Today's Zen: Mountain Roads On An Indian Chieftan

While we’d all love to be out riding on the perfect sunny days that occasionally arrive in springtime, lots of us are chained to our desks inside dim buildings. Though that’s too-often a thing, we can sometimes get a little bit of respite (and maybe some inspiration) through other people’s ride videos. Riding is good for you, and watching a ride video might bring you some of that same peace.

GO THERE AND RIDE THEM

How To: Riding in the Alps

My 72 Hour Motorcycle Run to the Alps

On that note, here’s a fantastic video with even better sound, of an Indian Chieftan riding through early-Spring mountain roads, along rivers and through a bunch of really glorious twisties. At first you could be forgiven for thinking this might be the White Mountains of New Hampshire (I did!). It is, in fact, Austria, and those mountains are not the top of the Appalachians but the Alps. In fact, the eagle-eyed viewers in the audience will know right away that though the rider is on an American motorcycle, the road signs are European and definitely not MUTCD-compliant.

The rider here goes by “Schaaf” on YouTube. His videos show him on an amazing variety of motorcycles, and he says this is his first time trying out a cruiser! Given the way he’s tossing it around and blipping the throttle on downshifts, it’s evident his background is in sport bikes and he has no compunction about stuffing it right into all those twisty corners.

Let’s also talk about the soundtrack here. It’s absolutely as good as the video itself, and the video, even on mute, is pretty stinking fantastic. All of you YouTubers out there: stop putting music over your ride videos and let us listen to the sound of your motorcycle’s engine. What a joy it is to hear that motor, and to listen to the way that guy rides it. This is the way a motorcycle should be flogged through the mountains, and just as soon as it warms up here in the Northeast US, I’ll be taking a motorcycle through the White Mountains myself. Hopefully there will be a few more leaves on the trees here by then, but really, who’s counting. I’ll go anyway.

Source: YouTube