Harley and Me (5 page)

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.”