Something strange and wonderful comes your way
Freedom comes on two wheels
Stuff comes on top every now and again. We carry on accumulating things. We buy the house, have the children, pay the mortgage and run either our business or, indeed, someone else’s. Then things change. The nature of work moves on. Something like the pandemic turns stuff our world upside down. Friends come and friends go. We get sick. We get fat. Then at some point something big happens. Perhaps you get ill and everything you’ve worked so hard for suddenly becomes pointless.
Maybe your other half declares it to be ‘game over’, “I’ll take the kids, I’ll have the house and bigger bank account”. All you’re left with is a high powered motorcycle and a couch in your friends place. One of the really scary things is that you now have a huge void of time to fill. It’s all very distressing. Life is, sometimes, about as predictable and disappointing as a Fitbit once the warranty has run out…
But then, every now and again something strange and wonderful comes your way. While you’re wondering how it all went a bit wrong someone gets in touch and suggests a few days away. This may be a golf trip, a stag do in a different city or indeed a few days on track somewhere in Europe with the afore mentioned high powered motorcycle.
Now let me digress a little. Organised religion. The people who operate a channel between the god that you’ve chosen and your good self while charging you a surprisingly large amount of money for the privilege. Occasionally they have had the inconvenience of having to deal particular individuals who, it would appear, have a more developed moral compass than most. They call them saints.
In the country where I live they even appropriate them from pre Christian times. You know how it works, what was the winter solstice is now rebranded as Christmas and a small number of the hippie types are the only ones left holding the pagan cup. Meanwhile the rest of us are off the new Lego shop and killing a turkey while putting the domestic bank account into the red for the next two months. All our ancestors had to do was dance around a very early version of the barbeque and eat some red meat while getting hammered on mead. It seems so unfair.
Well they also do that appropriation thing with people. Take Queen Maeve for example. The woman was a pre Christian force to be reckoned with. She rode everyone around her. You couldn’t get to be a high king without putting out for the lady, and she once laid waste to the entire width of the country to sort out a petty argument about who had the most cows. When the Christians arrived they couldn’t quite declare her to be a harlot, she was after all incredibly popular. They therefore pulled some gibberish out of their collective arseholes and declared her to be a saint who was full of good works and did all of them in the name of their god.
This was all nonsense of course. What she, along with all the other ‘saints’ had done was something good somewhere along the way. This is no more than many of us have done. Pause to let someone cross the street, attend a funeral or a wedding that you’d rather not and you’ve basically passed the test. The following day, hour or moment and you’re back to being your arsehole self again. But you’re a saint for doing something special. Channelling the good lords work by letting someone with a litre of milk in front of you at the till in Tesco and you’re a saint. That’s all it takes and that’s as long as it lasts.
There is, however, an argument that this ‘sainthood’ can have a profoundly positive effect on both ourselves and others. Take riding motorcycles for example. There are a number of different genres of enjoyment to be found in the two wheeled community.
Here in Ireland we have an impressive racing fraternity. Our friends in the Masters series have spent the summer setting new records while looking out for each other and exhibiting the best of what sports men and women have to offer. The organisers have also done sterling work in keeping everything ‘on track’. Then there are the marshals without whom none of this would happen.
Those who ride off road may well be regarded as the truly special ones. While they put their bikes in places that defy gravity and sometimes even logic, they do it so well. The tracks are laid out, the observers walk out and the club organise trophies and advise newcomers on how they can do better.
All of these competitions need sponsorship. To that end there are the ultimate fans. Made up of the industry, the corporate and private individual, these people are the lifeblood off two, and three, wheeled sport across the globe. Without them a lot less, if anything, can happen on track.
There are the touring types who ride out to rediscover their dreams. A lot of this is done ‘in country’. Some of it is ridden overseas in Europe and further afield. Regardless of where these trips are run, there are very few participants who ride home with regrets. The companies who run these gigs are invariably well prepped, skilled and know what they’re at.
Track days make something well worth taking part in accessible to all of us. This is regardless of what we ride and how fast or slow we’re prepared to do so. They add a huge level of skill and a deeper understanding of how our bikes work as well as being an enormous amount of fun. There’s the logistics of getting the bikes out of the country, finding accommodation and negotiating prices. All of which is hard, and often unnoticed work.
What all of these people have in common is that they provide freedom, happiness, social interaction and skill. They may be dickheads most of the time, but at least in the moment when they deliver what they do, they almost certainly meet the definition of saints?
So if things aren’t going quite as well as you’d like and everyone around you seems to be missing the point, remember that you have a bike. While you have one there’s a saint out there who’s only to happy to help you have a very good day indeed. Just remember to say thanks as they often do what they do without being noticed.