Life and love on two wheels
By Jeremy Bowdler | drive.com.au | 19 May
They say you always remember the first time. Mine was hurried, a fumbling introduction. Unexpected at the time, unfulfilling at first, a little mechanical on reflection. But it did the job. I was hooked. And now, almost 30 years later, I still do it whenever I can.
But the first time I rode a motorcycle was a baptism of fire. I blame Damon Bidencope, the matchmaker. I was at Sydney Uni, desperately needing to get to Parramatta. My car was stuffed. Bidencope handed me a red helmet, a key and a few words of advice. Clutch, gear lever, front and rear brakes (huh?) were the few I remembered as I filtered from City Road into Parramatta Road on my first motorcycle ride. In peak hour.
During the next 30 minutes I discovered what a sequential gearbox was, what a fuel tap was (after some scratching of the helmet when the bike just stopped) and that car drivers didn't really have a good grasp of what it was like to be a motorcyclist. Some things don't change.
Three months later, after the most cursory of tests, none of which actually replicated anything I had seen on the roads, I was fully licensed. The RTA theory of the time seemed to be that if you had survived the three months with L-plates on the back you were more than good enough a rider to have a black licence. It worked for me at the time.
But today, compulsory pre-licence training has had a huge impact, not only on accident and fatality rates, but also on the make up of motorcycling in Australia. As soon as it wasn't a father, uncle, brother or other relative teaching the young'un, and as soon as there were a proper curriculum and professional rider trainers in charge, parents felt better about their children riding and, interestingly, what had been seen as largely a male preserve began to see an influx of women not content to sit on the back and keen to go all the way.
According to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries's motorcycle manager Ray Newland, the motorcycle industry in Australia, with 450 dealers, 6000 staff and annual unit sales of 130,000 nationally is worth about $5.2 billion per year.
When I began to ride, the riding was done by men and the T-shirt "If you can read this, the bitch has fallen off", like many wearers, had no sense of irony. Now, thankfully, riding a motorcycle is no longer divided along gender lines.
That's not to say it is not divided along other lines. Apart from a common - and all too often justified - suspicion of other road users and government, local, state and federal, we're as fractured into splinter groups as any other stratum of society, though not necessarily along the lines you'd imagine.
There is, of course, brand loyalty - as the old saying goes, Honda riders wave to anyone, BMW riders wave to each other and Harley riders wave to God - but cutting across brand loyalty is the sort of bike you ride. And then the way you ride it.
The sort of bike you ride is key to your self-image as a rider. While the concept of an all-rounder (think Subaru Forester, perhaps) exists, a sensible bike will die in the market because, being less practical than a car, a motorcycle becomes more an extension of its owner's personality. (A multi-layered rider will obviously have several motorcycles - it's just the way it works. And when you can buy Ferrari-beating performance for less than $20,000 it's a real possibility.)
Where you really notice the phenomenon, however, is on the cruiser scene, the fastest growing part of our market. The Japanese have been building cruisers since they first coveted a slice of the Harley-Davidson pie and their offerings have improved from pastiches to excellent machines, well able to hold their handlebars high in any company, except perhaps at an Outlaw clubhouse.
And where would motorcycling be without the Harley riders? Riders who are somewhere between all that's wrong with Western society and charity workers as tough as the amount of stubble they can grow between Thursday night and Monday morning, depending on which side of the handlebars you are. They're all a part of the mix, even if they do keep to themselves.
And it's an interesting mix. With prices ranging from less than $2000 for a scooter to $100,000 for a top-of-the-line, limited-edition Ducati Desmosedici, motorcycling cuts across socio-economic lines and is no longer something you are forced into because you can't afford a car. It's something you do because it's fun.
The average age of the typical rider is climbing, something reflected in the sales of cruisers and large touring machinery. The peak of the bell curve includes the over-50s, who have the time, the income and the inclination to spend on motorcycling. For some this will be an expensive machine for occasional rides, for others it'll be the Grey Nomad experience, without the campervan.
Motorcycle touring has become a big business, both in terms of attracting motorcycle-riding tourists, but also in terms of organised tours. A simple internet search and you could be riding pretty much anywhere you want to go on pretty much anything you want to ride. A track day at Imola on a Ducati? Si, signor. Tierra del Fuego to Alaska on a BMW? Sure. The success of the Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman TV travelogues has fired the imaginations of travellers worldwide and tour operators are falling over themselves to organise similar trips. If you want to ride your own bike around Europe, there's a one-stop shop in Melbourne that will arrange it all for you.
Despite all the positives, some diehard prejudices remain. How dangerous are motorcycles? It all lies in how you manage the risk. There is an increased chance of injury in an accident, so you learn to avoid situations that might lead to an accident.
The increase in motorcycles registered in NSW from 2000 to 2006 is 43 per cent, while crash rates and fatality rates have fallen over the corresponding periods by 21 and 25 per cent respectively. There are various reasons for this, but essentially, motorcycling is less dangerous than it was.
And cleaner. Technology has come a long way and motorcycling is no longer a dirty, greasy, oily means of transport - unless, of course, you want it to be. That's for people who ride Triumphs.
That was a cheap shot. Triumph Motorcycles was reborn in the 1990s and today's modern factory builds some beautiful - and oil-tight - machinery, both new and old-school. Just don't expect your new Triumph to have be built in Britain.
Triumph, like many other manufacturers, has turned global, and has significant manufacturing and assembly in Thailand. Honda sources machinery from, among other places, Thailand, Brazil, Italy, the US (until recently) and China. Oh, and Japan as well. And Honda is no different from any other company. BMW builds, or has built, in Germany, Italy, Taiwan and China. With the growth of joint ventures and stand-alone Asian manufacturers, globalisation has meant once again motorcycles can offer cheap, fuel-efficient transport, as well as fun for enthusiasts, and the market has responded to the phenomenon, as the sales figures show.
As this growth continues, and new riders join the throng, the market changes. What doesn't change is the thrill you get every time you strap a helmet on and head out for a ride. Trying to describe the feeling is impossible. It's exhilarating, scary, thrilling, consuming, draining, emotional, exciting, boring, fulfilling, special and commonplace all at once. Impossible to describe, impossible to understand until it's you at the handlebars and you feel the change as the clutch slips home and the throttle takes over.
Until then, we riders are reduced to simile and metaphor. Riding is often described as the most fun you can have with your clothes on. It may or may not be better than sex, but it's something you can do a lot more often and, sometimes, doing it by yourself can be best of all.
Motorcycling by numbers
Motorcycle sales have set a new record in the first quarter of the year with 30,460 motorcycles, scooters and all-terrain vehicles sold to the end of March - a 4.9 per cent increase on the same period last year, according to the Federal Chamber of Automotive Industries.
Motorcycle sales hit an all-time high of 129,966 last year and over the past five years the market has grown by about
70 per cent. The road-bike segment recorded 11,580 sales to March, compared with the off-road segment's 10,687. Cruisers continued to lead the motorcycle sub-segments, with sales of 3334 ahead of Enduro (3114), 250cc road bikes (2571), Motocross (2512) and Sports road bikes (1869). Honda just retained its number one spot in the total motorcycle market to March with 22.6 per cent share from Yamaha (22.3 per cent), Suzuki (12.1 per cent) and Kawasaki (8.2 per cent).
First published by Drive.com.au on May 19 2008
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