JAPPA II

I thought I could do it...
Give up my bicyclist lifestyle and exalt in the thrill of petrol powered hedonism. 

 

THE XJ900 Diversion (JAPPA II)

 

I thought I wanted it. But I do not.

It used to be that the motorcycle represented freedom and mobility for me. When I got my licence I turned to my motorbike as a means of escape and the key to another world, a time machine that burned the troubles of my life into the past, I would look at the road disappearing in my rear view mirrors and knew that a brighter, more exhilarating less restrained future lay ahead.

That was nearly thirty years ago, I haven't owned a motorcycle more than 15 years, I've missed having a bike but life goes on and I have delayed that particular gratification successfully in my more responsible married with children life.

Somewhere along the way I have become caught in a combination of dread of the present state of my existence and nostalgia for the life I once knew...

Escape by twist of a throttle seemed like the perfect solution for an emasculated wage slave as I had become. But in those years I have grown and come to know myself better.

The motorcycles is not the fix all it used to be.

I've changed and the magic of the motorcycle has changed too. Once I could blast off down the road thinking that I'd left my problems behind me... Now I know too well that wherever I go, I bring myself with me and there layeth the problem! What is my bigest problem? Well of course whatever it is, dwells within me.

I also realise that after decades of living a reasonably austere lifestyle, enjoying the quieter more present speed of a bicycle.

My conversion has not been so much an ideological opposition to smelly gas guzzling machines; it just feels wrong now.

I've melded with a different reality, through the metal frame and downward force of my legs against the pedals of a bicycle. The dream of a fast getaway is a false promise... My rejection of the powerful 4 cylinder machine is a gut thing, like the body rejecting an organ transplant. It just doesn't feel right .

I ride my bicycle. I get there late and wet and sweaty, I miss appointments because I don't have the time to get from home, to Darwin, to an appointment somewhere miles away in the time needed. I thought I'd fix that but now I realise I don't frigging care.

End of the day GVBR

Just had to post this considering it's been maybe 20 years since I was in Yackandandah.

Last time I visited Yack I think I was returning from a weekend on the Murray, either the Norton Owners rally at Tintaldra or one of those other rowdy affairs in Walwa, I can't remember exactly which. Motorcycle rallies in the 1990s really went off.... Well the Norton Owners Rally was always a bit more refined ;).

Anyway I dug up and scanned an old photo from the day. The image is of me standing beside the original Fat Boy and my 250 Virago outside the Yackandandah Motor Garage. I compared it with a photo I took while there two weeks ago and as you can see the paint has aged and the building is no longer being used as a service station, the bowser has been removed. Actually it's now an art gallery with the most amazing ironwork I've ever seen!

Now and Then shot. That's what 20 years of weather can do

Sometimes I reminisce about those days when I zoomed around the country on a motorbike, there was such a feeling of freedom and power, it was really magic to cruise through the high country of Victoria and along the Murray Valley. These days though I'm really getting into riding my  bicycle and taking it all a bit slower. More natural, more sweat, more effort, less speed. Same country, different pace. I thought it fitting that the garage has done away with fosil fuels and been transformed into something more creative... I hope I have too.