So let us begin, as we should, with my beginning. My roots. My heritage. DC for the win, baby. You see that comment about inclement weather? A single snowflake ten miles away is enough for the madness to set in, Jonesy.
As should be no surprise, I got the hell away from my roots. You can die up there.
But anyway, I digress. I do that a lot. You may have noticed. So I bought a motorcycle. It’s an old beater, but a lot of fun to ride. The price was right (cheap) and the thing runs. I put a hundred odd miles on it without undue smoke or smells and figured it was worth while. Now Mandrake, my car, is one of my prized possessions, so I started thinking about how riding the two differ.
Both have manual transmissions, but shifting the bike isn’t quite the same as shifting the WRX. You need to give the bike a lot more gas, and make sure it’s got some ass behind it. In addition the thing revs a lot higher, so my usual tendencies to keep RPMs low doesn’t work. When someone learns to drive stick a lot of times they won’t give it enough gas. They are, but they’re giving it a constant amount of gas and you need to vary the throttle as you shift. The throttle curve is different for the bike, different enough that my reflexes are off.
Not quite as intrusive but more obvious is the difference in exposure. A car is like a little house. You’ve got walls, windows, doors, and no one can directly come in. That’s not true, of course, but that’s the way it feels. I’ve stalled out in my car and not really cared because it felt like I was in private. On the bike that’s different. On that thing you get the impression people are watching you and wondering what the hell you’re doing. On the other hand, it’s a lot easier to appreciate the scenery as you drive. The wind is nice. Very different sensations.
The safety thing hasn’t become an issue yet, and I’d like to keep it that way with both. Internal air conditioning is wonderful though. In and of itself the AC is the reason my bike will never replace my car. Music is also an issue. Really, the car is unbeatable on every form of luxury. The bike does get better gas mileage, and it is fun to fill up for $6. Basically though, riding the bike is an end, in and of itself, while in almost all situations, driving somewhere is simply a form of transport. Thus while driving is probably superior on most grounds, it’s also not an activity. Not until I get to a racetrack or head up independence pass again. I think I’ll go do that on two wheels and see how it works.
This makes me want to ride a horse for the sake of comparison, but every place I’ve looked at all they offer is riding in little circles for a few months. Boring. Jousting or GTFO.
