Addicted to Speed

I got my first ticket as a kid of eleven. I had a bicycle fitted out with a lawnmower engine, and about the first time I rode it more than a block from home, a cop made a U-turn on a busy street, hit his lights, and started bearing down on me.

“Run!” my friends yelled. I probably would have just sat there and waited for the LEO to arrive, but when I heard that word I gunned it and took off, cutting through alleys and back yards and working my knowledge of the neighborhood to compensate for my horsepower disadvantage as the cruiser shot up and down side streets trying to cut me off.

I’ve never done it since, but I’ve got to say there’s a certain thrill in trying to elude a police officer in hot pursuit.

I almost made it, too, when I ducked into a friend’s open garage and pulled the door down behind he, but Officer Obie saw me and, to say the least, he came out of that cruiser so angry you’d have thought I’d robbed a bank and was shooting over my shoulder as he tried to bring me to justice. In the end I was written up for riding an unregistered motor vehicle and evading a law enforcement officer.

I’ve observed that LEOs have virtually no sense of humor when we stop to have a discussion of my driving habits. I remember I had to go to court with my dad, though I don’t remember what the sentence was. What could they do? I was eleven! Take away my license?

No, actually, that would have to wait until my sixteenth birthday when I got a license in the morning and promptly lost it that very afternoon when I got busted for going fifty in my parents Chrysler in front of the cute girl’s house a few blocks over. That would be fifty in a twenty-five. Pop! My second ticket, back in court with my dad, and I had to wait another six months before I could drive again. You’d think I would have learned.

But not, because like just about every motorcyclist I hang with, I’m addicted to speed. I love going fast. If motorcycles didn’t go fast and corner like the best roller-coaster I’ve ever ridden, I’d give them up and take up a hobby like model railroading. But they do go fast and there’s nothing I love more than sitting on top of one, tucking in low behind the fairing while I atomize about thirty dollars worth of rear tire behind me in a mad burst of acceleration, and—this especially—leaning into a turn fast enough to put the bike over at an angle that seems to defy physics and certainly common sense.

How fast? Well, a capable modern sport bike on a straight, open county road with no traffic just starts to feel planted and exciting at about a buck twenty. My bike, considered rather sedate by superbike standards, has a top speed of 155. I've never ridden it that fast. It will go from zero to sixty in a little over three seconds, again, rather slow by superbike standards but faster than virtually any car on the road, no matter how much you pay for it.

Corner speeds vary depending on the corner, of course. In tight twisties I can work the tires out to near the edge of their tread at speeds as low as maybe forty. Big sweepers get fun somewhere between 80 and 100. These numbers seem to indicate shocking irresponsibility to non-riders, but sitting around the campfire with my riding buddies, I might say something like I crossed the Klamath Marsh road at about a hundred and elicit little more than vague grunts of acknowledgement.

All of the above might suggest that I’m a cocky and irresponsible rider, but I try not to be. Most of the miles I ride are at a moderate touring pace, and I try to always keep something in reserve in case I run into the bit of stray gravel in a turn. In traffic I’m so defensive people begin to think I have a complex, and in wet conditions I ride so slow I’m in danger of being rear-ended by a street sweeper. And I know when I’m over my head, which I always am when I get with a bunch of the really fast guys. I’m happy to let them ride on ahead.

In fact, I’m basically a chicken, which is a big part of the reason I hope to be celebrating my 60th birthday in a few months. Still, in the end, I love motorcycles mostly because I’ve never outgrown my love of speed. If I had to ride a cruiser, I’d quit riding.

And all the guys I ride with—those conscientious, upstanding citizens; taxpayers and church-goers; doctors and lawyers, LEOs themselves; teachers and preachers and accountants; sensible, responsible individuals every one of them—they’re addicted to speed, too. We love to complain about inexperienced kids who ride way over their limit and give us a bad name with John Q. Public. In the end, if we encounter one on the road, though, we see if we can take him. We can’t help ourselves.

May we all live so long as to one day be able to talk about how we finally outgrew it. In the meantime, the most fun I can have in a single day usually involves going fast on two wheels.