At the Motorcycle Show, a Dream of a Ride

You want to know what a cool dad is?

A cool dad is a grown man who will spring your 9-year-old self from school early on a Friday so you can be the first one at a motorcycle show. With girls in skin-tight thingies and boots handing out stuff. With these dudes going up a ramp on the cycle and doing back flips, man, I'm not kidding, just like at the X Games.

HAHAHAHAHA! Wonder what those pikers are doing in math class?

"It's boys' night out," said David Shingler, a lineman for Dominion Virginia Power at the Cycle World International Motorcycle Show, explaining Friday's early dismissal for son Casey from school in Montclair to make it down to the Washington Convention Center for the show's opening night. "I'm looking for a street and trail bike, something like a 250, just something to ride with him. He's already got a Yamaha 90, so I need to catch up with him."

"After this, we're going to the Monster Truck Show," says red-haired Casey, naming a competing attraction at a nearby venue.

"Yep," says Dad.

Cycles. Trucks. Girls. Mercy.

The cycle show, which you can see today from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., is a marvel of motorcycle culture, that segment of American society that courts the accepted risk of balancing on top of an engine while leaning into a turn and flying, oh, a few inches from bone-crushing pavement at 60 miles per hour.

The show is part of a nationwide tour. It brings 15 cycle manufacturers and dozens of vendors out to show their stuff, the kind of things you'd look for forever at 20 different dealerships and never find. They don't sell the bikes here, but you can get all the gear you want.

Stroll around here, the bright lights, the rock-and-roll blaring from the speakers, the riding leathers and the din from the stunt show at the back, and you realize that some things about the allure of motorcycles never change. Here's an example. It's a quote from T.E. Lawrence, aka Lawrence of Arabia, the James Dean and then some of his day, speaking more than 70 years ago:

"When my mood gets too hot and I find myself wandering beyond control I pull out my motor-bike and hurl it top-speed through these unfit roads for hour after hour. My nerves are jaded and gone near dead, so that nothing less than hours of voluntary danger will prick them into life."

That's great, that's lovely. Freedom of the road, adrenaline, physical exertion, close and immediate danger, the drug of speed.