September 2012 - CityBike

melissa holbrook
PIERSON
In 1545, Francis I of France sent down
an order for dealing with the dissident
Waldensians, who had joined the
Protestants: Show no pity. Soldiers swept
through Mérindol and Cabrieres in a storm
of death, massacring hundreds, perhaps
thousands, including one young man who
may have been the first ever to be executed
by firing squad for reasons of ideology. The
Pope was well pleased.
We are a helpless bunch, we humans,
to avoid
drawing
lines
around our
orthodoxies
(just ask
Wikipedia,
which
responds with a modest 24,045 entries
when asked to search on “Massacre of . .
.”). Inside, outside; adhere to the prevailing
faith or find a line of guns staring you in the
face, the last sight you ever see.
Motorcyclists have one religion, but
increasingly many denominations. We are
an inclusive lot, until we find ourselves
mentally executing those who choose to
ride under a different ensign. Or, at the
least, secretly, smugly believing we have
found the One True Way—ours.
Funny, though: that’s just what all the
others think too.
In what I have come to refer to as my first
life as a motorcyclist, I rode a Moto Guzzi.
The choice was apparently arbitrary—
blindfolded, spun around twice, I pinned
the tail on the proper end of that donkey—
but revealed itself in due time as the only
possible church for the likes of me. We were
a ragtag crowd that apparently professed
religion in its original sense, which derives
from the Latin religare, to “bind to.” The
word may also be related to the root of rely,
to “rally to, fall back
on.” I for one felt bound
together to my mates
at rallies, when I often
had to fall back on their
superior knowledge
of what to do with my
bike when it decided
not to run.
It was strange, then, to find myself a
member of a less ecumenical sect in my
second, post-hiatus motorcycling life.
My choice for reentry was a K75, and
with it I was the recipient of the same
boundless generosity I had come to accept
as motorcycling’s peculiar state of grace:
miracles performed on a daily basis.
These folks too, like the Guzzisti, could
laugh at themselves; humor is the only
inoculation against sanctimony, one of the
deadliest diseases known to man. “What’s
the cheapest part on a BMW?” I was
soberly asked. Let’s see. Now my engine
had not two
Motorcyclists have one
religion, but increasingly
many denominations.
Last Century’s Tire Change Prices
but three
cylinders,
so that
certainly
wouldn’t
be it, nor
could
the
item be that strange thing—a fuel
pump, I believe it was—that had
done away with the carburetors I
had proudly learned always to shut off
(and occasionally forget to turn back
on). “No, the rider!” Guffaws. I laughed
too, sort of. Nonetheless, this sign of
irreverence was a relief.
Not so the monumental national rally
I attended that year in Johnson City,
Tennessee. The thousands upon thousands
of roundel-bearing bikes, colorful and
clean, had been apparently lined up using
a theodolite. I noticed many people wore
something pinned to the caps that also
bore the Bavarian logo. You’re kidding:
Name badges? With rank?
That night there was something called an
Ambassadors Dinner, something most of
us couldn’t get into. I was beginning to
realize that with BMW I had to learn not
only what was going on with the working
parts of a machine more complicated than
I had previously known; I also needed to
attend to hierarchy, in the way I had sought
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to decipher who was allowed to stand
where, based on stole, mitre, chasuble, in
the cathedral of St. Patrick’s when I briefly
pretended I was Catholic in order to sing in
the choir. I didn’t last long there, either.
The national club magazine
arrives, a glossy affair
filled with ads
for products
aimed at the
adventurer
with an itch
to ride
Mongolia
with thousand-dollar aluminum
hard bags. Each turn of the page
causes a lowering of my spirits, as I
realize I have neglected to count my
miles toward the hope of a hundredthousand-mile
award received amid
much celebration for elevation to a yet
more exclusive echelon. I feel chastened
for not owning any branded outerwear. I
don’t fit in.
And then I realize my true heresy: I don’t
want to fit in; I only feel at home with
misfits, which does not describe my new
friends, confident boosters of the marque.
A marque whose Munich headquarters
(every bit as glossy as that magazine,
but also the thrilling stage for two of
the most subversive YouTube minutes
you’ll ever see, watching stunt champion
Chris Pfeiffer thumb his nose at Teutonic
propriety) decrees what paint its dealers
may use in their showrooms of precisely
regulated size. A marque whose chartered
clubs have of late been ordered to get busy
redesigning their logos to conform to
brand identity guidelines.
My allergy to organized religion—
extremely well organized in BMW’s case,
the Vatican for vehicles—starts acting
up. I realize that the uprising of inner
rebelliousness makes me something of an
ungrateful cur, biting the hand that has
fed me so well. There are diehard BMW
believers who would answer my call for
assistance any time of day or night; then
there is the truth that I know happiness in
every moment with my R1150R from the
one in which I throw open the garage door
to the one when
I carefully back it
in, unnumbered
new miles on the
clock. Suddenly
I recall the
scene from a
movie that has
haunted me from
childhood.
They had decided she was a witch. A
heretic. Now a gleeful crowd of villagers
heaps rock
after rock on the
board,
under
the slow
weight
of which
her bones
begin to
crack,
her cries
gradually
die to
moans. Then
silence.
Not sure if burning at
the stake might be better?
I know a rider who waves at
every motorcyclist who passes,
without exception; in fact, he
flashes the peace sign. If this
doesn’t call forth a response,
though, he simply lowers the index
finger. Me, I take mental bets upon
approach: Is this one going to
wave in return? How about this
one? There are categories,
alas, with odds no better
than 20 to one.
Last week I was late
again, running two boys
in the car to day camp. I was
already half a mile past the fellow in black,
including leather vest, walking along
the shoulder when I realized he was also
carrying a beanie helmet, and a gas can. I
couldn’t stop and turn around now or the
boys would miss the bus that was about to
leave on a field trip; besides, I reasoned, his
bike had to be just beyond the next bend.
That must be why he was walking, not
standing, thumb out. The day promised
to be a hot one, and even though his
destination was close I felt a terrible pang;
the air was more stifling by the minute.
He had not asked for help, but as a fellow
parishioner I was bound by vows to give it.
Instead I imagined how it might have gone,
after I pulled over and opened the door. I
thought that I would tell him that I rode
BMW. No, Guzzi. Wait. Which?
When the speculative conversation had
taken me two miles farther and still no
bike, the question vanished. There was only
true dismay and then, another half mile
ahead, a black cruiser waiting patiently on
its sidestand, as it had for far too long. Then
I knew. I might have been a sinner, but I
was not a heretic to the true religion. There
would have been only one thing to say.
“Hop in. I’m a rider too.”
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September 2012 | 26 | CityBike.com
September 2012 | 27 | CityBike.com