Victorian readers have been onto us about a story by David Morley in Royal Auto, the magazine of the RACV (and described by a past editor as ‘the least read magazine in Australia’). The article seems to have been interpreted as anti-bike, possibly because Morley spends a lot of time on motorcycling’s cost and lack of comfort.Of course he is not likely to be anti-bike; as one of only three members of the infamous Lemmings Motorcycle Club he is probably the exact opposite.
So why the negative approach?I don’t actually think it is negative. You remember when lysergic acid diethylamine (hope I’ve spelt that right; my memory isn’t what it used to be) first became popular, and users were saying that just chewing a bit of blotting paper could put you in touch with God or provide instant satori?
Needless to say, the people who had been eating boiled rocks and sitting on thin rush matting in freezing mountain caves in their underwear for, oh, forty years to achieve the same thing were not impressed. Scoring at the pub for a few bucks and swallowing some home brewed chemicals seemed a bit too easy compared to their earnest efforts.
Who’s to say who was right? The hermits shook their heads and went back to the mountains and the acidheads all forgot what they were trying to do in the first place, or became merchant bankers as the chemicals did their insidious work on their brains.But the principle is worth remembering, and I think it is what motivated that Royal Auto story. I think Morley, a dedicated motorcyclist who’s done the hard yards, ridden in the falling snow, put up with his riding companions’ bad jokes, fixed unreliable bikes, saved Spannerman from pub fights and performed the ablutions appropriate to motorcycling satori, now sees people just… buying bikes and having a good time!
How dare they gain instant gratification without going through the grim and sordid initiation ceremony that used to be motorcycle ownership? If you need any evidence to back this assertion, note the fact that all the members of the Lemmings ride ancient British crap boxes – the motorcycling equivalent of living in those drafty mountain caves and wearing barbed wire undies.
And of course Morley’s absolutely right. Who are these people who dare to just enjoy their motorcycling?
Make them take public transport and learn to suffer.
Oct 26, 2007
Ride this way -- satori’s waiting!
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2 comments:
Bear, reading your thoughts on Moreley & the hardships of riding in the past has ignited my memories & I feel a sorrow for the riders of today (though I am glad I can just jump on my bike & ride)for they will probably never know such joys as their RD350 seizing at the ton, Triumph Bonny stalling everytime the handlebar was turned left (for it pulled the ignition wire out of its joiner) or TX500 drive chain jumping off the front sprocket & tearing off the oil filter apparantley as a result of the swingarm bushes flogging out within a 500k round trip and when I read of heated handgrips & heated vests I fondly recall jogging up & down the new England Highway at Glenn Innes before dawn on the way to the Easter races at Bathurst in an attempt to elevate our body temperatures. And what about ventilated summer jackets? where were they in 81 as we rode from Brisbane to Darwin in our Brando leather jackets? Ah the young ones don't know what their missing
Bear, one suck too many I fear! Should be diethylamide. Apologies from the spell-nerd.
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