Things Best Said

Centaurs of the road

“In ancient Greece, centaurs were real creatures, half man, half horse, running free in the woods, in the valleys, at the foot of great mountain ranges, guided by their master Chiron. Living out their time on earth, they gave us a mystic story. To ride a motorcycle is to remember, to taste their freedom.
Setting off on a bike–any make, any model, on journeys long or short, challenging or just wandering–is transformation, throwing off the shackles that constrain us, escaping the prisons of the ordinary. Every time a helmet’s visor is lowered, the shroud is removed from weary eyes. And the everyday awesomeness of the world, shimmering right there in front of us, is revealed. The motorcycle makes a man young. The motorcycle takes youth and molds a man. It contains in its mythos, which is the source of its psychic power, the classical paradoxes: life and death, beauty and destruction, freedom and incapacity. In the saddle, perspectives change, rules bend, and we can see again. Unafraid, we long to gear up–we hunger for it–to give the bike gas, to measure our humanity against all that is great, mystical, and enchanted.”

“Fast Company by David M. Gross