The simple antidote for Pavlovian consumerism

It's the usual drill after a long day and a longer commute. Get out of the riding gear and onto the couch, then slip something promising into the DVD player while the neural circuits cool. The Blockbuster kid gave me a dim sort of Golden Retriever look when I asked about the 04 Townes Van Zandt film, I went with what was in my bag: Dual Sport Riding Techniques.
The boss slid it across my desk a day or three before. "See if it's any good," he said. And while actual goodness remained a possibility, given the high percentage of schlock infecting my in-box, let's just say the bar wasn't set all that high.

I rarely get much in the way of profound insight from instructional dirt bike videos, but that’s what I got…among other things. Halfway through the inevitable disclaimers and introductions that normally trigger an itchy fast-forward finger, I’m rewinding virtual instructor Ned Suesse to see if he just said what I think he said.

"The best thing you can buy for your bike is gas." Gas? After most of my life has been replaced by a parade of meticulously choreographed promotional opportunities, this guy on a KTM 950 Adventure is telling me it's all about riding? What a minute. Won't I need a set of 3200-lumen Xenon auxiliary lights first? Or hand-hammered seamless aluminum 41-liter saddlebags? And what about my minimum adult daily requirement of 6AL-4V titanium? Or maybe we don't really need all that stuff after all. Especially when super unleaded is starting to feel like an extravagance and there's barely enough left of a $20 after the average fill-up to finance a Snicker's bar.

I realize this runs counter to the sort of Pavlovian consumerism that ads in this fine publication are designed to reinforce but, as it turns out, we don’t need all that stuff. Or at least I don’t. Consumables are a different story. Tires and chain lube and Guinness Stout are right behind gasoline and Snickers bars on my hierarchy of needs. And there’s a lot discretionary tack out there if you can afford it, but none of it makes me as happy as watching the sun come up from the top of a mountain that was just a bunch of squiggly lines a name on some map the night before.

I got married last September, which puts the odds of a new BMW 1200GS or KTM 990 Adventure taking up permanent residence in the garage somewhere between slim and none. So maybe it’s better to forget about that and watch this video. The DVD goes for $29.95 at www.dualsportriding.com and it’s worth at least that. Ned is pretty good at this virtual instructor thing, breaking down complex operation into drills the couch-bound mind can absorb and actually reproduce on a motorcycle. It’s basic stuff. Fundamentals. Body position. Climbing. Descending. Panic stops. Most of it I know, or knew, but nobody ever told me to grab the right grip across my palm – instead of lining it up across the knuckles – and shake hands with the throttle like a doorknob. Elbows up! I haven’t quite memorized everything Suesse has to say. Just the most important part.

With more people and less fun on the pavement, I find myself riding by the same dirt roads winding into the smoggy distance and wondering where they go. I got a nifty GPS receiver for Christmas, and a bag full of sadly neglected off-road gear somewhere garage. My old friend Gary is selling the 98 KTM single I sold him in 99. And considering it’s grown lights and a license plate in the interim, I’m going to see if he’ll sell it back to me. I’ll spring a pair of Dunlop D908 Rally Raid knobbies if there’s enough left in the budget, and maybe a bigger gas tank. After that, all I really need is a $20 to top it off and enough time to see where those roads end up.