|
Moto-Philosophy 101
by Gary Charpentier |
 |
Damn,
it's been a long winter. I haven't ridden, or even worked on
any of my bikes since late November. I winterized
Quasi-Moto in the prescribed fashion, draining his carbs and
filling his tank with Sta-Bil-ized gas, and hooking him up
to a Battery Tender. But then I got busy with the mundane
requirements of everyday Minnesota winter life. I never even
touched the Yamaha XS-650 which was supposed to be my
wintertime Street-Tracker project. It sits out there now as
I type this, waiting for me to rescue it from the vintage
roadracer role for which it was originally intended. I
didn't even turn on the heat in my garage... Instead, I
hibernated. Like the great majority of Minnesotans, I
hunkered down in my humble abode, and only ventured out to
go to work, battling traffic in my pathetic little S-10
pickup truck. I read voraciously. I checked out books from
the library, and even bought them from secondhand book
stores occasionally, until there was never a spare moment
when I didn't have my nose buried between the pages of
something hard-covered and heavy, in both the physical and
metaphysical sense. First off, let me
tell you about "Tao of the Ride; Motorcycles and the
Mechanics of the Soul" by Garri Garripoli... What an ambitious
title. This guy tries to work motorcycling into the ancient
concepts of the Tao Te Ching, the 2,500-year-old book
attributed to China's ancient sage Lao Tsu. A lot of it is
quite interesting, as you follow through a discussion of
Feng Shui and Qi (pronounced "chee" ) and the way elemental
energies are at work within us and through us, affecting the
flow of everyday life. ("Use the Force, Luke!") He talks about
balance as it relates to both living your life and riding
your motorcycle, and he makes some valid points. But this
author comes across with some seriously un-zen-like biases.
For instance, Garripoli speaks only in terms of "cruising"
on a Harley. He writes with derision about fast riders,
breaking out the old cliche of the cafe racer planted in a
tree. Then, when he crosses the California/Arizona border:
"It's like going through an invisible veil, where bikers
pull over and pull off their helmets...I secure my half
shell to my sissy bar and tie on a bandana. Freedom. Feeling
the wind whip around your head unobstructed, shedding the
weight of all that plastic, (GC: Ah yes, the notoriously
heavy half-shell!) eliminating that wind resistance that
wrenches your (GC: pencil?) neck, yeah." But the thing that
really had me rolling on the floor was when he ventured into
the scientific realm: "...the resonant frequency of the
atmosphere, at the surface of the Earth,is 7.83 Hz. (the
"Schumann Resonance"). As you move into the Earth's
mantle...the resonant frequency is between 8 and 14 hz...
The conclusion is that when we are calm and centered, we
resonate with the Earth." Yeah, I know, but
it gets worse... " Now, I am not about to make any claims
about the healing power of a Harley, but it is definitely
food for thought that the 'natural' vibration of a
well-tuned Harley is at once harmonizing with the Earth's
mantle and putting it's rider into a healing, alpha state.
Might explain the attachment after all." Ohhh-kee-dokey,
Grasshopper... but wouldn't the zen effect be even more
pronounced on a big-bore Asian metric cruiser? What am I
missing here? After reading this
goofy tome I got to thinking about the book that started me
on the metaphysical trail in the first place: Robert
Pirsig's "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". Now,
Pirsig wrote about some practical stuff in this book, but he
also shared some troubling personal history involving
madness and recovery that the average motorcyclist might
choose to ignore. This is where the title misleads some
people, and where the casual reader usually parts
company. Now, I've read
this book many, many times, and I've always gotten
something new out of it with each reading. Pirsig also wrote
"Lila", in which he only mentions motorcycles briefly. But
in that book, he introduces something he calls the
"Metaphysics of Quality", which is a further development of
principles he explored in "Zen..." . This book will send
your mind into some serious loops and, if you are not
careful, will make you question the very foundations of your
own value system. There is actually a discussion group on
the internet that is dedicated to the interpretation of
world events based on this metaphysics at "moq.org".
I've been there, and I can tell you that you don't want to
go unless you have some serious time on your
hands. Then for awhile I
read a lot of western philosophy: Albert Camus "The Rebel"
for instance, Nietzche's "Human, All Too Human" and Celine's
"Journey to the End of the Night", a bit of something by
Sartre... none of which had anything to do with motorcycles,
but by then I was on some sort of mission. Towards the bitter
end of Winter, I fell back on Charles Bukowski's novels of
despair and debauchery, hoping they would carry me through
to the first warm caress of Spring. Finally, as the snow
melted and thoughts of riding began to bloom like dandelions
in my mind, I brought out an old favorite from the pages of
Cycle World. In the March `95 issue, there was a road test
of the 900SS Ducati by the inimitable Hunter S. Thompson
called "Song of the Sausage Creature": "Some people will
tell you that slow is good -- and it may be, on some days --
but I am here to tell you that fast is better. I've always
believed this, in spite of the trouble it's caused me.
Being shot out of a cannon will always be better than being
squeezed out of a tube. That is why God made fast
motorcycles, Bubba...." There are copies
of this floating around on the internet, and it is also
reprinted in Hunter's new book, "Kingdom of Fear", which I
highly recommend. But I won't be reading anything heavy for
awhile now; I just got Quasi-Moto out on the road again this
weekend. I don't want to be out there riding with the Tao,
through Pirsig's "High Country of the Mind", and fail to
notice that patch of sand at the apex of a corner. That's
just asking for an appointment with the Sausage
Creature... M.M.M.
Archives,