Why I Find Flow More Easily on a Motorcycle Than at My Desk
A reflection on flow, attention and why trail riding makes it easier to find both.
By Carles Carrera · May 2026
I spend a large part of my life sitting at a desk. Reading, writing, thinking, running businesses and making decisions.
And yet, despite genuinely enjoying all those things, I find it much easier to enter a state of flow on a motorcycle than sitting in front of a screen.
That shouldn’t be surprising. In fact, it is completely normal.
Psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi described flow as a state of complete absorption in an activity. Time seems to disappear. The inner dialogue becomes quieter. Attention narrows. Performance often improves. And the experience becomes rewarding in itself.
What makes flow easier
According to researchers like Steven Kotler, flow tends to emerge when several conditions are present: a clear objective, immediate feedback, a challenge that stretches our abilities, a degree of risk or uncertainty, and complete concentration on the task.
Trail riding happens to combine all of them.
The objective is simple. Keep moving. Choose the right line. Avoid crashing. Stay with the group. Reach the destination.
The feedback is immediate. Choose a poor line and the bike tells you instantly. Enter a corner too fast and you know immediately. Open the throttle too aggressively and the rear wheel slides.
The motorcycle never lies.
The challenge is constantly changing. A technical climb, a rocky descent, a muddy section, a narrow single track, or simply trying to keep up with riders who are slightly faster and more skilled than you.
The challenge continuously adjusts itself.
The environment is also unpredictable. Traction changes. Ruts appear. Rocks move. Visibility changes. Weather changes. You cannot switch to autopilot for very long.
Perhaps most importantly, trail riding demands almost complete attention.
Your vision scans the terrain ahead. Your legs control the motorcycle. Your weight shifts constantly through the pegs. Your hands manage the throttle, clutch and brakes. Your body reacts to traction changes almost subconsciously.
There is very little remaining bandwidth for emails, taxes, meetings, politics or social media.
The motorcycle doesn’t care about any of those things.
And if your mind wanders for too long, it tends to remind you.
Sometimes quite abruptly.
The desk comparison
Compare that to sitting at a desk.
A desk can certainly generate flow. Writing can. Reading can. Building a business can. Investing can.
But interruptions are everywhere. Notifications. Messages. Open browser tabs. Meetings. Phone calls. The challenge is often less immediate and the feedback arrives much later.
It doesn’t surprise me that I find flow more easily on a motorcycle than at a desk.
One activity is specifically designed to demand my full attention. The other is increasingly designed to steal it.
What trail riding teaches me
The lesson is not that motorcycles are superior to desks.
The lesson is that flow follows certain rules.
And trail riding happens to satisfy many of them naturally.
The older I get, the more I realise that some of the activities I enjoy most are simply activities that make flow easier to find.
Not because they are easy.
But because they demand enough of me that the rest of the world temporarily disappears.
And in a world increasingly designed to fragment our attention, that may be one of the most valuable experiences available.
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Carles Carrera · Co-founder of AMS and RSPro. Get in touch