If you do not care much for metaphysical speculation, quit reading now. If, however, as so many who ride you speak in almost spiritual tones to describe the feeling you have when you ride, read on.More and more scientific research in is providing empirical evidence for what spiritual traditions have claimed for millenia. Not always is science proving that which is claimed in the holy books of various traditions, but it is helping us to understand the why and wherefore of that which certain traditions have held as truth. For example, some of the laws which are found in the Jewish Torah or what Christians refer to as the Old Testament, are clearly understood today to be health related; foods and practices prohibited by certain of those laws we know today to be clearly unhealthy. Through observation and using the knowledge available at the time, the ancients recognized a certain relationship and thus created laws related to protecting members of their tribes.
Now we also know today that some of the established laws and beliefs were based on cultural norms not necessarily related to what we would deem as scientific, and we have discarded adherance to those beliefs, such as the Earth being 6,000 years old and the center of the universe.
With those caveats, let us consider what science and some spiritual traditions have to say about vibration, and combine it with some thought about motorcycles.
In the Hindu tradition it is believed that all creation - plants, animals, humans, everything - comes from the Primordial Vibration; in Sanskrit this concept is referred to as the Unstuck Sound or "the sound that is not made by two things striking together." One might also use this imagery related to vibration when considering the Muslim, Jewish, and Christian traditions which embrace the narrative that "God said" (speech pathology having taught us that speaking is in fact the result of vibration) as the prelude to the creation of all matter: "God said let there be light ...God said, 'Let us make humankind ..." and so forth.
In the material world we recognize that all ordinary audible sounds are the result of two objects in concert: vocal cords, waves against the shore, wind against the leaves, etc. In physics it is held that everything is the result of occilation or vibration; E = MC2 is the mathematical foundation indicating that all matter is an expression of energy (supposedly Einstein stated that "Everthing is vibration" though I have as of yet not discovered the original source quote).
What does this have to do with motorcycling? First, we know that motorcycles vibrate; since the advent of the self-propelled two-wheeled riding machine engineers have been seeking ways to reduce vibration to endurable proportions. Yet for all of us who ride, the "vibe" of the machine is in fact important. In an interesting book by Stephen L. Thompson entitled Bodies in Motion, the author sets out to explore this aspect of the rider-machine relationship, the response of the rider to the vibration produced by particular motorcycles . He argues against the assertion that motorcyclists ride only for social reasons and instead maintains that we ride for primarily psycho-biological reasons. He holds that while culture can induce one to first try riding a motorcycle, it is genetic heritage that causes one to experience the pleasure (he is not speaking here in sexual terms!) that many riders describe and thus keep on riding.
One must agree that at some level there must be something different about the rider who chooses to experience the viscissitudes of wind, rain, temperature, and the danger of riding a two-wheeled platform that is relatively prone to de-stablization. It certainly would not appear to be the most rational of decisions ... yet we ride. Why? And the answer "If you have to ask you would not understand" does not suffice for me, for I AM a rider and yet at times wonder why, even as I clamber into my gear and climb on the bike for yet another wet and cold sojourn.
That is why I was so intrigued by Thompson's thesis. We know riding is not a rational event, but is it necessarily an irrational event? Is there something simply non-rational, something one might even call spiritual, that results in such a choice? More and more science is experimenting with the interface between biology and spirituality; for example researchers are discovering that certain parts of the brain light up in response to practices such as meditation and prayer. It seems that some humans are hard-wired in such a way as to be more receptive to so-called spiriutal stimuli. Tomio Hirai has done much to map the brain in response to Zen Buddhist practices and simply because we can understand how something works does not mean that we have discovered the why or first cause. Hence my excitement about Thompson's thesis.
Alas, Thompson provides us only wth an intriguing thesis backed up by no real empirical evidence nor reasoning. His "book" is really a series of disconnected essays with a veneer of scientific research applied. Half the book is a series of charts that demonstrates the results of vibration testing on various bikes, conducted at Stanford University. The ultimate conclusion is that different bikes vibrate at different rates in different places.
No shit. I can put my seven year old grandson on my Harley, my Triumph, and my Kawi and he can tell me they feel different. I don't need two hundred pages (!) of appendixes from tests done at Stanford to tell me that.
And that is the disppointment. I think Thompson is on to something; in Zen Buddhism it is believed that any activity can result in the achievement of Enlightenment if only one pursues that activity with full mindfulness. So why not through motorcycling? How often have I heard motorcycling referred to as "the lazy man's Zen"? Perhaps it is the physical vibration of the bike that somehow triggers something in the brain that connects in ways we do not yet understand with that which we label "spiritual". I know in my own life I have had experiences on the bike that I would call spiritual, and I know that although I see value in all types or motorcycles, I do have my "default" preferences for riding and would be at a loss to explain exactly why. So perhaps differing vibrations from differing bikes do resonate in different ways with various people - although I would not entirely discount the social aspects in discussing why someone rides a particular bike.
So keep riding; maybe the Beach Boys were more right than they realized?
"I'm pickin up good vibrations,
She's giving me excitations,
Good good good good vibrations ...."
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