At the Motorcycle Show, a Dream of a Ride

By Neely Tucker
Washington Post Staff Writer
Sunday, January 15, 2006

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.

Of course, we have to note that Lawrence was killed while riding his motorcycle in 1935.

Well, there's no reason to dwell on that, is there? Or that although they make motorcycles much safer today, there are still more accidents? Perhaps it is the simple volume of riders (about 6 million now). Maybe it's other drivers (ask Gov. Schwarzenegger about his chin-banging accident last weekend). Or maybe the repeal of helmet laws in many states.

But the bottom line goes back to risk. Motorcycles are inherently more dangerous than almost any other way of getting from point A to B. People still love them, and that, you're not going to change. Like this Suzuki RGV 500 on display, the 200 horsepower, super lightweight (about 330 pounds) bike that Kenny Roberts Jr. rode to the American Grand Prix World Championship in 2000.

"You do the horsepower to weight calculations, it's pretty close to the space shuttle," says Robert Pandya, show spokesman. "In first gear, it'll take you up over 100 mph."

Prefer style over speed?

Here's a Scott Britt-modified version of a Kawasaki Vulcan 2000, a green-and-blue, chromed-out chopper you'll never see on the street. It goes for a cool $38,000. Looking for something for the kids, you know, like they need another way to crash into something on their own? Here's a knee-high Kawasaki KDX 50, which goes for $1,200.

And back here is Billy Lane, the custom bike builder from Florida, a white guy with dreadlocks whose appearances on the Discovery Channel and other cable shows have made the Choppers Inc. founder a cult figure.

"All of a sudden I get little old ladies coming up to me in airports," he says, pausing between posing for pictures with kids and parents. "Doing this for 18 years, nobody knows you; you get on TV, everything changes."

Crossover appeal, baby. There is a line 20 people deep to talk to him.

Of course, some things about cycles do change. Right over here is a monstrous Honda Gold Wing, which now comes equipped with air bags .

Things change, II:

More women ride bikes now. About 10 percent of all riders, according to the Motorcycle Industry Council.

And sure enough, here are three guys and a girl, all in their twenties, and right away you feel sorry for Shatara McCoy, because you just know her boyfriend and his buddies dragged her out here.

Except she's the one in the market. The guys are tagging along.

"I don't really know what I'm looking to get, but I know it's not a scooter," says McCoy, a student at the University of Maryland's Eastern Shore campus. "I want a cycle. I want to ride."