe or Jane Public or their offspring in the back? How much notice should you take of road markings and other road users. Mere decoration? Often just a minor obstacle? Oncoming drivers should be able to cope with the mild shock of you closing on them rapidly at a cumulative 170mph?
This was just one ride. At our destination there were a fair few bikes, Potentially having ridden in the same style on their way in. My impression from my ivory tower some way back is that one day there will be a reckoning. One rider gone, and he’ll be a hero. A great biker, who lived and died for it. Let’s have another ride in his honour. Two or three? A tragic accident. How many in one incident would actually make anyone think whether it was too much egging-on, too much risk-taking, that somehow individual responsibility is not enough. Someone planned it, and they generally ride it too. Is part of the fault in their hands? There have been moves to fine the leaders of a pack if other members fall foul of speed laws.
So, I’m a medium paced rider. I find I go slower when I’m solo, even slower when I am carrying a pillion, but if asked, in a group run, with friends who care as much for my welfare as I do for theirs, I’ll stretch the speed limit a bit. But don’t ask me to ignore it as if I wrote all the rules. If I can’t keep up with you in traffic, it probably isn’t me riding illegally and I won’t ride with you twice if I think you are an idiot. That’s how I intend to survive till I can ride no more.
So much road, so little ability 