The bike was ahead of me for some time. I thought about how uncomfortable it would be to ride on a seat like that for a long time. I thought about how it would be, riding on the back, and shifting my position to ease my constant back pain, thus throwing the bike off balance and causing a painful, perhaps deadly accident. Yeah, motorcycles are not for me.
I thought about the time when I was about 12 and wanted to learn to ride one. One of my cousins spent an hour trying to teach me the basics, but I was so terrified that I never managed to actually go anywhere. Yeah, motorcycles are not for me.
That thought took me ahead a decade plus, to a summer when we went to a family reunion in Wyoming. My Uncle John had brought his family's four-wheelers, and again I got the urge to try to ride despite my abject terror. I talked myself out of it a number of times, but finally, I found myself sitting on one of the four-wheelers, the engine making my legs vibrate at nearly the same frequency as my fluttering heart. I moved the machine slowly, jerkily; I couldn't relax enough to do anything else. Talking to myself to steady my nerves, I said, "We'll do one little loop, then get off calmly, say thank you, and then just breathe for a while." But just as I was coming around the front of the yard, my mother jumped on the back, shouting "Wahoo! Let's go!" Every muscle in my body froze solid, and I screamed, "NO!! Get OFF!!" There was a light pole about fifteen feet away, directly in front of me. Directly. In. Front. Of. Me. I could not turn the handlebars. I could not release the gas. I was totally helpless. SMACK. I jumped off the four- wheeler, bawling like a baby, and ran into the house. I wasn't going fast enough to do any damage, but I knew then and there, four-wheelers (and motorcycles) are seriously not for me.
More years passed. My Seester, Michelle, bought a motorcycle. It was a nice bike. But I thought she was crazy. She was talking about doing these big cross-country rides, where you have only so many days to make it a certain distance... She was so excited about her bike. Me, well, I could appreciate the beauty of the bike, but no, no, thank you. Motorcycles are really not for me.
Michelle went with me somewhere -- in a car -- one day after she'd had the bike for awhile. We were driving south on I-80, a little north of Salt Lake, as I recall. There was someone on a motorcycle in front of us. Another biker passed on the other side of the freeway, going the other way. My sister sighed. "What?" I asked.
"One of the things I love about riding my bike," she said. She pointed out that when bikers meet on the road, each driver drops his or her left hand off the handlebar, sticking it out slightly at about the hip, like a cool motorcyclist "low five" without touching. I'd never noticed it, but after that, I watched the guy on the bike ahead of us. It was true. It was like they were a secret club, and suddenly I was feeling desperately left out. Motorcycles are not... are not...
"One of the things I love about riding my bike," she said. She pointed out that when bikers meet on the road, each driver drops his or her left hand off the handlebar, sticking it out slightly at about the hip, like a cool motorcyclist "low five" without touching. I'd never noticed it, but after that, I watched the guy on the bike ahead of us. It was true. It was like they were a secret club, and suddenly I was feeling desperately left out. Motorcycles are not... are not...
Flash forward to 2011, to my "van-without-air-conditioning," on the road to Columbus. There is that universal biker salute again, and I sigh. Mini-van drivers don't have any such thing. Remember the Suzuki Samurai commercials, where they did the "beep-beep, HI!" thing? They were trying to make themselves out to be "cool like that." We used to laugh about that, but I wonder if it worked. (I wonder if anyone out there still HAS a Suzuki Samurai?)
No, motorcycles aren't for me. Sigh.
