Long distance and the people you meet on the way and all the different places, strictly no motorway .
I ride because when i used to play football i could switch off and nothing mattered for 90 minutes. I had been chasing this since i gave up i didn't find it until i first got on a bike and i'm not looking back.
Not an easy question to give a short answer to, but I'll try and keep it brief. Both my Dad and elder brother rode motorcycles when I was a kid so they were there in our lives. Growing up in the 60's and 70's, I couldn't afford a car when I was old enough to drive/ride, so my bike was the only independent transportation I had. I went to work on it, went out at weekends on it, went on holiday on it and every other journey of more than a mile or so was undertaken on the bike. These days they are basically expensive toys for me, I have a car as a daily user, and I've become a warm and dry(ish) days rider only, however I've always had a motorbike of some description in the shed/garage whatever for over 50 years now, but I still love it.
Why do I ride a motorcycle,,,,because I can and enjoy it as much now as I did in 1966 when I first started riding legally on the road
Giving this question some serious thought. I ride for the solitude. I have friends that also ride. They are my friends because I like them. Not because they ride. I ride with them only a few times a year. They want me to go more, but for them it is a social experience. For me riding is a retreat. I don't think my friends understand this, so I go with them occasionally. I would much rather spend my time with them sharing a meal, enjoying good conversation, etc. ...J.D.
My mum gave me a Dinky toy motorbike when I was about 4 years old. The headstock snapped quite quickly (they always did), but I loved that toy and couldn't wait to get a real one, which I did aged 16. Bicycles were always make believe motorbikes. I thought riding a motorbike would make me attractive to girls - it didn't - and that has been the only disappointment about them. I was chatting to an Asian friend of my son a few years ago. He was into bikes and said that, for him, it was a kind of meditation. It cleared his mind of noise and worry. And at that moment, I understood why I love riding a bike. The clearing, at least temporarily, of all the mental rabble going on. No bloody brexit, no conflict, no chores, no pressure, no family argument, no pain. Just focus. The buzz of euphoria, after a 200 to 400 mile day, can last a couple of days. Even a 50-mile run helps. I've put Milan Kundera's quote on this forum before, but in my opinion, it stands repeating. "What could I say? Maybe this: the man hunched over his motorcycle can focus only on the present instant of his flight; he is caught in a fragment of time cut off from both the past and the future; he is wrenched from the continuity of time; he is outside time; in other words, he is in a state of ecstasy; in that state he is unaware of his age, his wife, his children, his worries, and so he has no fear, because the source of fear is in the future, and a person freed of the future has nothing to fear." A lot of great replies on here that I agree with, and I simply echo them in my own words - oh and Milan Kundera's words.
Biker Jock, I had a dinky toy Norton when I was a kid, the headstock broke on mine too. I used to wheelie it around the carpet with no forks on it, I had that toy for years.
Adrenaline mainly , never do you feel more alive than when you could be killed , I don't want to die , just like the buzz that you could.
Me too I had a couple of die cast toy motorcycles as a kid, and yes the pin at the headstock snapped, I used to "fix" mine with a paperclip. I desperately wanted a motorbike as a teenager but my parents were both adamant that I wasn't having one, so had to wait until I left home before learning to ride. So frustrating when most of my mates had the likes of either a GP100, FS1E or DT50
Simple...I couldn't reach the top shelf, but I could reach "Back Street Heroes"... after a while, I started looking at the bikes too! Then I stumbled across an MCN review of the Yamaha VMAX in about 1991...and that was it...I just had to wait 30 years until I could do what I liked...
I think most humans, at least the ones living in developed countries fight depression. Little wonder. Modern society thinks they need music playing all the time. Every place you turn someone is trying to sell you something. And the people around you don't help. They talk too much. Or they give you problems. Time to get on the bike and be alone with myself. I don't care for the modern bikes either. I can well afford one. Too many electronic gadgets. I don't need to be entertained by the motorcycle . Just me and an engine. Depression relieved. Who needs medication. ...J.D.
I completely agree with you on the wanting to be at one with your bike. As far as the gadgets are concerned, for me I don’t see them as gadgets but as safety enhancements. ABS, traction control are major improvements on a motorcycle. Rider modes can enhance the ride and experience by changing the characteristics of the bike, so a useful addition to the bike. Of course at the end of the day it all comes down to personal choice, just my opinion.
I am not going to engage in a technological discussion here. No offense, but not that kind of discussion. ...J.D.
I don't know is the honest answer. And possibly 'All of the above' I suspect that a big part of it is that I am a speed freak and my bikes have always been cheap speed. Don't get me wrong, I don't go everywhere at three figure speeds or even in excess of the speed limit most of the time (except on track), but the feeling of getting a series of bends just right or shaving a couple of hundredths off my standing quarter times put a big smile on my face. I remember as a child seeing local bikers coming past our house and saying to my mum "When I grow up, I want to be a biker" She told me to make my mind up which....