Mourning my beloved motorcycle.

I seem to find myself drifting or coasting quite a lot recently. Ever since the crash i have lost my drive, i just get angry at my predicament. For those who don't know, i was taken off my motorcycle by a car recently which has left me with a DVT in my leg and killed my beloved Suzuki SV 650 S, Chewie.
I hadn't owned Chewie very long, about six months but i had fun with her.

Her is a picture of her before the crash.

and after

Anyone who rides will tell you, you make a connection with your bike. Its like having a pet. In a weird way you love it. You have memories with it. So when something like this happens it hurts in a strange way. Its strange because you know its just a machine but you love it at the same time and you miss it.

Anyone who talks about riding will immediately use the word freedom. But what do they mean by that? Freedom from what? Freedom from whom? I guess for me its the fact that we are all overly careful these days. People don't take as many risks. people don't take the opportunities they used to for fear of the worst case scenario. Motorcycles offer you a way out of that way of thinking. Obviously there are different types of risks and I'm not saying be an idiot but live a little.

Motorcycles are a risk yes but they open you up to a new way of thinking and living. It helps you find yourself and what you like and what sort of person you are, because it frees your mind from conventional ways of thinking and living. You step away from planning and allow yourself to go with the flow and do things in the spur of the moment because you gain what i like to call the "lets just go for a ride" mentality. 

The "lets just go for a ride" mentality is much like the "lets go to the pub" mentality. Its a fix all problems solution. If your happy go for a ride, if your sad go for a ride,angry, celebrating, mourning, etc, just go for a ride. It fixes everything, but unlike the pub, going for a ride doesn't drown your problems in poison, it allows you to either just let go of the issue or just mull it over until it is no longer an issue. Even better you can go for a ride with friends or on your own and it will help either way.

Maybe that is what we mean by freedom but it is freeing. That ability to let go from your problems and concentrate on the sound of your engine and the feel or the road travelling up through the tires, forks, handlebars and into your hands. Knowing that if you drop your foot off the pegs just a little, then it will be dragging across the ground. The instancey of it all is intoxicating.

Your bike is the key to that freedom, that happiness. Maybe that is why we love the machine like it is a living thing, because it makes us feel more alive. Maybe that's why it hurts when it looks like mine currently does, because you have had that freedom and happiness taken away.

I hope people read this and think about bikers differently. I hope they see what it means to us, that it is more than just a mode of transport, its a lifestyle and an escape from everyday life. It helps us find enjoyment in the little things in life and helps us let go of the seemingly overwhelming problems, that really don't matter at all. It helps us be a child in an adults world, which is a good thing we all need to do it from time to time. 

I think that's me done for the night, so until next time.