How many of you remember the 60's? I for one don't, being born in 1972, I missed them. So my 1960's may be stylized a bit, maybe a lot. I learned about 60's car and bike culture from movies like American Grafitti, Two Lane Blacktop, On Any Sunday (Motorcycle movie, not football of similar name), Grease 1 & 2, and various other movies and documentaries. Bonneville makes a lot of my stylized version of the 60's true. From the ingenuity involved by the low budget participants to the happy serious yet playful demeanor of everyone to the completly relaxed article.
Living here for a week on a motorcycle is an expirience. Some of it is rough, and some of it sublime. What prompted this article was expiriencing one of those stylized 60's moments that I never considered I would ever feel. One of my images are motorcyclists on the beach or desert, and they are just completly on their own without a care in the world, relaxed, cruising. Having bought my first bike in 1991, I have never ridden any motorcycle anywhere that I wasn't on alert. Even deserts seem congested now days. And the salt was too. Until today. Most of the spectators had left after Sunday, and as the week continued on a lot of the racers are gone too.
This Thursday morning I found myself for the first time in my stylized 1960's. This morning as I made the 8 mile or so journey from the pits to the start of the short course you would have seen a rider without a care in the world. Relaxing at a mild 20 to 25 MPH, cowboy hat strapped to my head, soda in my left hand, throttle in my right. Looking around and taking it all in. Nobody in the same square mile as me. It was a great feeling that after 10's of thousands of motorcycling miles I just expirienced for the first time.
No comments:
Post a Comment