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(I sold my motorcycle today and felt a little sad. I've owned a lot of bikes, but this one was easily one of the best, and it made me think of a piece I wrote once about the joy of motorcycling...)
First Ride of the Season Day
If we ever needed another holiday, my vote would be for “First Ride of the Season Day” for getting out of the house on a bicycle, skateboard, horse, hang-glider, motorcycle or anything fun after a season of snow and cold.
I celebrated my own First Ride on Feb. 25, heading north on Interstate 69 from the exit near Community North Hospital in Indianapolis on a Honda Shadow, a middleweight Harley-looking motorcycle, low and lean, black and gleaming chrome. I slipped into the northbound afternoon rush hour traffic at just over 70 mph on the 10-lane highway. The First Ride requires no particular destination, and the interstate is the safest place you can be on a bike, for my money: There are no deadly intersections or cars suddenly turning in front of you, just a good place to wind out the engine and air out the soul, even for only half an hour.
Motorcycling requires a lot of focus, even while you’re relaxing. It’s far more dangerous than driving a car, and the people who ride the most usually wear excellent protective gear, ride sober, and think about safety. As with pilots, there are old riders and bold riders, but few old, bold riders.
I use “riders” as opposed to bikers as a default because it’s an all-inclusive term, of which “bikers” are a subset. The biker image is one of the most recognizable icons in America - the leather-wearing, hard-living motorcycle guys (often men), whose rumbling machines are so distinctive. Harley Davidson is the largest selling motorcycle brand, but at only 30 percent of sales, it is far outnumbered by Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki, and other bikes. And old-school bikers look down on many of the newest Harley riders, so called “Rich Urban Bikers” who don’t actually ride much and are thought to own their machines just to occasionally look cool astride a hog.
Real riders, on the other hand, yearn for the open road. Indy’s BMW club, which I joined for a while after buying a K1200 RS, includes owners who think nothing of a quick group ride for a camping trip in the next state – or much further. They dress for safety, often work on their own bikes and live to ride, meaning they’ll get out for a head-clearing cruise down the interstate, if nothing else; or maybe a 50-mile lap around the I-465 Indianapolis perimeter just to feel the wind.
You can spot the different types of riders by what they’re piloting. There are “cruiser” bikes, a classic style most popular from the 1930s to the 1960s, with a relaxed riding position, a low seat and an emphasis on comfort. Honda cruisers, like my Shadow Aero, aren’t regarded as cool by some folks, but they’re extremely affordable and reliable, with shaft drive (instead of a chain, which must be lubricated and maintained), and a long-lasting, liquid-cooled engine. What the practical riders know is that once you’re on the road, reliability and comfort matter most of all. The choppers of “Easy Rider,” the most famous biker film of all, look cool but would be excruciatingly bone-jarring rides to actually take on a cross-country trip – all style, no suspension.
“Standard” bikes come in all engine sizes but look different, with the rider sitting upright instead of leaned back, as on a cruiser.
Sport bikes place an emphasis on engine performance and handling. They’re the fastest, often favored by younger riders, and are ridden in a forward leaning position that’s uncomfortable for more than 40 minutes. But they’re fast, sometimes fatally so, and often known as crotch rockets.
Baggers are heavy touring bikes – the Honda Goldwings, larger BMWs, and other road bikes with detachable, suitcase-like bags for travel. They’re the heaviest bikes - often 700 pounds, twice the weight of a little commuter bike. They typically feature the most radios and other technology, and are ridden by the oldest riders.
While many motorcyclists prefer full-face helmets with tinted visors, it’s not hard to get a look at who’s riding as a group. Statistics from the Motorcycle Industry Council show a growing number of female and college-educated riders, but bikes are still a niche – only 8 percent of households have a motorcycle. And the most recent data shows:
- 81 percent of owners are men.
- Their median age is increasing, to age 50.
- Sixty-eight percent are married.
- Fewer than a quarter have college degrees.
Riders in a hurry take the passing lane, but I prefer the slow lane, enjoying the clouds, and countryside, but moving with the flow, watching the traffic for sudden lane changes, and the road for debris and potholes as we pass through Indy’s northern suburbs. My bike has a 750 cc engine – once considered large, but nowadays merely average. It’s easy to ride, comfortable, extremely affordable, durable, and dependable. If it were a car, it would be a Toyota Corolla.
Riders sometimes have difficulty describing why they love their bikes. Imagine going down the road, sitting out on the hood of your car instead of inside, with a clear view in any direction, smelling the trees in the summer and feeling the cold breath of the moist low-lying air when you cross a bridge over a stream; leaning into turns in the winding, plunging roads of the Hoosier National Forest. Or the steady hum of the highway – you’re sitting on the engine – with a low bass note like the far left side of a piano, a vibration to make you forget about whatever’s wrong and just feel the right - the air, sky, rushing road beneath your feet. You’re flying, at ground level.
Veteran riders dress for a crash ("Enjoy the ride, but dress for the slide") – heavy boots, gloves, padded jackets and pants. Everybody goes down sooner or later, they say. My only crash happened in South Bend when my little Honda 350 slipped on gravel in a suburban intersection and went out from beneath me at low speed. Nothing hurt but some bruised pride. But everybody’s had their more serious close calls. A woman once turned left in front of me unexpectedly on a busy four-lane road near a shopping mall, and I went into a sideways skid, slowing enough to avoid a collision.
When riders get together, we talk about our close calls. Here’s mine: One time I was coming down Indiana 67 south of Pendleton, a two-lane highway that runs past the coiled concertina wire of three state prison facilities and then joins the countryside heading toward Fortville. The highway parallels a rail line, and on one summer day, driving a big Honda Goldwing, I looked over to realize I was running at the same speed as a freight train about 50 yards to my right. This is a view of a train you never see - the engineer leaning out of the cab, practically next to you, and at the exact speed you’re going. I was marveling at that view, thinking how this was what riding was all about, when I glanced back at the road. Directly in front of me was a stopped cargo van, waiting to make a left turn. At the last possible moment, maybe half a heartbeat, I whipped around the right side of the van onto the berm and then back onto the highway. Hitting a stopped vehicle at 60 mph would ruin your whole day, as the old guys would say. I thought about that a lot and remember it when I’m tempted to geek out on the views.
I think about safety all the time now and advise people thinking about getting a bike to first take the Basic Rider Course from the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. Riders in Indiana need a driver’s license motorcycle endorsement, which requires a written test and a skills test to show they can handle a bike. One of the biggest mistakes new riders make is buying a machine too large for their ability. I know a guy who misjudged his speed pulling a Harley Fat Boy into his garage; riding at such a low speed can be difficult, and the giant bike tipped over with him under it. Though he wasn’t injured he had to call his brother to come get him out.
Any motorcycle course would be better than the way I learned, at a joint called Bob’s Surf Shop on the Gulf in Biloxi, Mississippi. I got my Mississippi driver’s license at age 15, and that was enough to rent a small motorcycle at Bob’s, a place that was popular with airmen from nearby Keesler Air Force Base. They didn’t ask many questions after taking your driver’s license and the signed copies of the waiver you didn’t read. Here’s a rough summary of my first motorcycle lesson:
“See that key? You turn that on. OK, good. That green light? That’s your neutral light. Be sure you’re in neutral before you start her up, or the thing will jerk away from you. The clutch is here on the left. On your right side is the front brake and the starter button. The gear shift is there at your left foot – one down, four up – and the back brake is at your right foot. Got it? OK, be careful.”
I did OK, meaning that after some practice on a nearby quiet street I was bombing down Highway 90 along the beach. All the controls eventually become second nature, but the only way to become a good rider is to ride a lot. There are many low mileage, used bikes out there, sold by people who decided maybe they didn’t want to be a rebel, after all.
They were riding for the wrong reason. It’s not about looking cool. It’s about the First Ride of the Season, and then the rest of the Saturdays through October, finding the back roads, the green scenery on the Ohio River, meeting up with friends. You wait all winter for that. And then when the snow finally melts and temps get into the 40s, you can feel it in the air – time to gas up and take off.
Want to go for a ride? Here’s a short video of what it’s like aboard my bike.
