One or two further observations on the chrome wars.
There it was, lounging in a parking bay on Hitchin’s High Street on a sunny bank holiday afternoon. It stood out, dreamy and wistful against the plain old Fords and dusty Vauxhauls surrounding it. It was a Harley of some sort (I am no expert on this subject), a delicate little lady: a kind of grey-blue and cream construction with enough chrome on it to reflect the sun’s rays and melt the ice moons of Jupiter.
It was undoubtedly very pretty: a work of art even. But - I had to ask myself - was it a motorcycle?
Of course in one sense, we have to say, yes it was a motorcycle, but only in the way that a gelding is a male horse or a wether a male sheep or Iyad Allawi is head of a sovereign Iraqi state. It wasn’t, in other words, a
proper motorcycle, the kind of machine you’d want to sit on and make brmmming noises or that could ever make you feel as though a pair of horns were about to burst out through the top of your head. I gave it a long, appraising look. It didn’t appear as though it had ever overtaken anything.
Frankly, if I had a big enough house I wouldn’t mind mounting it on a plinth in the entrance hallway with a spotlight trained on it and ambient shopping-mall music playing about it to set the mood. I might even like to fire it up occasionally to listen to its engine note. But would I ever want to ride it…?
No! Definitely not!
I’m not even sure that ‘riding’ is the proper term to describe the act of sitting astride one of these things while it is in ‘motion’. Is there an English verb which indicates the act of slouching in front of the telly while watching the Sound of Music and eating a plate of ravioli? If there is, then that’s the right word for the job.
But though we may agree that a machine of this kind has no practical or functional use (
), perhaps we can still learn something from it about our own degenerate nature, about the decadent state of our society or the folly of human endeavour. If a HD has any positive instructional value then, to my mind, it is to remind us of our genetic proximity to the orang-utan whose ability to hang casually from the treetops has a certain louche resemblance to the loose-limbed posture of the average HD rider.
Perhaps in this respect the only motorcycle which can rival the HD is the KTM Adventure which when viewed from behind makes a normally structured human rider resemble nothing other than Kermit the Frog (the lack of evidence for our genetic proximity to frogs notwithstanding).
If I ever need to feast my eyes on a real motorcycle, then all I have to do is to stand in my kitchen and gaze soulfully out into the garden through the glass-panelled back door where my Daytona and SV stand in all their glory. One day, I might even have an R1 standing there. The R1 is the summit of real motorcycle-ness in my opinion against which everything else pales into dreary insignificance. The R1 is not as pretty as the Harley, but it is a damn sight sexier and in its own way a lot more beautiful. It also (to dredge up a tired old cliché) goes round corners. But in my part of the world that is a distinct advantage.
Cats (to change the subject somewhat) do not ride motorcycles. I can vouch for that. But there is a small, rather beautiful, sooty black cat that comes into my garden every day (at least every day the sun deigns to shine) and curls herself up under the Daytona. I have no idea where she comes from, or who she owns but I leave her be – how could I behave ungraciously to any animal of such impeccable taste and discernment? Sometimes she leaves the shade of the bikes and sits for hours just outside the door gazing in at me as I potter around in the kitchen. That’s kinda cute. I could probably do the same and stare at the Daytona for hours on end, except for one thing. It would remind me that she needs a serious clean-up.
I rode the SV up to the local supermarket this afternoon to get in the day’s shopping and buy a copy of this week’s MCN. I don’t usually buy MCN whose content is generally a load of old cobblers (IMHO) but someone had mentioned it was carrying a good article on the new R1 and another on how HD had got itself into the financial doo doos again (not that I’m vindictive, you must understand.) I left the SV to grace the supermarket forecourt for ten minutes while I dived inside to do the necessary shopping.
I kind of like shopping here, mainly because I often meet people I don’t much see elsewhere these days. On this occasion I ran into Victor pushing a lonely shopping trolley round the baby-foods section. Victor is an erstwhile member of the bike club, but is currently selling his bike having recently been about his traditional family business of producing a plentiful supply of sprogs to people the next generation (he himself is one of thirteen brothers and sisters, if I remember correctly.) Another loss to the motorcycling community.
The thing that annoys me about supermarkets most of all is the commercial labelling. I noticed another big sign today that I hadn’t seen before. It hung above a line of shelves and read, ‘Adult Breakfast Cereals.’ What, in god’s name is an ‘Adult Breakfast Cereal’? All sorts of things come to mind. If you opened the box and scrambled around among the flakes would you discover a free packet of multi-coloured condoms, perhaps? If you tore off the cardboard top and sent it away, would you get a free, three-month subscription to ‘Loaded’ magazine? Indeed, if the cereal packet was a magazine, would it be the sort to appear on the top row of a newsagent’s in a plain brown paper wrapper?
What are these people on about?! Are they trying to sell us Corn Flakes and Rice Crispies on the pretext that they will make us feel like properly matured sexual beings - presumably unlike those who prefer eating the ‘children’s breakfast cereals’ from further down the same aisle. My favourite breakfast cereal appears under the 'children's' heading. What are these people trying to tell me? I give in.
Sorry if that wasn't clear. The guy waving was my mate, Dave who I'd got separated from earlier. He was trying to flag me down in case I didn't know the way to Sean's house. There was nothing wrong with the bike. The pulsing sound just appears to be an oddity of the engine.
