The Road 2

Once I get my hands on another motorcycle, it'll be pretty damn hard to keep me off, I can promise you that. Besides the safety issues, all of which really lie in the ignorance of car and truck drivers, there's really no reason to not ride as much as weather permits. At least I cannot think of one. It's the ideal commuter, it's great for going almost anywhere easily and quickly, it feels great, it makes parking a whole lot easier, and it's relatively cheap.

Weekend rides to places I've never been, never thought of, or never heard of. I like the idea of going places. I adore the roads that lead to them. There are always so many different routes for the same destination and I cannot wait to try them all. Driving, I find myself surprised at the scenes that are just around the corner, or waiting for that right time of day, a road waiting for all variables to align and take a lucky person's breath away. On a motorcycle, when you're one with the bike and the road, I'm sure such a thing is only magnified.

Most important to the experience of the motorcycle is an almost perfect sense of being. The community of motorcyclists is tight nit yet seemingly destined to segregate into the riding groups that are formed. Different motorcycle clubs ride different bikes in different ways and in different places. In these clubs society is nearly ideal. It treads the perfect line of solitary time and social time however the variables enforcing it allow. It often happens naturally and without plan. Motorcycle clubs, named and unnamed, composed of two, four, eight, forty riders.

I imagine my club could never go unnamed. Undefined and open ended, maybe, but unnamed, no.

Talking with my brother, also a motorcycle lover who simply cannot wait to turn 16, we agree that riding together would have to be official, if only to appease a certain magnificently youthful urge. The name of our prospective group evades us. The symbolism as well. But the identity cannot be more apparent to us.