The Perfect Vehicle: What It Is About Motorcycles

by Melissa Holbrook Pierson

Book Overview

In a book that is a must for anyone who has loved a motorcycle (Oliver Sacks), Melissa Pierson captures in vivid, writerly prose the mysterious attractions of motorcycling. She sifts through myth and hyperbole: misrepresentations about danger, about the type of people who ride and why they do so. The Perfect Vehicle is not a mere recitation of facts, nor is it a polemic or apologia. Its vivid historical accounts-the beginnings of the machine, the...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393318095
• ISBN13: 9780393318098
• Release Date: May 1998
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 242 Pages
• Weight: 0.75 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 6.2" x 8.3"

Customer Reviews

a truly enjoyable exploration of motorcycle culture based on experience

As a med student who recently purchased a Ducati, this book hit really close to home. The author (with a PhD in Literature from what sounded in the book like an Ivy league-ish school?) explores, in a sincere and poetic tone, the dichotomous views of humans regarding motorcycles- group 1: why risk everything for a 500 pound piece of metal? group 2: how could i possibly spend an extra 5 minutes today on my 500 pound perfect machine? Authors that delve into culture and motorcycles are at risk of appearing too heady, and/or too much like a pseudo-intellectual creator of self-help/pop-philosophy crap. Pierson never goes to either extreme in this work. It led me to better understand my own motivations for buying a new Italian motorcycle and making plans to see the US before finishing med school.

One of my favourite autobiographies

I read this book a couple years ago and I could NOT put it down. Sure there was the common theme of motorcycling, the part of the conversation I could relate too. But really, that was the setting around which she wove a great personal tale. Overcoming -- not fear -- but deep anxiety. I see reviews written that this is anti man or other strange interpretations. I think if you read closely she lays out her own issues early in the book. The book is her journey to overcome those. She learns about herself -- the good and the bad -- and about people. I think it is a fun, interesting adventure. I recommend it often and buy copies for my friends.

Near-perfect book

Reviewer: Frank from Los AltosI can see how some are upset with the title of this book: "The Perfect Vehicle: What it is about Motorcycles" sounds more like a collection of motorcycle stories and essays than the memoir that this is.Pierson is an excellent writer and poet, repeatedly reducing to written form the mystical experience of riding. "It is simple: the power to go, the power to stop, are as reduced as a metaphor and made to fit in one small hand."To Pierson, and most riders, a motorcycle is more than a means of transportation. When you ride a bike, on the one hand you acquire friends and a lifestyle, and on the other hand much of society will exclude you. She writes about the feeling among some riders, who have reacted negatively to articles she's written, that "nothing depressing, upsetting, or unfavorable ever be uttered about" riding. Although each rider belongs to the community of all riders, there are many divisions within the riding life. The brand and style of bike you choose to ride is expected to define your character. While you're in the riding community, you're loyal to your brand -- Pierson rides a Guzzi and writes at length about the "worldwide brotherhood of Moto Guzzi riders.... Guzzis appeal to the middle-class rider who is not too racy, but plenty individualistic.... They attract tinkerers, people for whom good is never good enough, for whom the rituals of necessary maintenance are secret joys.... Never for them a full fairing...."I would have liked more analysis about the "brand loyalty" aspect of motorcycling. Perhaps the brand you ride is like the Sorting Hat at Hogwarts -- a window into your true self? Why is this so? This brand/personality correlation isn't limited to motorcycles -- just look at the Ford vs. Chevy truck rivalry, or how the type of car you drive reveals your personality. (If I told you I drive a sports car, you'd probably think differently of me than if I told you I drive a minivan.) Pierson writes about the prejudice and even disbelief that riders and non-riders have toward women riders. When she sits down at a restaurant table with her helmet and orders a meal, the waitress brings two meals -- the second meal for the man who, surely, must belong to the helmet. When she arrives at a toll booth, the toll taker asks, "Did you ride that motorcycle here all by yourself?" She's tempted to answer, "No, I carried it on my head."Woven throughout the book are her thoughts and experiences on the psychology of riding and its many aspects -- friendships, relationships, touring, racing, and rallies. She identifies Harley riders as comprising most of those who are "perennial children" and debase their women. I don't see this as "male bashing," but as an honest and direct appraisal of the behavior of one group of riders -- but she should have been clearer that many Harley riders are not in that group.The further divisions in the motorcycle hierarchy can be seen in the prior reviews here. You're not "really" a rider

10 stars from me

My dear friend John gave me this book as a gift because like me he is a motorcycle lover, rider, free spirit. Shy 250 pages the book can best be described as a sensual, intellectual wonder.For me it is the following quotes that bring me back re-reading and re-reading."At precisely this moment someone, somewhere, is getting ready to ride. The motorcycle stands in a cool. dark garage, its air expectant with gas and grease. The rider approaches from outside; the door opens with a whir and a bang. The light goes on. A flame. everlasting, seem to rise on a piece of chrome. As the rider advances, leather sleeves are zipped down tight on the forearms, and the helmet briefly obliterates everything as it is pulled on, the chin strap buckled..........Soft leather gloves with studded palms, insurance against the reflex of a falling body to put its hands out in midair, go on last""The key is slipped into the ignition at the top of the steering head. Then the rider swings a leg over the seat and sits but keeps the weight on the balls of the feet" "In the neat dance that accomplishes many operation on a motorcycle --one movement to countered by another fro, an equilibrium of give and take--the squeezed clutch lever is slowly let out while the other hand turns the trottle grip down...."This woman, this Melessia Holbrook Pierson knows what she speaks of and as I read I feel as if she is with the group I ride with on back roads through out the Sierras. The Hoggettes as we jokingly call ourselves, because we ride Harleys. So many books on riding real motorcycles are written by men. This one by this woman is the best I own.She has a wonderful section on the value of rally rides as well as loads of photographs of the history and evolution of motorcycles. And as a rider as well as a woman, wife, mother, daughter of motorcycle riders I believe the best and brightest ride motorcycles and that sons and male lovers, partners, husbands should be encouraged to own a motorcycle and ride it often.

Smart and true

Little of what I experience on a motorcycle has been put into words elsewhere, but almost all of it is here, which I find to be the central pleasure of this book. Pierson evokes specific sensations, like the distinctive tactile stress of turning sharply and braking smoothly with ice water-soaked jeans, and conjures together the strange complex of thought and feeling that rules much of the time. Admitting to moments of panic within a turn, or to outraged fear when confronted by thuggish (male) bystanders, or to less than confident expertise with engines has apparently undermined her authority with some in the riding world. But the risks and discomforts peculiar to motorcycles--including the emotional and psychological risks--do create the type of ecstacy we feel riding. She's right.