Guide to a Natural High


T is remarkable and ever-changing planet on which we live is so full of riches that we cannot hope to experience everything there is to see or feel in one lifetime. But if you want to take a good look around while you’re here, then getting-up high and keeping mobile are two good principles to adopt. So, if you haven’t done so already, get on your bike and ride it up a proper mountain to the highest point you can. Bag yourself some ‘passes’ and feel the rush.


Mother Earth is a restless soul, the fi re in her belly being a molten core of liquid iron spinning in constant fl ux. It creates the magnetic fi eld that helps us navigate, as we scurry across her more hospitable surface. Her crust is not one solid hardened shell, but six continental plates of rock just a few kilometres thick constantly jostling to get past each other. Where these plates collide, vast areas of land are raised skyward, which we witness in the form of mountain ranges – and tsunamis.


Peaks stand solitary or massed in chains that cover about one-quarter of the Earth’s landmass. Over time they weather in interesting ways. Erosion dumps silt and debris in valley fl oors: arid and barren or, with the addition of water and warmth, lush and productive.


You could gather all that from watching Discovery Channel, but my point is this: riding a motorcycle is probably the best way there is to get into and around some of the highest, most awesome, entertaining, spiritually upliſt ing places and roads on the planet. T ere’s simply nothing like being in the mountains, because on a good day the air is clean and crisp, the sun is clear and bright, you can see further than you ever thought possible with both feet on the ground and all the while your spirits will soar – assuming the weather doesn’t suddenly change of course.


Commuting ‘to’ and ‘from’ can too easily become a chore that de-sensitises us from our surroundings, and an unrelenting motorway is a sterile grind for those whose lives are ruled by deadlines and appointments. In these situations, the very thought of going ‘via’ seems like an unrealistic indulgence.


As riders we aren’t immune from these frustrations, but anyone who chooses to ride for the sheer joy of it knows that even a trip from A to B is so much more engaging when travelled by bike. It becomes even more worthwhile if you can build a little extra time into any journey, just for the opportunity to try another road or take a detour to see a nearby place that has only ever been a name on a road sign until today.


Once you get in to the mind-set that regards any trip as a potential opportunity for ‘travel’, you start to become more mindful of the world around you. T e road fl ows with the land, sometimes skirting contours, sometimes rising and falling acutely across them. With each bend or crest a new perspective opens; usually a subtle change, perhaps giving a glimpse of something on the skyline, but sometimes more revelatory, as when the road suddenly drops away to reveal the sea spread across the near-distance.


None of these experiences off er the sheer intensity and sustained impact a rider gets from travelling on mountain roads. Here the vertical fi lls the horizon. Among mountains you become aware that the vertical axis goes down as well as up, and that depth perception can go all screwy without the plethora of reference points we sub-consciously collect from less volatile landscapes. It can be a mind-expanding experience, a genuine legal high in every sense. More than any other environment that bikers encounter, mountains require riding in three dimensions.


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CENTRAL EUROPE


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