Why We Ride

By Jeffry L’H. Tank

I recently posed the question “why do you ride?” to several motorcycle mailing lists, a number of colleagues at work who ride, and anyone I met while riding.

My original interest was in finding out if others shared a similar view of why they ride as myself, or whether there are as many different reasons for riding as there are different machines and people who ride. As the informal survey progressed and so many of the responses I received were indeed similar, I found myself wondering if this was the result of some underlying, deeply rooted motivation that is common to all of us who ride. I also started to wonder if, in fact, there was some common thread unique to the MC community. I tried to keep an open mind about the results of my little survey and tried to include as many different groups as possible, both women and men, riders as well as passengers, young and old(er), without regard to type of machine. The one common factor was they all rode “road” bikes, I wasn’t interested in off-road riding, mini-bikes, atv’s, etc.

So, what is it about riding that compels us, if you will, to ride? Why do we put ourselves at risk riding these machines that lack so many of the creature comforts found on a cage? Machine that, for the most part, offer so little in the way of protection from the elements, from the wind, rain and cold. That require us to be constantly on the lookout for drivers encased in steel boxes who seem to insist that the entire road is theirs and theirs alone, while chatting mindlessly on cell phones, reading the Someday Funnies or doing the finishing touches to their coiffures? Why spend 10 minutes putting on layer upon layer of clothes on a 30 degree day only to freeze our butts off on a 30 minute commute to work, or boil our brains in the 95 degree summer sun in downtown DC rush hour traffic, when there is that cage, with it AC, heat, tunes and roof, beckoning us to enter into its comparative lap of luxury? Should we all be hauled off to the looney bin and locked away for our own protection, not to mention the protection of society from an obviously insane and dangerous crowd of bikers? This is what I set out to discover, but rather than just present a categorized list of responses in descending order, I have tried to present some meaningful interpretation to the results of my little informal survey. Understand that I make no pretensions of having conducted a “scientific” study, nor do I claim that I am in any fashion qualified in the fine art of psycho-babble. As simply stated above, I wanted to see if there is indeed some common driving force that is unique to this rather diverse group of individuals who comprise the biker community. Much of what I found did not surprise me and neither did most of the main reasons given by a majority of the respondees. There were, however, a few surprises in store for me as this survey progressed.

By far the most common and often first response to “why we ride” was stated quite simply in one word “Freedom.” Simple, straight forward, almost elegant in its simplicity. No real surprise there. Yet, as I discussed this issue with each individual who responded, I started to realize that this simple term had in fact a multitude of different interpretations, almost as many as there were respondents to my question of why we ride. Therein lies the first surprise.

For some, motorcycling represented freedom from the daily grind, from responsibilities of family, work, chores and obligations that come with adulthood. Thinking back to my youth I remember it represented freedom from “Mom” and “Dad”, school, and all the other pressing issues of being in that “almost an adult” stage of life that we all experienced in our youth. And for many of the older riders I talked to this was also a common interpretation of freedom in their younger days and not surprisingly many of them, like myself, owned a motorcycle long before any other motorized vehicle. What was interesting, however, and again this was part of the surprise in store for me, was that it appears that as we grow older our interpretation of freedom changes and becomes more individualistic. Having had a chance to reflect on this it now seems to make perfect sense, yet at first I was not prepared for this as I had not considered this aspect of the aging process in general and specifically it’s impact on motorcycling.

Another quite common interpretation of freedom, as regards motorcycling, was the freedom to be different. To express their uniqueness , their individuality by the very act of riding, and also by the machine they rode, their attire when riding. A desire simply to just be different and stand out *from* the crowd.

For others freedom seemed to refer to the *sensation* derived from the very act of riding, in the quickness of the machine’s response to a change in throttle, the responsiveness while cornering, or merely changing position within the lane. The sensation of flying over the ground, as the pavement rushes by inches below your feet. The wind in your face, the sights and sounds and smells that come to you when you are out in the open, of being one with the machine, and sensing all of the minutiae of its operation, something that is for the most part lost when you are in an enclosed environment such as a car or SUV.

For yet others it was the sense of freedom that comes from getting out of town or just away and riding with no particular destination, or plan, or perhaps just being able to ride off at a moments notice, again with no particular route in mind, the freedom to just get on the machine and *go*.

Another interpretation of freedom that I heard from a number of the respondents was how they felt released or freed from worries, cares or concerns that may have been troubling them at the time, at least for the duration of the ride. As one respondent put it “I ride because it's where I find balance and the ability to put things into perspective: problems assume their proper size, which is usually much smaller than I've let them become in my imagination”. It was obvious that many riders feel that this is due in large part to the fact that riding takes a great deal of concentration, no matter how long you have ridden, no matter how “automatic” it may be or how easy it may appear to others. To motor safely simply leaves very little room for much else in the riders mind. That it literally clears the mind of almost everything except the ride, the machine and your surroundings I was somewhat surprised at the number of passengers who shared this view, as it had always seemed to me that being in what I had hitherto considered a rather non-active role they would be free of many of the constraints of operating the machine. Surprise number two! This was something that they all felt very adamant about, a view that I have often expounded myself.

This sense of freedom, in whatever form it took, seemed to be by far the most common single term used in response to why we ride, though there were many other and equally valid reasons given. This is not to say that there were any non-valid reasons given or that I was trying to validate or judge the worthiness of any response, save perhaps the one person who stated simply “ I ride because I look funny walking”, which may well be just as valid as any other response, though it does nothing to address or resolve the question of what he does while getting to and from the machine! None the less I would take a moment to relate some other of the more common responses and make several more observations pertaining to those before concluding.

There were several other aspects of riding in which the motivation, or interest in motorcycling showed a marked change over the years as the participant matured. One of the most common was the shift from the thrill of speed and shear sense of power to a more subdued enjoyment of the simple pleasure of the whole experience. Indeed several riders made the point that as they turned 60 or so the very fact that they were able to ride at all was motivation enough. How many of us have wondered about that very fact? Will *I* be able to ride when I’m such and such an age? More than just a few of us 50+ bikers I would imagine.

Another, though less common reason for riding was that it was, at least to start, an inexpensive alternative form of transportation, but this too seems in most cases to have become less important over the years. Perhaps, in part, to the fact that as we grow older our income tends to rise, though for many our debt-to- income ratio may well be greater now than before, and perhaps in part because cars have become more fuel efficient, that we simply need to ride to satisfy some inner craving for excitement in an otherwise too complacent life.

Finally one other aspect, among male riders, that was mentioned in regards to those early years, was the effect on their social status and the effect on the female crowd. It was the perfect “pick-up” machine!

As yet I have only touched on two of the several surprises in store for me as I conducted this survey, the other major one being the variety of ways that people first got involved in motorcycling. In my initial query I asked for not only reasons why we ride, but also for any stories on how they first got started riding. Again, I was surprised at the number of different stories that were related to me. One of my favorites was from a woman who recently decided she wanted to learn to ride, her comment, when pointed to several online clothing catalogs for riding apparel, was simply “Wow! I *love* the clothes!” Not all that uncommon I suppose, as many riders, some more readily than others, confess that their attire is chosen to make a definitive statement about themselves, as is their choice of machine.

Another common thread on the question of how one got involved or “caught the bug”, was being given a ride as a teenager, be it a scooter back in the 60’s, or later in life on a more modern machine, one ride and they were hooked. For others it was a slow process that may have started many years ago, when they rode as a passenger, but only recently matured into a full-fledged desire to take a more active role, or perhaps may have been due to a lack of funds, or other obligations that were at some point no longer a factor. For several divorced women this is was in fact quite true. The obligations of marriage and or children were no longer a limiting factor. For others it was simply a desire to stop being reliant on others to provide the opportunity to go for a ride. Another surprise, for myself and for a number of the folks I talked to was how many riders had inherited a machine from an uncle or other family member, though this was more common among those that owned and rode older, “classic” machines. A number of riders also mentioned being surprised, after they had started to ride, by the “confession” of some close family member, that they had owned and ridden a machine back in the “old” days.

So, is there in fact some underlying common drive, some deep rooted motivation that is unique to this desire we share to “ride on the wild side”? Quite frankly, it would appear there is, if my survey has any validity. Simply stated, what seems to lie at the core of most if not all riders willingness to put themselves at risk, to do battle with the elements, and all that riding entails, is this sense of Freedom, in whatever form it takes for each individual. As to whether this is underlying drive is unique to the motorcycling community, is still out for debate.

What I have also found is that this simple survey has once more reaffirmed my belief that whether you ride once a month, once a week, once a day, if you ride 10 miles or 10,000 miles, whether you ride a sports bike, a cruiser, a touring machine, a classic, whatever the size machine or engine displacement, whether you’re young, old, or somewhere in between, male or female, be it as a rider or passenger, once you start riding, once you cross that line, there is just about nothing that will ever make you stop. That every time you ride you’ll be the better for it, the thrill will never diminish, each and every ride will once more set you apart from the whole, yet bring you closer in and bind you once more with all of us who *do* ride. And even when or if you become physically unable to participate in the adventure, you’ll always feel it in your blood; when you hear that distinctive sound of iron passing you’ll strain your neck to catch a look, and from somewhere deep inside once more you’ll smell the smells, feel the wind on your face, feel the throb, the heartbeat, of that machine down to your very core. And you’ll smile that secret smile that sets you apart from the crowd, that only another biker would recognize; and your soul will rush out and ride the road right along with that passing machine until its sound fades in the distance, and once more you’ll think to yourself, “damn, that was a good ride!”.

So, my friend, why do *you* ride?

© Jeffry L’H. Tank

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