full speed and pagan
I had to be on campus again this morning (late orientation, bleah), and on the way back home was overtaken on the freeway by three motorbikes, those shiny insectoid ones with the high snarling engine note, their riders all in black and heraldic colours, with armoured knees and elbows. I changed lanes to let them past, and watched them recede into the distance with a quite distinct feeling of amused pleasure. Ah, motorbikes. I can feel a random analysis coming on.
I've said before that the only thing I actually miss about the Bastard Ex-Boyfriend From Hell is his motorbike, and the sheer pleasure of speed is certainly apart of the motorbike appeal - a powerful engine coupled with the immediacy of the experience, nothing to separate you from the world whipping past. It's also true that motorbikes exude an aura of danger, not just because of the mystique of the biker, but because they're inherently dangerous, impractical and overpowered. You're more likely to kill yourself horribly on a motorbike than you are in a car, and that fact embeds itself into the idea of a bike with equal parts of fascination and slight unease. A bike is, in itself, a mild twos-up to the Establishment, an assertion of independence, danger and slightly ridiculous leather outfits.
But there's also something about a group of motorcycles together, a sort of visceral thrill that's not entirely about the Hell's Angels associations. Several bikes together has a faint gang resonance, an idea of a communal experience of speed which is isolated against the safer travel choices of the rest of the world. It's faintly threatening even if they're not sporting gang tattoos - threatening, I think, in the same way that the classic X-Files moment of a half-dozen identical black limos screeching to a stop outside the Forbidden Government Secret Installation can be1. Groups of bikers don't just evoke biker gangs, but presidential cavalcades, post-apocalyptic road pirates, and Judge Dredd. It's about power, of course, bikes are always about power, but in this case it's organised, unknown power about which you end up feeling slightly paranoid.
All of which being said, I'm not really claiming to stand weak-kneed at the side of the road while a bike gang sweeps past. The image is just too clichéd, too obvious: I think I end up enjoying it as I do many things, ironically, complicit for the moment in the biker's assumption of power and rebellion, but refusing to believe they could actually mean it seriously.
1 The last X-Files episode I watched guest starred, somewhat unexpectedly, Giovanni Ribisi and Jack Black. Giovanni Ribisi is a scary-good actor when he puts his mind to it, his turn as the slightly retarded teen-aged psychopath was chilling. Younger Leonardo di Caprio, eat your heart out. And what is it with actors with Italian names playing retarded characters, anyway? some kind of union?
I've said before that the only thing I actually miss about the Bastard Ex-Boyfriend From Hell is his motorbike, and the sheer pleasure of speed is certainly apart of the motorbike appeal - a powerful engine coupled with the immediacy of the experience, nothing to separate you from the world whipping past. It's also true that motorbikes exude an aura of danger, not just because of the mystique of the biker, but because they're inherently dangerous, impractical and overpowered. You're more likely to kill yourself horribly on a motorbike than you are in a car, and that fact embeds itself into the idea of a bike with equal parts of fascination and slight unease. A bike is, in itself, a mild twos-up to the Establishment, an assertion of independence, danger and slightly ridiculous leather outfits.
But there's also something about a group of motorcycles together, a sort of visceral thrill that's not entirely about the Hell's Angels associations. Several bikes together has a faint gang resonance, an idea of a communal experience of speed which is isolated against the safer travel choices of the rest of the world. It's faintly threatening even if they're not sporting gang tattoos - threatening, I think, in the same way that the classic X-Files moment of a half-dozen identical black limos screeching to a stop outside the Forbidden Government Secret Installation can be1. Groups of bikers don't just evoke biker gangs, but presidential cavalcades, post-apocalyptic road pirates, and Judge Dredd. It's about power, of course, bikes are always about power, but in this case it's organised, unknown power about which you end up feeling slightly paranoid.
All of which being said, I'm not really claiming to stand weak-kneed at the side of the road while a bike gang sweeps past. The image is just too clichéd, too obvious: I think I end up enjoying it as I do many things, ironically, complicit for the moment in the biker's assumption of power and rebellion, but refusing to believe they could actually mean it seriously.
1 The last X-Files episode I watched guest starred, somewhat unexpectedly, Giovanni Ribisi and Jack Black. Giovanni Ribisi is a scary-good actor when he puts his mind to it, his turn as the slightly retarded teen-aged psychopath was chilling. Younger Leonardo di Caprio, eat your heart out. And what is it with actors with Italian names playing retarded characters, anyway? some kind of union?