Somewhere in my youth I determined that riding a motorcycle would be cool. Most specifically, I believed that riding would make me cool. I purchased for the astonishing price of one hundred seventy-five dollars a Honda 150 Dream. I know that is not its marketing name, but we were not necessarily tied to Honda’s marketing labels.
In those days a motorcycle endorsement was not required for one who already held a standard driver’s license. I received a few quick instructions on the location and functions of the shift and clutch levers, and I rode away, with some small level of apprehension, on my own motorcycle.
Riding that beast did not thrust me suddenly into the realm of the cool. I did seem to acquire friends and acquaintances that previously had not been part of my sphere of influence and in no time at all I began to accumulate a list of persons, mostly of the more interesting gender, who were desirous of sharing with me space and time aboard my two wheeled pleasure craft. I found that I spent less time “hanging out” or experiencing the boredom of sedentary indecision but rather finding opportunities to be alone on the road, to find places that I had not been, to return again to places that I already knew.
Although I did not attain instant coolness, I did begin to experience the symptoms of a decreasingly less subtle transformation of sorts. I discovered that I was becoming obsessively fond of the feel of the wind in my face; the sway of the bike as she rolled into a turn; the exhilaration that accompanied a twist of the throttle; and now and again, the adrenaline rush of a moment of flight and the successful return to earth. Very early in our time together the machine and I became a single moving unit. It is a transformation that seems to always take place with motorcycle riders but never to occur with automobile drivers. It is almost mystical, perhaps imperceptible, when the line is crossed, but in retrospect it is unmistakably there.
I named her the Beast. I invested myself in the cleaning, maintenance, repair, and refining of the Beast. I rode her to school; I rode her to work; I rode her whenever there was a place to go; and I rode her when there was no particular destination to be achieved. The first time we separated violently in a ditch upon impacting a culvert, I rolled over, pushed myself to my knees, and rushed, in a sense, over to see what damage I had done to my black Beast.
She became a part of who I was. I began to think of myself as a rider and to see the rest of the world in terms of those who are and those who are not. I had discovered that the relationship between the motorcycle and me had moved beyond tool and user, past ownership, to more than a means to an end. I had found passion.
The last day that we rode together we had found our way to a rural asphalt some seven miles from home. We were on a long straight, slightly descending, stretch of that road and rapidly approaching a slower moving vehicle. I opened the throttle as wide as it would turn and held my body so close to the fuel tank that we seemed to melt together. I watched the speedometer climb past seventy-five and on to eighty miles per hour, something I had never seen her do before. Suddenly I heard a loud pop and the rear wheel locked up. Panicked, I grabbed the clutch and we coasted to a stop.
I managed to shift the transmission into neutral and pushed the bike a mile to the next nearest town and called home for assistance. My older sister arrived after some time prepared to carry me home. I surveyed her compact car and commented, “I don’t think it will fit in the trunk, but if we remove the back seat I think we can get it in there.”
She immediately responded with, “You’re not putting that motorcycle in my car. We’ll have to leave it here until Daddy can come get it with the truck.”
“I’m not leaving my bike here.”
“Fine.”
I watched her drive away and then we resumed our journey, pushing on the flat and uphill; coasting when the road sloped down.
She didn’t recover from the blown piston. She was eventually replaced by a new Honda 305 Superhawk that was, interestingly, also named “The Beast”. There have been several motorcycles since then. All have been named. They have all been objects of passion.
Why do we name our bikes? I’m not entirely certain that I can answer that for everyone, maybe not even for myself. Perhaps it is because they are extensions of who we are; perhaps because they are objects of passion. Those who truly understand will not be able to grasp the question. Those who do not understand, perhaps never will. I, for one, have always named my motorcycles and I believe I always will.
I have never named a refrigerator. It is my sincere belief that I never will.