Hudson
Well-known member
Look, I prefer reading moto articles to pretty much any other kinda drivel, which is why I've got many subscriptions to various mags. At the EuroMoto show, I grabbed several editions of ADV Moto, a glossy monthly that looked chock full o' fun articles about motorbikes.
Dear gawd, these ADV writer types are windbags! Three or four tales in every edition about various 'round the world journeys, each a "trip to find the center of my being" or somesuch bullcrap. After the third article, I felt like the table captain at a "Bad Hemingway" convention.
Seems this type of writing is pretty much cliché for the ADV genre of ride reports. Recipe for such ride journals seem to be:
It's like the late 50s/early 60's, with Jack Kerouac, where everyone wanted to be an original beatnik, only this time its on fancy motorbikes. It was fun in the 70's when Ted Simon did it on a Triumph, and even enjoyable when Ewan and Charlie did it with several chase rigs, in a tv series intended for a wider audience. But it is totally out of hand.
Which is why reading Parapin's "Root Beer Run" is so refreshing. Anti-pretentious, with no other aim than to talk about the people he meets and the crazy silliness that accompanies this complete and utter slacker, mixed in with enough regular folk who pitch in at opportune moments to keep the story going.
Or like a classic Frenchy ride report, where you don't quite know what adventures await this hapless traveler, but you stay tuned in to see where it leads. No egoist poetry, just good solid entertainment.
I love learning about new people, new places, new cultures, and certainly about adventures. I enjoy telling a story from my perspective about the cool experiences, places, and personalities I've been blessed to meet.
But please, if I ever do something like this in my RRs, call ******** on me without mercy.
"And as I crested the hill on the return from that sophomorific spectacle in La Pine, where ribaldry mixed in equal parts with whiskey, cigars, and corned beef, I couldn't help but feel that the universe had contracted, ever so slightly, to unite us all in our common love of fellow man and kosher dills. A Reuben Run? Mere words, but the thrills of that ride will keep me forever young during the winters of my discontent, until I ride again to La Pine..."
[cue puking]
Dear gawd, these ADV writer types are windbags! Three or four tales in every edition about various 'round the world journeys, each a "trip to find the center of my being" or somesuch bullcrap. After the third article, I felt like the table captain at a "Bad Hemingway" convention.
Seems this type of writing is pretty much cliché for the ADV genre of ride reports. Recipe for such ride journals seem to be:
- wallow in various navel gazing about the senselessness of the material world
- sell all earthy material possessions
- promptly reinvest funds into brand new (preferably BMW'ish) adv bike, loaded to the hilt with high tech gadgets, titanium cookware, and motorcycle winches and such,
- head out to parts unknown
- wax on and on and on about more navel gazing.
- arrive home and pontificate about how much smaller the world just became
It's like the late 50s/early 60's, with Jack Kerouac, where everyone wanted to be an original beatnik, only this time its on fancy motorbikes. It was fun in the 70's when Ted Simon did it on a Triumph, and even enjoyable when Ewan and Charlie did it with several chase rigs, in a tv series intended for a wider audience. But it is totally out of hand.
Which is why reading Parapin's "Root Beer Run" is so refreshing. Anti-pretentious, with no other aim than to talk about the people he meets and the crazy silliness that accompanies this complete and utter slacker, mixed in with enough regular folk who pitch in at opportune moments to keep the story going.
Or like a classic Frenchy ride report, where you don't quite know what adventures await this hapless traveler, but you stay tuned in to see where it leads. No egoist poetry, just good solid entertainment.
I love learning about new people, new places, new cultures, and certainly about adventures. I enjoy telling a story from my perspective about the cool experiences, places, and personalities I've been blessed to meet.
But please, if I ever do something like this in my RRs, call ******** on me without mercy.
"And as I crested the hill on the return from that sophomorific spectacle in La Pine, where ribaldry mixed in equal parts with whiskey, cigars, and corned beef, I couldn't help but feel that the universe had contracted, ever so slightly, to unite us all in our common love of fellow man and kosher dills. A Reuben Run? Mere words, but the thrills of that ride will keep me forever young during the winters of my discontent, until I ride again to La Pine..."
[cue puking]
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