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I consider myself an outdoorsman. Whether I’m hunting in the foothills of Central California, hiking through the San Gabriel Mountains, or getting my sunburnt ass kicked by a marlin off the coast of Mexico, I am my truest self when I’m kickin’ it with Mother Nature. There is, however, one particular outdoor activity that provides more of a pure adrenaline rush than anything I’ve ever experienced: riding motorcycles. Dropping a 250 lb wild pig or catching a tuna is exciting as hell, but I’m not sure if it quite measures up to the rush of pointing your bike down a straightaway and opening up the throttle.
I have been around motorcycles since I was a little grom, and grew up riding with almost all of my family members and close friends. We still have pictures of my viciously cute 4-year-old self sporting a shit-eating grin and a comically oversized helmet while my legs dangled over the gas tank of my dad’s XR 650 as he took me for a joyride.
As soon as I got my own bike in third grade (a hand-me-down XR 75 that my mother learned to ride on when she was a little girl), my family and I would take as many trips as possible to ride in the California desert. The more I rode, the more I fell in love with the sense of freedom and exhilaration that one feels on a motorcycle. Transportation took on a whole new meaning to me, and I learned to appreciate a ride as something more than simply traveling from point A to point B. I finally understood the corny old saying “Life is a journey, not a destination.”
Whether you’re gobbling up endless miles of highway on a crotch rocket or whipping a dirt bike through a sandy stretch of desert, you’re not simply traveling through part of the world; you’re connecting with it. Jax Teller of the critically acclaimed FX show Sons of Anarchy summed it up beautifully when he said, “Something happens at around 92 miles an hour. Thunder headers drown out all sound. Engine vibration travels at a heart’s rate. Field of vision funnels into the immediate. And suddenly you are not on the road — you’re in it, a part of it. … All your problems, all the noise, gone. Nothing else to worry about, except what’s right in front of you.”
My father had an amazing opportunity to ride the race route of the Baja 1000 with a group of close buddies for his friend’s 40th birthday. Whereas the pro teams ride the race nonstop in ~24 hours, my dad and his friends did the route in about a week with nightly stops at small cantinas and hole-in-the-wall motels. He’s told me many times about one of his favorite memories from the trip, during which he was riding on a rented KTM 690, a true beast of a desert machine.
They had been following a trail for a few miles when they emerged onto a dry lakebed that extended in front of them as far as the eye could see. He jumped at the opportunity to crank the throttle and see just how powerful his bike really was. My dad broke away from the pack, shifted into top gear, and blasted away from the rest of the riders. For what felt like an eternity, he held the bike wide open as the rush of roaring wind drowned out all sound and made his eyes water and squint, even through his goggles.
After a while, he throttled down to regroup with the rest of the riders — but he’d gotten so far ahead of them that he couldn’t see or hear a single one of the 15+ riders for a solid few minutes. When I first heard that story, I realized immediately where my need for speed came from. Thanks, pop.
Riding is a way to truly connect with the world and vividly experience the sights, smells, and terrain of whatever corner of the earth you’re exploring, as everything you encounter on a motorcycle is amplified tenfold. At high speed, every scent of the surrounding landscape blasts you in the face and you can practically taste the juniper and pine as you fly by. Pockets of cool air and moisture feel unreal as you turn through the shade from a gauntlet of trees lining your trail. The slightest bumps in your path become significant variables that require constant adjustment and attention in order for you to remain upright.
Small mistakes can have disastrous consequences, and you have to focus completely on the present unless you want to leave some skin on the trail. This close proximity to complete disaster is one of the things that makes riding so unique and amazing; there is a primal sense of exhilaration and clarity that comes from hugging the edge of chaos in fifth gear.
Every time you kick your bike over and head out into the desert or the mountains on a ride, you’re embarking on a journey of endless possibilities. The world is your oyster, and for a glorious few hours you are blissfully free in a raw, uncivilized part of the world. It is such an amazing form of physical and emotional release that I highly urge everyone to experience at least once.
If you’re ever feeling stressed out by your job, overwhelmed by personal problems, or cooped up in the confines of a dense city, load up the bikes and head out into the wilderness. Once you throw a leg over your steed, you’ll leave everything on your mind behind you in a cloud of dust and exhaust fumes. Once you do, you’ll finally understand the old, old saying “Only a biker knows why a dog sticks his head out of a car window.”.
Respond
I really enjoy your posts. Neither hunting nor motorcycles are my thing, at all, but your posts about those things were awesome.
I appreciate you, Dr Funke.
If we combined hunting with motorcycles and called ourselves the Cardigan Cartel, that would be fun, probably lol
Nothing beats the rush of being on a bike on the interstate or on the twistys. Even after almost dying twice on a motorcycle I still get back on it. Hell, I love so much that I ended up working in the motorcycle industry.
A sign on my old mechanic’s shop said it best: “4 wheels move the body; 2 wheels move the soul.”
Sitting on 76 E right now and riding vicariously through you, Goose
Maverick road motorcycles, goose was trying to figure out the number of that truck driving school