EXISTENTIAL BIKER
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About me
  • The Bikes
    • Hayabusa Gen 1 Turbo
    • BMW F850 GS
    • Indian Scout
    • Triumph Tiger XRX
    • Yamaha TTR
  • Films and Interviews
  • SUPPORTING
    • THE BIKE EXPERIENCE
    • BLOOD RUNNERS
    • DEMON DESIGNS
    • PIKILILY
  • Contact

Author

A bike racer, adventurer, excitement seeker, pantheist but mostly curious person just doing the best she can, knowing that because of determinism it's all you can ever do.

Me? A Speed Record Attempt? I did not see that coming..

9/5/2019

2 Comments

 
PictureOn the flats in 2018. I think 2019 will be our lucky year..
Is this the real life? Is this just fantasy? It might well be because what I'm about to tell you feels utterly unreal.

I have just been accepted on to a race team as a pilot in a land speed world record attempt at the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah in August during Speed Week. Yep. Me. Who only took up proper biking two years ago after becoming a grandmother. Who was afraid to go over 50mph on the motorway. Who nearly gave up in the pouring rain in Germany. How absurdly fantastical is that? Just like Burt Munro, immortalised in The World's Fastest Indian, whose land speed record still stands today, no-one would have believed two years ago the turn of events that would take me, of all people, to Bonneville with the big boys of racing. Yet, here I am and, as much as anything else can be real, this is my reality.

The Bike
The ride is a beauty. A red-lipstick coloured, partially streamlined, 1000cc LPG powered bike (only LPG racer in the world), built by the great Dino Romano, one of Italy's foremost bike customisers, as part of the Eyes Open Dream Racing Team. Things like this don't happen to ordinary people like me, do they? It seems they do. How did this happen? Did I trip and fall into a vat of dream fluid?

Picture
Not a bad little runabout...
You live more in five minutes on a bike like this going flat out than some people live in a lifetime. - Burt Munroe
One Year On
But I can't take the credit. It's thanks to others I'm here. People who lifted me up when I was facing the tarmac. People who encouraged me to do more. People who helped without a second thought, when there was nothing in it for them. So many things have happened that have been totally unexpected since I became The Existential Biker one year ago this week. Adventures, many. Opportunities, seized. I now write for Overland magazine. I'll be presenting at HUBB. I'll be touring with amazing people. All through this time I've tried to live according to my values, which I spent some decent amount of time figuring out. Experience, Adventure, Openness and Giving I discovered were critical to fold into my life.
So I gave. I gave as much as I could, I got involved in doing things for local and international charities. And you know what? They all gave back, much, much more than I ever could have dreamed. In fact, the Eyes Open Dream Team is an apt name, because my new life came to me in a dream. I dreamt up 'The Existential Biker" exactly a year before being giving this offer for the ride of my life. I mean that literally. All the amazing things that have happened to me have happened because I made helping others a priority. That's something everyone can do and it really, really fulfills and enriches your life.
Live free and choose
Existentialism emphasises individual existence, freedom and choice. When you have a choice, you are free to be who you must be. Make time to recognise what brings joy to your belly, then go get it. Amazing things happen when you fling open your arms to this wonderful experience called living. Trust me, I'm a biker.

Oh yes, and don't take any of it too seriously :-)
Come to the Horizon's Unlimited event in June 2019 where I'll be giving my first presentation on what living an Existential life has really given back to me. 
... all the amazing things that have happened to me have happened because I made helping others a priority. - Louisa
2 Comments
Stewart alexander
9/6/2019 08:25:44 pm

Hi louise


Hope you are home warm and dry ,with a glass or chateux perfect in hand .So enjoyed your company Louise and thank you for adding so many layers to the trip.
Happy days
Stewart

Reply
Stewart alexander
12/6/2019 10:57:22 am

Hi Louise,
I have been enjoying reading some of your stuff and it is as I suspected thought provoking.
Was wondering if you have taken a look at the delayed errasor double slit experiments which certainly test our preconceived ideas about what many choose to call reality. The affect of mind and the nature of the influence of the observer on outcomes is interesting. Reality it seems is more elastic than we thought, the particle wave conundrum demonstrates the mismatch between our intellectual convention's and the mysterious order of thing at a quantum level. Beauty in the great and small and us in the middle. What fun.
Stewart

Reply



Leave a Reply.

      Newsletter Signup...
      ​

      ​Want to be notified of new posts by email? Want onions with it? Sure, have it your way. Except the onions.
    Subscribe me up!

    archives

    January 2022
    September 2021
    June 2020
    February 2020
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018

    Categories

    All
    5 Whys
    Blood Bikes
    Bonneville!
    Bonneville Dreams Part 1
    Bonneville Dreams Part 2
    Bonneville Dreams Part 3
    Bonneville Dreams Part 4
    Brain Growth
    Bruce Lee
    Christine Launch
    Chuck Norris
    Covid-19
    Decision Fatigue
    Driving
    Evolution Into Machine
    Experience
    Free Will
    Globalisation
    Good And Bad
    How We Are Influenced
    IAM Qualified!
    Imagination
    Italian Job
    Japan's Microseasons
    Klaverjassen
    Land Speed Record
    Machiavelli
    Maslow's Pyramid
    Motorcycle Orienteering
    Neurogenesis
    Normalisation Of Risk
    Pendine Sept 2019
    Perspectives
    Podcast
    Ripples In Space Time
    Sagittarious Galaxy
    Salt Flats Adventure
    Sand Landspeed Record
    Satisficer
    Science Vs Art
    Shaft Or Share?
    Sorry
    Space-time
    Stanley Kubrick Interview
    Starstuff
    Taffy Drwg
    The Universe And You
    The Universe Is Indifferent
    Vasili Arkhipov
    Wabi Sabi
    What Words Destroy You?
    Where You Look
    Women Riders World Relay
    WW1 Pilgramage

    RSS Feed

© COPYRIGHT 2018. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

    Sign up for a monthly newsletter! Not more frequent than that, promise!

Yes! Subscribe to Newsletter
  • Home
  • Blog
  • About me
  • The Bikes
    • Hayabusa Gen 1 Turbo
    • BMW F850 GS
    • Indian Scout
    • Triumph Tiger XRX
    • Yamaha TTR
  • Films and Interviews
  • SUPPORTING
    • THE BIKE EXPERIENCE
    • BLOOD RUNNERS
    • DEMON DESIGNS
    • PIKILILY
  • Contact