JOY
It is the end of the Journey
Despite all the limitations that governments, institutions, federations and bureaucratic entities are placing on our favourite transportation method, motorcycling is alive and kicking.
Despite all the technology that makes bikes more and more difficult to use, despite all gizmos exclusively designed for extreme circuit use, despite a senseless competition on useless power motorcycling is still alive and popular.
Despite all the ignorance and arrogance that we, the bikers, show every day with bad riding, disrespectful noise and criminal manoeuvres motorcycling is still legal.
What keeps biking alive is (and it has always been) the joy and pleasure that most of us, bikers, manage to show and pass around. When this joyful message will be silenced, on the same day, the safe banality of cars will win the day and two wheels will be relegated to museums, exhibitions (strange but true) and, maybe, circuits.
For a long-time, bikers and passion, two-wheels and enthusiasm, motorcyclists and joy have been closely associated. Bikers have always been a well-knitted community helping and sharing, different from all road users, committed to sporting integrity and a direct connection with the environment. Yes: gangs are and have been part of our history; every family has black sheep and ours are not blacker than others. Media focus on “rebels without a cause” while in reality bikers have zillions of causes to rejoice.
As a preservation act, it is worth considering where joy is generated while biking: the simple Joy of motorcycling is today in severe danger of being wiped out together with many of the old simple (and not too costly) joys that we shared in the past (conversation being the most evident victim of the communication era).
Joy comes firstly from the simplicity of the vehicle: two wheels and brakes, an engine in the middle, a saddle to sit on, and no boxing structures around. This simplicity makes the bike agile and “free” in movement, allowing the use of roads and spaces closed to other vehicles. From simplicity and agility comes a sense of freedom and unity with nature. Freedom so frequently cited as the real joy of motorcycling has a double face: “freedom from” and freedom to”. While a level of joy may come from the freedom to move in an agile and simple way experiencing sights, sounds, smells and feelings, the freedom from common laws and good sense may kill, literally kill, any possibility of joy
Time ago while prisoner inside a car, driven by a biker friend, we were approaching one of the Bosporus bridges when the lacerating sound of a full-open exhaust, connected to a powerful four-cylinders, announced the incoming redness of a biker: a flash and the rider was well in front of us, stretched over the tank, with jeans and “rocker” jacket, moving at an absurd speed, searching for lanes and lines, lost in his (or her?) dream of speed, freedom, and individuality.
The first comment from my friend (a biker driving a car) was “Riders like this one are going to die — you know — giving a bad name to motorcycling…” Nothing to do but to agree with the well-founded good mannered, banal-common-sense comment. If you are trying to split lanes at high speed in the heavy and irregular traffic of Istanbul on a two-wheel-no-protection missile with only denim and leather as a shield, you tend to increase the chances of leaving this world earlier than the statistically assigned time.
My inner and suppressed thought was: “Is that biker enjoying what is doing? Is he/she in a pure moment of freedom?” Freedom from traffic laws, speed limits, lane rules, and respect for other users and the self. He/she was living in fear: fear of losing control, fear to crash, fear to be caught, fear of not looking sufficiently cool. Freedom from is rarely real joyful freedom. Biking is becoming more and more COMPLICATED and when things lose the dimension of simplicity joy tends to be reduced. Even complicating the rule of traffic takes out joy.
We eliminate the “simple” and we throw away joy. We leave aside the ludic*, playful dimension of our sport. We risk taking ourselves too seriously because we take too seriously what is, in the end, a splendid game. Look at the companions of Steve McQueen riding every Sunday on quite simple motorcycles dressed in jeans and t-shirts, or at the European trialists moving around in tweed pants and rubber boots.
In the name of being professional, but with the hidden message of being cool, motorcycles, accessories, and gear eliminate simplicity and complicate the whole act. Watching a biker in the act of wearing a jacket and pants, designed mostly for professional snowmobiles, is a good reference: who needs all the weight, all the heavy protections, all the confusing zips/pockets/air vent? Who needs three aluminium bags for a total of 145 litres for a ride when Nick Sanders rode around the world on a Yamaha R1 with two small bags, one on the tank and one on the saddle? “Almost everything in our post-industrial-consumer-culture is sold to us based on making us cooler — From whiter teeth to better nutrition to you-name-it. The assumption is everyone wants to be a legend and live forever.” (Mr Subjective)
Take out the simplicity and the playful dimension of biking and the sport becomes less satisfying for all. Not to mention, it becomes as well more expensive and more financially discriminating.
Finally, by taking ourselves and our game too seriously by trying to make it “professionally cool” we tend to forget the educational part of it and the joy of sharing that always defines the real biker.
Sharing acquired knowledge on biking techniques, on itineraries we covered, and on experiences we met is the way to increase joy. Instead, we close ourselves in small groups in “exclusive tribes”, the ones of that brand, the one of that school, the one of that way of riding. Isolation and fake specialization kill the joy.
We need to rediscover in every ride the simplicity, the ludic frugal dimension of our sport and the pleasure of sharing with fellow riders the JOY that first attracted us to the saddle. Riding itself is what is cool.
*Ludic is from the Latin noun ludus, which refers to a whole range of fun things — stage shows, games, sports, and even jokes.
