I've mentioned before how I used to be something of a car nut, infact I'd probably have to be honest here and say I verged on a car bore. That said, it never took much to find a little common ground with friends at parties, when it came to chatting about the latest four wheel wonder-machine that I had brought home to lavish time on. Most friends had a car, some a few cars and maybe even some a stable full of them. Friends 'got' cars, because they were part of their own everyday lives. 'It's just a car!' was certainly a phrase wheeled out when I was getting just a little too enthusiastic, but in general, friends accepted my passion. Mention that you have a motorbike and the social reaction has always seemed rather different. Often old friends and new alike tend to look you up and down, as if somehow you might be hiding racing leathers under the chinos and shirt, in much the same way that a kinky dutch policeman might wear his wife's underwear beneath his uniform with pride. Then there are those certain social exchanges on biking which start with 'gosh, well you go careful won't you old-boy, bloody dangerous things those bikes' committed with the same grave tone as if intending to skydive with nothing but a Waitrose plastic bag to break the fall. Some simply adopt that faintly patronising look of sympathy, which they most probably used to give to the boy at school, who's mum couldn't afford to buy real Nike trainers. Sad to say, but you may have practiced like crazy, passed you CBT, then your direct access, you might well get hundreds of hours of biking experience under your belt, but the toughest part of being a biker, is dealing with the idiots who just don't understand it. However, you shouldn't care!
Fact is, those misinformed car driving party goers are simply too weedy to give it a go themselves. They've watched with pained expressions, as bikers have filtered past them in heavy traffic. Every now and then they see us coming through two lanes of traffic, only to narrow the gap between the cars to block our path. They hate the scary looking helmets, the sweaty looking leathers and the noisy exhaust notes, but sincerely, for all that disregard, secretly, most of those people really wish they had the guts to give it a go too. Being a biker sets you aside from 95% of the country who have never sat on a bike, let alone tried to attain their licence. Bikers are often portrayed as rebels, as the baddies in movies and most often socially undesirable. Well, after 18 months on bikes, I now say and do everything I can in social situations, to change that stereotype. Biking is true road freedom, it's the 21st century answer to personal transportation and it holds its own unique set of pleasures, a few of which I'll share here in my personal top five:
1) The gear. Choosing gear that fits, looks good and works well with your bike is huge part of the experience. Whether you pick Arai helmets like me, or one of the many other great brands, picking shape, colour and features is fascinating. Likewise as you choose leathers, boots and gloves, you get a real sense of pride in what you wear as you ride. Remember, those car drivers just pick the colour of their exterior, we bikers are on permanent display, so finding gear you feel 'cool' in, is something not to be thrown aside. Safety should always come first, but pick cool looking gear too, you’ll be even happier to squeeze into it every day!
2) Day trips. I'm not talking about the daily commute to work, or popping to the cinema, the real joy of biking is reclaiming the roads for the joy of exploring. Remember how your grandparents used to talk about day trips with the car, how joyful it was to explore empty open country roads? With a bike you're setting the transport clock back by some 50 years. We don't get stuck behind caravans, we don't get stuck in traffic light queues. As bikers, we own the road, in so much that we're never held back by it. Always overtake safely, but seriously, it's so much easier on a bike and you should be stealing back the road at every opportunity. A roads and B roads deserve to be enjoyed by bikes, they are our natural breeding ground J
3) Bad weather? Don't let cold, wet or depressing weather keep your bike off the road. Assuming you have the right gear and sensible respect for how the bikes handling will change, you can be enjoying the road in any weather. For cold weather, invest in a set of upper and lower thermals; they may not look sexy, but they will keep you very snug. Match the clothing to the days predicted weather. Don't do as I did, look out the window at 9am to glorious sun, decide on full leathers, only to endure 4 hours of heavy rain on the way home. Weather changes, so either pack lightweight waterproofs in your rucksack or backbox, or start your day with clothes that are weather ready. Remember, really hot weather can be worse than really cold weather, so look out for leathers or all-weather kit, that have zips to open up airchannels under your arms and down your sides. This is the biker equivalent of air-conditioning! Finally, get a helmet that can adapt to any weather! If you're getting issues with your lid steaming up, invest £10-30 in a bit of lid double glazing; essentially a clear or tinted plastic layer that attaches to the inside, creating a warmer inside layer that won’t mist up no matter what you do. This was probably my best investment of the last year, ensure you get one too. Also, look for helmets with airvents on the top, to keep your head cool in the sun.
4) Learning to give up the GPS. Yep, believe it or not man existed without satellite aided navigation less than 10 years ago, yet you'd be hard pressed to find a car on the road without a TomTom stuck like a limpet to it's front screen now. I worked as an IT consultant for 5 years before getting back into music, during which time I travelled over 20,000 miles a year, visiting companies up and down our pleasant (if not always green) land. My company wasn't nice enough to offer me a GPS and I didn't want to spend the cash (then £500 upwards) on a GPS myself, so I stuck with maps all that time. Biking is quite a unique experience when it comes to finding your way around. First off, opening up a road atlas whilst in motion isn't the wisest of things in a car, but on a bike it's impossible. There are GPS units for bikes, but they are still very expensive and I personally feel they take your eye off of the road for too long, when bikers need all the eyes they can get. As such, my belief after 18 months of riding, is that you simply need to clue up on your roads before you leave and have a neatly folded map in a clear top pocket on your fuel tank for the occasional glance. Learning to navigate without turn by turn instructions is good practice anyway, and you start to actually enjoy the roads more. Turn by turn navigation creates driving robots out of us all. Trying to memorise routes, via road names and numbers, is healthier. If the worst comes to the worst, a safe stop & mapcheck in a layby will quickly get you back on track and enjoying the road again. I've actually found that my sense of direction has massively improved as a biker, good for my car driving too!
5) Finally, enjoy choosing the right bike for you! There are thousands of models and variants to choose from, and although they may all appear to be simply two wheels and an engine in-between, the reality is that as your biking experience increases, so will your appreciation for the difference between different model types and brands. Take me. Ever since taking my CBT, I dreamed of owning a full-on, hard core sports bike. It didn't matter that biker friends and bike shops told me that it wasn't an idela everyday machine, I wanted one and that was it. So, a year into biking and I had a red Honda CBR-600-RR parked on my driveway. It looked sexy as hell, sounded beautiful and turned heads. I loved it and cherished it like a first born son, but something told me I just wasn't getting the most from it. After a few track days including the Ron Hazlam racing days, I discovered what it was with my red devil, the British roads just weren't good enough to do it justice. Sports handling is great on a perfectly created tracks, but sadly thanks to decades of zero investment, some British roads are worse than those of our Eastern European cousins. This combined with a very firm seat and high revving engine, meant that some commuting journeys weren't the most comfortable, specially with a pillion passenger perched high on the back seat. Thankfully for me, Honda recently released the CBR-600-F, which is a rather clever all round bike for people who want something sporty, with plenty of power, but still want a comfortably riding position, cushioned seat and a nice pillion experience. Those of you who know the Honda Hornet will know the basic bike the 600-F is based on, which is one of the best town bikes around, but the way they've retuned the engine, added a superb fairing and restyled the whole bike, has turned it into a totally unique beast. I don't think I would really have appreciated how good this bike was, unless I had not first tried out the full sports bike option with the 600-RR. The moral of the story is, don't just buy what your head initially tells you to go for, try out as many different bike types and brands as you can. Obviously, if you're intending to do some long distance touring, you might not want a full on sports bikes anyway, but since most of us want to have a go at multiple types of bike use, it's best to try out as many bikes as possible, to discover the right balance of shape, size, power, looks and features to suit your needs.
So choosing cool biking gear to look the part, planning fun trips for your new machine, taking on the weather whatever comes along, navigating with confidence and doing all of that on the bike you'll enjoy the most, day in day out. This is for me what makes biking enjoyable, not just as a commuting method, but as a new lifestyle choice. Bikers may not be the villainous rebels of hollywood films, but as a biker you are stepping away from the mundane and into a fun, exciting world which most car drivers will never experience. It might start with just an hour’s taster lesson with Get-On, but very soon, you'll be joining the hundreds of thousands of daily bikers, who enjoy a small but exclusive club on the road. With hundreds of new bikers joining the ranks every week, sooner or later there will be quite a few more bikes on the road to contend with, so my advice, enjoy the roads whilst they are still well and truly owned by us. If all the above fails to impress your car driving party friends, simply pull out my favourite winning card; how else can a person buy a brand new road toy for less than £9000 that can beat a £150,000 Ferrari from 0-60mph and beat any Taxi across London?
Stephen Bowman – Singer with British harmony group BLAKE and Get-On ambassador
Find me on Twitter @StephenBowman or on Facebook – Bike safely!
http://www.BlakeOfficial.com
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