Longrider

An article in CiF that celebrates the open road on a motorcycle.

My bike effortlessly unzips the landscape – now becoming the dry yet luminous summer green of the Loire valley. I twist the throttle and the giddying surge of power sheds the bike of its slow-speed weight, firms the balance and allows me to pitch and roll her around a snaking convoy of traffic with the poise and ease of a ballerina. The road is baked smooth, and thoughtful in its benign meanderings. It’s a biker’s road, endlessly stretching and courteous, and complicit in the playful harmony of man and machine that is being celebrated upon it.

France, of course, is full of biker roads. My own preference is the snaking D road that meanders through the towns and villages. You can ride for miles and not meet another vehicle. Stopping for a break or lunch means pulling up at a roadside bar or café.

My own bike is a BMW R1150RT. While large, once on the move it is nimble and belies its weight, so well balanced is it. I can throw it around as I would a smaller machine and enjoy a twisty road or the blast of an empty motorway.

If you’ve never done it, you wouldn’t understand…

Of course there are commenters who don’t understand. The hard of thinking who regard them as dangerous (they are not) and a surefire way to hospital food or organ donation (they are not). A bike, like any machine is as good and safe as its rider and nothing comes close to the experience.

I’ve not had the problem outlined by Wendy Holden in the Telegraph.

What do an ironing board, a haircut and a case of wine have in common? In order to get them, I was expected to hand over information I’d think twice about giving a policeman.

It was on a sunny Friday morning in Majestic Wine Warehouse that my problems began. I’d popped in to replenish our stocks of Côtes de Provence rosé. When I handed over my debit card at the till, the assistant asked for all my details – address, phone number, email, mobile phone – to put on a computer. When I asked why, as I didn’t need credit or to have the stuff delivered, he said it was so I could receive information about Majestic events, plus a copy of the company magazine.

The only times I’ve ever been asked for that kind of information is when it involved a delivery or warranty – involving postal communication. In those circumstances, contact information is necessary for the transaction. However, for the transactions Holden illustrates, such information is very much not necessary and I would refuse to give it. When Holden refused, she was reminded just how meek our fellow citizens are when faced with the request:

So I politely turned him down. His evident amazement was less surprising than the implication that my act was unprecedented in the history of the store.

I’m inclined to suspect that she is right; people do meekly hand over this information as soon as it is requested. Yet a polite refusal is all that is needed. the retailer may be baffled, but there is nothing much they can do. If, as John Lewis said to her, it’s a “customer requirement”, the response should be “not for this customer”. If they insist, walk out leaving the goods on the counter. There are always other retailers.

But why? Why should retail outlets casually expect us to divulge personal information; even more amazingly, why do we go along with it? We have fought for personal freedom and the rule of law in two world wars, we have fiercely resisted the onset of ID cards, we see our homes as our castles and we fanatically shred every last supermarket receipt.

And yet in the shops we’re expected to hand over our emails, addresses and phone numbers like sheep.

Good question. the answer, I suspect, is; “because we can and because you are stupid enough to comply”.

I will go on with my campaign against this invasive lunacy, however. And I invite you all to join me. When you’re asked for personal details, do as I do. Just say no.

Count me in.