100% Biker 205

“Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?”
“That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.”
“I don’t much care where –”
“Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”
Alice in Wonderland—Lewis Carroll

Adventures. Most people think they’re only had by small children and those who refuse to grow up. So many pack adventures away with old toys, perhaps to be reminisced over, but never to be experienced again. It shouldn’t be so.

On page 42, we review two very different travel books, while on page 72 you’ll find the latest part in our guide to travelling Route 66. The latter isn’t a gratuitous ‘what we did on our freeby hols’ piece, but, rather, aimed at pointing you in the right direction on travelling that particular road yourself. But you don’t have to go to America or the Arctic Circle or Mongolia; you don’t have to book time off work or promise your bank manager your first born in return for a loan. An adventure is what you make it, and it can be a stone’s throw from your own front door.

Imagine, if you will, an area approximately twenty-five miles square. Then imagine your house in the middle of that, or on the edge or two-thirds across. Feel free to be creative. It doesn’t sound that big a space but can you honestly say that you know every inch of it, that you have ridden down every single road in those twenty five square miles? Unless you’re a cab driver or have lived in the same place for fifty years, then it’s unlikely—there will still be a road or a lane or a by road that you don’t know. After all, the road less travelled doesn’t have to be a thousand miles away.

The next time you’re headed to a rally, leave an hour or two early. Take a less obvious route. Turn down a lane that isn’t listed on your directions and just see where it goes. It might not be eventful, it might even be dull, but not every round the world trip is filled with excitement every moment! But, then again, it might be the riding road you’ve been looking for, or have an unexpected and stunning view or a gem of a building. Regular readers will know that our Bosun is fond of a windmill. We have, obviously, laughed at him for this but, in the course of his travelling to events, he makes time to seek out another local mill and—generally due to his appalling sense of direction—goes somewhere that he’s never been before, which is an adventure in itself.

It can be an hour or a day or a lifetime, but take time to squeeze that unknown road into your life. All you have to do, as Lewis Carroll said, is begin at the beginning and go on until you come to the end. Then stop.

-Blue