"The rider processes data from the road and its environs with a certain detachment, translating them nearly as quickly into physical responses: eat or be eaten. There is no room in the brain for idle thought (except on the highway, when idle thoughts appear and float and reconfigure in endless array), and a biker can go for miles and miles without waking up to any sudden realization, including the one that nothing at all has been thought for miles and miles. The faster you ride, the more closed the circuit becomes, deleting everything but this second and the next, which are hurriedly merging. Having no past to regret and no future to await, the rider feels free..."
"This peculiar physiological effect, common to all high-concentration pursuits, may be why one finds among motorcyclists a large number of people who always feel as if there were a fire lit under them when they are sitting still. When they're out riding, the wind disperses the flame so they don't feel the terrible heat."
—Melissa Holbrooke Pierson, The Perfect Vehicle
The Perfect Vehicle is probably one of the best books ever written about the 'why' of motorcycling. Probably because it was written by a woman.
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