BEST OF JODY’S BOX: MY LOVE AFFAIR WITH TECHNOLOGY— EXCEPT FOR THAT SPOKE THING

Even as a little kid I was interested in how things work. Not just how, but why. There is a lot of ingenuity in mechanical things. They convert one type of movement into another. But, no matter how minimal your notion of motion, it is rigidly defined by scientific laws. And what we think we know to be fact, is often in fact hearsay—which is not fact at all, but rumor, innuendo and outright lies. As I got older, my interest in the inner workings of our world didn’t lessen, it just moved to more complex mechanisms to decipher

For example, when I’m not racing motorcycles I like to fly aerobatic airplanes. Thanks to a lifetime spent working on mechanical things, I know my airplane inside out. I work on it constantly because I love the feel of the gears, levers and bell cranks—and, not a small amount because my life depends on it. Yet, I do not really understand why it flies. In training I learned all about the Bernoulli Effect, and how the air rushing over the curved upper surface of the wing creates a low pressure zone as it tries to catch up to the air moving across the flat bottom of the wing. This low pressure zone on top of the wing is conjoined by a high pressure zone under the wing—and since the pressure is greater under the wing than above it, the wing lifts in an attempt to equalize pressure. Simple, scientific and best of all its got a fancy name. But, on my aerobatic airplane, the wings have perfectly elliptical airfoils! The air doesn’t rush any faster across the top than the bottom on a plane that must be equally adept at flying upside down as right side up. Bernoulli’s Effect, for all its logic, doesn’t really apply. Some scientific things we have to take on face value. Strapped into my plane or hanging on to my handlebars, I accept both machines will fly (one with wings, one without and, in his defense, Bernoulli’s Effect does works in carburetors).

Motocross bikes are all about science. Almost every part of a motocross bike is a lever. The handlebars use leverage to turn the front wheel. The wider the bars the more force they are able to magnify for direction change. The transmission is full of gears, with larger gears exerting leverage on smaller gears. The crankshaft is uniquely capable of converting up-and-down motion into rotary power. Even the wheels of a motorcycle are big levers (with the axles as the fulcrums).

I accept on face value that airplanes will fly, telephones will connect us to Karachi, my cocoa will be hot in 12 seconds, that I really was doing 70 in a 35 mph zone, that Aerosmith sounds like that and that nobody got through airport security with anything resembling fingernail clippers.

And when I walk over to my motorcycle on a Sunday morning, I know it will start—that the piston will go up and down (and I don’t even give a second thought to the fact that the piston, spark plug and reed valves are doing their jobs 200 times a second). Without fear, I launch off the first jump—even though I know that the force of my landing is not being absorb by the bike’s sturdy shock absorber or its truck-like spring, but by three, spindly, 3mm thick spokes (you didn’t think that every spoke in the wheel took the load did you?). We take a lot for granted—perhaps because knowing more than we need to would create doubt.

Technology is our friend. It protects us in a comforting way from things as mysterious as the force of gravity and seriously miffed Sri Lankans. I embrace technology with open arms—and accept that the next time I’m flying through the air, whether by YZ250 or aerobatic airplane that Jacob Bernoulli, and men like him, are guiding my hand. However, I was alarmed to learn that NASA spent a million dollars developing a ballpoint pen that would write in the zero gravity atmosphere of a space capsule—while the Russian space program gave their cosmonauts pencils.