Happiness is…the back of a bike on a sunny day. | Freestyling

A girl who really, really likes (I'm trying to use the "love" word sparingly post-Valentine binge) riding on a bike: it's such a cliché. And it describes me millions of others in the world.

Perhaps it is rooted in the Bad Guy-Good Girl on a motorcycle combination. Think about all the movies, books, songs and what-have-you based on the glamour imbued in being a biker. There was that classic black and white photo of Marlon Brando on a bike, James Dean did it too and in 1969 came Easy Rider starring Peter Fonda and Dennis Hopper. Closer home, Bollywood and homegrown Kollywood did their bit for bikes as the choice for making an entrance into college (Ajay Devgan in Phool or Kaate), carousing with your bunch of outlaw buddies (Jackie Shroff in Hero) or wowing the lass (Bhuwan KC and Christy Mainali in Tilhari).

The romance, rebellion and rock star image is now a bit tempered by more mundane concerns like fuel efficiency but there's something about sitting on a mechanised two-wheel monster that eats up the road, announces its arrival with a rumbling growl and whips me away on an edge of danger that just puts a big fat grin on my face.

I don't care if pillion riding is unfashionable, not proactive or dangerous. I love it. What I know about how bikes work could be summed up 50 words or so but when it comes to riding a bike, I can do ten times better.

While seeing a woman at the controls always awes me, my joy lies in feeling the resistance of the wind, the throb of the engine and that speed. Of course things are different when the joy ride ends: the posterior aches after a few hours on a broad seat, dust finds its way into the oddest places and you get a stripy tan but what the hey— it's totally worth it.

A lot of people swear by Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance [Robert Pirsig]. I bought a copy of the book when I was 16-years-old. A boy I had a crush on with all the desperate fervor of youth referred to it as his Bible. I never got the boy, so understandably, never read past Chapter Four of the book. But one particular passage where Pirsig describes the difference of being in a car and on a bike made a lasting impression.

"In a car you're always in a compartment, and because you're used to it you don't realize that through that car window everything you see is just more TV. You're a passive observer and it is all moving by you boringly in a frame.

"On a cycle the frame is gone. You're completely in contact with it all. You're in the scene, not just watching it anymore, and the sense of presence is overwhelming. That concrete whizzing by five inches below your foot is the real thing, the same stuff you walk on, it's right there, so blurred you can't focus on it, yet you can put your foot down and touch it anytime, and the whole thing, the whole experience, is never removed from immediate consciousness."

As the earth whirls by, all the colours of life seem to sharpen and snap into focus. You don't think about how fragile you are, speeding away on a two-wheeled contraption with no helmet and no protection from the hard road. Riding fast with the wind whipping my hair, this feels elemental, rooted in the now.

Riding a bike is living in the moment, seizing the day. Perhaps that edge of danger lends a thrill that makes it an incomparable experience. The sky above, the sun on my face, the throb of the motor and I feel a burst of pure, undiluted joy.

On a bike we get switched on.
We become participants.
We become the journey.