Motorcycles I've Loved by Lily Brooks-Dalton

Author:Lily Brooks-Dalton
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Publishing Group
Published: 2015-03-17T04:00:00+00:00

10.

Power

When I returned from Oxford, I continued to struggle with the expense of new tires for the Rebel. My last year as an undergraduate had gotten its hooks into me by the time the leaves began to change, and finally the riding season had all but passed. As the snow fell, graduation came into view, and the relief to see it shimmering there, just a few months away, was palpable, but it was my mounting excitement for motorcycles, the drive to learn as much as I could about them and then get back on the road, that propelled me forward most of all.

By the time the snow had settled and the rumbles had disappeared from the icy roads, motorcycles were all I could think about. Being a student again had introduced me to so many things—Japanese, physics, books I’d never read, theories I’d never understood—but the most valuable thing I learned was how to work. How to set aside distractions and absorb knowledge; how to be unquenchably curious. This same kind of intrepid thirst had led me to Ireland, manifested as wanderlust, but as I threw myself into learning, both for school and for myself, I realized that I didn’t need to wander to discover; I didn’t need to be lost to find what I was looking for. The desire for geographic exploration was still with me, but it was tempered with the knowledge that I was learning to explore in different ways. I didn’t have to leave the state or even the county to discover something new. Traveling overseas made me open my eyes a little wider, look a little closer, but I began to understand that it wasn’t the distance or the novelty that made things feel so compelling, it was my own heightened capacity for observation—and that’s a tool I can access anywhere, from my desk, from the seat of a motorcycle or while exploring a city I’ve never been to before, a country I’ve never visited.

My affair with motorcycles began as a fling, a way to rebound from Australia, but what I came to realize was that motorcycles were offering me more than just movement, a way from A to B. Like all great romances, these machines made me see myself and my surroundings with fresh eyes; they made me want to know more and to be better. Motorcycles were waking me up—just a nudge at first, hearing an alarm clock going off in the middle of a dream, then a full-body jolt, a bucket of ice water on my head. I realized that I had barely grazed the surface, that this flirtation could become my next great love if I let it.

I began to read everything about motorcycles that I could get my hands on. I read Clymer manuals and memoirs and histories of the industry; I read about engines and engineering, carburetors and countersteering; racing, cruising, dynamics, classical mechanics, I read it all. And the old motorcycle movies—I watched those, too, for good measure.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.