Archive of BMW Motorrad Club Cape (2006 - 2019)

Recently I read the book ZEN & THE ART OF MOTORCYCLE MAINTENANCE by Robert M Pirsig (first published 1974)

Very early in the book I found a wonderful description of his view on touring with a motorcycle. The description is very apt within the context of the book, but also an excellent description of the way (and why) we (motorbike riders) do the motorcycling thing.

I thought many riders on our forum would also enjoy this description as much as I did.

This book is not about motorcycles as such. In the book the author takes you on a journey with him and his son on a vacational trip on his motorcycle. During the journey the author describes and discusses a host of philosophical experiences and ideas.

The book was first published in 1974, so when you read 'compass' then remember that technology has changed, but not the spirit of motorcycling.

By the way, “ZEN” is a state of complete and absolute peace, totally relaxed and not worrying about things you cannot change.

From here I quote from his book, where he describes the (zen of?) traveling by motorcycle.......

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…. You see things vacationing on a motorcycle in a way that is completely different from any other. In a car you’re always in a compartment, and because you are used to it you don’t realize that through a car window everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and it is all moving by boringly in a frame.

On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on, it’s right there, so blurred you can’t focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it anytime, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness.

We want to make good time, but for now this is measured on ‘good’ rather than ‘time’ and when you make that shift in emphasis the whole approach changes. Twisting hilly roads are long in terms of seconds but are much more enjoyable on a cycle where you bank into turns and don’t get swung from side to side in any compartment. Roads with little traffic are more enjoyable, as well as safer. Roads free of drive-ins and billboards are better, roads where groves and meadows and orchards and lawns come almost shoulder to shoulder, where kids wave to you when you ride by, where people look from their porches to see who it is, where when you stop to ask directions or information the answer tends to be longer than you want rather than short, where people ask where you’re from and how long you’ve been riding.

It was some years ago that my wife and I and our friends first began to catch on to these roads. We took them once in a while for variety or for a shortcut to another main highway, and each time the scenery was grand and we left the road with a feeling of relaxation and enjoyment. We did this time after time before realizing what should have been obvious: these roads are truly different from the main ones. The whole pace of life and personality of the people who live along them are different. They’re not going anywhere. They’re not too busy to be courteous. The hereness and nowness of things is something they know all about. It’s the others, the ones who moved to the cities years ago and their lost offspring, who have all but forgotten it. The discovery was a real find.

I've wondered why it took us so long to catch on. We saw it and yet we didn't see it. Or rather we were trained not to see it. Conned, perhaps, into thinking that the real action was metropolitan and all this was just boring hinterland. It was a puzzling thing. The truth knocks on the door and you say, 'Go away, I'm looking for the truth,' and so it goes away.

Puzzling.

But once we caught on, of course, nothing could keep us off these roads, weekends, evenings, vacations. We have become real secondary-road motorcycle buffs and found there are things you learn as you go.

We have learned how to spot the good ones on a map, for example. If the line wiggles, that's good. That means hills. If it appears to be the main route from a town to a city, that's bad. The best ones always connect nowhere with nowhere and have an alternate that gets you there quicker. If you are going northeast from a large town you never go straight out of town for any long distance. You go out and then start jogging north, then east, then north again, and soon you are on a secondary route that only the local people use.

The main skill is to keep from getting lost. Since the roads are used only by local people who know them by sight nobody complains if the junctions aren't posted. And often they aren't. When they are it's usually a small sign hiding unobtrusively in the weeds and that's all. Country-road-sign makers seldom tell you twice. If you miss that sign in the weeds that's your problem, not theirs. Moreover, you discover that the highway maps are often inaccurate about country roads. And from time to time you find your 'country road' takes you onto a two-rutter and then a single rutter and then into a pasture and stops, or else it takes you into some farmer's backyard.

So we navigate mostly by dead reckoning, and deduction from clues we find. I keep a compass in one pocket for overcast days when the sun doesn't show directions and have the map mounted in a special carrier on top of the gas tank where I can keep track of miles from the last junction and know what to look for. With those tools and a lack of pressure to 'get somewhere' it works out fine and we just about have America to ourselves.