Competition, improvement, and the things that drive us

When I started to write this, I thought there were two kinds of competition in the world: competing against others, and competing against yourself. Both of these push you to become better, and each gives a unique perspective on where to focus the work to improve. Pure self-improvement is competing against yourself, and sports represent competing against others.

But as I thought about it more, maybe there is another entire layer to competition. Could it be that there are 3 types of underlying competition to consider? And somehow, it all comes down to time.

Competing against time,

competing in the same time,

and competing across time.

How do these views of competition show up in our world today?

When we compete against time, we want to be faster or more durable against the clock. Maybe there is nothing other than ourselves and time in this form of competition, and the goal is self-improvement for our own satisfaction. This form of competition is what drives our Shandoka motorcycle development forward.

When we compete in the same time, we have a race. Maybe everyone is on the course at the same time, like a marathon. Or maybe competitors go on the course one after another, like a bobsled event. Either way, the goal is to determine a winner in that moment. And in many cases of competing in the same time, we also compete across time. In this way, Shandoka continues developing a race bike to compete in the Super Hooligan motorcycle racing series.

Competing across time has a trajectory of combined improvement. Beyond the idea of what a world record is "in the moment", we can also see that victory leading to future competition for the same goal. Many times, what was once a world record becomes the standard. For example, the American track star Carl Lewis set a world record sprint time in his day that was slower than five of the eight runners in this year's Olympic final for the same event.

Underlying it all is a very human desire to Do It Better.

Better form. Better technology. Better mindset. Better achievements.

And the achievement eventually becomes the standard for everyone else.

Setting world records

With that in mind, Shandoka is excited to join a team competing across time to set new world records. When a colleague introduced us to Wendy Crockett and Ian McPhee, our first conversation was a lock: we can set world records with our retrofit approach and "there is no box" thinking.

You can learn more about these amazing long-distance motorcycle champions and their recognized records at Pushing Miles.

As we move forward on these commissioned specialty motorcycle projects, the greatest goal is to learn how to build better electric motorcycles for the everyday rider.

Yes, we want to set a new world record for the most distance covered in 24 hours, and we hope to average 90 mph on electric motorcycles to do it. Wendy and Ian already hold a record on a combustion-powered motorcycle for a self-supported trip of more than 80,000 miles. Distance records like these are held by gas-burning motorcycles, not in a special category for electric power. How amazing it could be to break them with an entirely new driveline and power source!

But more than that, we want to design and build better systems for our everyday electric motorcycle riders. Just the attempt to achieve these records will be a win for Shandoka.

So many times, the key to that improvement is to uncomfortably accept a challenge from a friend to solve technical, format, and intellectual hurdles, and to approach the project with gusto!

And when we solve all the challenges, we might just have a listing or two in the Guinness Book of World Records.