The Thrill of Motorcycling: Quest for Flow

As the British Superbike season comes to an end this month, it’s an opportunity to understand why individuals engage in such ‘risky’ activities. Traditionally, extreme sports are associated with thrill seekers with a ‘death wish’ or adrenaline junkies searching for their next thrill (Brymer and Schweitzer, 2013). Brymer and Schweitzer (2013), however, argue that these individuals can be highly trained individuals with a deep knowledge of themselves, the activity, and the environment, who seek an experience that is life-enhancing and life-changing. Extreme sport participants face intense fears, accept that control of the future is not always possible and move through these fears to participate fully in the action and make choices to reduce risk and enhance personal control (Brymer and Schweitzer, 2013; Crust et al., 2019). Csikzentmihalyi (1997) noted that “People who learn to control inner experience will be able to determine the quality of their lives, which is as close as any of us can come to being happy.