[DeathArrow]

>you are generally travelling along the old routes that connect all the places where life has been for millennia, the amount of history (in Europe at least), scenery and humanity you stumble across just in the course of a typical day covering maybe 50 miles is huge.

What stops someone doing the same thing with the car, motorcycle or scooter?

[throw0101a]

> What stops someone doing the same thing with the car, motorcycle or scooter?

For the car:

> In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.

> On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.

* Robert M. Pirsig, Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance: An Inquiry Into Values

* https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/313360-in-a-car-you-re-alwa...

[mynameisash]

When I started riding motorcycle, I remember having this amazing feeling of being connected to my environment. Even though I was on the same roads and going the same speed as when I was in a car, it was wonderful and quite inexplicable.

You stop at a sign or light, and you put your foot down. You have the wind at your face, the sun on your back. No radio, no cell phone beeping at you. You wave to motorcyclists coming from the opposite direction.

Not that riding is without its dangers or downsides, to be sure, but it can be wonderful.

[analog31]

For many of us, imposing a physical or technological limitation on an activity changes the experience. I can't think of a good explanation. A person with exceptional self discipline might not need it, but some of us know that we aren't that person.

The speed and physical inertia of a car seem to translate into a psychological speed and inertia. Again, I can't justify this on utilitarian grounds. I find myself driving faster than I would go if I'm on my bike. As angry as drivers get when they're stuck behind my bike at 12 mph, imagine how angry they'd get if they were stuck behind my car at 12 mph for no apparent reason.

In the car, I don't stop to notice "little" things. To do so requires getting the car off the road, finding a place to park (if there is one) getting in and out. On my bike, I can come to a complete stop and be off the road and parked, virtually anywhere, in about 15 seconds. I get priority parking at the supermarket. ;-)

I admit that I've become somewhat anti-tourist, perhaps influenced by the experience of a driving vacation in the British Isles with my family. It seemed like every coastal or scenic road was jam packed with cars and tour buses, and every square foot of space filled with parked cars. It's possible to find less-touristy places to visit, but now those places are getting crowded too.

These days when my family goes on a vacation, we like to find a destination where we can ditch the car, and hop on our bikes. I actually miss my bike when I'm on a trip without it.

[unculture]

You can absolutely travel the same roads, but there is something about the speed you are travelling that opens you up to really noticing the little details of the landscape around you.

[eckmLJE]

The faster and heavier you are, the more capacity for harm you have, and the more you must pay attention to just the road in front of you instead of the world around you.

[arccy]

you're more isolated from the outside in a glass and metal bubble (car)

and everything just whizzes by too fast to appreciate anything