The Transcendental Experience of riding a motorcycle.

Why ride a motorcycle? The classic reply is “If I have to explain, you wouldn’t understand”, well, I’ll give it a try anyways.

Bikers have been at a loss to explain the feeling. It's the freedom; the speed the adrenalin rush in some parts of the riding, it being part of nature, etc. People still don’t understand. It's not strutting around in leathers and badges at the cafe or whatever. That’s just optional protocol not covered here, like white clothes of a cricketer, uniform of a sailor or tennis player.

The riding of a motorcycle on the open roads is to most a spiritual experience, similar but stronger than flying an unpowered glider, sailing a windsurfer or riding a surfboard, but the touring motorcyclist does it more and longer and with a Mantra.

Without radio, talk or telephone it's meditation. You have the loneliness of just you and your thoughts, hour after hour. Your senses take it all in and what you exercise; is your ability to think! For survival, your senses are also very much heightened noticing everything so much more, like the road, the animals, the scenery, etc. Key muscle groups and reflexes control the bike and you feel the climate, engine and every contour of the road.

The gravitational and centrifugal forces work on the body in sudden ups, downs and curves. You smell delights from a bakery, the presence of koalas and cattle and the presence of the odd road kill. The hot bitumen is an orchestra of smells, mostly but not always pleasant. Up on the plateau and on the range, the air is cooler and crisper. When riding through a rainforest your smell and feel the vegetation, the fresh and pungent moist air. You feel and appreciate the differences in wind and temperatures.

This constant bombardment of shifting sensory input and the feeling of riding is all part of riding a motorcycle. Finally; what makes it transcendental meditation is the Mantra, the Hmmmmm of the engine. All engines sound unique and personal. I have two pairs of identical large bikes of the same year, make and model. I could instantly tell you which one I'm on by the engine, even if you put new mufflers on, but the engine sounds are close. The Hmmmm is like scaffolding for all the rest sensory input, feel and meditation. That's why the sound of the machine is so important to me. It has to fit me, just like a mantra in transcendental meditation and like a good base in a great music performance at a concert.

You get very little of any of this when driving a car. In a car you are isolated from most of these inputs and also distracted by people, technology, the body and bubble environment of the car all destroying any opportunity for meditation. The car is mainly just a means of transport, separating the world out there with climate control, chit chat, radio, car rattle, power steering, excessive dampening and separation of the world out there.

When you ride a bike, and you arrive at a destination, transient or daily final, it's only a break in the experience of riding. It's a chance to replenish food and drink and the rest, plus a chance to stretch the legs. This is why the destination is not part of the experience. You are often asked at servo stations, “where are you heading”, one day I’ll simply tell them “I don’t know, who cares?”

No surprise that I would get none of this if I were to ride to work daily in peek hour traffic, which I never do. Instead we drive to the station. My wife and I pay the $15 each daily for a return trip on the train, with air-conditioning, opportunity to relax or read and for safety. When you're not on a real ride, it's far too dangerous and disharmonious to ride a motorcycle, just to save a couple of dollars in fuel. On this current bike alone, I'm not far from clocking over 175,000 kilometre in ten years and 90% of this on soul enriching touring rides and not by fighting it out with road raging peek hour traffic. In a context like this, motorcycle riding is not about travel, it’s a different spiritual and reality dimension.

On a ride like described, you can go anywhere. You can leave the planet!

Royal and Ann