You shouldn’t see my writing as an attack post on Iron Butt driving. If it came off that way, I apologize. I’ve covered a lot of topics in this blog (feel free to browse), spotting things in culture that I feel might have an impact in the economy and especially consumption habits. I try not to judge on this blog, just examine and ask questions. But I see if how my post could be interpreted that way. Again, apologies.

We (a collective we) dodged a bullet with this recession because it caused the ridiculous oil prices to drop to more bearable levels due to excessive demand. But the way I see it, we’re just bracing for the inevitable. Oil prices will go up, and gas prices WILL go up, even higher than they were before the recession (somewhere around 2012 is my guess).

High gas prices will have an effect on consumption habits, naturally, as people won’t be able to afford to drive as much. And yes, I feel that this will cause some hostility towards any “joyriding”, to which I count Iron Butt as well. Imagine it: “I can’t afford to drive my kids to school and people are driving just for the fun of it!” I don’t think that’s too far fetched. But again, I’m just speculating.

When I said the whole world has gone green I explicitly said “or pretends to be”. I’m very cynical about people’s consumption habits: it’s very easy to be “green” when you can’t actually afford to drive, for example. Also, green consumption as such is most likely a fad, and the real achievements in ending America’s oil addiction, for example, will be either politically or by sheer economics.

But like I said, I’m interested in social movements and consumption habits. I found Iron Butt as an intriguing subject that I feel will see its cultural meaning redefined in the near future.

Fur for example was simply used because that’s what everyday people had available to make warm clothes from, then as the culture grew and society became more dense, other materials became cheaper and more available, it became easier to use cloth, and fur became less common, then rare, and subsequently more expensive, and a societal symbol of wealth, then eventually has become frowned upon as “waste” by some, even though the commercial fur industry is by far a sustainable industry as opposed to the open hunting of the past.

The Sunday Drive is time immortal in American society. Yet, that is just as much of a “pointless joyride” as any other traveling not absolutely necessary, and done by hundreds of thousands more people that the tiny segment that participates in Long Distance riding.

Not to mention that the average motorcycle gets double the gas mileage of most of the cars on the road today.

Change is constant. Perhaps at some future date long distance riders will be using electric motorcycles? The desire to challenge one’s self in an individual manner is something humans will never outgrow, the venues will simply change with time.