Harley and Me

The trouble is, you think you have time.

—MISATTRIBUTED TO BUDDHA, actual source unknown

Gaining a sense of command and comfort on Izzy was a slow process. She’s like an exuberant Great Dane puppy, unaware of her own strength and size. Our partnership took training for us both.

This gradual courtship unfolded over the course of several months and was tempered by more than a few mishaps, during which I questioned my commitment. Life would be so much easier if I simply quit now. But then a flash of enjoyment would happen along to keep me trying. Still, the pleasures were vastly outnumbered by the frustrations. I often thought about selling her and putting the crazy-ass motorcycle scheme to bed. Just getting gas for the first time was an unexpected challenge. I had to call Rebecca and have her walk me through, step by step: Always buy premium. Retract the rubber sleeve on the nozzle so it doesn’t shut off the gas when the tank is only half full. Carefully monitor the flow to avoid overfilling the tank and drenching the bike in a gasoline bath, something I did more than a few times.

For reasons I didn’t fully understand, I wanted, I needed, to gain competence on the motorcycle. Some unconscious part of me must have understood the mess my personal life would soon become. I was going to need these boosts of self-confidence that kept blossoming each time I mastered a new skill. Gaining proficiency operating this formidable machine was shoring up my emotional strength.

At the close of the training class earlier this year, each of us had been asked to write a few motorcycling goals. “1. Learn to ride on the freeway.” I wrote. “2. Take an overnight trip somewhere. 3. Ride at night.” Then I threw in a fourth, one I was certain I wouldn’t fulfill for at least a year. “4. Do the Love Ride.”

The Love Ride is an annual fundraising ride sponsored for the past three decades by Glendale Harley-Davidson. The longest-running charity ride of its kind, it attracted fifteen thousand riders each year during its peak as well as a celebrity following. Performers included Lynyrd Skynyrd, Mick Fleetwood, ZZ Top, Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, and Crosby, Stills, and Nash. I remember seeing the bikers riding in formation, filling the freeways of Los Angeles in a seemingly never-ending stretch, roaring in the morning air. Bikers pay an entry fee to ride en masse to a venue, listen to concerts, drink beer, and eat, with all proceeds going to support charities like the Muscular Dystrophy Association. And though rider participation has declined in recent years, it’s still an impressive event.

A month after I’m licensed, Rebecca asks if I’d like to help at the Love Ride, working the morning registration table.

“Absolutely.”

“And maybe we could ride together,” she suggests. Although, as the daughter of a dealership founder who has grown up around the motorcycle culture and been licensed since she was in her twenties, Rebecca admits she’s as intimidated as I am by the scale and machismo of the Love Ride.

“I’m not sure I can be ready in time,” I stall.

“We can go after the main group leaves,” she suggests. “We’ll ride at an easy pace. We won’t feel pressure to keep up with any of the crazy testosterone guys.”

“Maybe,” I hazard, realizing I’m starting to get comfortable with the idea.

I practice my freeway skills on the less traveled 210 in the foothills above Los Angeles. At first, I can only summon the nerve to ride one freeway exit to the next. As my confidence expands, I venture two consecutive exits. It’s weird to be on a freeway and not inside a car. Having grown up in L.A., I’m accustomed to freeway travel, and yet I’ve never experienced it like this. I’m amazed and terrified. I can actually look down at my feet and see the little grooves scored into the concrete to disperse the rain.

Eventually I’m able to stay on the freeway for five miles at a time. The wind pounds against my upper body at sixty-five miles per hour and feels like a rogue ocean wave rising to swat me from my precarious platform. I’m certain my hands will be ripped from the handlebars. I hang on with sweating palms as if my life depends on it—because, actually, it does.

Since buying this motorcycle, I’ve thought about death more than any other time in my life.

In our culture, it’s not something we spend a lot of time thinking about: our own eventual death, according to psychologist Robert Firestone, PhD. “All people maintain a belief that they will not die despite conscious awareness to the contrary.” Most people spend their lifetimes without a great deal of self-awareness, rarely reflecting on their circumstances, addicted to a lifestyle of form and routine.

“Humans are a meaning-seeking species,” he says. When the experience of death is limited or excluded from our thoughts, we deprive ourselves of our human heritage.

This perspective was furthered in a 2012 study by researchers at the University of Missouri. “When Death Is Good for Life: Considering the Positive Trajectories of Terror Management” asserts that “awareness of mortality can motivate people to enhance their physical health and prioritize growth-oriented goals.” In other words, when we ponder our own eventual death, good things happen: We’re more likely to live up to the positive standards and beliefs we have for own lives. We strive to build supportive relationships. We work toward creating peaceful, charitable communities. And we tend to foster what the researchers term “open-minded, growth-oriented behaviors.” Awareness of death, it turns out, is a critical force motivating human behavior.

In this study, American test subjects were reminded of death or a control topic and then either imagined a local catastrophe or were reminded of the global threat of climate change. When the threat was local, people aggressively defended their homegrown groups, and when the threat was globalized, “subjects associated themselves with humanity as a whole and become more peaceful and cooperative,” said Ken Vail, lead author of the study.

With real catastrophes, such as the terrorist attacks of 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing, he explains, the awareness of death brought some remarkable outcomes. “Both the news media and researchers tended to focus on the negative reaction to these acts of terrorism, such as violence and discrimination against Muslims. But studies also found that people expressed higher degrees of gratitude, hope, kindness, and leadership after 9/11,” said Vail.

In another example, after the Oklahoma City bombing, divorce rates declined in surrounding counties. “After some stimuli escalates one’s awareness of death, the positive reaction is to try and reaffirm that the world has positive effects as well.”

Thinking about death on a daily basis is changing me. I am more aware of time ticking past, of the things I want to accomplish and the limited time frame in which to do so. It’s not a morbid fascination or a squeezing of my days, but the opposite. An awareness that adds a kind of breathing room; I’m becoming clearer about my priorities.

That said, fear continues to dog me, but if I don’t get too ambitious on any one day, I make incremental progress toward refining my motorcycling skills.

The Love Ride departs from Glendale early one Sunday morning in October. The wall-to-wall thundering column almost a mile long moves up the 5 freeway to Castaic Lake. A party will ensue with bands, booths selling motorcycle gear, exhibits of synchronized motorcycling, contests for the best tricked-out bikes, food, and a big biker soiree. I’m not interested in the party element; I simply want to say I did the ride. Jay Leno is the grand marshal and will lead the pack. Though Leno and other celebrities ride their bikes to the venue, word has it that a trailer transports the celeb’s bikes back so the guys can relax and not worry about the return trip after a long day in the sun and probably more than a few beers. But like the ordinary Joe (and Jane) participants, if I decide to ride to the lake, I’ll have to get myself back home. Rebecca suggests a plan. We’ll both ride our bikes to registration in Glendale. If we feel up to it, we’ll ride together to Castaic. If not, we’ll take the shop truck to the lake.

The day before the event I set two goals: (1) To ride Izzy the eight miles from my house down to Glendale Harley, negotiating a freeway overpass that terrifies me. I will be following the same route tomorrow morning at 4:00 AM with only my headlamp to light the way. I need to be sure I can make it to the starting point. (2) To pre-ride the route to Castaic Lake to see if I have the stamina for the nearly seventy miles of freeway travel required.

When I tell my husband and daughter my plans, they both give me that eye roll I’m getting used to. I ignore them, pull on my riding leathers, and start Izzy. As I crest over that anticipated overpass where the 134 freeway arches wide and sweeping to meet up with the 5, I back off the throttle. Behind me, impatient drivers honk and swerve around. But I take the high, curving bridge at a pace I can handle and I’m ecstatic when I arrive at the shop. The mechanics there check my tire pressure and assure me I’m set for the ride.

Next, I head up the freeway toward Castaic Lake. I hold tight when cars whip past, the wind thumps my chest, gravel stings my shins, when my breath grows loud inside my helmet as fear spikes and then eases, spikes and eases. My hands freeze in the death clench. I concentrate with laser focus, trying to anticipate drivers that might make sudden lane changes, scanning the road surface for potholes or seams. I keep glancing down at the speedometer to make sure I am going fast enough but not too fast. My foot poised over the clutch, ready to shift into getaway mode. My right hand covers the brake, ready to apply pressure the entire ride. When I pull off the freeway at the exit for the lake, I stop to catch my breath. My ears are ringing. The ride took less than an hour, but the thirty-six miles have exhausted me.

The ride home is less fraught; I begin to settle in. I continue to squeeze the handlebar grips, but my breathing is more regular and my shoulders relax. I pull into a gas station by my house to fuel Izzy before tomorrow’s big ride. The tank full, I turn toward home, and that’s when it happens. I was warned about this. No biker escapes it. In slow motion, barely moving, the bike’s weight gets away from me. I don’t know if I’m angled too far to the left, or if I’ve hit an oil slick on the pavement. Whatever the reason, I panic as Izzy and I lean precariously, ungainly to the left. I try to grab her, to force my will onto her, to make my muscles stronger than her heft. But I fail. Right near the gas station, we’re going down and there’s nothing I can do to stop it. We slam together into the concrete.

My heart thumps as I jump off the bike, trying to figure out what to do. I try to lift her, but the helmet obstructs my vision. I rip it off and then the gloves. Behind me, a woman chides her husband. “For goodness sakes, help her.” A man comes over from where he was pumping gas and helps me right the bike. I’m about to get on and ride away before my damaged ego can get further mangled.

“Maybe you should rest a minute,” he suggests. “Have some water.”

I sit on the curb in front of the gas station’s convenience store. My hands shake. My mouth is dry. It feels as if all my blood has been exchanged for electricity. I am awash in shame. I don’t look like the badass biker chick I’m trying to become, but some kind of poseur who can’t control this machine, a pathetic girl trying to do something beyond her ability.

This happens to everyone, I remind myself. It’s to be expected. It has nothing to do with being female. When my breathing slows, I examine Izzy. Her side-view mirror is bent. The handlebar scratched. Otherwise, she’s in better shape than me. Eventually, I wash my face in the bathroom, slurp water from the faucet, and put my helmet back on to ride Izzy home.

• • •

The alarm rings at 3:30 AM. I dress in the dark and ease Izzy out the driveway so as not to wake my husband or daughter. I ride down the freeway, over that daunting overpass. At this hour, no one is around to honk at me. A light rain starts falling, another first. I’m surprised by how little light my headlamp provides. I’m reminded of E. L. Doctorow’s quote about writing a novel. “It’s like driving a car at night. You never see further than your headlights, but you can make the whole trip that way.”

When I pull up to the Love Ride staging area, I show my parking pass and am waved into the secured perimeter. An older biker dude with a long gray beard helps me back my bike into the tight parking space. He can tell I’m a newbie. I join the other volunteers as we set up registration tables, drink strong coffee, and prepare the VIP area for Jay Leno and the other celebs. The fancy riders will be corralled in a separate parking lot, away from the rank-and-file bikers who will fill the entire four lanes of San Fernando Road for blocks. The VIPs will lead the ride, leaving in advance of the ordinary riders by five or ten minutes to make sure they’re not caught up with all the rowdies. Rebecca and I, along with the shop employees, will ride up after everyone else has gone. As the cool damp morning breaks, the day becomes a bucking bronco ride, registering riders, herding VIPs, directing news reporters, working credit card machines that malfunction, trying to keep a smile on my face as the crowds swell and people want T-shirts in different sizes. Jay Leno walks through, escorted by Rebecca’s father and an entourage. Cast members from Sons of Anarchy and Breaking Bad wander, drawing admirers wherever they go. I feel the bass beat from the bandstand through the soles of my motorcycle boots and watch news reporters interviewing attendees.

Eventually, the roar of engines drowns out even the rock-and-roll din—all those bikes fired up at once. The registration area has emptied out. It must be time.

The VIPs have left without my noticing, but the huge crowd along San Fernando Road can probably be heard a mile away as it revs its collective motor. I go to the street to watch. Thousands of motorcycles rumble and start moving slowly, a fat writhing snake of iron and exhaust and noise and leather, a thunderous peloton gaining momentum. The moment feels epic. Goosebumps run up my arms as I watch this choreographed movement of energy and chrome.

Most of the riders are men. Most are on Harleys. A few busty women in heels perch on the “bitch seat.” But a handful of women riders pass. I cheer them on. The ranks of motorcycles, like legions of an opposing army, keep coming and coming.

And then they’re gone. A hush fills the early-morning street, the sudden absence of music and engine growl palpable. My ears are deafened by the quiet. Discarded raffle tickets and liability-release forms litter the asphalt, along with breakfast burrito wrappers, abandoned doughnuts, and used coffee cups. I return to my post to close down registration.

Rebecca approaches as I eat the peanut butter sandwich packed. I want to be sure I’m not shaky from low blood sugar when it’s time to ride.

“I can’t do it,” she shakes her head. “I’m sorry, but riding is going to take more energy than I have.” She arrived onsite at 1:30 last night and will have to see the entire event through, well into this evening. She’s worried she’ll be too tired to safely make the ride home.

My heart sinks. I’m not going to do the ride, even after yesterday’s harrowing trial run. But on the heels of that disappointment is a flicker of relief. I’m not sure which feels worse: that Rebecca’s not going to ride or that I’m glad to be off the hook.

“I’ll go up in the shop truck,” she continues. “You can ride with me if you like. Or you can ride with the employees. They’ll keep an eye on you.”

I think about going in the shop truck and know I’ll be dissatisfied with myself if I take the easy out. I think about riding the motorcycle without Rebecca and I’m scared. I could just take Izzy and head home now. I never needed to go to the lake in the first place. I’ve already done it once.

I talk with Quentin, the salesman who sold me Izzy. He’s been kind and encouraging throughout. But not today.

“Too much testosterone,” he says, shaking his head. “You don’t need to be messing with that. Just go on home.”

His words remind me of being a kid, shooed away by the older boys at the empty swimming pools where we’d ride skateboards. I was usually the only girl. And with his comment, a light switch is thrown and I want to go more than I’ve ever wanted to do anything. I want to prove that I can ride like everyone else.

I line Izzy up with the employees’ bikes, trying to keep my breath steady. Just as we’re about to leave, someone gets a message that there’s already been an accident. A rider went down on the 5 freeway and now the whole tangle of bikes is slowed up. We decide to take an alternative route to the lake, avoiding the main ride entirely.

The seven of us take off in staggered formation. I’m one from the end. When they bank into the turns, they don’t back off the throttle. I try doing the same. (Braking in the arc of a turn on a motorcycle is highly dangerous. You need to gauge your speed and slow, if required, before you enter the turn.) I’m totally getting it. I’m able to keep up.

We fly up the 210 freeway, a living organism made up of seven parts all moving and working together. Watching the back of the rider in front of me, I sense what he’s going to do next by the angle of his head and the way he holds his back. Before the leader even puts on his indicator to move over a lane, the rest of us are following suit, smooth and easy, a communication not of words but of telepathy, action, and grace. As we ride, my fear from the morning evaporates. For the first time I feel a deep sense of belonging. I am part of something bigger than me. I experience magic and elegance and cooperation and joy. I have been a loner most my life. This kind of collective, wordless ballet is mystical. Transcendent. For the forty minutes we ride, I am both in sync with the others yet piercingly focused on my own experience, alive to the moment, and acutely present every inch of the way.

We park the bikes at the lake, and the mysticism vanishes the moment we turn off our ignitions. Everyone scatters. In comparison to the ride, the event itself is a letdown. The precision motorcycle drill team is interesting enough and the band rocks the lakeside. Someone is thrown into the lake naked, and others get drunk. Tattoos are inked onto flesh and guys line up to take pictures with the Budweiser girls. Lines for the bathrooms, for the food trucks, for beer, wind through the dry grass. I help out in the T-shirt booth and let Rebecca know I’m leaving an hour before the event ends. I want to get on the road before these thousands of bikes start roaring home.

I join the southbound 5 and settle into a rhythm. I am focused, alert, and remarkably calm. I feel as if I’ve done something monumental.

At home, Hope, Jarrod, and J ask me about the ride.

“Amazing,” I say, stripping off my sweaty safety gear and climbing into a shower. Later, checking the news online to see how many bikers actually participated, my stomach drops. The site reports that two Love Ride participants died on the 5 freeway on the way up. All that time, people were partying and having fun, buying T-shirts, drinking beer, and two people were dead. I’ve been high-fiving myself over my accomplishment all afternoon, ignorant of this fact.

There’s a bad taste in my mouth and I don’t know how to integrate this information.

I text Rebecca. She’s just learned of the deaths, too. J and Hope are both horrified. I should get rid of the bike immediately. I am appalled that people died today doing something I also did. And yet I can’t deny it. I still feel proud of myself for having done so.

In the days and weeks that will come, I will learn more about the deaths, the first fatalities in the nearly three decades of the Love Ride. The victims were a couple. He split lanes next to a tanker truck, a maneuver that’s highly discouraged. His handlebar hooked onto the rear ladder of the truck, pulling them under. I tell myself that such things can be avoided. I’d never lane-split next to a tanker. I don’t even know how to lane-split.

But the truth is pounded home again. I am doing something lethally dangerous.

• • •

Two weeks later, I’m still working on my skills. After putting the bike down at the gas station, I’ve watched videos online to learn how to pick up a motorcycle. To do so, the person backs up to the bike and wedges her butt just beneath the seat and against the frame. Using the strength of her legs, and holding on to the frame with her hands, she rocks the bike again and again until she gains leverage with the rubber wheels pushing against the ground. Eventually, the momentum catches and she’s able to stand it up. At least that’s how it works in theory. God willing, I’ll never need this information, but it’s best to be prepared.

I’ve been told that Little T is a great ride. Its celebrated twisties and sparse traffic make it an excellent place to practice. I zip over there on a mellow Monday.

Soon, I am climbing a mountainous path that’s more intense than expected. When I come to an overlook, I hit a wall of air. The Santa Ana winds have been channeling air and gusting throughout Los Angeles. They smash into me just where a vista point opens between mountain passes. I decide to postpone learning on Little T. I pull off and gently turn the bike. I’m barely moving, about to start down the hill, when it happens again. That damn slow-motion thing when gravity takes a hold of the bike and won’t give it back. I feel her going. I am going with her. I try to leverage my 115 pounds to right the 550-pound machine. But down we both go. My hands scrape on the gravel. My leg is stuck underneath, bruised. Her mirror is again dinged.

I pull myself out and try to call my son Jarrod on the cell. I know he’s nearby and might be able to help. But my phone can’t get a signal in this mountainous terrain. I’m only a few miles from civilization and yet completely cut off. I see how I’ve overestimated my margin of safety.

One car passes. The driver and passengers crane their necks to look and keep going. I try calling again. No luck.

“Okay, girl,” I say. “It’s just you and me.” I back my butt up to Izzy’s seat and reach behind to grab her frame.

I squat for traction and start lifting with my rear, rocking her gently. My arms scream and my shoulders ache. I get nowhere. I walk away for a moment, breathe, try calling home again.

“We gotta do this,” I tell her. “No one’s coming to rescue us.” I put my back into it, this time getting into a deeper crouch. I rock and I rock and slowly I start feeling momentum. My grip comes loose from her frame and I grab tighter than ever. “Come on, girl. Come on.” I’m yelling now, trying to make this work. And then, it happens. She starts to feel lighter. I can feel her rising. Hallelujah. A little more. Just a little more.

I stand her up and set the kickstand, my arms shaking, my heart thundering. I did it. I picked up a fucking motorcycle. Five hundred and fifty pounds of iron.

The next day, my body will be screaming. My back. My butt. My hamstrings. My quads. Every cell has strained to lift this thing. The aches will eventually pass, but the triumph will be mine.

• • •

My son Jarrod takes the Rider’s Edge class and gets his license. Now both my boys and I ride. He graduated college last spring and is living at home again, working at a gourmet café while he searches for a grown-up job. Some days I let him take Izzy to work. Occasionally, he calls as the workday is winding down. “Can I take her to Angeles Crest?”

Angeles Crest Highway is a test piece where fearless young riders in leather racing suits lean sport bikes almost horizontal into curves and record their exploits with Go-Pro cameras clamped onto handlebars or helmets. Similar to Little T, it’s a mountain road with twisties and gravel, sometimes the road just a gap between boulders. The Crest is out of my league. Besides, he’s younger and braver. I say yes because he asks only to go on weekdays when it’s less traveled and not as crazy as on a weekend.

I’m at home on a Thursday afternoon when there’s a commotion at the front door. It’s Jarrod, wearing motorcycle gear, covered in dirt. He’s crying. “I’m sorry,” he says, taking off his helmet. “I’m so sorry.”

I’m confused. “What?”

“I had an accident. I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

My heart starts pounding. “Hurt who? Are you okay?”

I get him to sit. Give him water. Strip off his safety gear. The full-face helmet has a horrific scrape from the face shield all the way to the back. His leather jacket is shredded clear through to the armored exoskeleton. He’s shaking.

“I was on the Crest. A car. It cut in front of me. The road . . .” he gestures. “Two lanes down to one. I tried to stop. I tried. To brake. There was gravel.”

My stomach knots.

He kicks off his shoes; his ankles are bloody. There’s dirt in his hair, in his shirt, in his pants. Sand and gravel fall all over the hardwood floor as I assess his injuries. He had shoulder surgery a few months earlier but thankfully he went down on the other side. He’s mostly okay. I clean him up.

“It’s just cosmetic,” he keeps trying to tell me about the damage to Izzy. “I didn’t mean to hurt her.”

“I don’t even care about the bike!” I snap. “I’m just so grateful you’re okay.”

Eventually, we go to the driveway to assess the damage. Cosmetic doesn’t accurately describe what I see.

One side is scoured down to the metal. The mirrors are broken, the taillight smashed, the “heavy breather” exhaust torn off the frame. I call Rebecca and she says she’ll send a truck tomorrow to collect the bike. I draw an Epsom salts bath for Jarrod. Why did I let him take the bike? Why did I say he could go to the Crest?

In the coming days I’ll talk with the insurance adjuster, with Tom, the head of service at the shop, and do some serious soul-searching. My son could have been killed. Or it could have been me on the bike. And though I’m relieved Jarrod is okay, another fact hits home.

My Izzy is destroyed.

Tom was amazed Jarrod was even able to ride her home. Her frame is bent. The brace that holds the fork in place was torn loose in the accident, thereby tweaking the fork. I choke up on the phone when the insurance adjuster gives me the news.

Realizing I’m a friend of the owners, the insurance adjuster scrambles to fix the problem. Eventually, he offers to have Izzy repaired if I’ll make up the difference between what the insurance policy will pay and the cost to fix her. That’s an extra $2,800 even when Rebecca and Tom agree to charge me only wholesale.

“I know you loved her,” Rebecca says, “but you’ll always be worrying if something from this accident has made her unsafe. Motorcycling is dangerous even when your equipment is in top-notch repair. You don’t want to be harboring doubt on the road.”

Everybody is agreed: I should let my Izzy go to the recycling bin.

I know that if Jarrod had been hurt, I wouldn’t be concerned in the least about the bike. But Jarrod is okay and I am an experiencing a loss that cuts to the core. I feel ridiculous. I’m this upset over a motorcycle?

I’m aware that I sound as if I’m oblivious to the hazards. Why would anyone do this? I’ve just recounted two deaths and a serious accident involving my son, all of which occurred within in quick succession, each in close proximity to me.

Cheryl Strayed, the Pacific Crest Trail hiker, speaks of risk taking in general. “You say, ‘I’m going to do this thing,’ and then everyone is telling you the horror stories: about the person who got hurt, who got murdered or whatever. It’s far, far more dangerous to get in our cars to drive across town to pick up the kids from school. But people aren’t going to tell you about every accident they’ve ever heard about every time you get in your car.”

I try to put her words into perspective, but I know that when I’ve driven across town to pick up kids from school, I’ve done so out of necessity. There is no necessity to put my life on the line on a motorcycle. There is no reason I need to replace Izzy.

Except that I do.

I walk into the shop for the first time since the accident and Quentin enfolds me in a hug. The guys there, they get it. I mourn Izzy beyond reason and explanation. This is the grief that tips the balance. I have lost my father and am not done lamenting his passing. I have just begun to see the depths of unhappiness I have sunk to in my increasingly desolate marriage. Grief accretes. With the demise of Izzy, I feel the preciousness of all that I have lost, a sharp thrust of absence and sorrow.

I gather myself up and return home in my car, reduced to four-wheel status for the foreseeable future. Izzy, with her solo seat, with her badass matte-black self, had given me something I desperately needed: myself. But now she is gone.