I was wrong.
There is rhyme and there is reason to how I came to be the motorcyclist that I am today. I do have personal history and background that fostered this admiration. However, it is still true that there is no tradition I'm upholding, nor was I impressed by anyone in particular to begin with.
My love affair for motorcycling didn't just happen after all. Instead, it came from this:
In my earliest teens growing up in the Philippines, I now remember one of my most fondest memory - my brother's red mountain bike.
One day he didn't have one, and the next day he did. If I remember correctly, my brother (being the juvenile that he was), had won a ton of money in a gambling game, and the two notable things that stuck to my memory that he bought with his winnings were a genuine dart board set, and the red mountain bike. This must have been in the early 90's, so there was really nothing particularly special about the bicycle; it had a rigid frame and chassis with no suspension, and rubber brake pads for both wheels. It did have multi-gears though, so that made it a pretty trick item around our parts in the neighborhood. I didn't know any of this at the time though, being so young and this being Philippines when a blazing red bicycle would still be a luxury rather than a commodity. All I knew was that the red hue seared my eyes, and that it had two wheels to be powered by pedals.
My brother owned it. It was his. But no one else in the family really rode that bicycle as much as I did. I must have shaped the contours of its seat padding with my rear, and the handlebar grips were molded after my hands. I was a wandering kid before that bike, and I was a wandering kid on it that covered a whole lot more distance. I remember just getting on it at times, and pedaling the rest of the day away. It didn't matter if I was going somewhere I've never been in, or places that I always rode through; sometimes it wasn't the scenery or the destination that mattered. It only mattered that I was on the bicycle, moving, and the world gliding past. Being on that bicycle was the quickest way for me to feel the wind on my face. You could bet what little amount of pesos you had at time that if you couldn't find me at home, I was on that red bicycle.
Then one night, my brother, still the delinquent that he was, came home very late and left our house gate unlocked.
The next morning, the red bicycle was gone.
I don't remember being so devastated about it, although it was quite a loss and it's not as if we ever replaced that bicycle with another (like I pointed out, a luxury more than a necessity), but to think about it now just shows how much I actually valued every bit of that bicycle. It was one of the best things to happen to me when I was still in the Philippines, and it really is the only memory I can recall of my first encounter with a two-wheeled platform.*
And now I have my red steed, which for all intent and purposes, I did not premeditate that it would also be blazing red at times.
But here and now, I now know how I got to here, becoming the motorcyclist that I am. And once again in retrospect, my brother had something to do with me being a sport motorcyclist, and that red bike. :)
* Come to think of it, I really cannot remember how I learned to ride a bicycle. I'm sitting here trying to remember anything beyond that red bicycle, and nothing comes to mind. I remember who got me started on the guitar, and I even remember how I learned how to draw (which was way before the bicycle), but I just cannot remember how I learned to ride a bicycle. What a shame!
