Why We Ride. Mark Barnes, PhD
the song and its time signature.
The author at his very first track day. Talladega Grand Prix Raceway, with its compact, flat, and readily memorized layout, is perfect for beginners. It thrilled on subsequent visits, too.
Late in the day at TGPR, it was exactly that way. I’d have to improvise here or there because of traffic, but mostly I could flow around the track without having to think about what to do next. The different control actions became repetitive rhythmic sequences, as though the track were a musical pattern and my braking, turning, and accelerating were taking place on specific beats within the larger framework of the racetrack’s “song.” Not surprisingly, my lap times grew much more consistent.
With all the basics occurring as effortlessly and reflexively as tapping a foot to a well-known tune, my perspective evolved. Instead of attacking each corner as a discrete unit, like measures in the racetrack’s song, I could string them together in longer sequences, like verses and refrains. I began appreciating the music instead of just the notes. It was exhilarating!
So, it wasn’t a graphic image of the track that was forming in my thoughts. Instead, it was a rhythmic pattern. Although you can translate an auditory rhythm into visual form with written notes, the experience and memory of a rhythm isn’t visual at all. In fact, I don’t know what to call it. It isn’t simply “in my mind’s ear,” like a melody is. The sense of rhythm is somewhere (everywhere?) in my body. I just feel it, though the vagueness of that description doesn’t do justice to how precisely organized it can be.
And that’s what I experienced at TGPR, except it all applied to the Hawk instead of to a musical instrument. No, it wasn’t the Hawk as a separate entity; it was the Hawk/TGPR combination, just as you don’t play a guitar without also playing a tune, even if it’s an improvisation.
Racetracks are fantastic places to learn because of their repetitive nature. There’s nothing like practicing the same pattern over and over again to build confidence, allow for systematic experimentation, and develop/coordinate skill sets. But what about transferring all that to the street? Obviously, I couldn’t just continue to play the Hawk/TGPR song when I rode a different bike on a mountain pass!
Real-world riding is like learning a never-ending new song with a constantly changing time signature. It’s not rock or R&B or classical music; it’s more like improvisational jazz. We’re continually trying to get in sync with the immediate timing demands of the road ahead of us. Timing may not be everything, but it’s the single biggest factor involved.
This may be the most important aspect of track-day learning: developing a precise/reflexive sense of control input timing for different corners allows for interpolation in novel situations elsewhere. A complex, multidimensional “map” (think fuel-injection software) forms within us, with timing as a fundamental organizing principle. Surely this draws on the same bodily sense as musical rhythm. And it’s a similar matter of learning basic patterns (chord progressions or throttle/clutch/brake inputs) and then applying them in ways that are new but still obey rules about sequence and timing.
Even bizarre musical forms have rules. They may not be readily apparent to a naïve listener, they may change over the course of the song, and they may even be different for different instruments playing simultaneously. But the musicians all obey those rules as they move through the piece together. As we ride, we’re engaged in delicate and complicated timing operations, sequencing control inputs on separate—yet intertwining—rule-bound schedules; hence my odd association with TGPR during the encounter with polyrhythms.
When we ride well, our actions are well orchestrated. That’s the perfect word.
On the Trail
I’m a bit puzzled by all the things I haven’t written about in this category—no descriptions of gorgeous wilderness (there’s been plenty), no talk of camping (there’s been a little), no tales of mountaineering prowess (you’d think I’d have some by now). Actually, I found very few accounts of these and other powerfully appealing elements that really have been substantial sources of joy and might actually prompt someone to try this kind of motorcycling.
The stories that do show up here are among those I was most excited to tell and count among my cherished memories of off-road riding. That may be partly a function of the terrain where they took place: the steep, craggy slopes of the southern Appalachians. Single-track trails can be strewn with anything from loose, fist-sized rocks to car-sized boulders and covered in cement-hard clay (slick even when dry) or peanut-butter-like mud that is somehow both impossibly slippery and incredibly sticky (accumulating tenaciously on bikes and riders). Good traction is a rare find and is typically interrupted in short order by snarls of tree roots, downed branches, or pools of black water that might be a couple of inches or several feet deep.
Having spent my teenage dirt-biking years in flat, sandy Florida, I’d never seen anything like these trails, much less knew anything about riding them. Spurred on by how my first guides deliberately hunted for the most insanely treacherous passes to attack, my off-road riding quickly became a proving ground for not only skill but also bravery and perseverance—if you weren’t crashing on a regular basis, you weren’t trying hard enough. While that may sound like crazy machismo (and, no doubt, there’s some element of it involved), I learned that this kind of riding requires a tremendous amount of careful, albeit often swift, tactical planning—at least as much as I’ve ever exercised on street bikes. And, while we can usually ride more slowly through a worrisome stretch of road, many situations on the trail require some minimum amount of momentum for the rider to have any chance of making it through or over what lies ahead. So, confronting one’s fears, displaying fierce determination and keen insight, and employing physical balance, coordination, and stamina all leave a rider both thoroughly spent and possessing a sense of great accomplishment; and that’s what I tried to convey here.
Dirty Thoughts
September 2002
Since returning to the dirt after this column, I’ve always kept at least one off-road bike in my stable, even though the pendulum of my interest swings back and forth between street and trail. There’s just no substitute for getting dirty.
A friend of mine has a teenage son who’s got it bad. It’s all the boy can think about, day and night. He’s feverishly preoccupied, and he spends every possible moment scheming, searching for that magical combination of words and gestures that will persuade his parents to give in and gratify his desire. His torment is palpable to anyone who’s been in his position before, and I figure almost all of us have. He desperately wants a dirt bike.
The parents in this case are actually on the verge of yielding. In fact, the father and I have already been doing some surreptitious shopping, checking out the most promising ads in local papers. And not just for the son, either; Dad is going to get a bike to ride with his boy. Relief is not far away for this lad, though telling him now would only intensify his agony during the wait that remains.
The excitement presently surrounding this father–son pair is contagious, at least for me. I haven’t owned a dirt bike for something like fifteen years, although that’s what I started out on, and I owned half a dozen before becoming a street-only kinda guy. Not that I haven’t snagged rides on a few since then. It’s just that the moto-pleasure center of my brain has been satiated with the innumerable joys of asphalt, and there’s been no need—or room—for any other form of vehicular stimulation. Although that may be about to change…
Another of my friends has a six-year-old boy who just got his first “gear bike” (his