What does my motorcycle mean to me?

I am having trouble answering that very simple question.

Maybe I'm aiming too high. Maybe I should start by answering a smaller question.

Why do I like motorcycles?

I enjoy being on two wheels. I enjoy the sense of freedom that I have, being out in the open.

Motorcyclists refer to automobiles as "cages". I never thought of it that way until I became a motorcyclist myself. In a car you are cut off, sealed in, isolated.

....

But I feel like I am repeating what others have said. I am quoting others, not really describing how I feel.

In a way, talking about motorcycles is like dancing about architecture. To be understood, it has to be experienced. Words are inadequate to the task of expressing the feeling.

It's fun.

It's exhilarating.

It feels good.

It's a challenge. It's not easy to do. To do it well, and to survive in a sea of idiots who can't look up from their mocah latte and their cell phones to pay attention to traffic, requires real skill.

In a very real way, it is death defying.

I do it because it ruffles some feathers. It's impolite. It is greeted with fear and respect.

I enjoy the fact that it scares the shit out of my boss.

I enjoy the fact that not everyone can do it. That there are more people who wish they could than people who actually can.

I enjoy the fact that children wave. That young girls turn their heads. That young men look admiringly. That old men look wistfully as I zoom past.

I am doing what they wish they could do.


remember the feeling that came over me the first time I straddled a motorcycle and moved it around. It felt good. I liked its heft. It wasn't even running, and I barely knew how to move it around. It was my late father-in-law's Harley Davidson 250cc. We sold it to Larry, and were unloading it out of the trailer. The feel of that bike was eery, like the call of the sea. It stirred something in my heart. I felt it calling to me. I have never experienced anything like it.

Carolyn looked at me with a puzzled expression. She was mystified by the look on my face, and in her heart of hearts, dared to hope that I would embrace motorcycling. She grew up with bikes, and I had had a bad experience in 1989, and was turned off of bikes for 10 whole years after that.

A few years later Carolyn visited a Honda dealer, and tried out a few bikes, and decided that the Honda Rebel would be a good starter bike. She came home and informed me of that. I was shocked. She was a Harley Davidson loyalist, and wanted nothing to do with japanese bikes. But despite her fierce brand-loyalty, the economic reality won: Hondas were cheap, and available in smaller sizes than Harleys. She still wanted a Harley eventually, but needed to learn somewhere, and the best place to learn was on a cheaper "starter bike".

I told her I was interested in that too. She was surprised. We looked at brochures together, did some financial figuring, and decided it was a nice dream that wouldn't happen for years and years.