The Flaming Throne and the Delicate Idiocy of Cruise Control
by one whose thighs have been slow-roasted for the glory of man and machine
The Flaming Throne and the Delicate Idiocy of Cruise Control
by one whose thighs have been slow-roasted for the glory of man and machine
There are machines, and then there are machines.
And then there is the Triumph Storm.
Mine is no pedestrian, catalogue-born contraption with the soul of a dishwasher and the manners of a tax accountant. It is a 2500cc snarling deity carved from metal and barely concealed violence, stitched together by British engineering and the collective frustration of men who weren’t loved enough by their fathers. It does not hum. It bellows. It doesn’t turn—you command it. It’s the kind of engine that could reasonably be fitted into a mid-sized automobile, were the driver of that automobile intent on breaking up with society and fleeing across a salt flat. And I, God help me, adore it.
There is something transcendent in the sheer vulgarity of it. It is muscular, unapologetic, and absurd. It is Ayn Rand rewritten by a barfly. It doesn’t negotiate with the world—it imposes itself on it. To ride it is to flirt with mortality at highway speeds while grinning like a lunatic. There is poetry in that kind of refusal.
But here’s the catch—and of course there’s a catch. There’s always a catch. The price of power is heat. In the tropics, riding the Storm through traffic is less an act of locomotion and more an act of slow culinary self-immolation. It is a searing, spiritual experience, and not in the way yoga teachers use the word. The moment you come to a halt—at a red light, in traffic, at the threshold of existential doubt—the heat begins to climb. It rises from the engine like the wrath of Vulcan himself, billowing against your thighs and sizzling up your spine. It is not a motorcycle. It is a teppanyaki grill, turned to eleven, with your legs as the meat course.
There are times, idling behind a tuk-tuk while the sun bears down like an authoritarian god with a grudge, that I wonder if this is what it feels like to slowly become lunch. There is a certain aroma, too. Not smoke, not quite—not yet—but the distinct prelude to barbecue. The irony is exquisite. A machine designed for escape, slowly cooking you in place. Sartre would weep. Or laugh. Or both.
Still, we forgive her. We forgive her the way the fool forgives the beautiful woman who takes his money and wrecks his life. Because power is a hell of a drug, and this beast delivers it in spades.
But alas, even beauty cannot fully insulate itself from idiocy. For in all its bespoke, bespoke glory, in all its leather-and-steel bravado, this glorious bastard of a machine bears a flaw. A single design sin. A mechanical faux pas so galling that it threatens to stain the poetry with prose.
Cruise control.
Let that sit with you. Cruise control. On a motorcycle.
This is not a Bentley. You are not gliding silently down the Pacific Coast Highway with chamber music playing softly and your second mistress texting you updates on your foie gras delivery. This is a motorbike. A vehicle whose entire philosophy is predicated on tension, attention, and the lurking certainty that a stray dog, errant scooter, or low-flying goddamn coconut could catapult you into the afterlife at a moment’s notice.
To suggest cruise control on a motorcycle is like giving a scalpel to a surgeon and saying, “Here, hold this with one eye shut while whistling Vivaldi.” It invites relaxation into a place where focus should live. It beckons the rider into that most dangerous of human indulgences—complacency. It lulls you. And the moment you're lulled, the moment you let the bike become a thing you sit on rather than ride—that's the moment you become eligible for a eulogy.
Cruise control, in this context, is not convenience. It is negligence with good PR.
And yet, it is there. Sitting on the bar like a polite buttoned-up fool, whispering sweet nothings about long stretches of road and “maintaining consistent speed.” Consistent speed? I’m navigating potholes, pedestrians, the occasional suicidal cat and the very real existential weight of being a grown man on a two-and-a-half litre infernal contraption. The only consistent thing should be attention.
But perhaps that’s the final lesson. In a world enamoured with comfort, where even our tools seek to do the work for us, the motorcycle still stands as the last altar of discipline. You must ride it, feel it, earn every metre of road. It demands that you engage with it wholly—mind, body, thighs.
Especially the thighs.
So yes, I love this machine. I worship it the way a pagan worships an angry god. It roasts me like a shank of pork and tempts me with idiocy dressed as innovation. It is inconvenient, irrational, dangerous.
It is perfect.Subscribe