Newsgroup: it.hobby.motociclismo
Titolo: Cold on a Motorcycle

direttamente da alt.binaries.pictures.motorcycles.sportbike, č 
bellissimo, leggete tutto fino in fondo, soprattutto in questi giorni 
umidi e fradici che la motina la si guarda da lontano.
(per i non anglofili č un ottimo motivo per imparare :P)
"There is cold, and there is cold on a motorcycle. Cold on a motorcycle 
is like being beaten with cold hammers while being kicked with cold 
boots, a bone bruising cold. The wind's big hands squeeze the heat out 
of my body and whisk it away; caught in a cold October rain, the drops 
don't even feel like water. They feel like shards of bone fallen from 
the skies of Hell to pock my face. I expect to arrive with my cheeks and 
forehead streaked with blood, but that's just an illusion, just the 
misery of nerves not designed for highway speeds.
Despite this, it's hard to give up my motorcycle in the fall and I rush 
to get it on the road again in the spring; lapses of sanity like this 
are common among motorcyclists. When you let a motorcycle into your life 
you're changed forever. The letters "MC" are stamped on your driver's 
license right next to your sex and weight as if "motorcycle" was just 
another of your physical characteristics, or maybe a mental condition. 
But when warm weather finally does come around all those cold snaps and 
rainstorms are paid in full because a summer is worth any price.
A motorcycle is not just a two-wheeled car; the difference between 
driving a car and climbing onto a motorcycle is the difference between 
watching TV and actually living your life. We spend all our time sealed 
in boxes, and cars are just the rolling boxes that shuffle us from 
home-box to work-box to store-box and back, the whole time, entombed in 
stale air, temperature regulated, sound insulated, and smelling of carpets.
On a motorcycle I know I'm alive. When I ride, even the familiar seems
strange and glorious. The air has weight and substance as I push through 
it and its touch is as intimate as water to a swimmer. I feel the cool 
wells of air that pool under trees and the warm spokes of sun that fall 
through them. I can see everything in a sweeping 360 degrees, up, down 
and around, wider than Pana-Vision and IMAX and unrestricted by ceiling 
or dashboard. Sometimes I even hear music. It's like hearing phantom 
telephones in the shower or false doorbells when vacuuming; the 
pattern-loving brain, seeking signals in the noise, raises acoustic 
ghosts out of the wind's roar. But on a motorcycle I hear whole songs: 
rock 'n roll, dark orchestras, women's voices, all hidden in the air and 
released by speed. At 30 miles per hour and up, smells become uncannily 
vivid. All the individual tree-smells and flower-smells and grass-smells 
flit by like chemical notes in a great plant symphony. Sometimes the 
smells evoke memories so strongly that it's as though the past hangs 
invisible in the air around me, wanting only the most casual of rumbling 
time machines to unlock it. A ride on a summer afternoon can border on 
the rapturous. The sheer volume and variety of stimuli is like a bath 
for my nervous system, an electrical massage for my brain, a systems
check for my soul. It tears smiles out of me: a minute ago I was dour,
depressed, apathetic, numb, but now, on two wheels, big, ragged, windy
smiles flap against the side of my face, billowing out of me like air 
from a decompressing plane.
Transportation is only a secondary function. A motorcycle is a joy 
machine. It's a machine of wonders, a metal bird, a motorized 
prosthetic. It's light and dark and shiny and dirty and warm and cold 
lapping over each other; it's a conduit of grace, it's a catalyst for 
bonding the gritty and the holy. I still think of myself as a motorcycle 
amateur, but by now I've had a handful of bikes over half a dozen years 
and slept under my share of bridges. I wouldn't trade one second of 
either the good times or the misery. Learning to ride one of the best 
things I've done.
Cars lie to us and tell us we're safe, powerful, and in control. The
air-conditioning fans murmur empty assurances and whisper, "Sleep, 
sleep." Motorcycles tell us a more useful truth: we are small and 
exposed, and probably moving too fast for our own good, but that's no 
reason not to enjoy every minute of the ride.
Author unknown. "
-- 
gr.m on Aprilia RS125 (noname) CA
"At reise er at leve"

actually living your life. 
(la differenza tra guidare una sardo e salire su una moto e' la stessa
che vi e' tra guardare la tv e vivere la propria vita).
Lampeggi
-- 
Paolo "Spino" e Helga "Celtic Woman" -- Adria (RO) --  
Honda XRV 750 Africa Twin "Sherpa" Atic #1113 GSOS #010
Powered by Guinness

 
<cut>
Quoto tutto. Bellissimo.
-- 
Max "Bligh"
Fazer 600-2002 "Bounty"
Grottaferrata (RM)