When on a bike, unlike another type of vehicle, there is a connection to how the terrain meets you along the way that offers a very visceral and immediate feedback from the ribbon of asphalt underneath that is felt right where you are. It is a very 'alive' kind of experience to have...as it is one that both requires your utmost awareness of things around you, but also one that breathes a sense of peace and relief into you at the same time. Sometimes you might find it when you get lost in the push and pull of the sway in a challenging curve, sometimes it catches you in the exhilaration as you twist back the throttle and but sometimes is offered in a different way, as a deep exhale when gliding down a straightaway. It always finds you somehow and when it does, it surprises me and brings me straight back to my youth where in the summers I found myself at the wheel of a speedboat and the feeling of the pure freedom of driving across the bay without any direction but water, sun and joy. This same sense is what I find here too for riding a bike is not merely transportation for me, simply a way to get from here to there, but along the way offers so much more. Subtle experiences greet me on the road...an unexpected scent of pine when passing though a cool forest or the morning dew that gathers on my knees, the warmth rising from the road or the joy in a smile or wave of another passing rider...all things you miss within the cocoon of a car.
When on a bike, your path is a different one, for the sought out roads are the very ones that offer up these little things along the way. Destinations are planned by the route offered to get there alone and your thoughts are focussed on the journey itself. You know by simply just twisting the throttle... feeling the punch of the air in your chest as it pushes back against you, the rumble of the exhaust as your arms stretch from my body... a small smile can't help but escape from your lips. This feeling, this freeing moment, is one that is hard to beat, except for only one other, which is the feeling of looking back towards my passenger and seeing them wearing the same...and the deep joy that is thus found in knowing they feel it too, that they share this with you alone... That is what it is all about.
As I am coming up upon some major neck surgery in the next couple of weeks, it likely will be a while before I will be able to climb aboard two wheels again, if ever, but I have hope that if and when I can, I once again will be able to find the joy of this kind of freedom waiting for me.
