A Big Adventure
Those of us who are addicted to the two-wheeled form of motor transport no doubt see adventure as being rather more extreme than the everyday man in the street.
That a proper adventurist is one who heads out, alone, on his or her two-wheeled steed to venture forth into the unknown, to ride the road less travelled and to experience countries, cultures and foods that have yet to be savoured by the average man in the street.
Equally, squeezing over 700bhp from a Hayabusa engine, pulling a top gear wheelie in excess of 300km/h, running the quarter mile in seven seconds or rolling a stoppie at above the national speed limit could all be considered to be adventurous. Basically, something that’s a little more extreme than, say, a simple bit of Saturday morning food and beverage purchasing…
This thought was brought to me – in a harsh blast of realisation about the general public’s view about everyday life – while walking to my daily job, when I saw an advertising slogan on the side of a heavy goods vehicle delivering produce to an upmarket high street retail store. Emblazoned along the side of the artic were the words “Marks & Spencer – Adventures in food.”
Now, I’m not really sure just what they’re feeding the advertising staff at M&S, or for that matter how much they’re paying them, but if they think that it’s possible to have an adventure by purchasing comestibles then they’re aiming way, way off target.
But then it struck me. Those people really do think that going to their local M&S and looking at food is an adventure!
They really do lead lives that are so humdrum and tedious that looking at a tub of spicy houmous or a peculiar Eastern vegetable is considered to be really pushing the boundaries of their contemporary community.
Of course, not all of us have the time, money or, for that matter, the large gonads required to simply pack a tent and a spare pair of undercrackers on the bike and leave home for months at a time to head off into the Great Unknown. But if we take in mind the thought that normal people might consider a wander into a high street store to purchase a bottle of prosecco as an adventure, then, as the sort of people who build and ride streetfighters, we can consider ourselves to be considerably more exciting and adventurous than Joe Average.
It must be that a certain segment of society really does think that going to a supermarket chain and purchasing a meal for two with a bottle of wine for the same price as a pair of handlebar grips really is the peak of urban adventure and that it makes them into some kind of brave social climber ready to hurtle head-on into the chaotic and uncertain world of… well, food shopping…
For the urban shopping adventurer just having the wherewithal to ride a Powered Two Wheeler would be considered as being as radical a move as crossing the Arctic solo, with nothing but a penknife and a generous helping of enthusiasm as support.
So, to be a person who not only rides one of those dangerous motor-bicycling contraptions but also who modifies it to make even more power, to go even faster and to do utterly daft things like lift one of the wheels off the ground at will, would make you into some kind of superhero amongst those urban adventurers, surely? “But, surely, man is incapable of supporting his own life at speeds above 40mph?” I hear them saying…
Seemingly not, as wheelying your turbocharged streetfighter along the local bypass won’t get you fame and fortune, but more likely a holiday in B-wing next to George the Gimp and his ‘Girlfriends’… good luck with that.
So while society is suggesting to the populace that something as mundane as shopping is actually really adventurous, it’s also telling us that to do something that is genuinely exciting and dangerous (i.e. it actually fits into the Oxford English Dictionary’s description of the word adventurous) is wrong and very naughty indeed. What a bad boy you are!
But then the societal view of adventure must be so skewed that even the smallest of things that appear normal to those of us who accept adrenaline as a daily necessity will be seen by the adventurous shoppers as being totally mental and over-the-top.
Just owning a motorcycle must make us some kind of life-on-the-edge sociopath. And so what must they think when they find out that we not only ride bikes, but also modify them, change them, tune them and ride them as hard as we bloody well can, whenever and wherever we can? That, my friends, makes us all into true adventurers! But of course, life is nothing if not an adventure.
So, if you’re thinking of getting your kicks by meandering down the aisles of your local supermarket, maybe you should take a good hard look at your life… then, once you’ve realised that shopping is a futile exercise as far as excitement is concerned, you should go out and ride your bike. Hard. And fast.
Or, alternatively, go into the shed/garage/lean-to/workshop/yard and conduct some totally unnecessary yet unerringly cool modifications to your bike.
After all, even just changing the handlebars could be seen as being an adventure if you’ve never done it before! You don’t have to sell your home, divorce your wife and take a flat-twin BMW across the plains of Africa, you can have just as much of an adventure without marital upset or financial suicide.
Ride more, build more!
– Dave.
The Author
