Motorcycle Sport & Leisure Magazine 676 - August 2019 Back Issue

Trains don't fly and go 'nee-nor' – we all know that. Except that they do, if
you open your mind to the possibility. Not in a strictly mechanical sense, or even in a deep metaphysical way, no. But when my son runs around the house with his wooden toy train high above his head shouting “nee-nor, nee-nor” he's having a much better time than he would if he just played with the train as it was designed to be played with – sitting on the floor, pushing it along the wooden track and resigning to a future as a trainspotter.

No doubt about it, his way is much more fun – and it made me wonder when we lose that ability to take something and use it as we want to, not as we think we should. I remember having my first motorised form of transport when I was 15. It was a 50cc Suzuki, and I used it pretty much as I had used push-bikes before. I took it to school and summer jobs, to the beach and woods, and I liked to imagine that it made me nearirresistible to all the girls I fancied – at that age reality certainly wasn't high on my agenda. But over the years something has slowly changed, life has become more serious, and my subsequent bikes have become commuters, tourers, trailies – they have done exactly what it says on the tin, and nothing more than that.

The trains have stopped flying, and they certainly don't go 'nee-nor' any more. Luckily, not everyone is subject to this Age-Related Imagination Deficiency (ARID) mentality.There are notable examples of real-world Peter Pans who seem to retain the curiosity, fearlessness and resourcefulness that many of us let slip away as we 'grow up'. In the biking world the likes of Austin Vince, who among other things rode around the world on a Suzuki DR350, or Nick Sanders, who has been globetrotting at breakneck speeds on bikes such as the R1, are perfect examples of people who don't conform.