Back in Black.

So, there’s a motorcycle show. 

That’s not surprising once you say it, but the discovery was, for me, like finding out a circus was coming to town. And in one of those rare moments when I think maybe God really does want me to be happy, my darling wife just happened to be busy taking a course that very weekend. When Saturday morning finally came, I kissed her goodbye, gulped down the last of the coffee, jumped in the car and was among the first people in line when the doors opened.

Here’s what they don’t tell you about motorcycle shows, and you need to know this: you can sit on everything. You can’t even do that in dealer showrooms. But here, on this one golden weekend in February, you can plop yourself down on any motorcycle that tickles your fancy, and likely not even have to deal with a salesperson. And you should. Mind you, it took an hour before this truth really dawned on me – I’d been raised to not touch things that weren’t yours, given the certainty that something embarrassing and expensive would happen. But once I had the epiphany, I was straddling everything that didn’t move. And learning more than all the motorcycle magazines in the world could possibly teach me.

I learned, for example, that I’m not comfortable on cruisers. Look at them, and you’d think they would be the easiest bikes to ride, what with your feet in front of you where you can see them. But, sitting there, at least, this position seemed like it would feel strange to me on the road (Harley's Iron 883 reminded me of riding a Big Wheel). I was less surprised to learn that a lot of sport bikes would be equally uncomfortable, besides the “not that guy” problem, and yet more so that the Kawasaki Ninja 300 was the second most natural feeling bike I sat on all day. All of the adventure bikes were immediately off the table simply because they are so tall; that thing about beginners needing to put both feet on the ground is real. 

All of which was fine. Because I wanted a standard. I wanted to be Steve McQueen way more than I wanted to be Jax Teller. As it turned out, what I wanted was a Triumph Bonneville.

I flirted with other bikes in the class at the show, of course; you don’t pass up a chance like that. Besides being less pretty, the BMW R Nine T is just a lot of money. I loved the Eurotrash quirkiness of the Moto Guzzi V7, but it wasn’t as comfortable for me as its measurements would suggest. But when I got to the Triumph booth, it felt like a homecoming. I’d found a crack in the time space continuum and landed in an alternate 1970s in which I was cool and insouciant rather than a chubby dork. The Scrambler made my heart beat a little faster, but it felt ungainly, more than I was ready for. But when I settled into the saddle of the base Bonneville, my feet and hands landed in exactly the right four spots without even thinking about it. Clouds parted, angels sang, and a column of pure, divine light shone down to the very spot I was sitting. My bike. 

Except that the T100 Black is effing gorgeous. Just a smidge less comfortable for me than the regular Bonnie, and I’d probably die trying to catch glimpses of myself in store windows as I rode it. But, man. 

Men plan, God laughs.

In motorcycling, as in life, it can sometimes be hard to tell whether your god is protecting you, or simply reminding you that joy is a mirage. 

That hill would be my white whale. Praying for a long dry fall, I realized nothing awesome was going to happen until I mastered the art of gravel road surfaces. It was an odd and joyless place to start motorcycling, but the options were ridiculous (I never seriously considered a trailer. Not for long, anyway).  “All idealism is mendacity in the face of what is necessary,” wrote Nietzsche. So, never getting out of second gear, I burbled up and down our laneway and ventured out on to the road, an hour here, an hour there, every chance I got, praying the neighbours weren’t paying attention. I played with rear wheel braking on the gravel hill, letting the engine help and feathering the clutch to keep the wheels turning. But mostly, I spent those first few hours trying to erase anxiety.  Three kilometers away, there is a small town with quiet, leafy streets where I can practice in earnest, but first I have to get there. Finally, by early November, I was growing confident enough to make a run for town and finally feel pavement under my wheels. “Next weekend,” I said to the little Suzuki as its warm engine ticked itself to sleep.

And then it snowed.

Easy rider.

There is no shortage of finger wagging on the internet about how novice riders should consider small-displacement bikes, ideally 250s. Believing that while fortune favours the bold, caution favours the old, I accepted this guidance and shopped diligently for such a bike. Like most advice on the internet, though, it turned out to be a little on the glib side. 250cc cruisers like the Yamaha V Star 250 and the Honda Rebel look great in pictures, but I felt like a circus bear on them (I’m 5’11”, 200-ish lbs). When I took the MSF course, I had been issued a Kawasaki Eliminator, which managed the trick of being both Ken doll-tiny and stubbornly reluctant to turn. It was awful, and dampened my enthusiasm for going the cruiser route. I liked the idea of a standard and thought the Suzuki TU250 might make a respectable place to start, but there were simply none to be had at the end of the season. Honda’s CBR250R was a very tempting package, especially with ABS – everybody loves this bike – but the sport bike aesthetic just doesn’t fit me. I’m not that guy, and motorcycling, it turns out, demands that you know exactly what guy you are.

A little stumped and running out of good weather days, I pled my case to the local Yamaha dealer, thinking I might end up on a Virago. Instead, he led me to the back of the building where they kept their used inventory. Buy your first bike used, he said, because you’ll probably drop it. And yes, don’t buy something too heavy or powerful. But for pete’s sake don’t by something so small and pokey that you’re sick of it in a month and end up doing something stupid. And with that, he pointed to a tidy little silver 2006 Suzuki S40. “The best kept secret in beginner bikes,” he said. Almost as light and just as narrow as a 250, but a touch roomier and, at 650cc, more powerful. And, I have to admit, it appealed to me that the S40 wasn’t dripping in pseudo-Harley cruiser drag. There could hardly be a plainer, more honest bike, in fact. But for the relaxed rake of the front fork, you could call it a standard. It makes no statement at all. That’s the guy I am.

The bike was a consignment, so it took a few days to settle the deal. Rather than ride it home, I’d have it delivered to our house the next Friday afternoon. The nearest pavement to our place, you see, is 3km distant, at the bottom of a steep, twisty gravel hill. I wasn’t ready for that to be my first open road experience. I had not, if I’m honest, even thought about that hill until the shop called to say the S40 was mine. But I looked at it this way: the little thumper had passed through six owners on its way to my driveway, probably all novices, and not one of them appeared to have dropped it. So maybe it’s a lucky motorcycle. Amor fati.

Amor fati.

This story doesn’t start where you might think it would. It doesn’t start when I was 8 years old and my dad happened by on his Honda while I was being harassed by some other kids on the walk home from school and rescued me. That didn’t make me want a motorcycle. It doesn’t even start when I was 13, when I swung a leg over my very own second-hand Broncco minibike and headed off to a nearby gravel pit to be humbled by my rich friends on their Honda 70s. With the muscle car era at its apogee, there were bigger fish to fry in the fire of my puberty. The Broncco was just a bit of distraction until I could get my driver’s license. Cars would take up residence in my soul soon after and would not release me for decades. The story didn’t begin with a motorcycle at all, actually. It began with a bad year.

We all have bad years, so I won’t dwell on the details. Suffice to say it has been a cocktail of sudden, unfair family deaths, various crises for the living, a health scare for my wife. Life. A bit concentrated, time wise, but life. A funny thing happens when you hit your 50s: You realize that you can – you must – decide how you’re going to let this stuff define you for the time you have left. When you’re younger, you think in shorter horizons. Bad things set you back, even change your course, but they don’t leave such distinct marks on you. Once you’re in the middle of life, though, you are more of a fixed thing. The cement isn’t wet anymore, and the cracks and chips are permanent. So you have to decide.

I decided on a muggy August morning, while I was waiting to get the oil changed in my truck. The bad year was in full swing, and I guess I was having one of those ‘is this as good as it gets?’ moments, sulking a little. Killing time, I wandered into a Yamaha dealer nearby, a place I’d done some business in the past, just to say hello. And then I sat on a bike. And then I picked up an MSF brochure. And then I said, “fuck it,” called the number and signed up for a course in September on the spot. Just like that. No meditation, no biblical epiphany, no heroic moment of clarity. I just decided.

I took the course during a weekend of cold, unrelenting rain, passing without distinction. The dates had fallen just a week after cancer took my brother in law, as it happened. Going anyway was probably stupid, but it felt like some kind of gesture. Amor fati. I had my M2, and a fresh reminder of my mortality. Now I needed a bike.