Hillclimbing and Sprinting: The Essential Manual Book

In Live to Ride, Wayne Johnson has given us a terrific historical look at various "categories" in the motorcycling world: dirt biking, track racing, outlaw bikers and riding clubs, adventure touring, hill climbing, speed trials on the Salt Flats in Utah, and others. It's a fascinating look at the people, events, and technology that have been important at various points in the history of motorcycling. Johnson himself is a lifelong lover of all things motorcycling, and has participated (if occasionally at the periphery) in most of the different types of motorcycling of which he writes. His passion for it all comes through clearly in his writing.

At the end of his book, Johnson writes in a way that touches my heart, that resonates with me:

"There is something profoundly lonely in all this, but necessary. Years earlier, you avoided stopping on rides alone, because, always, your Self came crowding in then. Always insistent, wanting something. To be somewhere else, doing something different, being someone else."

"Quietly despairing."

"But now you're not canyon racing, trying to navigate winding roads at speeds that were never designed to be negotiated. Nor are you blindly pushing on, as if you'll find yourself up ahead. Some quiet joy has taken you here, and on this bike it could take you just about anywhere. Alone, like this, or with others…"

"But here, alongside this river…comes this moment of quiet, of - just this moment - satisfaction. So you don't want to be anywhere else but here, right now, in this canyon…"

"Rarely is going also being, but it is so on a motorcycle."

True that.