Πηγή: www.sportrider.com
Why is it that he seems content to just roll along, playing those
curves in the road like so many riffs drifting easily from a well-worn guitar?
By Jeff Hughes
Photography: Fran Kuhn
You slide in behind him-or maybe he glides smoothly around in front
of you-and within a handful of corners you know there's something
special here. It's not his hardware, which might be anything from an
ancient BMW Airhead to a years-old Japanese Standard to the latest
race-replica tackle. Nor is it his clothing, which, if anything,
probably carries a patina of age-the leather or nylon faded from long
miles in the sun and spotted from uncounted bug-cleanings. Nor is it
just that he's fast, though he probably carries a pretty crisp pace.
No, what instantly gets your attention is the utter casualness-the
sheer effortlessness-with which he rides along the road, dispatching
the curves like so many pieces of candy. There's a relaxed assurance
in his demeanor, a perfect confidence in his swift cadence, which
gives rise to a certainty of what the next miles will bring. His
speed is just-so. We watch for a while-assuming we're able to stay
with him-and in our heart of hearts, where our desires stir and our
egos live, we couch what we're seeing in the same way we always do.
We know some guy, maybe we know lots of guys, buddies who are surely
faster than Mr. Smooth and Effortless. Hell, maybe we're faster. But
even as we think these things, salve for the ego, we can't escape the
growing suspicion that this rider in front of us is just playing. Not
with us, but with the road-probably the merest touch of a smile
tugging at his lips as he glides through the corners-even as our own
heart hammers a staccato beat as we're carried along in the rush
behind him. Maybe it dawns on us, in a moment of honesty, that he
could just walk away if he wanted. One of those things you just know.
So why doesn't he? Why is it that he seems content to just roll along,
playing those curves in the road like so many riffs drifting easily
from a well-worn guitar? We all talk about being good, about being
smooth. Well, there he is, right in front of you. The poster child.
In a sport whose very appeal is built around the merits of speed-a
sport where our greatest heroes are those who go the fastest, a sport
where even the most mundane machinery comes dripping with performance,
where even the clothes we wear are based upon the need to attenuate
the risk we perceive attendant to that speed-it's hard not to get
caught up in the notion that speed is the thing. It's both the
yardstick by which we measure ourselves and the mantle in which we
wish to be draped. Hell, who doesn't want to be fast?
The corollary, an article of faith repeated so often that it seems
to beg any argument, is that speed-too much of it at least -is a bad
thing. It's the bogeyman waiting to catch us out any time we cross
the imaginary line of too much. Most of us nod our heads when we hear
that.
The thing is, that doesn't always jive with our experience. We see
guys all the time who manage to crash at quite modest speeds. And we
know some-admittedly a much smaller number-who ride really fast, and
have for a long time, but who never seem to crash. Not as in they
don't crash very often. As in they never crash.
We all undertake a modicum of risk every time we thumb the
starter-it's just inherent to the sport. But those of us who choose
to adopt a faster pace deliberately assume more of that danger. We
knowingly engage the laws of probability in a game of chicken. You
play it long enough and you lose. That's what we've always been told,
right?
Why is it, then, that such a select group of riders manages to ride
at an elevated pace over many miles, weekend after weekend, trip
after trip, year after year, with little in the way of mishap? Why
are these riders seemingly held apart, aloof, from the carnage which
too-often otherwise afflicts our sport? And how is it that so many
other riders, traveling at much lesser speeds, still manage to toss
away their bikes with such depressing frequency?
Well, maybe we've been looking in the wrong place all along. Maybe,
just maybe, it's not about speed after all-at least not in the way we
usually think of it. Maybe it's about something else, something as
simple as the degree of control we exercise over a span of road.
It might happen on any ride, on any Sunday. We head out with some
buddies, or maybe we hook up with that group of guys we were talking
to down at the gas station, or maybe that devil on our shoulder is
simply a little more vigorous in his exhortations this day. However
it happens, we soon get to the road. The good one. The one that
brought us out here in the first place. And there, in that mix of
camaraderie and good tarmac and adrenaline-laced delight, we find
ourselves giving away that which we had sworn to hold tight to-our
judgment. It doesn't happen all at once. We give it away a little
click here, a little click there, like a ratcheting cord. Soon,
rolling through the curves faster and faster and laughing under our
helmets all the while, we enter a new realm.
We've all been there. We instantly know we're in a new place because
it's suddenly different. Our lines are no longer quite so clean.
We're on the brakes more, and we're making little mistakes in our
timing. And instead of that Zen-like rush through the corners we
enjoyed just moments ago-the state of grace that is the prize of this
sport-we're now caught up in the brief slivers of time between
corners trying to fix those mistakes. They seem to be coming faster
now-both the corners and the mistakes-and there doesn't seem to be
quite enough time to do what we need to do, the errors piling up in
an increasingly dissonant heap. Our normally smooth riding is
suddenly ragged, with an edgy and anxious quality. Inside our helmets
the laughter mutes and then is gone altogether, replaced by a grim
determination to stay on pace. We start to mutter little
self-reproaches with each newborn error.
Soon enough we'll blow it. We'll get into one particular corner too
hot-realization and regret crystallizing in a single hot moment-and
from that instant until whatever's going to happen does, we're just
along for the ride. It will be what it will be. With a touch of luck
we'll come away with nothing more than a nervous laugh and a promise
to ourselves not to do that again. That and maybe one more little
debt to pay. You know, the one we just made to God-if he would please
just get us out of this mess we'd gotten ourselves into. Just this
one last time, promise.
Just one of those moments, huh?