On Motorcycles and Manhood

For the newbs and younglings:

Yes, women treat you differently (better) if you ride. A quarter century ago a young woman once told me in an intimate moment of honesty "Cars don't really matter to us exactly, but a cute guy is always cuter in a nice car." Square the "nice car" effect and that's what riding does for you.

That's an easy enough concept to understand when you consider that the "nice car" signals power and utility to the consciousness of the woman evaluating you and the motorcycle signals the same but at a more innate and sub-conscious (and thus more potent to most women) level.

But that concept is not the point of this post as it is the secondary and indirect effect of riding which is far less important than the primary effect - which is to stimulate those qualities which enhance your masculine energy.

The realer deal:

My interest in mortorcycles started relatively recently and was initiated by a desire to socially engage with a small group of men whom I was getting to know as we worked on a business venture. Previously I had thought bikes were cool, but not worth the additional risk over the sports cars which I have thoroughly enjoyed. My risk tolerance and preferences have changed.

After a career change which took me from an over twenty year stretch in a line of work where mistakes are absolutely untenable because of the level of risk for which people in that line of work are responsible to daily work in which the downside risk of making a mistake is comparatively negligent, I realized that I missed the intensity of the risk and the benefits of bearing it. So having taken up riding to have fun with some bros while reintroducing the intensity of managing significant risk on a daily basis, I have come to realize why it is so appealing to so many men.

Motorcycles are significantly better tools for the intensification of your masculinity and the pleasure you can draw from that process than sports cars (and many other activities as well).

The whys:

1. You have to know yourself. You need to know if you should be riding motorcycles at all and when you should be riding if you decide that you can handle the risk and want to stay alive and fully functional. Internal dishonesty in this decision process can get you killed or at the very least "set you up for a really fucked up day."

2. Bikes are cheap as chips. The same money that I spent on my last very nice but not ludicrous sports car buys brand spanking new versions of three bikes that give me a garage to suit my all my particular riding-style preferences, the gear to match each riding-style for riding in all four seasons, the tools and equipment to do basic maintenance and repair, a trailer on which to haul the bikes around, and a nice vehicle to tow the trailer. I purchased my first bike and gear for less than $7k and got a very nice 3 year old Italian job that's faster than my last very nice but not ludicrous sports car by about 3/4ths of a second in 0-60s and tops out almost 20mph faster than I ever drove that car (and I was not shy about maximizing traffic-free fun time on the Hutch-Merritt) - and yes, that's more bike than is wise for a newb, but it has a riding mode that basically turns it into a CB500F at the touch of a button. The cheapness means that you can have a lot more fun for low dollar cost in exchange for accepting more risk - which consequently means that you can't be stupid about managing that risk if you want to remain alive and fully functional.

3. Focus and discipline are required. Slip up, make a mistake, and it can easily cost you your life or your functionality. And (like women) neither asphalt, nor concrete, nor steel will care about your excuses for losing focus and discipline, they'll just make you pay for them.

4. You oughtta know some physics. Chances are that you already know the basics of how to ride motorcycles because you can ride a pedal-bike. However, safe motorcycle riding requires a better understanding of two-wheeled physics because 400-plus pounds, 20-plus horses, and 2x-plus speeds punishes misunderstanding much faster and harder. The fact that much of two-wheeled physics is counter-intuitive to your innate survival instincts only increases the importance of understanding those physics and the (literally) vital necessity of...

5. ...raising your consciousness. Your sub-conscious and innate behaviors evolved over approximately 175,000 years and can become your enemy in a hurry in modern society with modern tools. Riding to maximize both fun and safety will require you to objectively observe yourself, critique yourself, and over time (with practice) garner control over your innate sub-conscious reactions and re-write them with your conscious will. This point bears a strong relationship to the first point. Riding to live as you live to ride is a consciousness raising exercise.

6. You would be wise to respect those with more experience than you. If they're still around to share their experience and both willing and able to do so, you should probably be listening and taking it to heart. Still...

7. You need to know what's right for you. What other guys do needs to be what they do and you need to do what suits your risk tolerance and skill-set. Adopting someone else's risk tolerance "can set you up for a really fucked up day," (or a really boring one).

8. You get to indulge your inner tool nerd. We are innately tweaky about our gear and tools and the motorcycling world lets you indulge that tweakiness to the max - in part because the details can matter.

9. You'll become a mechanic to some degree or another. For starter's you'll need to at least know how to give your bike's systems a thorough pre-ride check because not doing so is stupid. And it's both relatively easy and riskless enough to do basic maintenance yourself on your Italian superbike that it's not worth the hassle and expense of taking it in to the dealer to do so - not so much for your Italian supercar.

10. You have to take responsibility for your own situation. You're going to suffer the bulk of the consequences of an accident so you need to be hyper-vgilient about controlling your situation. Other drivers on their phones or not signalling and using their mirrors? Tough shit, you have to figure out how to be safe despite what they're doing. Imperfect road conditions abound? Bitch about road maintenance all you want, but you better make the necessary adjustments. Get yourself caught in shitty weather? Should have planned better, now you have to sort it out mate. No excuses, no blame game.

11. Riders are a tribe. It's a big tribe with some divisions and sometimes some silly beefs because of them, but we're a tribe nonetheless.

12. You have to be fit and trim. Safely manhandling a 400-plus pound bike at low speeds and properly mating to it with gentle inputs at higher speeds just isn't possible if you're fat and/or out of shape.

13. The Isle of Man TT. Fuck yeah.

Edited: For grammar