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Adventure Riding

July 23, 2005 07:32 PM

I am off to Ouray, Colorado next week to ride in the KTM Rocky Mountain Raid. Next month I turn 68 and we are doing some things that I love to do, but with the comfort and safety that keeps my wife, Bonnie, assured.

I can't explain it, but riding over mountain trails is something I just love to do. One reason, I think, is that I don't think. I do spend a lot of time thinking, so this is a true relief. On a trail you use your evolved and very effective fast processing mental mode to move safely and gracefully over an unknown trail. The focus is intense, but it is a non-thinking focus that strongly integrates mental processing and movement.

For me, there is a calmness and focus that I find hard to get in any other activity. I know my blood pressure drops when I turn onto a dirt trail and look far into the distance. Something like this must have been true of our ancestors when they go onto the trail to hunt, scavenge, forage for plants, or move camp.

I have long believed that modern life is cognitively deprived relative to the intensely stimulating life of our ancestors. This is the way I have found to capture this high processing, non-thinking, physical action mode of behavior that must have been a very large component of ancient life. The barrenness of modern life in this kind of mental/physical activity is one of the many reasons that there is a high demand for entertainment and mental stimulants and depressors such as alcohol and drugs.

Anyway, life is such as it is and this is how I mimic the intense mental and physical demands that made our species what we are---mental-physical entities of high order.

A few pictures of my machines and experiences on the trail.

My current bike, a KTM 950 Adventure. 950ccs and just below 100 horse power. I absolutely love it. Here it is in road mode with saddlebags.

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This is from the Scott Harden Adventure Camp. Scott is coaching me after I did a power turning drill. Terrific instructor and I loved trail braking to set the rear wheel sliding and powering out of deep turns in a tight radius.

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One of my former bikes, a Husaberg 501 with electric start. The lightest and, at the time, most powerful four stroke you could buy. My oldest son has it now. The KTM replaced this bike.

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The other bike the KTM replaced, a BMW 1100 GS. I rode this on and off road too. It was a great bike, heavy, but a torque monster that never let me down on the trail.

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The van I bought to travel in to these events and for our longer trips. Not quite an RV, but with a stove and a real bath room and a place to rest and talk as we go wherever we are headed. It is an Airstream Interstate, built on the Mercedes Sprinter chassis which is sold here as a Dodge Sprinter or Freightliner van. A five cylinder turbo-diesel with a five speed automatic transmission. It gets way better mileage than my Land Rover and eats up miles at restful pace and in comfort and safety. Given the health problems my wife faces, there is no better way for us to travel, though we don't like to leave home all that much. We will use this to go riding with my grandson too.

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Last, the great bunch of guys I rode with at Scott's Adventure Camp. I expect to see many of them at the Rally.

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· Adventure Motorcycling

Comments

Posted by: Flower Online [TypeKey Profile Page] at September 12, 2006 2:55 AM

Art
Have fun, enjoy the nature.

Sattar

Posted by: Sattar [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 23, 2005 8:40 PM

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