Reflections on Zen and the Art…

There’s a passage, early in Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, that describes why riding a bike feels so different to making the same journey by car. When sitting behind the wheel, he writes, we experience the landscape as if viewing it on TV: cocooned from the elements, the driver is at a remove from all that passes them by.

In contrast, motorcycling is an immersive experience: you feel the wind and rain directly, the heat of the sun and chill of the shade. What’s more, your body is essential to control of the machine: leaning into bends, absorbing the bumps, reacting to the road with throttle, brake and gears. At its best, the intensity of engagement is akin to a state of ‘flow’, and for some (not least me), the key reason they ride.

Of course, there are other attractions to motorcycles, and touring the US these last two weeks has reinforced many in my mind. On the road, there’s a camaraderie between bikers; a shared passion that’s acknowledged with nods of our helmets, or a wave of the hand. And typically, on arrival, there’s a generosity to the welcome you receive, fuelled (supercharged even) by Americans’ probing curiosity.

All this adds an extra dimension to the quality of the journey, the memories we file and the stories we share. There’s something specia too, about being ‘in’ the landscape while travelling through it at speed.  Pirsig’s TV analogy seems not to stretch to a motorcycle visor ( I suspect he rode with an open face helmet) and here on the desert roads, the immensity of the place and smallness of your presence is as tangible as it is intoxicating.

I’m conscious that little of this will be new or revelatory to a hill walker or cyclist. The fellowship of mountain huts is legendary, as is the love of bicycles in, say, France. I was once riding through the Alps on a tandem when a mountain train stopped for the passengers to cheer us on; some even disembarked to offer fresh croissants. Another time, on a mountain trek, I met a blind walker who humbled me with the interest he showed in the achievements of others. 

Indeed, the physical demands of most outdoor pursuits are greater than motorcycling, lacking, as they do, an engine to boost your momentum.  Cycling, in particular, can be so draining that you close in on yourself, leaving precious little energy for admiring the view. Rock climbing and whitewater kayaking - my other lifelong passions - are not dissimilar: the attraction being less an adrenaline rush than their immediacy and intensity of focus.

Perhaps then, my newfound love of motorcycling has something to do with age, coming as it has with a lessening of strength and slowing of the reflexes. I like to think my powers of concentration are undiminished; certainly Jane would tell you I’ve not lost the ability to selectively zone out! Jokes aside, there’s probably some truth in this, though it’s not the full picture.

Since taking up the pastime, I’ve been amazed that motorcycles are not more popular with the younger generation. The vast majority of riders are male, white and likely retired. Yet for less than the price of an average electric mountain bike, you can buy a machine that will capably take you around the world.  If I were twenty years old again, I know what I’d be doing with my summers.

Thankfully, my youngest son is just as happy to humour his old man. Indeed, riding with him has become one of my greatest joys. So while I’ve loved every mile of my two-week tour of the Southwest States, I’d trade them all in a heartbeat for a single one of the trips we’ve made together in Wales. 

Luckily, I don’t have to.

Which brings me back to Robert Pirsig, whose autobiographical journey can be read on several levels: as a travelogue, a philosophical conversation, and a coming of age in his role and relationship as a father. I doubt that he travelled the same roads as me this fortnight, but it’s surely no coincidence that ‘Zen and the Art’ has long been one of my favourite books.