This is a test blog
The popular image of the motorcyclist is typically one of the outlaw, a stereotype distilled from the classic Hollywood movies like Easy Rider or The Wild One. While many see a motorcycle as a symbol of a degenerate upbringing, others see them in a totally different light – as a powerful tool for introspection and philosophical thinking. The ‘quintessential experience’ of motorcycling is riding alone on a long journey, and sometimes this results in memories colliding and the formation of highly unlikely neural connections. One day whilst riding along, John Long had a personal revelation, realising the wonderful intersection between his two greatest interests in life – palaeontology and motorcycle history.
THE RIDE OF OUR LIVES tells the story of motorcycles as ‘literary vehicles’ which show trends in their history and development that mirror the patterns we observe in the evolution and extinction of life over the past 3.5 billion years. This book is the result of a life-long passion for motorbikes meeting the academic rigour of one of the world’s leading palaeontologists. Long illustrates his narrative with examples drawn from around the world, visiting the great motorcycle museums of the USA, Britain, Germany, Italy, Poland and Japan, and speaking with their expert curators. We also visit some of the world’s most important fossil sites where we encounter bizarre dinosaurs, archaic early animal life, monstrous predatory fishes, the first examples of sex in evolution, and many other fascinating finds, all of them demonstrating parallels with motorcycle history in easy to understand comparisons. Long’s personal stories drawn from his 44 years of motorcycling provide insightful and often entertaining anecdotes, each contributing to this thoughtful transdisciplinary narrative, exploring the patterns observed in organic evolution and automotive history.
