So, here's an interesting question: Is motorcycling in your blood? In other words, are some folks just born with the yen for riding around on two wheels, while others are mystified by the attraction? A few years ago, I found a fantastic picture of my mother as a baby in the late 1930's sitting in front of her dad on a motorcycle on a farm in South Dakota. I love this picture for so many reasons, but mostly because it is so evocative of the American farming midwest. The unpaved dirt road, the huge old Harley with the giant kickstand, my grandpa in his work clothes and my mom perched in front of him. And I can imagine my grandmother yelling to him, "Vern, get that child off that bike!" And, him giving her a chuckle and telling her not to worry. I don't know much else about whether she went for rides as a kid or if that was a one time occurrence. But it made also me think, "Aha! I am from motorcycling stock!"
As for my motorcycling history, I have a distant memory of a ride one summer night in the Catskills on the back of my uncle's bike as a kid, but other than that motorcycles weren't really part of my life. The bug didn't bite until I lived in Japan where I bought a small bike, not much bigger than a scooter, but I LOVED it. I was hooked and not long after I came back to the US, I got a motorcycle license.
My mom is nearly 80 now and she loves to go for rides in our sidecar. And every time I see her with that big grin on her face as we get her helmeted up and help her into the rig, I think about this photo and that day when the camera caught a fleeting moment on a dusty, hot farm in the midwest. And, I like to think that this love for the road and the ride, was always there, in my blood, just waiting to emerge.
