From the Library

[Biggles]

I had a lesson in aerodynamics that morning. As a car driver I had always laughed at semi trailers that sported swooping curves on their mammoth fenders or those spoilers on the top of the cab that made them look like bald-headed wrestlers. As if that would make a difference. Yet one of the first things you discover as a motorcyclist is that it's the shape of the truck, not the size, that makes a difference. Cube vans throw a fat blast of air that feels like it could punch you straight back off your bike. Somewhere west of Artesia I met an old moving van, completely squared off, like a brick wall chugging across the plain at 55 miles an hour. I hunched down a little, as I always do, when poum his draft hit me like someone swinging a sandbag. If I had not been holding on tight I would have been in the ditch. Those rounded corners on modern vans do make a difference.
Riding With Rilke  Ted Bishop  p191

[Biggles]

Later, at a popular culture conference in Albuquerque, I would learn that helmets were not just a choice, they were a corner-stone of American freedom. The last session was "Biker Stigmatization" and by this point in the conference the room was divided: bikers on the left, riders on the right. I had already learned that I wasn't a "biker." I'm a "rider." Maybe just a wannabe writer who occasionally rides. I wasn't sure. These distinctions were becoming difficult.
Riding With Rilke  Ted Bishop  p207

[Biggles]

The presenters talked about bikers being abused and exploited, mocked "hand-wringers" like Mothers Against Drunk Driving and other safety groups, and argued that bikers were still the victims of systemic harassment. Then the big bruiser in front got up to respond. He had sat quietly through the whole conference, but at well over 6 feet and 300 pounds, with a Mohawk haircut slicked into pony tail, and a face that looked like 20 miles of bad road, he'd been hard to miss. He wore his riding boots outside his jeans and a leather vest commemorating past rides and dead comrades.
Riding With Rilke  Ted Bishop  p207-8

[Biggles]

"Ah jist wanna thank y'all for havin' a Dumb-Ass Biker to one a these here academic conferences," he drawled. I missed his name "That's Sputnik," someone whispered behind me. He was head of the Motorcycle Rights Association of Texas. A Texan and a biker, you can't get more independent than that. He began denouncing mandatory helmet laws- which Texas had recently repealed- and told of government harassment. Of how at the conference of Motorcycle Rights in New York the delegates were under constant surveillance by the FBI, the local police, even the chambermaids. One delegate was arrested for possession of cocaine, and then released.
"Why? Because she, like I do, brushes her teeth with baking soda and salt. She was guilty of possession of baking soda! And then it came out that the maids had been paid $50- $50!- for each item that they found that might be illegal. A clear violation of the Constitution." Americans are always talking about the Constitution. 
Sputnik was warming to his point, "Ain't no such thing as a biker-friendly politician. And these new rich bikers? They ain't gonna help us. They don't care about motorcycles. They're just toys to them.  If the government puts too many restrictions on 'em, why they'll just go on to their next toy- a... a hayng-glider or sumthin'." We all laughed.
Riding With Rilke  Ted Bishop  p208

[Biggles]

"The only good thing 'bout these born-again bikers is it means more hardly used bikes on the market for Real Bikers to pick up at cheap prices." Muttered yeahs! rumbled through the audience and we all had visions of picking up a Harley softtail for ten grand from some soft-ass dermatologist. Yeah!
"We don't need biker-friendly politicians, we need Bikers in office. We need the fire in the guts, the Fire-In-The-Guts of the real biker!' He clenched his fist on the upper slope of his belly. "Because if there's anything that's going to save America, to stop the decline and save this country, to save this civilization, it's the Spirit of the Biker."
Riding With Rilke  Ted Bishop  p208-9

[Biggles]

There's something about being alone on a bike, cruising down the road in the silence of a loud engine and pounding wind.  In these moments, everything can seem perfect.  We are elevated from the pressures of life, removed from the responsibilities.  No one and nothing can touch us.  You begin to wonder why the ride ever has to end, why you have to return to things the way they are.  You wonder why the rest of your life can't be like this.
Tao Of The Ride  Garri Garripoli p9-10

[Biggles]

Look at fear on a bike.  We are confronted by the possibility of serious bodily damage every time we go for a cruise.  Now I believe the possibility for danger exists equally in driving a four-wheel vehicle as it does on a bike (see the chapter on karma), but I'll be a bit mundane and simplistic for the moment.  Unless you are a jerk, and I've seen a lot out there riding fast motorcycles, you probably respect your machine, appreciate its power and its limits, and cruise down the road within this power/limit grid.  Depending on your personality and state of mind, you have your own unique fear threshold.  For some people, like me, it falls around fifty miles per hour on wet pavement near the ocean-side S-curves north of Malibu.  For others it's 167 miles per hour on the drag strip in Pomona.  Still others experience it idling at the traffic light.  We all have our fear threshold.  If you don't think you do, then I'll guess that yours is with being truthful.
Tao Of The Ride  Garri Garripoli p29-30

[Biggles]

I know that when I ride, I face my ability to be "present" in the moment.  Maybe it's second nature by now, but I like to feel it for a second, sitting on the bike as it's warming up, feeling how exposed I am, how sensitive the controls are, how close I am to the pavement.  It wakes me up and brings me to a place of sheer connection with everything about who I am, my mood, my fragility and my incredible sensory system that even allows me to ride this 650-pound beast.  This is the Ride.  That split-second sensation that brings you into the present moment, a moment that goes by with a flash... yet is eternal.  That's what a bike does for me.
Tao Of The Ride  Garri Garripoli p30

[Biggles]

So you just ride your bike to commute to work and you say it's only transportation... or it's just a hobby on weekends... or it's just a bike for heaven's sake, get off my case.  Well, that's my point. That's how mundane the rest of our lives are as well.  If you can't see the awesome beauty of nature, the depth of the Ride when you ride a bike, when the hell are you going to see it?  Somehow I'm not convinced that humans can live their lives without sensing the connection with their ultimate nature, with the true essence of who we are.  Sure, many people do, but they are the ones who are bitter, or hopeless or numb... and ultimately unhappy.   
Happiness is a real option in this world, not just a fantasy.  Sure things suck sometimes, but they are pretty damn good sometimes, too.
Tao Of The Ride  Garri Garripoli p31-2

[Biggles]

We got back on the road after refuelling at the single-pump station next to the bar.  This is about as much action as Wilitz gets all year.  Riders have an unspoken honour at pumps.  Even with long lines of bikers waiting to get their three or four buck's worth of fuel, there's a respect and etiquette that is effortless.  At a pump like this, the attendant has to trust you tell him the right amount; you just can't wait to reset the pump for each bike.  And riders typically round their payment up to the next dollar amount as a courtesy.  This is just the way it's done.
Tao Of The Ride  Garri Garripoli p42

[Biggles]

It's amazing what we carry from our parents in so many unconscious and intangible ways.  My love for motorcycles began when I was a youngster, drawing pictures of Harleys and imagining the day when I would get one of my own.  I'd talk to my dad about it and he was always a bit neutral, not influencing me one way or the other.   
When, at twelve, I finally saved up enough paper route money for a little used dirt bike, I went to my dad to help me get one.  At first he was against it, but with my tenacity, he finally gave in.  I was jazzed to make this dream come true, and my father got into it as time when on.  My younger brother, Jimmy, became the recipient of the bikes I outgrew, and he took to them like a fish to water.  He's gone so far as to rebuild antique Indians and is a meticulous bike mechanic and president of his local motorcycle club.  One day recently, he showed me an old picture he dug up in my father's drawer.  It showed my twenty-one-year-old father sitting on his 1947 Harley.  We both had a good laugh about it- something my dad never revealed.  Turns out he had several in his day.  Maybe an example of how the unseen forces of the past influence us in our present life?
Tao Of The Ride  Garri Garripoli p44

[Biggles]

It's amazing what we carry from our parents in so many unconscious and intangible ways.  My love for motorcycles began when I was a youngster, drawing pictures of Harleys and imagining the day when I would get one of my own.  I'd talk to my dad about it and he was always a bit neutral, not influencing me one way or the other.   
When, at twelve, I finally saved up enough paper route money for a little used dirt bike, I went to my dad to help me get one.  At first he was against it, but with my tenacity, he finally gave in.  I was jazzed to make this dream come true, and my father got into it as time when on.  My younger brother, Jimmy, became the recipient of the bikes I outgrew, and he took to them like a fish to water.  He's gone so far as to rebuild antique Indians and is a meticulous bike mechanic and president of his local motorcycle club.  One day recently, he showed me an old picture he dug up in my father's drawer.  It showed my twenty-one-year-old father sitting on his 1947 Harley.  We both had a good laugh about it- something my dad never revealed.  Turns out he had several in his day.  Maybe an example of how the unseen forces of the past influence us in our present life?
Tao Of The Ride  Garri Garripoli p44

[Biggles]

I had to ride the bike home in the pea-soup atmosphere.  Intense, with zero visibility, it was like I was shining the headlights into a mirror three feet away.  The road was slick, like snakeskin.  At the last leg up to my house, way on top of the ridge, where the road is almost vertical, unlit and unpaved, I just said into the darkness, "God, please help me tonight" and it was awesome.  I blasted right through the fog layer, going up so steeply and so quickly.  I got to the top, to my house, and looking around, it was like the bike and I were floating just atop a sea of dense white fog that extended in every direction.  The only other thing I could see was the mountain range a couple miles across the canyon, peaks emerging like icebergs, penetrating toward a sky slowly filling with stars... heaven's grace for another trippy ride.
Tao Of The Ride  Garri Garripoli p60

[Biggles]

When you shed the images of who you think you are, you are free.  When you shed the restraints that come from what other people expect of you, you are free.
Isn't that one reason why people like to ride motorcycles?  No restraints, no safety net, nothing to hold you back?  An image of singularity, independence and total connection with the Universe  freedom.  It's not the only path to this experience, it's just one that works for me and the others that groove with it.  The question is, what's your motorcycle?  What promotes your freedom? What's your Ride?
These metaphors of life all paint the same picture.  They all converge on freedom.  If you aren't free then you are constantly trying to escape.  I see it all the time in people.  It's the "thank God it's Friday" routine, the mass exodus on holidays, the constant need to "get out" of something or from someone.
Tao Of The Ride  Garri Garripoli p81-2

[Biggles]

Though the Ride is ultimately an individual experience, it can't be done alone.  This is the paradox of life on this planet.   We only discover the truth of who we are through others.  It always takes others to help us uncover our potential.  The brotherhood that exists among riders is legend.  How such a solitary event as riding a motorcycle can foster community spirit, deep ties and friendships is astounding.  I constantly see how bike riders find their personal freedom through being responsible to the club or group they belong to.  This appeals to our most basic tribal instincts.  I just heard about how an enormous group of Turkish bikers on the island of Cyprus just stormed the Greek border in a life-threatening attempt to make a political statement.  They acted from their sense of duty and faced a hostile army aiming machine guns at them.  Everywhere I travel, I discover that bikers have assembled and created associations to further their interests, whether it's to go on group rides, become politically active or just honour the brand-name bikes that they have become attached to.
Tao Of The Ride  Garri Garripoli p89