Why We Ride. Mark Barnes, PhD
are relatively friendly, with less abrupt power delivery over a broader rev range than two-strokes, but they’re usually heavier and cost more to maintain. Then again, they sound terrific! Decisions, decisions... The author recommends one of each.
So what happened here? After all that buildup, all those dreams of flight, was my excitement delusional, based on a collection of grandiose fictions (my face featured in magazine ads) that have now nosedived—quite literally—into the immovable, albeit soggy, ground of factual reality? Was I seduced by a too-selective memory that conveniently left out the rest of the story? Maybe buying the DR-Z was a stupid mistake…
An old sourpuss uncle of mine, whenever he detected some sort of excitement brewing among the children within his earshot, was fond of saying, “Remember, kids: the anticipation is always greater than the realization.” A lengthy lecture on the principle would follow. Those among us who took his advice to heart were promptly pre-disappointed and thereby inoculated against whatever letdown might occur during the execution of our adventurous plans. I’m sure this left my uncle feeling quite pleased with himself; he’d passed along the wisdom that had kept him safe from anything resembling disappointment—along with anything new and exciting—for his entire adult life.
What my uncle never noticed was how much the kids whose sails he had emptied missed out on. Without the fuel of excitement in their tanks, they often didn’t even try to reach for something not already within their grasp. By avoiding the possibility of disappointment, they never found out whether it was lying in wait for them or not. Those of us who were undaunted certainly tasted the bitter pill of disillusionment at times, but for that price we got to sample real success in the face of risk and the occasional surprise ending that was far better than we’d hoped. None of that good stuff would have happened if we hadn’t given ourselves over to excitement.
Not only does it set us up for potential disappointment, but excitement can be uncomfortable and distracting, too. Looking forward to something can make the tedious parts of routine life much harder to tolerate. Nobody likes feeling bored and impatient. And the more a person’s life in general lacks excitement, the more problematic it is for that person to allow the entrance of any excitement. The feeling is something like letting yourself out of prison briefly and then having to wrestle yourself back into your cage, with no clue when you’ll get your next chance to breathe free. It’s less disruptive and disturbing to eschew excitement altogether when it’s a rare event.
Excitement can also make us foolish. We can ignore important warnings, rush impulsively into disaster, and rationalize all sorts of poor decision-making. Obviously, excitement without any measure of reason and self-control is almost certain to come to a bad end. But reason and self-control without excitement are dead and have already come to a bad end. Ideally, the energy of excitement is harnessed in the organized pursuit of our goal and helps us plow through the necessary planning and hard work that stand between us and satisfaction. It provides us pleasure, via our imagination, during the wait, soothing our injuries and restoring our motivation along the often rocky road to achievement. And even if the end is less than we’d dreamed, it’s more than what we’d have garnered by sitting still, paralyzed by the false logic of purchasing security at the cost of vitality.
Motorcycles, by virtue of their copious visceral thrills, archetypal status, potential for enthusiastic camaraderie, and countless opportunities for skill mastery, offer infinite possibilities for excitement—as well as for calamity. I could abandon my fantasies of soaring through the air, casting them off as unrealistic and resigning myself to some more sedate use of the DR-Z. I could avoid further testicular displacement (not to mention broken bones) this way, be the subject of fewer funny photos, and preserve some sense of dignity as a middle-aged man who will episodically find himself amidst buzzing hordes of slightly postpubescent McGrath wannabes out on the trails. But that would mean enjoying my motorcycle only while I’m riding it (a tiny fraction of the time frame of ownership) and enjoying it much less in between those times when I’m standing next to it, doubled over. Sounds like a bad trade to me. I’d be giving up more than half the fun and possibly cheating myself out of even greater joy later on—if I can make it through flight school.
Back to School
June 2003
I’ve probably taught more people to ride in the dirt than on the street. That’s partly because new riders often feel less intimidated away from traffic and pavement, but it’s also because many basic skills are easier to learn on dirt bikes, which tend to be much lighter and more easily maneuvered at slow speeds than their road-going counterparts. This is not to say that off-road riding is inherently easier; in fact, it can be much more daunting than street riding, depending on the terrain. Selecting a location that offers just the right amount of challenge is key. Most off-highway vehicle (OHV) parks, like the one that served as backdrop here, offer widely varying geography and learning opportunities.
At the teaching hospital where I did my clinical internship, the staff was fond of repeating the admonition “learn it, teach it, know it.” This sometimes seemed like a justification for handing off pedagogic responsibilities: a sleep-deprived intern or resident would be assigned the task of presenting some portion of an upcoming seminar, thereby relieving the faculty of responsibility for preparing a lesson stimulating enough to hold the attention of our bleary-eyed group. With many years’ distance on that ordeal, I now appreciate the great wisdom captured so succinctly in that little phrase.
To be able to explain something clearly, answer questions coherently, provide good examples, and integrate your point into some larger frame of reference, you must really understand the concepts involved and know exactly how they fit together. Vague impressions won’t do. An intuitive grasp might suffice for your own practical purposes, but you can’t communicate that to someone else without articulating the details and clarifying the relevant links. This can be quite challenging because many important ideas are difficult to get into words. You have to lay out complex interconnections in linear language, even when they actually exist as a three- (or more!) dimensional web. Visual images can help, and the student’s own personal experience may be an essential component of mastery—repeatedly trying, failing, making successive approximations, and eventually getting it right. But the verbal interactions between teacher and student are almost always the glue that holds the rest of the process together.
Obviously, the strategic preparation for giving a lecture or leading a training exercise involves learning on the presenter’s part. Ideally, this person will have mastered not only the material to be transmitted but also a compelling means of delivery. These two don’t necessarily go together. Many a university researcher—who undoubtedly understands his subject better than most anyone he talks to—has no clue how to make his or her knowledge digestible to the horde of semicongealed young minds to whom he or she is “Professor.” Of course, it’s also true that a presenter can conceal much shoddy thinking behind a slick performance or befuddling barrage of jargon.
Small dirt bikes make excellent first mounts for young (and not-so-young) riders. They’re cheap and easy to maintain, and allow for relatively low-stakes exploration of traction limits. Lessons learned here transfer readily to less-forgiving pavement later. Here, Dylan perfects his power-slide.
But, in addition to what must take place before the teaching moment, there is the potential for discovery in that moment and after it. Someone might pose a question from an unanticipated direction, opening up a new realm for exploration or exposing a weakness in the current model (or an area of the teacher’s ignorance). This is part of what keeps the work interesting for professional instructors (the better ones, at least) charged with covering the same topic over and over again: the information may not change, but the angles from which it can be viewed are infinite if it is presented to new people. Teachers also get tremendous gratification via their vicarious participation in students’ breakthroughs; a student’s thrill can rekindle the original delight that the teacher experienced long ago.
And so it was that I took my new riding buddy out for a spin…
Granted, the odds were stacked in favor of my seeming a more geyser-like font of knowledge than I really am. Jack was