‘DON’T JUST PLAN YOUR NEXT BIG RIDE – GO NOW’
Journalist, photographer, songwriter and film maker, Nick Berkeley of Bikerglory believes that you should plan to be more spontaneous…
We seem to be living in a bucket list world: you can only validate yourself by ticking predetermined boxes. Biking-wise, for instance, you may find yourself encouraged to #Ride5000miles. Or go on an adventure. Or do a trackday. Or get off road. These may or may not prove to be excellent ideas but the essential truth is more prosaic. What really matters is that you can derive maximum enjoyment from your chosen pursuit in the moment, right now, without any special preparation: the pleasure being all the sweeter for not being scheduled. I’ve been lucky enough to have done a few of the things we’re all being relentlessly encouraged to do, but the most memorable rides
I’ve had were pretty much brief and unplanned, with darkness a recurrent theme: riding in a remote spot by moonlight on a ZRX wondering if the lights would come back on again (they did, I never found the cause, and it never repeated the intensive night vision course). An old-skool Notting Hill summer afternoon on an XT250, ganja in the air, sound system bass and kids on the street yelling for wheelies. I think I’d just gone to get fags but I still remember the light filtering through the trees. Going across London (night again) to pick up a girlfriend – spur of the moment – with one helmet between us, goggles for me on the Westway and not much else. Or, more recently, coming back from a festival (night again) with pillion (female again). A summer vibe and a clear forecast gave no hint of the torrential rain en route, teeth chattering over tea back in the kitchen. Memories are the legacy of small moments. The point being that a ride down the shops can be more memorable than a 300-mile stint. An unplanned early morning blast can find you more on it than when you last did a trackday. Riding across a field on a hack can be more fun than traversing the desert – but maybe you have to do all these things to really get that. Or maybe not: it should be obvious that the nature of biking opens you up to the random, to the fact that it’s an unpredictable pursuit, conflating mood, mechanics and moments. You don’t know when the cards will fall together – that’s the beauty of it, But I can tell you this: the moment is nearer than you think.