Sept. 14, 2025

Back to nature

In this episode of the Throttle and Roast podcast, host Niels Meersschaert reflects on the stark contrasts between driving a modern car and riding a motorcycle. He discusses how motorcycles offer a unique sensory experience that enhances our connection to nature. Unlike cars, which isolate drivers from their surroundings with quiet interiors, motorcycles provide vivid sounds—from engine roars to wind rushing by—that create a sense of speed and awareness. Niels highlights the benefits of these sensory experiences, including increased safety through heightened awareness of surroundings, and the joy of feeling more connected to the ride itself. Ultimately, he argues that motorcycles are the perfect vehicles to encourage a return back to nature and a more immersive experience on the road.

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00:00 - Introduction

01:21 - Sounds

05:31 - Vibrations

07:02 - Weather

08:17 - Smells

11:59 - Wrap up

WEBVTT

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Sure is quiet out there.

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Yeah, too quiet.

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Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. My wife and I recently replaced our and we'd had the old one for more than a decade. And this was a diesel car, so you can imagine the sound of the diesel chatter and then the normal squeaks and squeals of an older vehicle. It was a surprise to us when we got into the new car and we heard nothing.

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The car was so isolated from the world through which we traveled that it felt jarring to me in some ways. And it got me thinking about how, on a motorcycle, you don't have that isolation. You experience everything, and maybe that's actually better.

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Motorcycles are really an incredible vehicle that brings you back to nature in so many different ways. And while they're mechanical in design, they're the modern-day equivalent of riding a horse. We are fully out in nature. And perhaps the motorcycle is the perfect vehicle to encourage people to get back to nature.

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We'll talk about that in this episode.

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So as I pointed out in the car was just how quiet it was. And this is an aspect of a motorcycle that's probably the most obvious to people. And in one of the ones that a lot of riders will tend to try to accentuate by adding in an aftermarket exhaust. And that's the sound of the bike. And in particular, the sound of the bike, oftentimes we think of the engine as being the largest element. The revving of the throttle, that complete experience of just hearing the motor noise, the valve noise, the air intake noise, the exhaust noise. All of that is adding to the experience. And in a modern car, you're so isolated from it. You don't actually have it being available to be heard that some manufacturers have even gotten so bad as to pipe in fake engine noises through the speaker system into the car. So you really have a artificial or actual experience of hearing that engine noise when you're in a car, as opposed to on a motorcycle where it's raw. It's part of it. You just you love Now, another thing that is a sound that is part of the experience is wind noise. Now, of course, you're going to hear this rushing past your where you're still going to get a lot of that road noise as you get into maybe a full face or more of a modular type of a helmet.

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It will dampen the wind noise, but it's still quite obvious.

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It's nowhere near as quiet as you have in a car. So you really are experiencing that. to me, this is what's really fun about it, because the wind noise does give you not just the noise of it, but even just the feeling of the wind hitting against your body. It does give you a rather physical reflection of the fact that you are traveling at a certain speed. And in a car, aside from maybe seeing the things that are rotating quickly past glass of the car, you don't really have that sense of speed that you have in a motorcycle and the wind is a really big factor in that. Now, another sound, of course, that in a motorcycle we always are dealing with and having more availability is I'd say for things like sirens or horns or the noises from another vehicle.

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And this actually has a benefit of a safety aspect. We're actually able to be more aware of our surroundings because that noise is not being muffled as it is in a car. This is something that we're starting to hear a lot about it being a problem maybe even a factor into some automobile crashes is the fact that they may not even hear it.

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They may not hear emergency services because the siren is being just muffled by the really heavily isolated nature of that car. Another sound that we'll have when we are riding is a bit of tire noise And, this audible sort of sound gives you another signal to understand what's happening with the bike. How is the bike gripping or not gripping? Is it starting to get a little bit of tire squeal if you're pushing it a little too far? That experience just you are more connected to the bike than you are on a car and I think this is where just the almost appliance feel of a car really does disconnect the driver from that experience and I think this is maybe why we have fewer drivers today that are actually even considering getting a manual transmission or any sort of a sports car. Sports cars, of course, are selling in far smaller numbers than they did 30, 40 years ago. And a bit of that maybe because they're so antiseptic. They're that you no longer have this experience and motorcycles are that last holdout that is continuing to do that and this is what I find is so fascinating about them as just a vehicle because you have that true fully encompassing experience on a motorcycle that you don't have on other vehicles.

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Now, beyond sounds, of course, the other one that I talked about for riding is vibration and this is probably the closest related when we start to see it with sound and very closely with the engine.

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Obviously, the rumble of the engine is going to have a direct impact on the vibration that we feel on the bike. And as we accelerate, as we bring the RPM up on engine, we're going to actually have far more of a just visceral experience with hearing and feeling that vibration of the engine. All surrounding us because we're literally sitting on top of the engine and riding along. The other thing is, it's not just the engine vibrations, but I'd say the vibrations that are induced in other parts of it.

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So as you're holding on to the handlebars, you're going to feel some vibrations just of the road because it's directly connected and any of the sort of just normal vibrations are going to actually transmit through the engine into the handlebars and into the foot pegs. So you just really feel it completely. Now, some modern bikes do try isolate this a little bit or at least try to make the vibrations not a very annoying buzz, but you do have that experience. Whereas in a if you hold the steering wheel, you really have very little road feedback into there. There's no vibration that's coming through the steering wheel as clearly as you do through the handlebars.

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And this much more visceral experience that we have on a motorcycle is part of what I think makes it so appealing to many of us as riders.

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Now, one of the other things that we will have on a motorcycle, of course, is we are more open to experiencing the temperature variation through the environment in which we travel. this is really sort of related into more broadly into weather. Whereas in a car, you have an internal climate control system. So you can modify your internal weather, if you will, to whatever is comfortable. It may be air conditioning running in the summer months, which is going to keep the temperature from being too hot. It's going to remove any of the high humidity out of the vehicle's interior and a motorcycle. We don't really have that. We are fully out there. And if it's raining, of course, in a car, that rain is just going to hit the windshield and the roof of the car and you'll be totally fine and completely dry. Not so when we're on a motorcycle. So we have that really complete experience of we are acutely aware of what is going on And in fact, we might even have something where we have a early premonition, if you that it's about to change the temperature, change the weather, start to rain, etc. And this is because we are exposed to it. So that little subtle cues do actually come into us.

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And I think probably the most evident one for this would probably be the smells. If you've ever been on a bike just when it is just beginning to rain, you've probably noticed where there's a there's a distinct smell that arises when it just starts to rain. And there's actually a technical term for this. It's called petrichor. And this is when raindrops land on a porous surface, the air from the pores form small bubbles and they float to the surface and they release aerosols. And these aerosols might carry a scent and especially if the raindrops are moving slowly, it tends to produce more aerosols. So if you have a really light rain, that smell is going to be even more prevalent. And it's it's something that you don't when you're in a car, but on a motorcycle, you really, really can. And this is something that is just it's such a, it's oftentimes really hard to explain to people, maybe people who are hiking and they go hiking through all sorts of weather. They have a similar experience, but I'd say for a large part of the population of the world today, when we do travel, we're traveling in a vehicle of some sort. that might be our own private car. That might be a bus. It might be a train. But in all of those situations, we are isolated from the environment through which we travel. And therefore, all of these other almost subtle signals that you would experience when you're out in nature, you miss out on. And in a motorcycle, it's absolute in your face. You cannot escape it.

00:09:51.582 --> 00:10:59.631
You're going to be well aware of what's going on. And a great example of this is you just passed by a field that has just been cut. You're going to smell that freshly cut And that odor is going to be just so strong of a sensation you know, just and really be part of your entire ride. I mean, I struggle for the words in some ways because it's just, it's such a totality of your And, you know, not everything is going to be enjoyable. Hey, if it's pouring rain and it's cold and it's windy, that might make you feel a little bit like, eh, this sucks. But being that it sucks is also part of the experience and part of what might make it enjoyable. It makes the adventure of it, if you will, versus just watching a video game of the scenery go by you as you do in a car. And the other one that I'd say is really that sort of sensation of smell in some ways is when you're in that car and you have that climate control system, in some ways you really have just recycled air.

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There's no fresh feeling.

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There's no vibrancy to the air.

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And if you've ever gone outside on a nice summer breeze and you smell that fresh air, it can really be invigorating. It can be energizing on its own. And on a motorcycle, because that's part of our experience the entire time as we're riding, we're feeling that wind come by us. We're feeling the vibrations.

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We're smelling everything that's coming through, including that fresh air smell. It's just a full body experience that you miss out on in other forms of transportation. So I think in many ways, the motorcycle is really well suited to getting us back out in nature. And as I said, motorcycles are probably the closest modern day equivalent to riding a horse.

00:11:47.480 --> 00:11:55.774
And the motorcycle is probably the closest one that you could have to really get out and get back to nature.

00:11:59.133 --> 00:12:44.535
So we covered some of the sounds and the vibrations that you can experience on a motorcycle and how that really does become a big part of your total experience. And we also examined the effects of temperature and the various smells that can be experienced under various different conditions of the weather, whether it just started to rain and you're having that petrichor come through or you pass that freshly cut grass in a field and really have that complete experience of the smells and the fresh air are fully overwhelming hitting all of your senses at once. So my question for you is, what is your favorite element of a motorcycle tends to be isolated when you're in a car?

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Share your thoughts to the text to show link in the show notes or leave a voicemail at throttleandroast.com/voicemail.

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Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you next week.