[The Strenuous Life] Easy Rider Badge I

NOTE: For anyone who missed my last piece about [The Strenous Life] tagged posts, read it before this one! This post is written to satisfy the "Name basic types of motorcycles and features" requirement for the ‘Easy Rider’ badge.

The ‘Easy Rider’ badge on the Strenous Life is (unsurprisingly) focused around getting one’s motorcycle license. I know how to ride reasonably well, and own a motorcycle , and even had my learner’s permit for a year. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the time or money to take the licensing test when I first got it. Thanks to the New South Wales government, there is no way to renew a permit without forking out a stack of cash and spending two days doing remedial review on how to start a motorcycle and similar things. The upshot is that I’ll have to wait until I’ve got a paying job and a weekend to burn re-learning the basics to start working toward my license again.

For now I’ve had to settle for learning a bit about motorcycles, and how to operate and maintain them. This has included some more general mechanical knowledge (I finally know what a carburetor does), and random motorcycle specifics (like why two-strokes need oil mixed in with their fuel). In this series of posts I’ll be summarizing the six main types of motorcycles, listing the major mechanical components and controls that make them go VROOOOM, and briefly describing the pre-ride inspection as it applies to my own bike.

I call her Kira

Without further ado, lets dig into the different types of motorcycles. According to Wikipedia (or rather, the four sources that Wikipedia points to), the most widely recognized classes are Standard, Cruiser, Touring, Sport, Dual-sport, and Offroad. There are also the various sub-categories of scooter, which won’t be covered here.

My own bike is a standard or “naked” bike, which disappointingly has nothing to do with whether or not I need to be clothed to ride it (always wear your full safety gear, kiddos). These bikes are characterized by a lack of fairings (the sleek-looking bits that cover the front end of sportier motorcycles), no windscreens, and an upright riding position where one’s shoulders are above the hips. Great for beginners, they are the vanilla ice cream of motorcycles.

So much cooler than me

This makes choppers, like the Goldblumobile from Nashville, those weird Ben & Jerry's flavours that cost $50 a pint. They come in all shapes and sizes, but generally are a cut-down and customized (‘chopped’) version of a production cruiser, our second type of motorcycle. Cruisers still lack fairings and windscreens, but unlike naked bikes the riding position is leaning-back, with the riders feet forward and hands up. They tend to have low-end torque (meaning less shifting gears at low speed), but wind against the rider’s chest can make riding them at high speeds tiring. Ideal for, well, cruising.

But what if you are really looking for a small, non-sporty, two-wheeled convertible, with the top always down? Enter the touring bike. Typically with both fairings and windscreens, these bikes provide relatively good weather and wind protection. The riding position on touring bikes is relaxed and upright, which combined with the large fuel tanks means long distance travel is both possible and comfortable. Ample storage space has earned these bikes several (not entirely complimentary) nicknames: bagger, full bagger, dresser, full dresser, and full dress tourers.

Although this one prefers to be called 'Steve'

On the other hand, if you want the vroomiest vroom out of your bike, you are probably better served by getting a Sport motorcycle. Like the touring bike, sport bikes have windscreens and fairings, but - and this a critically important distinction - much cooler looking windscreens and fairings. Instead of sitting upright like a chump, you ride leaning forward, with your legs up and back, and your arms reached out in front of you. This position allows the wind resistance to actually support your body at high speeds, and makes it easier to take those ridiculous racing corners where your knees almost scrape the ground. These bikes are way too cool for me, and I’ll probably never own one.

The remaining two bike types are slightly different from the others. While the previous types have all been designed with various road-uses in mind – dirt bikes are for the roads less travelled (the ones that aren’t actually roads). The dual-purpose/dual-sport bike is either an off-road worthy naked bike, or a road-worthy dirt bike (and more commonly the latter, from what I am given to understand).

So there we have it – six types of bikes. For the next two posts on this topic (going over parts and controls, and the pre-ride inspection), I’ll be focusing on my own bike – a 2006 Honda VTR250, but will try to note where significant different possibilities exist. Or not, it’s my blog after all and I can be as capricious and inconsistent as I like.

[The Strenuous Life] The Strenuous Life

TLDR: This post is about a new self-improvement platform I’m beta testing called ‘The Strenuous Life’; if that is of no interest to you, then what do you think of this?. The bottom line is that you can safely ignore posts with [The Strenuous Life] prefixed to the title, unless you want a glimpse into some of the stuff I’m learning in my spare time.

“Let those who have, keep, let those who have not, strive to attain, a high standard of cultivation and scholarship. Yet let us remember that these stand second to certain other things. There is a need of a sound body, and even more of a sound mind. But above mind and above body stands character – the sum of those qualities which we mean when we speak ofa man’s force and courage, of his good faith and sense of honor.” - Theodore Roosevelt (Citizenship in a Republic)

I made my first (cringe-inducing) post on this blog a little under seven years ago. I probably could not have fully expressed my reasons at the time, but the creation of a new blog was just a minor component of a larger effort of self-improvement that began when I graduated high school.

PICTURED: Awkward Chubby Nerd

Don’t get me wrong – I actually had a great time being an awkward chubby nerd, and I spent many an enjoyable afternoon playing Halo 2, Magic, and/or Dungeons and Dragons instead of doing whatever it was the cool kids did
 (Drinking? Going to pep rallies? Hanging out at the pep rally drinking and singing show tunes?).

PICTURED: Cool Kids, probably

But I certainly wasn’t living my best of all possible lives – and I knew it. The main reason I was so eager to graduate early was because going to university represented an opportunity to re-invent myself, and start becoming the man I wanted to be.

PICTURED: The Man I Want to Be

I discovered the Art of Manliness blog soon after I arrived at uni, and have been following it ever since. It provides consistently high quality content on a wide range of topics, which almost always correlates well with my own self-improvement goals. Recently Brett McKay, the founder of AoM, launched a new project called ‘The Strenuous Life’; it’s a sort of a self-paced online gamified Scouts program for adults, complete with physical badges available for completing various requirements. This is definitely my bag, so I was thrilled to be one of the 150 accepted into the beta testing “Red Team” for the last couple months.

The badges cover a huge range of skills/topics - from ‘Sharpshooter’ to ‘Orator’ to ‘Kiss the Chef’ - and have all sorts of requirements - including reading (‘Read “Citizenship in a Republic”'), writing (‘Describe the different types of motorcycle’), and physical effort (‘Walk 50 mi. in 24 hours’). There are also daily check-ins for exercise and good-deed-doing, and weekly challenges (‘Take a 5’ cold shower every day’). The format is going to change somewhat before it goes live, so I won’t go into any more detail until I see the final form, but I can say that as it currently exists (1) I find it extremely motivating, and (2) I endorse it completely for anyone seeking broad-based self-improvement.

Now, I’ve been working through a few of these badges in my pomodoro breaks and have decided that the most efficient/self-motivating way to do the writing tasks is to structure them as blog posts. While my blog posts are frequently rambling self-indulgent drivel written primarily for my own amusement, usually they are at least original rambling self-indulgent drivel. Those that will be going up with [The Strenuous Life] tag are most often going to be a summary of information easily obtainable from other sources, so may be of even less interest than my typical fare. YOU HAVE BEEN WARNED.

Stay tuned for the next Strenuous Life post, where I attempt to learn all about motorcycles (for the ‘Easy Rider’ badge).

“I live The Strenuous Life.

I train for harmony in body, mind, and soul.

I am strong to be useful.

I choose action over abstraction.
I do hard things.

I live The Strenuous Life.”