Discover the Freedom: Why Motorcycling is the Ultimate Escape

WEBVTT

00:00:00.425 --> 00:00:08.705
Motorcycling is the ultimate escape from the stresses of life. There's a reason you don't see motorcycles parked outside. Psychiatrists offices.

00:00:28.001 --> 00:01:15.960
Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. In today's episode, we'll explore what it means to just head out on the open road. Also, look at why motorcycles are the ultimate escape, not just for the open road, but even for day to day riding. As Walt Whitman said, afoot and a lighthearted take to the open road. Healthy, free the world before me. The long brown path before me leading wherever I choose. Henceforth I ask not good fortune. I myself am good fortune. Henceforth I whimper no more, postpone no more, need nothing. Done with indoor complaints, libraries, querulous criticisms, strong and content.

00:01:11.581 --> 00:01:15.960
I travel the open road.

00:01:19.171 --> 00:01:23.191
So what is the open road?

00:01:19.171 --> 00:01:41.504
Well, it's often romanticized, particularly in the U.S., as the synergies of the Western expansion and rugged individualism. For many, that essence becomes part of their persona and the love of motorcycles. But I think the open road can have appeal to those around the world, and not only those in the American West.

00:01:42.305 --> 00:02:21.768
So the way I sort of see this for Open Road is it's an aspect of self-reliance. You may be riding alone. Of course, on a motorcycle, we have limited space, which means we can't take every contingency with us like we might in a car or truck. We also have opportunity ahead of us. You might have no destination in mind, and you're just heading towards something that looks interesting, whether it be a particular visual site, maybe it's a destination in terms of a town that you've not been to, or maybe even it's just a compass direction. You're really just heading out. And this leads to that exploration.

00:02:22.391 --> 00:03:11.258
And the beauty of this is on a motorcycle, because we don't necessarily have as much physical space that the bike takes up. It's much easier for us to pull over and take in a site than we might be able to do in a car. And you'll often see this. You'll see motorcycles that are just pulled over to the side of the road. And maybe they're admiring a scene. Maybe they're taking a break. Maybe they're just admiring the fact that they're out in nature. This exploration is just such a different experience than you have in a car and part of that open road ethos. And of course, the other thing is there's a bit of an adventure to it. And while there's the cliché thinking of an adventure motorcycle is required to have an adventure, this is absolutely not not true.

00:03:06.719 --> 00:03:48.038
But you might go down a road that you've never been down before just because you want to see where it goes. And that exploration is something that's so magical. When you're getting onto a bike, maybe you're heading to a place that you've never visited. All of these experiences are something that on a motorcycle we seem to kind of be more in that exploring mode than you might do typically in a car where it's more you're going to a destination that you planned on. Maybe you're going to a destination that you've been to many times before. But on a motorcycle, that open road aspect is really just heading in a direction with almost not a care in the world.

00:03:51.211 --> 00:04:18.151
So why is motorcycling the ultimate escape? Well, it's really about the journey, not the destination. And I talked a little bit about how you do that bit of exploration. You are sort of seeing the environment through which you're traveling and you're seeing things along the way. And that's almost more important than where you're going to stop at the end of the day or the end of your travels.

00:04:13.800 --> 00:05:17.250
You're really experiencing the world through which you're traveling and on a motorcycle, part of that experience is because we are so exposed. We do feel every aspect of the environment through which we travel. And this could be temperature variations. It could be when it's raining, it could be any of these. And you are fully embracing and experiencing the world through which you travel. One of my favorite things on a motorcycle is you're riding along and often you come into a little bit of a valley and you'll feel that temperature change. Maybe you come by a stream or a river and all of a sudden the moisture content that's in the air will also change. And you'll don't notice that in a car because you're separated away from that by the cage that you're sitting in. The, you know, air conditioning, the climate control is all wrapping in hiding that from you, that experience. On a motorcycle, we travel through, let's say, a field or by a field, and we smell that freshly cut grass.

00:05:17.641 --> 00:05:30.017
There's just things that you have on a motorcycle that is completely different than the experience in a car. And maybe a convertible gets close to that.

00:05:24.990 --> 00:05:52.550
But of course, convertibles are not nearly as popular as they once were, certainly in the United States. So the motorcycle is a very unique experience of how we're traveling. The other thing is it is a bit of a visceral experience and what I mean by that is kind of fitting in to that versus being isolated.

00:05:47.660 --> 00:05:59.959
You are feeling every bit of that. You're feeling the wind against your your body. You're feeling the cold temperatures.

00:05:55.759 --> 00:06:27.035
If it's getting chillier, for example, right now in the fall, it gets a little colder. You're feeling everything. And even if you're going at maybe a slightly faster pace, going through the road, you might be carving through, you're leaning into the turns you're feeling. It's a much more physically involved experience than driving a car where you're just sort of sitting there and turning a steering wheel. On a motorcycle.

00:06:23.449 --> 00:06:42.754
You have far more. You're leaning the bike into the corners, you're shifting gears, you just are much more involved and part of that experience and at a higher rate of speed, you might even be getting a little bit of an adrenaline rush from navigating through those corners.

00:06:42.754 --> 00:07:51.274
And doing it successfully is a way to just boost your you're feeling. And this is especially on maybe a sport bike, you might feel that even more intense. And of course, because of this, motorcyclists need to have an increased awareness of their surroundings and not just in terms of what they experience, in terms of, hey, the temperature is cold or the variation that's going on around them, but you want to be looking out ahead. You're looking out for is there a deer going to run across the road ahead of me? Is that car going to make a left turn in front of me for those driving on the right hand side of the road? You do need to be more aware of your surroundings and this sort of distraction that you have in a lot of modern cars, certainly where you have, you know, a lot of large screens on there, you're maybe not focused truly on the driving experience because it is a little bit more isolated. Cars have gotten so good at removing noise, vibration and harshness, harshness that you don't have the experience through which you're traveling. Whether you're on a motorcycle, you have that, so you're far more aware of it.

00:07:46.735 --> 00:07:55.115
And this leads into why your mind has to be more aware.

00:07:51.274 --> 00:08:14.761
You're looking out for those hazards, you're maintaining your balance, you're handling the fact that the weather is going to affect you. So you have this awareness and your mind is far more engaged as a result, it allows your actual mind to sort of drift a little differently than you would have in a car.

00:08:11.490 --> 00:08:23.040
You can't worry about those stresses of life because you're focusing about the intensity through which you are riding.

00:08:19.380 --> 00:10:48.892
And this is why there's so much of a almost a calming impact that happens when you ride a motorcycle versus a car. You've got a just so much more of a thoughtful enterprise as you're traveling along, that it is a very, very different experience than in a car when you're on that bike and even if you think of I mean, we're talking a little bit of getting out on the open road, which sort of implies a little bit more of a perhaps a weekend endeavor or even a vacation. But even when you're using a motorcycle for regular commuting, many of the stresses that you have in a car kind of go away. You're maybe not sitting there and in blocked in traffic, certainly throughout most of the rest of the world and in several states now in the U.S., you can split and filter through lanes. So you can effectively eliminate traffic that you would have to deal with in a car. So you don't have that type of frustration that one has on there. And of course, you're out on two wheels, which is just a very enjoyable experience anyway. So a lot of those stresses where commuting can feel like a job in and of itself, even just getting you to your job. On a motorcycle, it doesn't have that same feeling of experience. You're actually enjoying it. And yeah, you have a target destination in mind, but it's less of a sort of a stressful endeavor, The other thing that I'd say is if you're thinking of from a commuting perspective, there's a couple of other benefits that one gets is, you know, we're getting better fuel economy, then you're going to be in a car, which means, of course, you're spending less money per mile than you would in a car. So this is a very, very effective I mean, I have a scooter that I use when I was commuting into New York City all the time. I would take the scooter to my local train station and back. And I did this, you know, year round. So it didn't matter if it was cold or whatever. But that was my experience, is I would just commute that little short distance. And I replaced a car that we used to have a second car specifically for me to commute. And if you think of a short distance or kind of more of a and suburban or urban sort of environment where you're going to be doing that short range, it tends to be a very low fuel economy that's going to get with the car. But on a scooter, I'm getting 70 miles a gallon.

00:10:48.892 --> 00:11:25.063
So it's it's significantly cheaper than it would have been for me to get in a car for that same sort of commuting experience. The other thing is, even when you do need to stop for gas, it takes on a different experience than in a car. In a car, it sort of feels like a chore. It feels like, Oh, I have to stop for gas. I'm going to do this in a motorcycle, oftentimes stopping for gas is you're taking that break. You might go in, collect some, you know, something to drink, maybe a little snack, whatever it is.

00:11:19.693 --> 00:11:58.096
You are taking a moment to reflect on the ride that you've just been doing. it's just it's a different experience than you have with driving. Your intention for that stop is very different oftentimes it is a little bit more of a reflecting moment. It is that break from the road something that I think is so magical about motorcycling and why it is this ultimate escape. You are enjoying the ride for the ride's sake, Not about where you're getting to.

00:11:58.105 --> 00:12:01.946
So it takes on a different dynamic and that's part of it.

00:12:01.946 --> 00:12:38.793
And this is why I really loved what Walt Whitman had mentioned, because if you take and I didn't even describe the whole the whole poem, I'd actually I'll put the link for the whole poem into the show notes. But it's it really is focusing on saying, hey, what is ahead of me? Where am I going? I have the world ahead of me. I'm not really bringing along all of the baggage that I had before. It's really I'm just looking at what is there. Myself is bringing all of the fortune as I'm traveling along. I'm not going to complain.

00:12:35.553 --> 00:13:39.216
I'm not going to postpone. I'm just in the moment. And that freedom to be in the moment is so unique and something that in a car I think we've lost sight of. And it might have been there and maybe some of the older cars in the past. And it doesn't mean maybe someone who has a more of a sports car might experience something somewhat similar to that. But for most people who are using their car as more of an appliance today, it is a very different experience that you you the only way you have that is truly in a motorcycle. And it it's so hard to describe this to people who don't ride, who don't have that common vocabulary, which we can talk about together and see the smile on your face as you just pull off your helmet at the side of the road. And and reflecting on what happened, other motorcyclists will see that get it. And it's an unspoken sort of communication.

00:13:34.354 --> 00:14:03.071
But if you're not a rider, you don't get that that's part of the experience. It is something that is really remarkable about riding and something that I hope we can kind of get more people into experiencing. Because when you deal with a lot of the stresses that exist in modern society, we are so disconnected from the world in so many ways because we're sticking there just into a computer experience.

00:14:03.071 --> 00:14:28.951
We're just dealing with things online. We don't physically deal with the world as much as we did before. Motorcycling does allow you to get more in touch with nature, get more in touch with the environment, and just be part of the world. And I think that if more people kind of had that experience, it could change the dynamics. So I really do hope we can we can get more people involved in this.

00:14:32.509 --> 00:15:02.325
We discussed a few things in this episode. We talked about the open road. We talked about what it means. We talked about Walt Whitman's Song of the Open Road, which I think captures that spirit so wonderfully. We also talked about why motorcycling is the ultimate escape, how it allows us to just leave behind any of the stresses we have in our lives and just focus on the journey. So my question for you is what is your favorite story of the open road?

00:14:58.592 --> 00:15:14.325
And my second question to you would be, do you think motorcycling is the ultimate escape and why or why not? And remember, just text us your thoughts through the link in the show notes and we'll be able to share them in a future episode.

00:15:11.504 --> 00:15:14.325
Thanks so much for listening.

00:15:14.475 --> 00:15:21.975
And if you do like this episode, please consider following. It will allow you to get the new episodes as soon as they launch every week. Take care.