Change your Perspective, Change your Ride

We can complain because rose bushes have thorns or rejoice because thorns have roses. Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. If there's a sameness to your rides, same place, same route, same people, you might be in need of a change of perspective. Oftentimes in life, we run on autopilot, just doing the things we're used to. This almost mindless approach can leave us wanting more. There can be a lack of inspiration. It can also cause us to lose focus, which could lead to a crash when we're riding. what if we borrow from some of photography's fundamentals and change our perspective on riding? I'll look at ways you can make changes to how you think about riding and maybe see a new side of riding and rekindle that spark that got you riding in the first place Now we looked at changing the roads you use a little bit in the Steppenwolf had it wrong, get out on the back road episode. And I still believe that changing up your ride is the best way to keep your passion for riding going. But the different roads isn't the only way to keep it feeling fresh. Now in photography, one foundation is what a normal lens is. Now for a 35 millimeter camera, which is what most of the cameras that have been very popularized over the 20th century into the 21st century have been. And this is often called the nifty 50 or a 50 millimeter lens. The key thing is that the relative size of objects in the frame appears similar to what we would see with our own eyes. And whereas when we use a wide angle or a telephoto lens, the view of the world feels different than our normal view. Likewise, the vantage point or the angle that we see the world can also provide something new. Sometimes in photography, we're encouraged to get down low and see the world from this vantage, which is different than our normal just walking around. And we also might get up high and look down. Who hasn't climbed to the top of a tall building or a mountain and sat in awe of the view looking down? Or reverse it and stare up in the sky or up at a tree. Notice how the lines of a tree trunk seem to converge near the top, yet they're wider at the bottom. And this change in perspective is what really makes it more interesting. So sometimes seeing something differently is about changing your vantage point or even just getting closer or further away. What if we could apply that same mindset towards motorcycles? now you might only use your motorcycle for leisure riding, as many of us here in North America and in Europe do. So what I might suggest to you is look at how you might change it up with non-leisure trips. What if you take your bike and use it for your normal daily commute? Go into the office, go into work, wherever it is, and take your bike instead of another way of transport. So instead of driving to work, take your motorcycle to work. It's going to be a very different experience, because now you're getting out on your bike for what might feel a little bit more of a chore of driving to work. Now you get to do it out on your bike and change it Have a little bit of a different feeling and, quite honestly, also get a lot of extra miles under your belt. You can also use your motorcycle for errands, if you were just going to run down to the store to pick up a very small, quick little item, well, why not take bike instead of your car? It's going to be a much different experience. And just throw it in a backpack, whatever you've got, or if you have saddlebags, you can throw it in there. Do your bike for those errands that you normally would have taken a car for, and all of a sudden it changes your experience. Your way that you think of the bike from being a purely leisure vehicle to being a vehicle that can have multiple uses actually change dramatically when you do these two things of going on your commutes and doing these errands with your motorcycle. It's a really incredible change. where a lot of us don't necessarily do that. We might be only using it in the cliche"weekend warrior" type of approach and only ride a couple hours on the weekend. Well, what if you add that in of now you're using it more frequently? connection to your motorcycle, your connection to the world, really starts to evolve of what you're doing and what the purpose of your motorcycle is. So now your motorcycle is not just this only once in a blue moon thing. and this can bring you closer to your motorcycle and what it means to you to be riding. Another way we can try this is with using a different route. Often times you get out on the bike and maybe you are just trying to get to a destination, so you might go quickly quickly as possible and you think I'm just going to get out on the highway and go along that fast path. Or even if you take a backroad you might take a relatively fast backroad go. And your mindset is set on the destination rather than on the journey. And changing this simple focus in your mind really can change the experience and often for the better. So one way to do this is instead of that rush, what if you took a meandering path? Don't worry if its a fast paced road, take something that's maybe a little bit slower. You don't have to go through I'm not trying to rush. It's not a thrill. It's just a relaxing endeavor as you're just going through maybe a country One thing that I found really helps when you're trying to focus on this type of a mindset changing. Oh, I have to be at this place at this time. Get that out of your mindset and just be I'll get there when I get there. This is incredibly freeing when you have that opportunity and it changes the way in which you're using your bike. Your bike is not just to be about speed. Your bike is about enjoying the journey. Stop. Look at roadside attraction that you see. Take that time. Don't be rushing. So beyond the different routes you can also start to think of different destinations. I've spoken to many riders and they kind of end up going to the same place. Maybe it's the same restaurant or even the same coffee shop on many of their rides. it's comforting to be there and the in the consistency, but it can also start to feel a little stale. the same thing over and over and over again. And how do we change that up? How do we make this a little bit more up. What about instead of going to the coffee shop, that's five miles away, we go to one that's 50 miles away. Just do something a little different. Now I've actually covered this in the tank of coffee blog where I've gone to about 80 different coffee shops that I've ridden to and written about. the closest shop that I've done was about 11 miles round trip. And the furthest was nearly 300 miles. Now, mind you, this was just to get a coffee. So just have fun with it. Just do something that's a little bit different and it can change your destination and it can change your mindset about what you're going to do. Now, another perspective you can change is riding in different weather. There are a ton of fair weather riders who won't ride unless it's warm and sunny out. So why not expand your horizons? If you've ever considered a longer trip on your bike, you're very likely to run into different weather on a trip. So get comfortable with it before the trip. Maybe it's warm, but a little drizzle might happen. Well, bring some rain gear and see what the experience is like. Or maybe there's a cold spell and it's dropped down to a frightful 50 degrees Fahrenheit or 10 degrees Celsius. Well, add in a couple of layers and go for that ride. That different weather can just be a different experience for you. And I'm not going to say that, hey, pouring rain when it's cold out is the most fun experience, but it is an experience and it's one that you will likely remember. I remember being caught out in a downstorm once. I mean, the water was pouring down so incredibly heavily. You couldn't see more than a few hundred feet in front of you. That's how bad the rain was. We were out with the riding group. We finally just pulled over into a gas station. We all just crowded ourselves underneath the overhang in the gas station just to get a little bit of a respite from the rain. But we still remember that experience. It was still a unique experience that we still laugh and talk about all the time because it was such a unique one. And if we had looked at the weather report and said, oh, well, there's a chance of rain today and said, yeah, I'm not going to bother. We wouldn't have had that experience. Now, do I want to ride in that every single day? No. But I have no qualms about riding when it rains and having it done it in the worst rain possible kind of sets up where everything else is like, well, this is actually very mild comparatively. So having that different experience gives you a wider envelope of the conditions in which you feel comfortable riding. And this is actually a really good way to just enhance your your comfort, your learning, your experience, your skills, everything, just by trying out a few different weather situations. Now, I notice a lot of riders tend to ride in the middle of the day on a weekend, and this is fine, but it's also the warmest part of the day and the part of the day that often has the most traffic. Everyone's running errands in the in the weekend days there. What about getting on the road at first light? It's not quite as sweltering, especially in the summer months, and the roads tend to be fairly empty. You've got the roads all to yourself, and there's a quietness that happens. You don't have the din of the traffic as you're riding along. It's just you and your motorcycle. So it's the sound of your engine, the sound of your tires against the pavement, and that's it. rush of the wind passed to your helmet. That's the extent of it. There's nothing else beyond it. And this is a really interesting experience. There's actually a podcast put out by the BMW MOA or the Motorcycle Owners Association in which name of it really sums up this mindset perfectly. It's called 200 Miles Before Breakfast. And that's the key thing is get out really early, go for that ride, and then you can stop somewhere for breakfast. This is actually one of my favorite things to do is I'll ride to breakfast, and it might be, you know, a state away. That's fine. You're doing something a little different. It's not only the middle of the day. You get out early, got the whole rest of the day to continue to explore. Now, a lot of the stuff I've covered thus far is really what I'd classify as sort of the day trips or the day rides, if you will. You're just going out for a ride for that singular day. Well, a lot of riders actually do decide to expand their repertoire and go on a trip on their bike, and they may ride somewhere. But sometimes they may kind of do the same old, same old with when they go on the trip. They're always traveling to the same kind of place, the same kind of experience. And a long trip by a motorcycle is a unique experience and one that I think a lot of people should enjoy. But there are riders who insist that they have to stay at a motel just off the interstate. And while this is convenient, there's an urgency in the pace of these type of places that creates a different experience for you. And sometimes changing up the atmosphere of where you're staying can change the reaction and the response that you have to staying there. So if always staying in these hotels that are right off the you miss out on some areas that might not be right near the highway. And this lets you slow down a little bit. That same thing of the meandering path, slowing down often lets you see things that you wouldn't see if you're just rushing past it. So what if instead of staying at some chain hotel on the side of the highway, what if you instead stay at a B&B in a small town? Just change it up. Do something a little bit different. Have that experience where it's a relaxing morning as you come up and you have breakfast with the hosts or you explore and walk through the town. Just change it up a little bit. Now, if you're really daring, how about strapping a tent or a hammock onto the back of the bike and finding a place to camp each night? This is my absolutely favorite way to travel on a motorcycle. We're out and exposed to nature on the bike anyway when riding. So why not just continue the theme? Now, there are those who say that they dislike camping. It's uncomfortable. And I can see that. There's definitely truisms to that experience. But if you have the option to use a hammock, it might just be the best night of sleep you've ever had. Fresh air, a sway in the breeze, and nature is rocking you to sleep. It's such an amazing experience. And I would encourage you to give it a try and give it a go. Now, if you don't want to do hammocking or if there's not really a lot of options I'll actually put in a link to the show notes for what I think is one of the coolest tents that's out there, which is the Wingman on the road. This is the Toucan tent that I actually have. And it's a canvas tent. You can actually pack it all up. It's all one piece. You're set up from on your bike to ready to lay down in about five minutes because it has the mattress. It has the sleeping bag all built into it. And you just set it up with a handful of poles And it's super, super easy to get set up. And it's got some great, great positives to it. So there's a few different ways that you can do camping on a motorcycle. Now, it's a bit of a cliche, I know, but you often see a pristine, clean ADV bike, often a BMW GS parked outside of a Starbucks. Now, while I'm a big fan of ADV bikes, and I think they can be the right choice for many riders, they really are intended to get a little bit dirty. And it doesn't mean you have to jump straight from perfectly paved highways to single track. But what about taking a few unpaved roads instead? Get into the farmland in your area and go on the roads you might have avoided before. This is a way to experience your ADV in the way that it's really intended, but also to see the world a little different than your day by day. If you're only on massive paved roads all the time, you're missing out on that part of nature that really slows you down. It gives you an experience, that viewpoint we talked about from photography, of something you don't see every day. So get out onto these dirt roads with your ADV bike. Likewise, sport bikes have a ton of power, and it can be addictive to twist the throttle and be at extra legal speeds before you can say sport motorcycle. But why not bring that need for speed to the track? You'll be in a controlled area. No worries about cars turning in front of you or wildlife running out from the side of the road. And you can push yourself and your bike in ways that you can't do on public paved roads. And finally, one of the best ways that I think you can change up your perspective of riding and really see your riding through a little bit of a different lens is realize where you are. You got your license, and that may have been the last time that you did any sort of formal training. Well, why not take an advanced riding course? Have instructors observe how you ride and make suggestions on how to improve it. Are there aspects of riding that have always made you nervous, like slow speed maneuvers or leaning through a curve, or even riding off road as we just talked about with ADV bikes? Take a course and learn how to acquire the skills and the confidence that will help elevate your riding experience and give you a new viewpoint on what you're doing and how you can make it even better. how, so let's wrap up. We looked at how photography teaches us that perspective and vantage point can change our impression of the same experienced, we then examined how we could apply that to our riding. We discussed using our bike, not just for leisure rides. We delved into different routes and different destinations, and we investigated how we could try different accommodations while traveling. Next, we looked at how you could use your ADV bike for more than just a Starbucks run, and how a track day could be the fix for your sport bike, or really any bike for that matter. And finally, we looked at how to get an outside perspective from training could help refresh our riding. So my question for you this week is, what is one thing you find yourself always doing in your riding that you want to change? Share your thoughts through the text to show link in the show notes or leave a voicemail at throttleandroast.com slash voicemail. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you next week.