John Flannery (Photo: Holly Flannery)
About a year and
a half ago, I talked about a longing I had harbored for several springs, to
ride a motorcycle; our rolling countryside reminded me of another time and
place when I was younger and rode such hills and country elsewhere.
You may know or
imagine what it’s like to be on a motorcycle, a part of what you see, no longer
a mere observer in a controlled environment, confined by a windshield; instead,
you are exposed, in the space surrounding, pushed by winds at the rush of the
bike and the changeable weather, able to see to the clouds above, the road
below, and the horizon that lays ahead, catching the scent of field grasses,
magnolia and honey suckle, and feeling the tilt of the bike as you lean into
the turn.
In a car, you are
surrounded by sameness, the radio, phone, all of it a homogenous extension of
what you experience all the time wherever you are, at home, in your car, at the
office.
When you ride
alone on a bike, it revives your spirit, and helps you to expel the toxic
nonsense that confounds our lives. When
you share a ride with someone, the wind and the bike insulate each of you even
though you share the experience. While
riders ride with other bikers, I’ve always thought riding was most about going
solo and that you were better for it.
Not surprisingly, there is a community among riders even when they don’t
know each other, never saw each other before.
Riders reach out their left hands when they pass each other on the road
in opposite directions, as if waving toward the shared road and toward each
other, acknowledging another rider, saying hello.
I really think
riding a bike is like flying (though firmly bound to the road). A most charming Irish friend from Dublin, who
lives in Loudoun, rides a Triumph; in his delightful brogue, he’ll tell you
that riding his bike is like riding a “Flying Chair.”
I rode for years
while I was a student, but the most exceptional experience I had was when I
“did the continent” after engineering school, before I began Columbia law.
After a prop flight
from NY to Heathrow, I bought a BSA in London, bound my duffel bag to the back
of the bike with bungee cords, drove to Dover’s white cliffs, caught a ferry to
Calais and there launched a three month tour of Europe. I was ready for anything because I had a bed
roll for those nights there’d be no inn or youth hostel. One night in the South of France, it was so
pitch black dark on the country road, I pulled off into a field, picking my way
as carefully as I could; I was awakened the next morning, however, by cattle
surrounding my bedroom in their breakfast eating hall.
My renewed
impulse to ride prompted many invitations to try a classic (a Harley, Triumph,
or BMW, and many others), even a bike that looked more like jet engines on
wheels. I was leery, however, of being
over-mounted. So last September, I found
a 250 cc Suzuki at Loudoun Motorsport in Leesburg.
While I have
managed to drop my bike in the dirt once quite soundly, I’ve found the rest of
my rides all that I hoped for.
I can easily
offer you a taste of the marvelous landscape I’m talking about if you’ll just
try a (slow) ride on Loyalty Road north from Waterford to Taylorstown.
The road rises
and falls and twists like a friendly roller coaster through brilliant pastures,
well-tended lawns, sweeping vistas, and historic homes. It just has to be experienced. If there’s anything that reminds me of that
continental tour I took years ago, it is this exquisite ride north along
Loyalty.
If there’s
anything that should enliven a community’s interest in restoring and preserving
our county’s verdant and historic legacy, it is signified by this short expanse
of road and the environs.
You may not be
able to take this jaunt on a bike, as I have, but if you do try it this Fall in
a car, turn off everything, i.e., your music, phone, air conditioning, and
throw open the windows, slow down the speed, and let your senses inhale and
experience something that is, albeit remotely, like what you’d enjoy if you
were on a motorcycle instead.
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