Hey guys, I received this message from a viewer who had lost a friend in a motorcycle accident. In the letter, he explains how he was able to somewhat understand his friends love of riding by watching motovlogs on YouTube. I thought it was an interesting perspective and a well written letter. If you have the time, give it a read and let me know what you think. Mr THS, I write with a great big thanks and a wholesome dollop of appreciation for your channel, and in fact motovlogging as a genre. I am from a viewer demographic that may not be immediately obvious for your channel: non-riders, who have not been able to get a sense of why their rider-friends ride. My story is personal (all stories are though, arent they), and I hope to fill out how important watching your channel has been. After at least a decade of road-cycling through his teens and early twenties, my best friend started riding in 2003. He quickly found that he was in his element, and pretty soon I began hearing names of new friends and updates on skilling up, and places he had been, alone or with fellow riders. It was clear that he was a part of a new community, one that he felt was immensely encouraging and fulfilling. Once he was allowed to carry pillion, he invited me (and more than once) to jump on the back, so that he would put put around the block. It should be pretty clear now that I had shown no interest in motorcycles along with him, and that I certainly knew that any talk of put-putting was a feeble ruse, for put-putting is not what he hed do, and around the block might mean up Pacific Highway to Pennant Hills Road, and then via every other arterial for a couple of hours. For all his enthusiasm for riding (and here too, I dont think enthusiasm is not quite a sufficient word), I could not get a form of words out of him as to what it is that I should have plugged into my internal risk analysis to counter the evident one of being on/handling off a powered beast, needing constant vigilance of its gyroscopic tendencies, given all sorts of other details: that I could not afford one, that I had no parking where I live (a tiny terrace in Newtown), and that there was nowhere I needed to go on one. I understand that none of these questions are of any consequence, of course, to a rider who wants to convey the experience of a ride, but I only get it now that I have spent a few hours watching motovlogging channels, including the complete THS. I also have a better sense of how the ride is for the rider, and how commuting differs from a ride-out. Sure, its a self-evident distinction for a rider, but for a non-rider, ride-outs did seem like voluntary additional daily commuting and all that goes with that, and therefore a somewhat peculiar masochistic practice, especially for Sydney. Apart from the first year of his riding, he owned Suzuki 650 bikes, an earlier model in blue to start with (may have been the 2004 beginning of the line, for all I know), and then a SV650 S in white of the very type you changed to. It was a very pleasant surprise to see this change half way through my going through your channel. I happened across your videos by way of AdjrianNs video Respect the Fallen Ones with that evocative title still. It came up as I was searching to see if anyone had uploaded footage of the annual memorial rideout for this friend from this year, as he had his accident on 7 Nov 10. These memorial rides are now annual, and the very first held only a few weeks after his death was shot and edited down from a handheld Canon 5D by a guy bravely riding pillion.. Now a few years on, the clips that people upload are less of the ride, and more of the ritual revving at the site of the accident, nonetheless, I wanted to see if that was up to download it to an archive. As for the accident, my friend left his bike whilst going at speed, and collided with an oncoming car in a poorly lit patch of a street in Alexandria late on a Sunday evening. It was a rare car travelling city-bound at that time and as accidents go it was quick, banal, and statistically meaningless. That patch of street in Alexandria is still just as poorly lit. In the year immediately after, I was taken under wing by some of his rider friends. One in particular was especially accommodating of me wanting to know about the experience of riding (without actually riding): what were their rides about, where did they go, what is appealing about that sense of speed. He obligingly took me up Putty Rd, RoyalNational, Old Pacific Highway, Bells Line, Ku-Ring-Gai Chase… all at speed, but in an X5: patiently explaining that ok, this is speed, this is a tight corner, but this is also an X5 and it feels nothing like it. He even took me to track days in Eastern Creek and down in Goulburn (though of course only to watch). I am immensely grateful to him for his time and patient willingness to share these with me, because, well he had a lost the same person I had lost. Now that I have seen a bunch of motovlogs I have a significantly better idea of those missing elements. There is something entirely unparalleled in the rider-perspective camera mount, that gives the sense of the road, and the immediate sense of connection to the landscape. I now have a sense of that immense concentration and connection, how much of it is unspoken, how much of it is physical or rather kinetic, and will never be put into words. I have some idea of how much these unspoken experiences shared with fellow riders or the road alone comprise only the lived experience… and why my friend could not come up with a form of words that would make sense to me then. Also, what other things happen in riders helmets and heads as they ride: that it can be social, that it is good-natured, and that it is easy to relate to. What has been especially meaningful is realising that now, whilst watching your footage on familiar roads (my friend grew in Chatswood, so much of the local footage is really quite surprisingly coincidental), and with the kind of even-handed, witty tone and style which commenters on your channel have remark on. Cheers, Mr Ham, including for your time reading this. DC. -- After some brief back and forth, I asked DC for exactly what he has learned about motorcycling and motorcyclists, of which he didnt know before. He responded: Thank you for wading through the opus. And I am pleased it is something that touches a chord. I will start with the relatively simple, what have I realised... I realised some really fundamental things: how a road looks from a bike. How bikes turn a corner. How lane splitting looks, what do dicey situations look like. The first point, how a road looks from a bike really cannot be achieved any other way. I kind of touch on that idea that connection with the road... how a slight movement influences how the bike goes. How it is a physical experience (as opposed to a car). Then the social aspect: if you dont know the rider, once they have a helmet on, they may as well be Dr Whos Cybermen, or any sort of automaton. Or so many people misinterpret. And the anonymity of the helmet does it too. And yet clearly it the sound is not about aggression, the weaving through traffic is not about aggression. Yes, there is a fair amount of display. But it can (and probably most of time is) playful. That was a biggie to realise. So freedom and speed are a part of it, but they are really quite insufficient to non riders. As I sort of arrive at toward the end: riders dont need to put their experience of a road into words, they need the validation of a shared experience. I enjoyed seeing how the landscape winds out from the point of perspective. How the corner turns out. Even how you guys (yourself, Adjrian, RidingWithTom, Virus Rider) compare the experience of riding on different bikes. Only hearing about it was not enough. Or rather, it was hypothetical...
Posted on: Tue, 16 Dec 2014 11:47:32 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015