The sad passing away in July this year brought to a close the glittering career of American actor, James Garner. His CV was long and impressive and he distinguished himself by being a very versatile actor, equally at home in drama and in comedy. Best remembered for his starring role in the TV series, “Maverick”, he also played the lead role in John Frankenheimer’s opus, “Grand Prix” in the mid 1960’s. But it is for one of his lesser-known roles that I remember him best, that of Jason McCullouch the con-man and reluctant sheriff in the movie whose name forms the title of my entry today. Breezing into a rough western town, supposedly “on my way to Australia” he is persuaded to wear the badge in a town where lawlessness is the rule rather than the exception. Using very unconventional means, he takes on the town and the local family of toughs, the Danby’s and cleans them all up, while winning the affection of the local mayor’s daughter. All very lightweight fare indeed and Garner probably accomplished the whole deal without raising a sweat. If you ever see it listed in your programme, put aside an hour and a half and watch it, I promise you won’t be disappointed.
However, as most lifers will know, my introduction rarely has anything to do with the main subject of my articles and such is certainly the case today. I want to look at the role and importance of your local motorcycle online forum.
Most motorcyclists are tech-savvy and most will have a computer. From my friends list it seems that, regardless of race, creed or colour (and, yes, age), most motorcyclists seem to spend a lot of time when they are not on their bike, on their computer. And so it was no surprise when the early bulletin boards, which morphed into mail listings which again morphed into forums were heavily populated by motorcyclists who saw the technology as a great means to enhance their passion for motorcycling.
I confess to being a fairly latecomer to the forum scene, joining my first forum, my local one here in the Illawarra, in 2005. There followed a rash of memberships; national forums, forums that were brand or bike-focussed (at one stage I was an active member of about 5 VFR forums) and so the list went on. And so the time inevitably was consumed until my accident in 2010 brought a temporary halt to my motorcycling. I sold my gear and decided that was it. I let my membership of all but two lapse and disappeared from the bike scene almost altogether.
I should explain that, pre-accident I had ridden for nearly 38 years and never once failed to bring the bike (and me) home safely. So the crash was a horrible shock apart from the physical damage it caused. And it had some weird after-effects, the major one of which was a complete disinterest in anything to do with motorcycling and riding. While laid up in hospital my well-meaning friends brought me a constant supply of motorcycle magazines and books and I was very grateful, but I wasn’t interested. Whereas previously they would have been devoured cover-to-cover in no time flat, I found that perusing them was just not interesting. It’s hard to explain but, it was like the switch that controlled my motorcycling passion had been turned off in my brain. Nothing to do with it excited me and the “spark” just wasn’t there.
I have no idea if this is a common thing for riders who have had similar experiences but it suddenly seemed to me that motorcycling was something out there, removed from my area of interest. I found this very interesting but also very disturbing. Friends who visited were talking about their passion, but, suddenly, it had stopped being mine. So, when the time came to make a decision to give it up, it was a very easy one to make. My interest became one of a dispassionate observer rather than one who used to live, eat and breathe motorcycling. I continued to subscribe to my two favourite forums and to contribute to them, too, but, somehow, it wasn’t the same.
BUT, as many of you will know, motorcycling has a way of getting into your innermost being, and, slowly but surely, the whole idea started to become interesting again. I cannot point to a time or an event or a factor that specifically inveigled me, but, inveigle me it did and, some two years after the accident, I was riding again and trying to relearn the process and adapt to a very different set of parameters. I bought another VFR and the joy of V4 riding started to return. But it was a compromise and a dangerous one and it took a few tumbles at walking pace for me to acknowledge that I was pushing it too soon. The main problem was that I still lacked the dexterity in my right leg to enable me to put my right foot down quickly when the bike came to a stop. I should also add that found I was only able to ride about 100kms at a time before having to get off the bike and rest, my right leg screaming loudly about what I was asking it to do.
Right now someone is going to be screaming at their computer and yelling, “You’re not supposed to put your right foot down when you come to a stop anyway, you’re supposed to put your LEFT foot down and keep your right foot on the footpeg!” Oh, yeah? Well try that if you have been riding for nearly forty years putting your RIGHT foot down first. Don’t think I didn’t try, but my brain refused to cooperate. So, I fell over at traffic lights and stop signs and, worst of all, at one or two emergency stops. It soon became clear that this was unsustainable. Were this to happen in the middle of traffic, the results could be disastrous. So, I cashed in the registration and insurance, parked the bike in the shed and worked harder at my fitness and getting more flexibility and dexterity in my right leg. It took nearly 18 months of exercise, cycling and therapy for me to arrive at the stage of feeling confident enough to try again.
I’m happy to say that my decision to rehab more before attempting the road has proven to be the correct one. I am now riding longer distances and feeling more confident in traffic, especially should an emergency stop eventuate. I am still nowhere near fit enough to attempt the 6-700km days that I used to do when I was touring seriously, but I’m working on that too.
But I appear to have strayed somewhat from my subject, or, maybe I haven’t. In the time since I first started forum-ing, online forums have encountered a major challenge to their existence, the various social media platforms, such as Facebook and Twitter. Promising a much more instant online experience, these two programmes have caused a dramatic reduction in online forum activity and it is easy to see why. Facebook has the advantage of being easier to join. It enables you to control your online interaction with all of your leisure-time activities from a single front end and it enables you to chat, post photos and videos as well as most of the other facets of a forum.
Forum structure is older, much more “controlled” and has constraints that Facebook doesn’t have, specifically in the way in which it handles (or doesn’t handle) media. So it is easy to see why many motorcyclists are organising their motorcycling on Facebook than on an online forum as they used to do.
However, as a long-time forum user, I believe that there is still a role for the forum and that is does still have some advantages over the newer platforms. Most importantly, a forum is ORGANISED. There is a clear filing system that enables a user to find something that was posted before, even if it was posted months, or perhaps, years before. This is very important for many matters that we, as motorcyclists, discuss. The “In the shed” section of a forum contains an accumulation of wisdom servicing and maintenance, for example. Likewise postings about regular activities; rides, tours, social events, regular meetings are more easily arranged, stored and searched in this situation.
However, the single most important advantage of your local motorcycle forum is that of its social value. For the most part, the people on your forum will be people who you actually know and meet; people with whom you ride, have coffees and bench race. The broader social media can do this to an extent but nowhere near as efficiently as you local forum can.
So, while I regularly inhabit Facebook (my wife would say, obsessively), I still find my local forum and my model-specific forum to be immensely valuable.
Support your local motorcycle forum.