A NEW PASSION (LA MOTO)

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Yes, I found yet another passion to tack onto the list: motorcycles. Though I have always known that I enjoyed riding motorcycles (and this goes back to elementary school, when I first rode on the back of my father’s 1968 BMW motorcycle), I was tamely unaware of the passion that apparently decided it was his turn to take the stage and start demanding a response.

Let me set the scene for you. My friend Jeff and I hang out once every week and a half or so. Our soirées usually consist of having a great meal (he is a formidable chef) and a few drinks, watching a movie or TV show, talking, and then me heading back home. During one of our early discussions, we realized that motorcycles were one of our shared interests, even if he knows substantially more than I do. Being the nice guy that he is, he invited me to l’Enduro, a motorcycle race on the beaches of Le Touquet, a town more or less due west of Lille. Not only was I invited to the fabulous event, but we were to go there on one of his motorcycles, and he was able to provide me with a leather motorcycle jacket and pants, boots, gloves, and a helmet. Just in trying them of, I felt something click… something felt right.

The event itself is a well-known race in France. Saturday, the quads compete, and Sunday, it’s all about the motorcycles. Jeff arrived outside my door at 8:30 AM on Sunday. Though I had only slept a few hours the night before, I felt wide awake. Suited up, I mounted the bike. My heels found their pegs, my wrists found Jeff’s waist, my helmet-heavy head found a comfortable, slightly-angled position, and we were off.

For the first hour or so, Jeff and I were the lone bikers on every road we took. We would around villages and cruised past windmills. We saw horses and churches and abandoned farm buildings and hills and cars and red-roofed country houses and clumps of still-savage forest and seagulls and fields and rivers and dingy factories and gray commercial plazas.

We stopped about halfway to Le Touquet at a biker stop to warm up and grab a free coffee. About ten minutes before reaching the stop, we saw a biker… then two… and then the number grew exponentially. When we pulled into the stop, the road of engines of all frequencies was overwhelming and fantastic. Big Harleys throatily blatted next to crotch rockets that reminded me of electronic mosquitoes on steroids. There were people of every age, gender, size, shape, social situation, look, and nationality. Some looked tired and some wide-awake, but ALL looked to be in generally good spirits.

After about fifteen minutes of milling around, both to warm up and to reanimate our legs a bit, we took off again in the direction of Le Touquet. This was a completely different experience, as we were no longer the only bikers on the road - far from it.

This brings me to the actual reason I am writing this entry:

REASONS I LOVE RIDING MOTORCYCLES. Allez - c’est parti! (Translation: Here we go!)

REASON ONE: THE AUTOMATIC, ANONYMOUS, SILENT FRATERNITY.

You’re riding alone. It’s you, perhaps a few cars, and the open road. Suddenly, you see a motorcycle up ahead, and the way it’s going, you will soon pass him. The second you see this motorcycle, you remain attuned to it even while looking elsewhere. Then, here is the moment. You pass the motorcycle. As you do, your right foot comes off its peg. You straighten your knee, extending your leg until it is straight out at about a 30° angle with the bike. After about a second and a half, your leg returns home to its perch and you continue riding as before. That second and a half, though, was more than a “hello” or a “thank you;” there was a whole conversation involved. That simple movement is an acknowledgement of an instant, unshakable bond between bikers - an automatic, anonymous, silent fraternity. Any differences you may have with another biker - even if they are so great that you would never even speak to one another under any other circumstances - become instantly irrelevant. At that moment, you are bikers, brothers.

I also found the “code de la route,” or “rules of the road,” interesting for bikers, as there are many rules that are not at all the same for cars or trucks. The previously mentioned leg motion is, in addition to being an acknowledgement of other bikers, the car driver’s equivalent of the “thank you” wave. In France, motorcycles also tend to make their own “lane,” which can generally be found ON the white dotted lines that create the cars’ lanes. When in a traditional, actually designated lane, we cruised by staggered twos. When passing cars (and when cars in both lanes are stopped for a red light or any other reason), motorcycles in France shift to single-file on the dotted line and pass whomever they want. This is not seen as irresponsible driving, either; it is expected. Cars actually hug the outside of their lanes so that motorcycles can pass freely. Often, when two motorcycles are within sight of one another, they will adjust speeds in order to ride together on the road. I just think that the instant fraternity and solidarity is very cool. You know nothing about the other cyclist - perhaps you do not even speak the same language - but you are united as long as you are on your bike.

REASON TWO: SENSORY/SENSUAL/SEXUAL EXPERIENCE

…And this is the big one. Riding a motorcycle, for me, is one of the most sensual and sexual experiences out there. We’ll start with the heightened sensibility of all the senses. When I am on a bike, I feel much more IN my environment/surroundings, more a part of them than when in a car even with all the windows down or when walking. I become extremely sensitive to even the slightest variations in temperature. Sometimes I barely have time to fully register passing through a warm or cool spot before it is already long gone. In a way, it reminds me of watching an aerial time lapse of clouds or weather passing through an area. The same goes for the wind. My body becomes attuned to wind - shifts in speed and direction are instantly and subconsciously measured and before I become actively aware, nerves and synapses have already processed and executed the appropriate bodily reaction/adjustment so that the ride remains as smooth as possible.

More than that, though… it is not just HOW the air is moving, but WHAT it may be carrying. Here, yet another sense it evoked - the sense of smell. As quickly as wind temperature and speed can change, so can the odors carried on the wind. I remember smelling the fresh, vaguely metallic scent of (almost) spring rain when a few sprinkles threatened. I remain in awe of the powerful link between smell and memory. Take the smell of rain, for example. I have seen and felt and heard and smelled rain THOUSANDS of times before in hundreds of different places. And yet that fresh, iron smell gives me instantaneous mental snapshots that are somewhere between 10 and 20 years old: the back porch at my old house in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania. The porch swing that creaked and sagged its old metal springs. The peeling, once-bright, sky blue paint that coated the steps leading down past the lush lilac bush and its intoxicating aroma to the sidewalk. The grill was on the right, an old charcoal grill. A few more steps on the narrow sidewalk that lazily curved to the right past the dilapidated old one-car garage with doors that certainly didn’t ever work in my lifetime and you’ve reached the end - skinny little Third Avenue and our gravel-and-seashell driveway. On garbage day, the can went in the yard to the left, by the old tree.

I live in Lille, France, where it rains (usually) several times a week. I have not even SEEN the old Waynesburg house in years and years, have not lived in Waynesburg in eleven. And yet the smell of spring rain always triggers that same snapshot.

Rain is not the only smell that invaded my senses on that Sunday. As we twisted through country roads, we passed a farm. Here, ladies and gentlemen, is one of my favorite scents of all time… FARM. The distinct, sweet mélange of cow manure, hay, and horse perspiration. I remember playing on haystacks, grooming horses, catching frogs by the pond. I hear peepers (baby frogs) and remember lying on my back looking at the sky and seeing SO MANY stars that if you tried to look at just one, you would see nothing. Instead, you had to widen the scope of your eye’s view to take in as much of the sky as you could see all at once. Only then could you see the millions of stars peppered across the sky. Here again, I have done this in countless places in my life, but the snapshot that always comes to mind is just outside Waynesburg, Pennsylvania, at the Riggles’ house. I remember lying on their trampoline in their backyard and heading the peppers around their pond and hearing their neighbors’ dog howling at the moon and smelling the sweet perfume and hearing the quiet muttering of their neighbors’ horses and seeing (what seemed like to Charlotte and me) OUR night sky. On the motorcycle that day, it was February. And daylight. And in France. And yet those were the memories that came to me. And as quickly and vividly as they came, they were gone gain, for neither we nor the wind were static.

Speaking of horses, I’ll use them as my transition metaphor. In many ways, riding a motorcycle reminds me of horseback riding. Let’s start at the beginning: the mount. One foot in the stirrup, a quick mental prep and count, and OVER your other leg goes, finding the other stirrup as quickly as possible. You know that when mounting a horse, you are ceding at least some of your control. Like motorcycles, horses are creatures that are bigger, stronger, and heavier than you. They have more power and the possibility does exist that they will not do as you anticipate, whether due to factors that are in OR out of your control. Another similarity is that when on a horse or a bike, you become one with it. Your presence and movements (or lack thereof) have an inevitable effect on the bike’s/horse’s movements and reaction to the ground and general outside environment. When I am on a motorcycle, I also feel like I am on a living being in some way, as being on a horse makes me feel sometimes like together, we are a working machine. There is also a very specific list of necessary postures, hand signals and movements, and bodily reactions needed for both. If you do not tense certain leg muscles in a very specific order and within a limited time frame, you lose control of your body and fall mercy to the beast beneath you. If you lose the tension in a very specific posture, you are unable to maneuver; what is more, if you do not do these things, it HURTS!

Now that we are talking more specifically about movements, we will shift into the slightly racier section of the entry. For me, riding a motorcycle is both sensual and sexual. This can be seen in several ways.

First: turns, especially shorter, sharper ones. When winding through country roads, we were often faced with S turns. This has to be one of my favorite sensations on a bike. Taking these turns reminds me of two things: a woman’s body and blues dancing. I love heading into the curve series… the bike leans to make the turns and I follow with my body, though not quiiite at the same exact moment. I feel as though the bike is my hand and the road, a woman’s body. She is lying on her side, and I trace her curves: the firm outside of her ribcage starting at her underarm, dipping down into the softer valley that is her waist, and then back up over a sturdier hip bone, leveling out slowly to follow the length of her leg. If the bike is not a hand, then it becomes a pencil and I the hand, and the road becomes a blank sheet of paper. Together, we sketch the preliminary outlines of the curves of a woman’s body. We sketch a long, light line that will have to be reworked and sketched over several times before the draft will be completed. With that first curvy line, though, we can already recognize the soft, inviting curves of a woman’s body.

These S curves also remind me of my favorite things to do: blues dance. I make this connection based on my movement and that of the motorcycle, as well as the relationship between our movements and the ground.

Blues dancing is, at its core, an African dance. This is why it differs greatly from European-born ballroom dancing. The posture in ballroom dancing is very upright, elongated, and dainty. There is a great deal of restraint and precision involved. This reflects the religious beliefs and practices in European culture. God is thought to be located in the Heavens; therefore, ballroom dancing requires a posture that reaches (with the body) toward the Heavens. In African dancing, this is not the case. In many African cultures, divine spirits are associated with the tangible environment, especially the Earth. African dancing reflects this. Instead of reaching upward, an emphasis is placed on the relationship between dancer and ground. All movement is pushing against and reacting to the ground. Though movements are often slow and deliberate, they remain organic, and there is always room for improvisation and change if the mood strikes you. In blues dancing, every single part of the body is important. To dance well, one must be able to isolate and separately move shoulders, ribcage, hips, legs, and core. All movement comes from the core, which is located in the center of the sternum.

How, you may be asking yourself, does this relate to riding a motorcycle? Let me tell you. First, the same ability to isolate and move specific parts of the body is required. More importantly, though, maneuvering S curves is the same thing (to me) as following a partner that is leading moves in a blues dance. In this case, the bike is the lead, and I am the follow. In blues dancing, there is always a slight delay between the lead’s gesture and the follow’s reaction. The same can be seen with motorcycles. The bike takes the curve (and here, you mustn’t forget that I am a passenger and not the driver, so I therefore have a different role than were I riding alone), and maybe a second after, I respond. The response starts in my core; the left side of my ribcage moves to the left and then down, pushing then my hip and, finally, my leg into the peg (representing, for all intents and purposes, the ground). Almost immediately after, the bike leads me through the same move in the other direction. Once I have established (the closest I can come to) contact with the “ground,” my left leg tenses from foot to calf to quad to hamstring. At this point, the movement shifts from leg to hip. Muscles tensed, my weight briefly centers before shifting to the right hamstring, pulling down on my right ribcage and then releasing it as the muscle tension shifts from glutes to hamstrings to calves until I have established the same acknowledgement of and connection to the “ground” as I did on the other side. I cannot, however, stay here, either, as my partner is already leading me back to basic blues position. Once again, I push against the peg, feeling the tension shift from calf to quad to hamstring until I feel the tension in my left side match that of my right. All of these minute, seemingly individual isolations actually flow together to make a very sensual, smooth, and oh-so-feminine motion. I have just completed a slightly altered basic step in blues dancing… or made my way through an S curve on a motorcycle. I return to my normal position (in blues or on the bike) - feet firmly grounded, deliberate control over every part of my body, yet ready to react as soon as the cue it given.

Now it’s time to get a little more sexual. First things first - you mount the motorcycle, straddling it. Then, the whole bike trembles and vibrates, emitting a low, animalistic, hungry growl - it is ready. And then we’re off. The motorcycle accelerates, forcing the clenching of EVERY muscle from abdominals to calves. The acceleration is a build-up, filled with anticipation, and then comes a giant thrust and pulling back as we change gears. If we started at, say, one, and accelerated up to six, at six was the thrust and pulling back to, say, a two, only to build back up again, this time to maybe an eight, and so on. And where is the climax? Say there is a car in front of us. He is going much more slowly than we are. The last visible car in the oncoming traffic lane passes us by, and BOOM! We swerve and accelerate so harshly that the very air through which we cut penetrates me. We build up speed and keep building and building and duck back in front of the car we just passed, and… CLIMAX as the brakes are swiftly, suddenly, harshly applied. This allows the bike itself to thrust into me, all my muscles tightly clenched. The full five or six seconds it takes to brake to cruising speed were all I needed to push me over the edge. My heart is beating fast, I apparently had forgotten to breathe for the past fifteen or twenty seconds, my muscles are temporarily jelly and out of commission. I take a deep breath and relax my body (as much as one can on a bike), but not for long… it surely isn’t over yet!

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