The Perfect Vehicle...

[DucDave]

...and other Motorcycle books about Riding.

This is maybe tops on my list! What's yours?

From the NY Times Book Review

If you want to know what's so great about riding motorcycles (without actually having to do it), read the first chapter and the postscript of ''The Perfect Vehicle.'' What exactly, on a quiet country road with birds twittering and cows mooing, does a noisy motor bring to the party? ''Like an aria,'' Melissa Holbrook Pierson says, ''the exhaust note of certain bikes'' can ''wring the emotions dry.'' People ''make epic journeys on two wheels because . . . they want a way to feel fully engaged with and even vulnerable to their surroundings.'' She cites, as well, the ''appealing athleticism of the endeavor,'' and goes on to recount journeys, rallies, maintenance lessons and lots of not very spellbinding history: of motorcycles themselves, women on motorcycles, motorcycle races, motorcycle statistics, famous cyclists (George Bernard Shaw, Charles Lindbergh, Elvis Presley and Ann Richards, the former Governor of Texas, among them) and Pierson's cyclist boyfriends who didn't work out. ''The Perfect Vehicle'' gives some sense of the community of bikers, of their loyalty to their bikes and to one another, but not much about who they are. Could Pierson, who rides a Moto Guzzi, have a meaningful friendship with a Harley owner? That's the kind of stuff that might have given this tale a jump-start.

[PhilB]

That is a good book. She has written another book mor recently; I don't recall the title offhand, but I plan to track it down at some point.

"I See by my Outfit" is a good one. Peter S. Beagle, recounting a cross-country trip with a friend, in the early '60's, on a couple of Heinkel scooters.

Anything by Peter Egan.

PhilB

[Falko]

I'm reading the follow up Jupiter book right now, Regaining Jupiter or something of the such. Fairly bland, more recollection of the previous journey than the current one.