Sex Machine

When I was 16 living in Italy, I rode into a climbing hairpin turn much too fast. My friend Lorenzo was on the back (the bike belonged to him), and I was driving. It was a beautiful black BMW R100RS, and dumping that bike was not an option. I had to just do it: Go with the momentum and trust it. When we came out of that curve, it was the most exhilarating feeling I had ever had. Maybe that’s what initially got me hooked on super-bikes; they are made for that style of riding. Laid back and cruising is just not what I like.

There’s an aura and mystique surrounding motorcycles, whether it is off-road or flying down the highway or just standing still. The motorcycle is the mechanical incarnation of sex. Hear its thundering engine, feel the surging power and the motorcycle comes alive: a machine which, on its own, can make palms sweaty, knees tremble.

Catch sight of one peeling down the highway in its various metallic shapes and forms--the gunning hog, the macho chopper, the gleaming tour bike, the banged-up motocross cycle or a black BMW R100RS--and the motorcycle is both sex and America, all in one, the right to choose a path beyond what society says, a blending of freedom, expression and individuality as a car could only dream of becoming. It should come as no surprise that “The Art of the Motorcycle,” which opened at the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York last June, became the most successful and wildly attended show in the museum’s history.

Matthew Drutt clearly understands the instinctual lure of a bike. The motorcycle is “one of the most powerful icons of modern culture,” he writes in “Motorcycle Mania,” a substantial catalog of photos and essays published for the show’s opening. Loaded with juicy photos of these fantastic machines, “Motorcycle Mania” features 14 essays and highlights different aspects of the motorcycle, ranging from its evolution to the type of clothing worn to the type of person most likely to ride a bike. “Motorcycle Mania” helps explain the sweaty palms, the trembling knees, the blind lust these powerful machines evoke.

Sometimes, it’s the company. Riding a motorcycle provides a sense of community and belonging, as evidenced by the Hells Angels and other motorcycle clubs. Sometimes it’s for solitude. “If motorcycling was a family affair, Harleys would have four doors,” one biker at Sturgis remarked.

Sturgis is a large, infamous bike rally held every year in South Dakota; people from all over the country attend. To some it might be their first real initiation into the hard-core world of bikes; to others it is more like a family reunion; to all, Sturgis is an affirmation of being and of their love affairs with the motorcycle. No longer do just Harleys attend these rallies but bikes of all styles and makes and riders from all backgrounds. They swarm the neighboring towns, massing at rest areas, parking their bikes in seemingly endless lines of gleaming metal, flash and power. The sound of all these machines, ranging from the deep throaty growl of a Harley Knucklehead to the high-pitched scream of a Honda VFR 1100 cc, is music, a symphony of hammering pistons and roaring throttles.

I often have heard people say: “Yeah, I’d ride a bike but I like to speed too much and would probably kill myself.” It takes an edge, a confidence to ride a bike. Super-bike racers rage in a state of semi-denial; otherwise they couldn’t face a tight curve or blast their way through a swarm of bikes at speeds in excess of 160 mph. It’s craving a bikes’ power, knowing the danger and overcoming a fear of mortality that separates rider from wannabe.

Bikes were once thought of as foolish modes of transportation, just as women were once thought of as vital yet somewhat foolish participants in the thinking world. Yet as our attitudes toward femininity have changed over the years, so have our attitudes toward the motorcycle. Its evolution has not been merely a dictate of function; it also reflects changes in fashion. The harder, more capable and powerful bodies of the super-bike mimic those of women found in the world of fashion. Only the longer the motorcycle is around, the sexier it becomes.

Many products are sold using sex, yet the motorcycle can sell itself because it is sex. It is a machine which with its sleek lines, lets the imagination run wild. Witness bad-boy Brit bike magazines that run photo spreads with boys in bed nude with their 916s or Monsters.

So I say, let the motorcycle permeate mainstream culture and the black leather jacket find its place in the ranks of high fashion: There are still more self-proclaimed hard-core bird-watchers in the United States than there are motorcyclists. More’s the pity.

Pick up “Motorcycle Mania” and feel its glistening sumptuous format, its sensuous thick glossy pages. Even if you don’t own a bike, this book will give you a boost of octane, a taste of what you’re missing. But don’t let it stop there.