Culture

I enter the bar. Every head swivels to check me out. They are silently watching me walk in. TVs tuned to football and hunting shows. As I watch an elephant is shot, falling to the ground like the world trade center. I hoist my helmet onto the bar and everyone relaxes, smiling at me. “Hey, how’s the ride today?” Biking stories start to fly, I hear about injuries, bike recommendations (any Harley), hunting stories. I’m part of the group (do I want to be?) as never before. I order my burger and Diet Coke and the group calms down.

I pull the bike into the hardware store parking lot and this big hairy biker pulls up behind me, “doin some wrenchin?” Oh sure I was wrenching. I was doing some yard work and didn’t want to drive the car to get some grass seed. I hire guys to do my wrenching. Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance my butt. I didn’t want to get greasy. I checked my oil once and my hands got dirty, who needs that? I tried to put on a windshield one afternoon. Took me hours to figure out I couldn’t figure it out.

Then there is the biker greeting. As you drive by a biker going the other way, you’re supposed to take your left hand off the handgrip and hold it extended at about knee level as they pass, two fingers extended in the peace sign. I haven’t been able to take my hand off the handlebar, so I hope they can see me nod at least, acknowledging their rebellion.


I’m now a part of a serious fraternity. Bikers are a band of brothers no matter what your gender. There are implied values among bikers, manly independence the most important. You are a rebel leaving behind the ordinary, that gives the right to join this group. Hell’s Angels, Sons of Anarchy and me.

hazards

My commute through rural roads had lots of wildlife along the route. In the first couple of trips, I met the Sandhill Crane trio who were always present in the same spot, mostly at the side of the road, but once directly in my lane arranged as neatly as three 5 foot tall traffic cones. I used my new braking skills to come smoothly to a stop before hitting anything. The tailgating truck behind me also managed to miss hitting anything, but I bet his pants were dry as he passed us.

A flock of turkeys were also nearly always present at a curve on Beaver Lake Road. The speed limit at that spot was 25 mph and I had enough warning to stop on the several occasions that they chose to stand in the middle of the road, pecking at the asphalt. There were about twenty of them, milling about without fear of my passage. I would slalom through them if they insisted. Rabbits were everywhere and I’m sure there is rabbit DNA on my front tire from a near miss. I can see the benefit of a louder machine as the bunnies and chipmunks were pretty oblivious until it was nearly too late. They seemed as startled as I was to find themselves dodging my tires.

Bees are a hazard I hadn’t contemplated until one got stuck down my jacket collar. I wonder if they might be a greater hazard than deer that kill so many cyclists. Does anyone check for bee stings on dead bikers? It’s easy to find evidence of a deer strike at an accident scene, but not so easy to find a bee sting. I’ll have to research that. Fortunately I was just coming to a stop when I got stung, using my clutch hand to grab that kamikaze out of my collar. I stalled the bike, but didn’t drop it.

The morning weather report became my best friend. I gauged the speed of the green and yellow patches on the radar, timing my chances of rain in the next eight hours. One thing the class had taught me was that rain was my enemy, able to kill at a moment’s notice. Only once did I get rained on, and I was surprised to learn how painful rain can be. I had only one exposed patch of skin on my neck, the rest of me covered with gear, and as I sped through a sprinkle at 55 mph, that patch was shot with needles of rain no matter what position I held my head. I expected to see a bloody neck in the mirror, but even with all that pain, I was unscathed.

My new work nickname was “Weather Hag”. If my bike was in the parking lot, no rain was forecast. If I brought my car, foul weather was acoming.

Fog was another hazard I wasn’t prepared for. My faceshield became opaque with mist and I had no windshield wiper to clean it off. I couldn’t see a darn thing. How long did it take to figure out I could just use my hand to wipe off the drops? Quite a while. And I also had to take a hand off the handgrip to do it.

Another faceshield hazard I hadn’t anticipated was the sneeze. I couldn’t clean that off with my hand that’s for sure. I’d brought glass cleaner to work to clean off mosquitoes, but that morning I cleaned both sides.

riding to work

During the following week, I had a couple of opportunities to practice and by the weekend I was ready to try a dry run on the route I had chosen to commute to work. I could wind through several lakeside neighborhoods and past farms and fields in the twenty mile trip to work. There were a couple of spots with a 55 mph speed limit and those were my biggest trouble spots. I made it up to 45 on those dry runs. I was a little scared when I was passed in one segment, then hugely embarrassed when the vehicle didn’t complete the pass, just kept up with me in the left lane. I looked over at the passenger to see what was up and when I noted the direction of his gaze toward my bosom, was horrified to see that without a bra I might as well have been wearing a wet T shirt. I made a mental note to wear more than that forever after.

The route was beautiful and curvy with great scenery I’d missed out on commuting by freeway. All I saw though was asphalt. I don’t think I moved my head from straight forward. I know every bump and rut in that asphalt, but don’t ask me what’s on either side. I think it’s a myth that motorcyclists have a better view, all I ever saw was the road as I concentrated on avoiding what ever was out to kill me next.

Monday morning I was on the bike an hour before the office opened. The air was liquid summer, shimmering, golden and heart stopping with possibility. I pushed the bike to the end of the driveway and started up. Concentrating hard, I wobbled down the driveway apron and into the street. I made it down the street to the stop sign and as I put my left foot down to balance the bike to stop, my pantleg caught the foot peg and stopped my foot about an inch shy of road. I kicked free and kept the bike upright. After that I tied my pantlegs with shoelaces. By the time I made it to work, my hands were cramped from hanging on for dear life, and my legs were exhausted from clamping my thighs to the gas tank.

first range day.

The next class night was about the same scenario, though we toured the dealership store before starting the reading for the evening. Since I had to buy a helmet, that worked out ok. We’d learned in my reading that helmet fit and color would contribute to my safety, bright colored helmets would make me more visible to other motorists. The choices of helmet color at the dealership included black. The other options were full face, ¾ helmets with visors or German half helmets. I tried on a full face helmet and felt like I was suffocating. My head was completely encased in multiple layers of padding, metal and other stuff. I looked like a Weeble as my head wobbled under the weight of that edifice. And I couldn’t breathe with the hatch closed. I ripped it off immediately. That one wouldn’t work, that’s for sure. That left a visored helmet or the Storm trooper model. I was pretty sure I wanted my image on a motorcycle to be somewhat softer than the nazi look, so I spent a while fitting my midget head into the right size ¾ helmet. And I still looked like Rick Moranis as Dark Helmet in that one. A hundred and fifty dollars later, I proudly carried my helmet up to class. We’d had to bring our safety equipment for approval, so I was pleased to see that the boys had similar gear.

Saturday brought the first day of training on a bike on the range. At 8am it was hot and sunny, 80 degrees at the start, climbing into the 90s by noon. My black helmet heated up like a nuclear reactor and having to wear gloves, boots, long sleeves and long pants I soon dripped with sweat.

I caught my breath seeing the line of motorcycles waiting for their victims. I couldn’t believe I was going to go through with this. I approached a bike, hardly hearing the instructors as they talked us through the first exercise. And that exercise was to push the bike around the course. Push it. Sit on it and push it with your feet. A 400 lb bike. The first exercise and I was exhausted. I’m not sure what the purpose of that was, but it served to turn me into a sweaty whining old woman. When we finally got to turn on the bikes, I no longer had any strength left.

The next exercise was to let out and pull in the clutch while we rolled back and forth side to side across the range. Let out, pull in. move a couple of feet. Let out pull in. move a little. At each end of the length, push the bike around to face the way you’ve come and do it again. Left hand half out, pull in. Hundreds of times. Over and over. Until my clutch hand got so tired and weak I was just letting it out and going. No one had warned me I would be working the clutch more than if I’d driven across the country. In an hour. My hand started to swell immediately.

Fortunately we got a rest after a while. I started soaking my clutch hand in the communal cooler full of ice and water. I noticed the boys shaking their clutch hands as well. I wasn’t alone in feeling the pain, but I was the only one with my hand in the cooler. As I sat in the shade, I caught a glimpse of my reflection in my shiny black helmet. Hair wet and helmet-like with sweat. Sweat dripping into my eyes, soaking my tshirt, my underwear, my socks, and squishing in my boots. I tried to discreetly unstick my underwear from my nooks and crannies, but there is no easy way to do it. The boys looked away, doing some adjustments of their own. We walked around like cowboys trying to dry off.