Motorcycling Propaganda

I am going to do a persuasive essay. The objective is to persuade you the reader that I have experienced the most fun ride ever in the history of motorcycling. To do that, I will assemble only true facts, and maybe leave out a couple of details here and there that are not relevant to my enjoyment of this trip. Then I am going to let you consider whether you could even imagine a ride that could top it.

To set the scene, which is always important to the mood of every trip, I was 21 years old, it was December 31, 1969 and I had just taken possession of my first motorcycle. Actually my first motorized vehicle. The last time I had ridden a motorcycle was once before in Canada, for a few seconds before wheelying it onto somebody's lawn and falling off, then handing back to the owner.

My bike was a brand new candy blue Honda CD175 I bought at Michal's motors in Freetown Sierra Leone, West Africa. I needed to get this motorcycle home, and so the salesman pointed the bike "up country", and handed it over for me to sit on. I had a 135 mile trip ahead of me.

Obviously, I was going to need first gear, which the salesman explained was down. Yeah, I knew that from last time I rode a bike. But where was second gear? Up. OK I got it. Let's go. I put on my helmet. The mechanic looked at me in disbelief. "What's that for?" "In case I crash it protects my head." He thought this was the funniest thing he ever heard, either that or he rolls on the ground laughing for every joke he hears. This debut was going to be a triumph or a debacle, either way there were quite a few people standing around for the free show no matter how brief it would be.

I pushed the start button, clicked into first, let out the clutch and I was off. This part of the road was paved, but there was traffic and I had to remember "stay on the left", because that's how they all drove. There were only four gears, and soon I was in the top gear, moving at about 40 mph. Which was the fastest I had ever gone on two wheels. It was very hot that day, as usual, and once the adrenaline subsided, I noticed a benefit of riding a motorcycle, which was I was cooled by an incredible blast of air. Normally, I could not spend much time outdoors in Africa because the sun was so hot, and so I had no sun tan at all even after 4 months of living there.

So now I'm moving and I'm seeing scenery. What's so great about that you may ask? Well I had not seen this scenery before because my usual transportation was in the back of a closed in truck sitting on a wooden bench. So I didn't even know the way home, and I had no map. And no, I could not stop at a gas station to buy one. I would be lucky if I could stop at a gas station and buy gas. The scenery was beautiful actually. Mountains, blue sky, elephant grass, palm trees overhanging the road, thatched roof huts with mud walls, lots of people walking beside the road waving to me. Goats and chickens crossing the road in front. As I got out in the open country, I tried opening the throttle more, and found myself flying along at 60 mph. And it really did feel like flying. A Honda 175 is so small you forget it's there, there's almost no bike in front of you, but you're still sitting higher than in a car.

OK so the rest of the trip was pretty much more of the same, so in case you're not persuaded that this was more fun than any ride you have ever had - have you ever had a ride where the roads were lined with teenage girls waving to you? I didn't think so.