Cleansing the soul
By Michael Austin

There is something very cleansing to the soul about riding a motorcycle that is hard to explain. For over 20 years, I’ve tried to understand it myself. When I think back over my life, I remember the rides and the bikes first, and the role they played in the events I have lived through. I can’t help but take a long, reminiscing look when I see one of “my” old bikes parked somewhere – a Guzzi V50, a BMW K100 RS, an old R90 S, or my current SV650S, and think of the journeys, good and bad, and movement in my life when we were together.

More than a vehicle for covering ground or shredding asphalt, motorcycles have become a vehicle through which I have come to experience so much of life. I remember bone chilling rides in winter on the California coast when I was in college. Dates taken for first rides. Endless stretches of desert highways covered at great speed. I remember a grueling 83 mile (each way) commute, in all weather, on my KRS. I remember the ride home from my first solo flight when I was getting my pilots license. I remember the ride to dinner in Santa Cruz that I took to comfort myself after being stood up on a date – and that ride ended up being one of the best in my life!

There was always something there, something very familiar. The feel of the wind pushing on me, the feel of the temperature, the smell of the air. When I felt troubled and scared the embrace of the wind on my motorcycle brought comfort. When I felt happy and joyful, the embrace became a celebration heightening all my senses.

For me, there is no such thing as a casual ride. They become mini rituals of suiting up, checking the machine, actually riding, and in doing it all there is a quiet punctuation and underscoring of my life that gets seared into memory.

Yes, the wind and the machine cleanse the soul and breathe life into the spirit. I’ve learned that and accepted it as part of me and my life. The wind provides a comforting embrace that is always there for me when I need it and is only a ride away. Through joys and traumas, the motorcycle, the wind, and the road have become a part of who I am and a way in which I deal with the world.

Like a shadow from an eclipse moving darkness across the land, tragedy came into my life. My wife of 14 years died after a long fight with cancer. The end came quickly and quietly, with her at peace with herself and the world. Despite months of preparation on my part I realized that I wasn’t ready for her passing, nor perhaps was there anything I could really do to prepare myself any better.

I got the news and cried. Quietly turning myself into an emotional basket case for a while. Wandering through the house looking for something to attach myself to. Something, anything, to bring comfort, only finding trappings and “things.”

I found myself in the garage staring at my SVS while it slept. I knew I needed to ride. Not to anywhere or to do anything. I needed to ride. To feel the wind caress. To remember that even in tragedy I can still feel alive.

I don’t remember where I went, or how long I rode. Several fuel stops were made and hours flew by. There was comfort in working the machine that has become such a good friend to me. A certain joy and pride is shifts made smooth, in apexes clipped in proper fashion, in orchestrating braking late and downshifting while arching me and machine precisely into a corner.

And there was the wind. A familiar pressure pushing against me, wrapping me in movement. That comforting caress from the Universe that says “you are alive and in motion, you have skill and ability, you move in unique ways that many can’t.” The wind was warm and comforting, drying tears inside my helmet. Bringing some relief and comfort to the soul. Bringing peace, if only for a while, and a way to both remember and forget, hurt and heal, live and let life pass.

That ride will be with me forever. The memory burned into my consciousness. The machine, a humble SVS, was my partner in a journey to nowhere that may have been the most important travel of my life. It allowed me to start healing, to be free to grieve, and to have courage to live.

Everyone here knows why they ride, even though it’s hard to explain to a non-rider. It’s more than the machine; it’s more than the physical actions. We ride because it makes us feel alive in a very unique way. And, in special moments and in special ways, it allows us to heal, to understand, and to grow as a person. My SVS and I have taken a private, deep journey into darkness and have somehow emerged back into the light. It has carved a very special place in my life – and years from now when I am riding wherever is yet to be made, and I see an SVS somewhere, maybe parked and tattered, I will always remember that ride and the healing that machine brought to me in a time when I needed it most.