THE PERFECT RIDE
- by T.E. Whitaker
I’m on the bike, sweeping and flowing through the curves, the engine beating a rhythm as I make the millions of subconscious decisions necessary to remain in that perfect, intuitive zen-like motorcycle experience. And yet—
The mind wanders.
We’ve all experienced it in so many facets of our lives, not just motorcycling. You’re in the moment, and then you’re not. You’ve exited what many refer to as flow, and what I think of as “motorcycle zen.”
In his book, Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience, Mihaly Csikszentmihaly shows that life’s best work and experience occur when our concentration is so focused that we’re completely absorbed in whatever we’re doing.
Furthermore, his studies on the topic indicate people experience their most fulfilling moments while in this flow state, utterly focused, striving to excel at an exceedingly difficult skill, or to accomplish a task or goal just beyond their ability.
In this state of flow, the mind marks time differently. Time flies when you’re having fun, or when you’re in a flow state.
If this sounds a lot like mastering a new subject, or practicing a sport, or attempting a new recipe, or when you first learned to ride a motorcycle, it is. The higher level of concentration required to learn something new or improve upon your current abilities induces a flow state, until you reach mastery—or think you’ve reached it—at which point flow becomes more elusive.
When I rode my first real motorcycle—a decade removed from my immortality-bathed moped and college starter-bike days—my mental state whirled in light-speed rotation from unearned confidence (courtesy of a motorcycle safety course and my deep experience on a 49cc Honda Express II) to excitement to terror. I wasn’t in Iowa anymore, I was in Southern California, and there was just so much @#$%! traffic.
On the freeway, my Sportster 883 Custom—with its 21-inch, skinny, laced front wheel and wider, solid rear wheel—would vibrate and catch when it hit the rain grooves. I’ve never experienced fear like I did the first time that front tire jerked on a freeway groove at seventy miles per hour. But holy crap was I focused. In flow? Doubtful.
Over time, I learned how to ride safely, I earned a bit of that confidence, the fear diminished, and my mind wandered. Despite my love of riding, on occasion my experience smacked of getting from point A to point B, much like, sadly, driving a car.
I sold the Sportster.
A few years later the road called, and I bought a Fat Boy in response. Evidently, I had a thing for solid wheels. The Fat Boy’s tires were, well, fat, and didn’t catch in the rain grooves. I rode on the freeway, overcoming that fear, but rarely rode beyond a commute. The mind wandered.
That August I joined my friend Euclid and his riding buddies on the Sturgis ride from Los Angeles to South Dakota. To that point, I’d rarely ridden with anyone, definitely not with a dozen other bikers, and wasn’t accustomed to riding at 85-90 miles an hour in less-than-perfect-Southern-California weather.
The first time it rained I ran onto the shoulder at highway speed. I misjudged a hairpin near Mount Rushmore and nearly rode off a cliff. Predictably, I wasn’t finding any semblance of motorcycle zen. The situation was beyond my skills, and I thank the road gods I made it home alive.
I rode out of L.A. a poser who romanticized himself a biker, didn’t die, and rode back an intermediate rider. Interestingly, my primary physical connection with the bike shifted from my hands to my ass.
The jump from novice to intermediate, made over the course of four thousand miles keeping up with riders better than me, transitioned my mental state from focused and terrified—with grisly daymares of high-speed high-sides and head-ons with trucks—to focused and immersed, choosing my entries and exits, anticipating the worst without suffering visions of its results, enjoying the roar and vibration of the machine beneath me, concentrating on the ride.
I endeavored to notice everything, to choose the best lane position, to take high-speed bends with utter smoothness. I sought perfection, my first conception of the perfect ride.
Back in SoCal, life prevented me from riding, and I got rid of the Fat Boy. If you’ve been without a motorcycle for an extended period of time, you know how it feels. Something is missing. Every day I thought about it. When I moved away for several years, I fantasized about riding along the Pacific Coast Highway between Newport Beach and Dana Point, from Malibu to points north.
When I finally returned, my first act as a California resident was buying a Road King Special, though my tastes had expanded to include sport bikes, naked bikes, and Italian cruisers. I chose my new home and the Harley because of old friends and riding buddies (who rode Harleys) and nearby access to the PCH.
I rode again with my friend Euclid and guys from the Sturgis ride. I had no problem keeping up. It was—wait for it—like riding a bike. The idea of the Perfect Ride crystallized.
The Perfect Ride enables me to achieve flow and remain within it for the ride’s duration, to clear my mind, to gently dismiss extraneous thought. I don’t go for a ride to think. I go for a ride to ride, to be one with the bike and the road beneath, to cut through the wind, to immerse myself in engine and exhaust and experience. To take a step away from Life with a capital L and live.
To achieve this focused, flowing state consistently, to prevent my mind from wandering, I strive for technical perfection while I ride.
Pursuing technical riding perfection initiates flow for me, and if I make a mistake or get lost in a daydream I snap from it and reset—a bit like dismissing worldly thoughts while meditating.
Also on the list of flow…
Over time, this pursuit of perfection elevates my riding skills and enables me to access an extended meditative state while riding, to ignore time’s passage, to become one with the bike and flow with the road, to someday achieve the Perfect Ride.
