 Facing down destiny
With a
Podcast
From the small office in the back corner,
near the water cooler
November 2nd, 2007
The road ahead is lit by sunlight
streaming through dark, looming storm clouds. It’s not just the
turning of the season bringing a chill to the heavy lying air.
Bikers are riding across the Great Plains of life straight towards a
menacing storm front, stretching for as far as the eye can see.
It was at about this point a
deep-thinking, hard-hitting editorial was going to blaze its way
across the webpage, but a funny thing happened on the way to the
bottom of the piece.
 It had grown.
Wanting
to cross the various ‘t’s’ and make sure it made sense when the
‘I’s’ were dotted, like a story of your buddy biker who supposedly
took on the local one-percenters when no-one was around to see, it
just kept growing.
As these words are being typed the
last few facts are being double-checked, artwork finalized and
spelling corrected.
But, are we as supposed soothsayers
with this sense of impending doom able to forge ahead with a smile on our face and a light heart in
our biker-bodies?
Absolutely.
Firstly, if anyone around the offices
were able to accurately predict the future, there would be a few
private beaches on some sun-soaked islands with our names all over
them. As much as we enjoy filling the pages of Clutch and Chrome
with all the information you can need or possibly want, the idea of
having someone, no, a whole group of sexy looking people taking care
of our every whim because we had grown so insanely rich from our
futuristic foresight far outweighs any creative urges.
Well, of the website nature anyway.
Secondly, although we may be faced
with challenges, possibly more danger on the roads and certainly a change in how
we ride, all these are the very food for the souls of riders everywhere.
There really is nothing we shouldn’t be able to face that those who
rode these highways before us didn’t tackle equally with as much
muster and exceptional success. Our particular storm raging on the horizon can
be considered a spring shower compared to those faced by
our predecessors.
Admittedly, our numbers may thin as those who
bought their motorcycles more for fashion than passion retire the
leather and two-wheeled steeds, but the true underlining strength
really won’t weaken.
That is, if we remember to stick
together, look out for each other and at least try to have a common
front against the various challenges.
Obviously, some challenges such as the growing number of vehicles on already crowded
roads can't be overcome, unless you move to the middle of nowhere
where there's only you and Billy-Bob's tractor sharing the roadway. But other
issues can and should be tackled head on with the various noise
laws popping up around the country coming to mind.
Of course it would be all the easier
if we could agree among ourselves what we as a group want, believe and are
hoping for. Loud pipes, helmet laws and those that try to bring down
the overall image of your everyday biker with illegal activities
will dominate our path ahead over the next year. All of these will
be so much easier to tackle if we can come up with an agreed upon
solution and more importantly, direction.
And guess what? On the way there we
can listen to the new
Clutch and Chrome Podcast!
You had to know the editorial couldn’t stay
serious for all that long.
 As
this editorial is being typed, the second podcast has made its way
onto the cyber airwaves, ready to be downloaded by whoever, to be
played whenever. Now we can understand how difficult it was for
broadcast pioneers to move from the written word to entertainment of
the airwaves.
Indeed, coming up with ideas to fill
thirty minutes, give or take of airtime initially seemed easy but
quickly turned into a challenge once we pulled out the stopwatch and
what seemed reams of material.
You don’t know how lucky you are we
didn’t resort to the fallback of making farting noises and the
sounds of motorcycles with various body parts. Seriously.
Fortunately, it never came to that
with the podcast full of news that deserved to be revisited,
interesting happenings in the world of motorcycles as well as some
nifty quizzes.
Who knew we had it in us?
Best of all, nothing is taken too
seriously.
Maybe the same rule should apply to
all the obstacles we’ll be facing in the fast approaching future?
It certainly couldn’t hurt.
The Editor |
