What do you do to pass the time when you ride?

[PrivatePilot]

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The intensity of the track, where everything other than the task at hand is shuttled out of your mind, is a sensation I’ve not found elsewhere. When you’re racing, thoughts of mortgages or ex-wives or overdue bills or crumbling foundations disappear. It’s pure hedonistic bliss

I experience a similar thing on long distance rides. Less focused than racing I’m sure, but a clear mind where all the other crap in life just fades away.

You focus on riding. Everything else is gone. I understand the bliss.

It used to happen to me as well back when I first started driving commercially in the 90’s and there wasn’t constant stimuli - AM radio got boring after a while, you’d be hard pressed to keep an FM station for more than 15-20 minutes, there was nobody to chat to on the CB, I’d listened to all the cassettes I carried 50 times over and they were boring, cell phones were in their infancy and cost dollars per minute still, and mobile internet or even satellite radio wasn’t a thing, so after driving for 5-6 hours with another 5-6 ahead, often in silence except the sound of the truck and the road, your mind sometimes just spun into neutral.

 

[Baggsy]

I try to pay attention to what’s going on around me to prevent surprises.

 

[GP_RZ]

Yup no music for me just engine and exhaust and any other sounds it might make, little old school but I feel safer.

 

[basmn]

Life can be very short when your distracted while riding

 

[NuggyBuggy]

lol. I love doing that. I usually stick my tongue out and shake my head, it’s great fun behind a school bus when 50 kids reply in kind.

When I was a kid my Mom took on us on a road trip to Chicago. I was maybe 8, my sister 7 and my brother 3. This was in the days where seat belts weren't mandatory and kids were untethered.

Behind us we can see a LONG procession of motorcycles, probably over 100 long. It turns out it was an African American motorcycle club - whether they were 1%ers or not, I'm not sure, but as they were the first group of tough looking bikers I had ever seen, they were terrifying to my suburban Toronto kid eyes, especially with all the stereotypical images in the 70s media of both African Americans and bikers. To my eyes they looked like they came from another world entirely, and they really probably did.

My brother crawled up to the side window as they started to pass and started looking at them as they approached. I was scared, thought we shouldn't stare, and told him to sit down. But instead he stood up taller, looked at them straight, and gave them the thumbs-up. And then the leader gave us the thumbs up as he passed, and then all the bikers in the group did the same. My sister and I then started laughing and then it was thumbs up all around as two worlds came together for a very short moment.

One of my all time favourite motorcycle memories.

 

[shanekingsley]

When I was a kid my Mom took on us on a road trip to Chicago. I was maybe 8, my sister 7 and my brother 3. This was in the days where seat belts weren't mandatory and kids were untethered.

Behind us we can see a LONG procession of motorcycles, probably over 100 long. It turns out it was an African American motorcycle club - whether they were 1%ers or not, I'm not sure, but as they were the first group of tough looking bikers I had ever seen, they were terrifying to my suburban Toronto kid eyes, especially with all the stereotypical images in the 70s media of both African Americans and bikers. To my eyes they looked like they came from another world entirely, and they really probably did.

My brother crawled up to the side window as they started to pass and started looking at them as they approached. I was scared, thought we shouldn't stare, and told him to sit down. But instead he stood up taller, looked at them straight, and gave them the thumbs-up. And then the leader gave us the thumbs up as he passed, and then all the bikers in the group did the same. My sister and I then started laughing and then it was thumbs up all around as two worlds came together for a very short moment.

One of my all time favourite motorcycle memories.

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