A couple of weeks ago my wife was watching Oprah. It was apparently one in a series of episodes documenting a cross country trip by car with Oprah and her friend Gail. During the show I commented that it was completely staged and that there must have been a crew of a couple of dozen, not to mention the helicopter for the cool flyover shots. Sure enough, it was revealed that a crew of 18, including Oprah’s personal trainer, were traveling with her in a caravan of 6 vehicles.

I needled my wife a bit about the snobbery of someone trying to appear “normal” while traveling with a 6-car convoy of 18 staff. If Oprah really wants to have a regular American experience she needs to load a couple of kids, under 5 years old, in the back seat and set off across the country with no air conditioning. That’s a real experience.

My wife said to me, “You motorcyclists all think you’re better than everyone else because all you need is ‘the bike and the road’. You are snobs who think anyone who travels with more than one change of clothes is not ‘experiencing the journey’. You all are just as bad but in the other direction.” Maybe we are.

I find a lot of motorcyclists, and I am one, who take great pride in being able to travel in a minimalist way. It is part of the self-reliant, wandering personality that many motorcyclists possess. Travel light, don’t be burdened by too much stuff, let the road take you where it will.

Motorcyclists do with less in most every way. We are used to getting by on only the essentials because that is all we can carry. Does that make us better than everyone else? No. Are some of us a bit snobby about our less than extravagant needs and desire to travel unencumbered by roof racks and back seat televisions? Yeah, we are.

We do think our way is better. We do believe that we are closer to our environment on a bike. We believe that by relying on only what we can carry on our bike, we become stronger; more self-reliant. I am reminded of a passage from Zen and The Art of Motorcycle Maintenance:

In a car everything you see is just more TV. You’re a passive observer and is all moving by you boringly in a frame. On a cycle the frame is gone. You’re completely in contact with it all. You’re in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming.

That’s the root of it; presence. We relish the presence that we find only on a motorcycle. We pity those who are unable to grasp the joy of it; those who prefer to spend their time watching the world go by like so much more television.

I guess my wife is right, again, I am a snob.