A Motorcycle in a Pandemic
When motorcycle riders explain their love for the way they choose to get around, the most common explanation is the feeling of freedom. I agree with this sentiment - maybe not to the degree it’s marketed in Harley-Davidson advertisements, but the feeling is definitely there.
The shutdown in New York City has given more tangible weight to that sensation. I picked up my motorcycle from my parents’ place in April, when I took an extraordinarily cautious trip home for a burial. Getting it back to Manhattan was a chore, but once it was here, it became a game-changer. I really can’t express how much that “freedom” provided some respite from the soul-crushing strain the combined fallout of this pandemic has placed on my mental wellbeing.
Since my full-time contract employment ended at the onset of social restrictions, I’ve been staying afloat through unemployment insurance, freelance work, and weekend shifts as a concierge/doorman at a high-end residence in Soho. The job falls under a security function, and is thus deemed “essential.” You’re unable to claim unemployment benefits if you’ve declined any offer of work, so against my best interests, I couldn’t turn down those two overnight shifts each week.
It’s hard to explain how dangerous everything felt here in mid-April, when NYC residents were dying at a rate of over 500 a day. Reduced train schedules and cancelled express runs from so many operators being out sick meant a long wait added to the front end of what was already a 50-minute commute for me under normal circumstances. Decreased policing and a fear of shelters often meant I shared a subway car with nine or ten homeless people sprawled across benches amidst their hoarded belongings. And on my return trips in the morning, reduced trains meant the essential employees heading in to work filled trains far more densely than distancing guidelines would allow for. About the time I was beginning my brief visit to Pennsylvania, the city announced all trains would be stopping overnight for cleaning, and my local line would be ending two miles short of my stop, which would have required me to walk an additional 10 minutes each way to a parallel line.
Back in the city, with some Italian neighbors
Luckily, Graziella, my lovely 2016 Moto Guzzi V7ii Racer, returned to the streets of Inwood just in time. Thanks to the ghostly empty avenues (being able to see 6 traffic lights ahead of you on the West Side Highway without a single car in view is truly a surreal experience), my commute went from an hour and 10 minutes to a contactless 25. Above ground, my spirits were lifted by the fresh air, no longer stifled by the filter of a surgical mask . The Henry Hudson Parkway, covering about half my ride, is a terrible, terrible road for motorcycles. The elevated portions are punctuated with mangled expansion joints, the ground portions by buckled asphalt that forms bumps large enough to lift me several inches off my seat and slip my transmission. But I don’t care. The freedom of movement, the invigoration of velocity, and the rejuvenation of open, cleaner air give me that weekly injection of positivity I need to keep going amidst all of this.
As much of a boon to my sanity as that bike has been, it’s interesting to consider whether I’d be here in this place without it. My friend who helped me land the job that brought me here was the same one who drove me to pick up my first motorcycle (and followed me, terrified, back home), and Manhattan marked the midway point of my first real motorcycle trip, though the city only represented a small component of those memories.
“But a motorcycle is a master inanimate marketer. It sells you on an adventure, and immediately offers you the tools to complete it.”
The real benefit, I think, came from the realignment of my mindset. I was a car guy as a kid, but somewhere in my mid-20’s my eyes started to wander (aided, perhaps, by a friend who had recently earned his M license, as well as a certain motorcycle-themed TV show). After I was up and running and had a few miles underneath my tires, the machine started to pull me in new directions, going places just to go, to see what was there, and take in the journey. There was no good reason to take a pair of 250cc Kawasakis out to Montauk and back (mine suffering a fatal injury at the terminus), nor add hundreds of unnecessary miles on the back of a 1200cc BMW during a family trip to Arizona. But a motorcycle is a master inanimate marketer. It sells you on an adventure, and immediately offers you the tools to complete it.
While a part of me had wanted to live in New York City for some time, I had become a bit complacent in Hershey, slowly becoming accustomed to the security and familiarity of being there to the point of feeling hesitant, even fearful of moving on. Motorcycling was a perfect tool to coax me back out of that place, always encouraging me to see more and go more places, simply for the sake of doing it. So as Governor Cuomo announced today that NYC is likely to begin its phased reopening soon, I have to acknowledge: my motorcycle is the only thing that has kept me sane during these crazy times in this crazy place - but it might be the reason I’m here in the first place.