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The music is getting old. Downshift.

When selecting a motorcycle, other than all the things you have to think about that involve you sticking with the bike for a while, there's one more thing: You have to be crazier than the bike. Otherwise there will be a point where you won't be able to contain the twist throttle with your whole body (the current arrangement)...=

I am not yet crazy enough to contain all of the speed mine can deliver. But at high rpms, the mixture in the cylinders starts to influence the mixture in my skull. And I get a little faster...|

<...Entropy also says that the quickest, greatest release of energy is the simplest, and the least efficient. Have you ever fired a gun? How much fewer are the nodes in the network at the back of the barrel? How many neurons are connected in your head? The firing pin comes forward, striking the primer cap, and a single thought passes through the back of the shell much, much faster than sound. One single, explosive thought. BANG.

=...When you lay hands on the throttle, it's a good idea to remember that the best you get from that control, right there, is control of the first derivative of your RPM. And even then, it's tenuous control at best. At the top of the tach, all you can do is beat feebly at the redline, and at the bottom, all you can do is bog down the engine, under its powerband. This is what he means when he says that you need to listen to the engine. Besides, I like the song it sings. "Go fast," it says. In the clearest, most wonderful words possible. A voice made of thousands of explosions.

|...Sometimes it amazes me that I'm riding an engine with wheels. 'Suspension' is a good word for it. The truth is, you really are suspended. Hanging from the swing arm and the forks, knees gripping the fuel tank, toes on the pegs and body wrapped over the top, head barely clearing the windscreen at full bore, all the forces twisting and flexing through your body. Indeed, I know nothing of riding a motorcycle when my feet are on the ground. There's a spot somewhere, in the space inside my head, where something connects, a module that makes me part of my motorcycle. That's the difference between who I am. And where I'm going.