Greetings and welcome to my new blog. People keep telling me that they want to be able to post responses to my emails, and in an acknowledgment of the world of Web 2.0 welcome to my foray into the world of blogging.

Workshop. We're lucky to have Stefan working with us for a few weeks, and in case you don't know him, Stefan is the guy with the radical Rocket with the 3 into one and pod filters. It's meant that we've been able to get on top of all our work and can start working on bikes other than Triumphs, so if you need to have work done on your bike and want it done properly, we have 3 top mechanics in the shop. We also have some serious skill and experience in suspension setup and performance mods, so if you want to get more from your bike we can quite probably help.

Upcoming events:
This Sunday 10 May, Round one of the Bears Racing at Ruapuna. Always a good day's racing and a chance to watch the Daytona 675s show the Italians how to go fast.

Have a go day, Saturday 16 May, Levels Raceway, Timaru. If you can brave the straight line between Christchurch and Timaru, next Saturday is a have a go day. It doesn't matter what you ride, how well you ride or how fast you ride, having a blat on a race track is always fun and a good chance to practice braking and cornering. Give us a call on 03 366 2201 for more info.

The rally season is pretty well behind us, with the Brass Monkey the next item on the agenda. If you're planning to go, we're going to have a big winter sale at the shop on Thursday 21st of May. For Brass Monkey newbies (myself included) we'll get a couple of old hands to run through what happens, what to bring, what to watch out for etc.

Thinking about rallies, it brought to mind the community aspect of what it means to be a motorcyclist. In the 21st century we live in a world where marriages often don't last, typically we move house every few years so we never form neighbourhood bonds, we change our jobs every couple of years and communal and social activities are losing popularity. It's an innate part of the human condition to seek communal identity, yet we have created a society without community. Unless you're a motorcyclist.

We all know that connection to the complete stranger filling up at the gas station, and we've probably all wandered across to chew the fat before carrying on our separate journeys. Most of us still wave or nod to the rider heading the other direction and most of us have riding buddies that we enjoy riding with and having a cold one with at the end of the ride. There is no doubt that motorcycling is something that has created a sense of community, and one much deeper than car drivers or even specific brand of car drivers experience, but why?

I think partly because what we do has an innate risk attached to it there is a sense of "sharing the danger", something like what soldiers in battle would experience. There's also the reality that sometimes riding a bike is not all that comfortable (a nice way of saying "bloody miserable"), and again the person riding the other way knows what you're experiencing including the perverse sense of pride that comes from doing the ks in crap conditions brings. But they also know that feeling of ecstatic exhilaration that only a motorcyclist experiences when they ride a windy road well. Or the sense of connection with the environment that only comes from being in the wind, through smelling the forests and paddocks, feeling the warmth of the sun of the chill of the shade.

Riding a bike is something special that only people who do it will ever understand, and most of us have a sense of oneness with each other, however fleeting. What we have is something that very few people enjoy in the 21st century - a sense of community, and it's that sense of community that means most weekends you'll see a bunch of riders out together, or sitting in a pub or cafe sharing a meal or a drink and why rallies are so much fun. Just another reason why I love riding bikes so much.

That's pretty much it, stay on the road and don't leave your bike in the shed this winter - it deserves better.

David Thompson
www.streetandsport.co.nz