Joyce Maynard: On Love, Motorcycles and the Art of Being a Passenger
A few days after he earned his motorcycle certificate, Jim and I headed to a store in San Francisco to buy his bike. He’d been studying motorcycles online for years and knew what he wanted: a Triumph Bonneville — based on the classic design of the one Steve McQueen rode in “The Great Escape.” Most people, new to the sport, might start off slow, but that wasn’t Jim’s style. Still in the early stages — not only of motorcycle ownership, but love — we entertained the idea of heading across the United States on the bike, two aging vagabonds, re-enacting a cross between “Easy Rider” and “Two for the Road.” But a shred of common sense endured . We settled on Plan B: to ship the Bonneville across the country (cost: $500) and spend the summer riding it through my home state of New Hampshire, with jaunts to Maine, Vermont and Massachusetts. The trip represented a big departure for us, and not simply of the geographical variety. In Jim’s case, this was the first summer he had taken off work for...