How Motorcycling Changes You: Stories of Adventure and Growth

By doing nothing, nothing changes. Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. In today's episode, we'll look at how motorcycling and even a specific motorcycle can change you. You thought you knew yourself. You thought you'd pushed yourself. You thought you'd seen all the beauty in the world, but you'd never been on a motorcycle. So the truth is that motorcycling can change your life. And it can do so in a number of different ways. And this is actually what most people actually do recognize as they continue to advance in their motorcycling journey. And a few of those ways we'll kind of go over in this episode, but one of them is moving out of your comfort zone. And the truth is it takes a special kind of person to throw a leg over a machine with a tank full of flammable gasoline, sitting atop a throbbing engine, practically in your lap and then make it dance all over the road. Motorcycling pushes you out of your comfort zone, anyone that you may have, not physically, but also even mentally. And this is one of the things that really does push you out and force you to change. if you've been a person who has never really gotten outside of your comfort zone before, but now you take up motorcycling, you may find yourself suddenly pushing yourself way, way out from what you were used to doing before. And related into that, you're going to achieve something that has not commonly been done before. Next time you go out for a drive, see how many motorcycles that you notice. Now count how many cars or trucks you see. The number of riders is dwarfed by the number of drivers. We are a tiny portion of those on mechanical transit in many parts of the world. Maybe only Asia will flip the script a little bit with more riders than drivers simply due to the economical nature of riding. But the reality is, is that by you becoming a motorcyclist, you are doing something that is unusual, it's not something that everybody has ever tried out or even has the skills to continue to do. And this is a big change. You are part of a unique brotherhood of riders who have achieved the ability to control a motorcycle in ways that others have not. One of the other ways that motorcycling can change you is, there's sort of a common old adage, let's say, for motorcycling, where you'll never see a bike parked outside a psychiatrist's office. Now, while this saying irks actually a psychiatrist friend of mine who also happens to ride motorcycles, it is true that riding often gets you into a flow. You stitch together this curve into the next, winding with the road. You rise and fall with the natural elevation changes, and your focus is more on the road than anything else in your life. You're in the flow, and it seems like all of the stresses in life just seem to melt away. Who cares about that meeting next week, or taking out the garbage? They aren't foremost in your mind anymore. You've achieved riding bliss. Long-term riders might even start to sound like drug addicts, missing that fix of a good ride just to clear their head. And sometimes you'll hear a rider say, yeah, I'm just going to go out for a ride. I'm just too pissed off. I've got to clear my head. if you can get into that flow, it can really be good. And this is where motorcycling can really change you. There a few activities in life that can really get you into this flow zone, but motorcycling really seems to be something that a lot of people are able to actually achieve it. And for an activity that seems so solo in nature, we often gravitate towards others who ride as well. We always stop to check on the rider at the side of the road, seeing if they need any help. You wave to another rider coming from the other direction, not from a recognition of them personally, but simply because they're out on two wheels. And this camaraderie is something is really remarkable for a shared experience simply because you ride, not because of anything else. You could have completely different backgrounds. You could have a doctor. You could have a lawyer. You could have a carpenter. You could have a metal worker. It doesn't matter. You just ride. And that's all that people care about. And it doesn't mean it's an exclusive aspect of motorcycling. People have camaraderie in many other endeavors in life, but motorcycling is... Perhaps has the opportunity to be the most welcoming and open just because you see someone out on a bike. How many times have you seen someone on a bike and maybe you weren't on a bike that day and you just strike up a conversation with them and just be like, oh yeah, I love your bike. And you know, oh yeah, I ride too. And here's what I do. And like, it's just something that we do that you don't necessarily find in a lot of other endeavors. And maybe that's because you don't see people participating in a way that you easily can see in other walks of life. But this camaraderie is something that is really remarkable about it and something that happens as you become a rider. If it rains, you get wet. And if it's hot, you're hot. If it's cold, you're cold. You've become an aspiring meteorologist. You can sense small changes in the weather as you ride and you're more attuned than you've ever been in your life before riding. You start to notice the darkening skies even when you're not out on the bike. Your awareness of nature is even stronger. And many riders love to camp when they travel by bike, continuing that communion with nature. This is really for a lot of people, it's actually a different experience. They may have been stuck inside in an office maybe all the time or maybe they aren't really concerned so much with the weather or with nature. But when you get out and ride, you have this affinity toward it or a, at least more of a recognition or at least a tuning to it than you had in the past. So there's a huge number of ways that riding can change you. But oftentimes long-term riders will remember that one bike that really changed them more than any before or even since. And this bike might've let you switch gears and advance your skills even faster than some of the other bikes you've had, or it might've unlocked ways of riding that you'd not previously experienced. And those brought new insights to your life. Now, if you take a sport bike or even just go on a day with your existent bike, this can help unlock a honing of your skill. The world passes by more quickly, yet you command it completely. You thought of a leisurely Sunday ride was eye-opening, but now you spy the gaze in your rear view as you carve canyon roads at a high speed. And you've just leveled up. You might even change who you ride with or where, focusing mainly on the curvy roads rather than that open highway to test your skills each time you go out and ride. Or ADV bikes have become insanely popular because they're often thought of as being a Swiss army knife, able to do just about anything. The real unlock for many riders is getting off pavement. You get even more out into nature than you had before. You learn to read the terrain, not just for the curves, but for the material like loose sand or rock gardens, even mud. How do you handle going up that hill with all the ruts carved by the last rainstorm? What about that water crossing just ahead? You get your butt out of the seat and you stand the pegs, letting the bike move around just beneath you. And you change your position forward and back and side to side to keep the traction where you need it. It's no longer just add throttle for a hill, but lean forward and keep that front tire from lifting and hold a smooth throttle hand to keep that rear wheel from spinning Maybe you enjoy a backcountry discovery route and you see parts of the country you've never seen and many driving in their cars bypass along on the interstate. And to me is in many ways, really one of the more interesting unlocks because like track days, you're getting into an environment that you don't normally ride on if you're just regular highway riding all the time. And this really does change it. And for many riders, we start off with maybe what'd be called a standard bike. It's a good all around bike. It's not too heavy, not a lot of wind protection, but it's a great way to start your riding But then you might get your first touring bike. And maybe it's the first bike with hard luggage or a fairing. But now you open up the garage and it's not just, oh, I'm going to go out for a ride for an hour or two, but how many states do I hit today? Your bike is no longer just something for a day of fun. It's literally transporting you to other parts of the world. you carry a change of clothes. And if you're even more daring, perhaps some camping gear so that you can stay in touch with nature as the sun sets. Now, I'd always been attracted to dirt bikes as a kid. I never had one, but I liked the idea of a bike that could go anywhere. So dual sports and ADVs were what I leaned toward long before they became as popular as they are today. In fact, my first two bikes were ADVs, a BMW F650GS and then a BMW R1100GS. And while I loved the look of them, I never actually got them dirty. And the toughest terrain that they'd navigated were the potholes of New York City. And my friends at the time had sporting bikes or sport touring bikes. So I swapped over to them for a while. But that lean towards ADV and dual sport never really went away for me. And as I kept riding, many of those I rode with had GSs and raved about the Swiss Army capabilities. I ended up buying a 2012 R1200 GSA and I signed up for an off-road riding course. And this was a game changer for me. It pushed me in ways that I'd not experienced before. I was even more keen on camping with the bike than I'd been before since I was less worried about riding it along dirt forest leading up to these amazing campsites. And while I've added several bikes to the garage and the stable since then, including sport bikes I always knew that I'm always going to have an ADV bike or dual sport in the garage. And during my ownership of that GS, I had many years of camping 20 to 30 nights a with that bike. It took me to some of the highest peaks in the Northeast and to the sugary sand of the Pine Barrens. Even went down to Tennessee to start the Mid-Atlantic BDR coming back up north. is what I do on my ADV bikes. I don't even have a route in mind when I ride. I often barely have a destination and I might navigate simply by a compass using Beeline's compass mode. All I know is I have to go that away, 114.3 miles. I'll figure out the rest on the way. Kind of like life. So to wrap up, we covered how motorcycling can change you, building up skills to achieving things you'd not imagined, getting in the flow and finding the cheapest mental therapy per mile. The camaraderie of fellow riders and bikers and being out in nature are common ways that motorcycling has changed people. But it's also sometimes about a specific bike. Maybe it was a sport bike that pushed you into a canyon carver or an ADV that got you way out in the backcountry. Or even a touring bike that changed the idea of a ride from something you did for a day to something you might do across the country or even a continent. And finally, I shared how my 2012 R1200 GSA changed me, pushing me closer to nature, opening up my riding to more of an exploration rather than a pre-planned approach. So my question for you this week is, what bike changed you and how? 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.