too fast just isn't fast enough...

every once in a while, when i'm left with a quiet moment in my own mind, where i find that i have a doubt. most recently it's been from my riding. i ride a motorcycle. it's big and fast and a few years old now which dates it back around the time when design philosophy dictated that fast bikes HAD to be big - before manufacturers worked out how to make fast small. it's not the prettiest bike, but it's mine and i love it like i've loved most of my girlfriends over the years (which means, more or less, that i service it as regularly as clockwork, but generally mistreat it otherwise).

the problem here is that after a few years of riding i'm getting pretty good at it, and by good i mean fast. this is what i do: i develop an interest in an activity, be it motorcycle riding, or martial arts, or 2142 Battlefield, and after a little while i find myself pushing myself to get better and better at it. i'm not particularly competitive. not with other people, anyway. what i do is i push myself to be better at it than i was yesterday and on a bike my metric is speed. how fast can i go around that corner? how low can i make it lean? how much of my tyres am i actually using? in management circles this is referred to "continuous improvement" and "benchmarking".

now i'm starting to wonder if i'm taking this just a little bit too far. my new job has a 23 kilometre commute. i'm making it in around 23 minutes which means that i'm averaging 60kph, including a 4km section which slows to 40kph or less. i'm finding that i don't have to slow down for... oh, corners, other road users, traffic jams... that sort of thing, and somehow i don't feel like i'm going fast anymore. when 120kph through suburbia DOESN'T FEEL FAST ANYMORE there has to be something wrong. it's little things - i don't need as much of a gap between the cars for me to make a pass. passing between two cars on a dual-carriageway just... you know, doesn't have the feeling of danger to it that once it did.

i actually scared myself when i was out for a blat a couple of weeks ago. not because i did something which made me fear for my safety, but because what i'd been doing HADN'T. motorcycles are inherently dangerous creatures. you're more vulnerable to start with, which raises the stakes, but when your rear tyre sliding out when going around a corner doesn't raise your heart-rate anymore, or when you barely think twice about lane-splitting at license-revoking speeds... let's just say that i'm starting to wonder how much further i'm going to wind up taking this.

it actually makes me glad that i have an older bike - for a not insurmountable quantity of money i could have myself one of the last year or so's models which tend to be 20 kilo's lighter and 30BHP more powerful... but then i'd wind up learning how to use all that extra power and find myself going faster and harder than before and into the territory where death isn't just a possibility, it's inevitable.

maybe it's a good thing that the likelihood of my going near motorcycles while abroad is fairly low. it'll give me a break to reassess my life and how long i actually want it to be because, and i'm being completely sober and serious here: if i fuck up out there with the way i'm riding at the moment then i am going to fucking die. jokes about 9 lives and my seeming invulnerability to date, i'm getting to my own ragged edge and the abyss is currently staring straight back at me.

i'm going to need to slow down. i just have no idea how this is to be accomplished because once i'm out of the driveway i'm not thinking about taking it easy. i'm not thinking at all. anything less than 100% concentration and i get bored and stop paying any. with that level of focus i'm not thinking about threats because i've already reacted to them, and now i've gone and convinced myself that faster is safer there's no bloody hope.

i never worry when i'm out there. it's only after i've stopped and reflected on it. this is, i'm afraid, not a behavior-changing thought process...