motorcyclemeditation.com

A sunny little motorcycle jaunt this afternoon, fifty miles each way, a highly congenial motorcycle distance. Made particularly enjoyable by conditions on the motorway, the traffic flowing okay but with just enough density to cause bunching.

These circumstances containing perennial interest from the motorcycle vantage. Like a long string of beads, each bead a cluster of traffic, then a gap until the next one. For them, the whole journey crowded, they never get out of their own cluster. For the motorcycle they’re the entertainment, you slow down, weave through them, get to the front, blast away.

Just pulling away from one cluster, suddenly the distinctive rasp of a Ferrari, swooping past, undertaking. An unaccustomed motorcycle experience, but not one to be annoyed by, on the motorcycle you do it to others all the time. This charitable mood however proving short-lived, the Ferrari moving from inside to outside lane in one sweeping diagonal movement, the motorcycle needing to veer slightly to keep a safe line.

Restraining the urge to respond, never a good idea to start waving fists about. But storing the information, with bunching traffic it won’t be long before we get to chapter two of this little standoff. Sure enough, there it is, the Ferrari slowing down, the next cluster of slow traffic clear to see a few hundred yards ahead. Perfect.

Coming alongside, motorcycle slowing to the same speed. Proceeding with insolent adjacency. Getting into second gear. Our parallel progress amounting to a taunt. Ahead, the cluster of traffic closing in. Opening the throttle. The motorcycle hurtling forward, torso and neck braced in the effort to stay attached. Motorcycle just getting seriously fast, but the traffic cluster coming up, easing off, getting ready to filter steadily between the lanes. Ferrari way behind.

Not that the Ferrari tried to keep pace. Wonder if it could have if it had tried. But that’s not the point. The point is, it didn’t have the option. The deeper point is, wrong technology, Ferrari, if you want something that can negotiate these roads, you need something narrower. Get yourself a motorcycle.