motorcyclemeditation.com

A week’s holiday in Cornwall, the only week this year to have consistently good weather, a life-enriching piece of good luck. Lots of time spent pootling around twisting country roads, another circumstance where a car’s better than a motorcycle, no messing about with protective clothing, helmets, gloves, suchlike.

Plenty of motorcycles on the country roads, however. Interesting to watch their progress. Sweeping down the bends, much faster than I would go, maybe they all know the roads. Yet the risks irreducible. The roads following ancient winding boundaries between fields, stacked granite walls alongside obscuring the forward view. Concealed crossroads, lumbering farm vehicles, occasional stray animals. Bends so tight you have to slow down to walking pace, hope anything coming the other way's going slow too, grateful for the car’s crumple zone in front.

For a motorcycle, ideal, given only a few conditions, first, knowledge that there’s nothing coming the other way, second, intimate familiarity with the bends and curves, overcook a corner and it’s sharp chunks of granite you’re tangling with, next, trust that some animal hasn’t left its slimy defecatory offload just out of sight round a corner to put the skids under your tyres. Probably a few other conditions besides, but none further needed, the first ones aren’t met, as you discover repeatedly even in a car.

A strange conclusion, opposite to that commonly held, namely, a motorcycle’s place resides not with the picturesque rustic environs seen in countless motorcycle promotions nor in the sunny clear days of same. In such circumstances, who needs a motorcycle, a car proceeds as quickly and with less hassle. Rather, the motorcycle rules on straightish roads, multiple lanes, congested traffic that you have to filter through, indifferent weather. Or of course cities, whose paralysis no other transport can cope with.

Back in London, motorcycle sitting impassively, waiting for the action. Pleasingly undented, like its rider, wonder if it would have been that way if it’d been taken to Cornwall.