There’s a freedom in motorcycling that’s impossible to imitate. Cars isolate you from the road, but a motorcycle demands your full presence. Every ride draws you into a relationship with the wind, the asphalt, and the machine beneath you. It sharpens your senses. You notice the shift in the air before a storm. You feel the slightest change in road texture. Even your thoughts become clearer, stripped of the noise that fills ordinary life. The ride becomes a kind of meditation at speed.

Over time, motorcycles have also been tied to the milestones of my life. Each bike I’ve owned carried a chapter of my story. Some were bought in excitement, others sold reluctantly. The act of buying a motorcycle often came with the rush of possibility—a reminder that adventure is always within reach. Selling one, on the other hand, carried its own emotional weight. Letting go of a bike sometimes felt like letting go of who I was when I bought it. Yet each farewell made space for something new, another machine with its own personality and potential.

Working on motorcycles has shaped me just as much as riding them. Hours spent in a garage or workshop—tools scattered, grease on my hands—taught me patience and problem-solving. Fixing a stubborn bolt or tuning an engine has a way of humbling you, but it also rewards persistence. There’s something deeply satisfying about understanding a machine so well that you can hear what it needs before it breaks.

More than anything, motorcycles have connected me to people. Fellow riders, mechanics, strangers at petrol stations who share a nod of appreciation—the motorcycle community has always felt like a loose-knit family built on shared passion. Even quiet solo rides become part of a larger story, one that other riders instinctively understand.

In the end, “me and motorcycles” is a relationship built on movement, memory, and meaning. It’s not simply about riding; it’s about living with a sense of direction, curiosity, and heart. Every journey, whether short or long, reminds me why I keep coming back to two wheels: because they make life feel bigger, brighter, and undeniably real.

Just had an interesting wee trip home. I helped a mate out with buying a Ducati Multistrada that was in Wellington, my trailer was down there and I needed to bring a Kawasaki ZRX1100 of mine home as well. So we headed off in the Touareg, had a good trip down, picked up the trailer, dropped my puppy off at my sons and, well things were going well. It all seemed to be falling into place. However on the way home the Touareg decided to play up and it turns out that I had an injector that was not closing and this was causing a lose of fuel pressure. Pretty dangerous situation when I was driving up a steep incline and overtaking a truck and trailer with another big truck on my arse. I get 1/2 way past the first truck and the Touareg decides to go into limp mode, all I have in my rear view was a truck radiator. I turned my hazards on and waved my arm out my window, fortunately he realised that something wasn't right and buttoned off, which gave me the room to fall back and return to the inside lane. Upshot stuck in Mangaweka on the phone to the AA. I had to give them my name and address about 17 bloody times to get the message through as to who I was where I lived and where I had broken down. Two hours later a truck turns up. loads my Touareg, and trailer with the bikes on it and proceeds to take me to tauranga. $2,500 later we get back home. What a fucking mission. So the Touareg is in being fixed, I have insurance to cover that thank goodness, and the AA have stumped up $1500 for the tow. But it got me to thinking, if we didn't have mobile phones in this day and age we would be well and truly fucked. I mean Mangaweka was deserted, the only thing we saw moving was an automated lawn mowing machine. So the moral I guess, is make sure you have AA membership, and make sure you have insurance to help. Because in my case I'd still be in Mangaweka.