Is 115 MPH down the 55 Freeway considered passive-aggressive behavior, or just aggressive-agressive behavior? How about 120?

Just checking.

Oh don't get your panties in a twist. I was wearing a helmet.

So I've been riding a lot lately. The summer temperatures, the newness of the experience, my ever-increasing comfort level and, frankly, the $2.56 per gallon price of regular have made the VFR my primary mode of transportation around town. Sure, it's less than convenient for groceries, but considering how often I'm living in some other city this hasn't posed too much of a problem.

Although I could use a cup holder and a straw. Gets hot under that helmet.

I took the motorcycle on a solo ride up to Big Bear this morning. Rode through the dying, brown, beetle-infested trees to the lake, had a light lunch, put on the helmet and rode back along Highway 18 through Lake Arrowhead, past the charred remains of the forest, dodging the always present Los Angeles traffic, even on remote mountain roads. Despite the alsphalt cholesterol, it was a beautiful ride.

I'd have stopped to take pictures from any or all of the dozens of lookout points and scenic turnouts I passed along the way, but really, it wasn't about the view.

It was about the ride.

Of course, to get to all the beautiful rides, I have to spend fifty minutes or more on the most congested freeways in the country, traveling through lovely, cosmopolitan towns like Riverside and San Bernardino, but that's the price I pay for living in Southern California. Apparently twenty million other people appreciate 300 days of perfect weather a year. Go figure.

At least in California bikes can lane-split. Nothing quite like zipping through lines of slow moving Suburbans, just waiting to get clipped by a misjudged side view mirror, stung with a discarded cigarette butt, or worse, sandwiched between an H2 and a dump truck cause some goober saw an opening and tried to get and extra thirty feet ahead of the cars behind him without checking his mirror, now permanently lodged in my ribcage.

Regardless, I've been riding more lately. And I'm becoming more comfortable on the bike. When I first began riding, every time I sat on the bike I was terrified. Every time I started the motor I thought to myself, "is today the day you are going to die?" Riding is without question just about the dumbest thing you can do with your life. The guy who did my financing is a paraplegic after introducing his head to the back of an SUV. My climbing partner has broken several bones in get-offs and sudden impacts through his 25 years of riding. I have two dead friends. I recognize and understand the risks involved. It's like rock climbing - the consequences of error are quite severe. Unlike climbing, however, where you have multiple, redundant safety mechanisms built into the activity and a handy-dandy belayer at the other end of your rope, motorcycles do not have this advantage. Climbing has a relatively wide margin for error. If you climb, eventually, you are going to fall, and you (usually) have someone there to catch you when you do. If you ride, eventually, you are going to fall. But the motorcycle doesn't include a safety rope. Or a seat belt. Or an airbag. It's real narrow margin of error.

But maybe that's the appeal. It's that edge. Some people are comfortable in the recliner of life. They look at the mountain on the horizon and never wonder about the view from the top. They wade into the shallows but never want to swim. They may check out the precipice but never peer over the side.

Me?

I gotta look.

Still, I'm not totally sold on riding long term. It does still feel a little too risky at times. And, to be totally honest, I still like my mountain bike better. There is something fulfilling in getting there under my own power. And 120 down the freeway still isn't nearly as exhilarating as 25 down a fast and winding single-track.

But there is something sexy about the motorcycle. Something about that single-sided swing-arm, the back wheel spinning free, the exhaust tucked up under my seat. Something erotic about straddling the saddle, my hands caressing the sides of the tank at a stoplight. The feel and the position vaguely feminine, evocative of a woman's hips when she sits in your lap. The smell of the leather. The roar of the wind in your helmet. The heady, dirty, dangerous growl of the 800cc V-four as I push the bike past 7000 RPM and open up the valves of the V-Tec engine. The surge of adrenaline and acceleration when I open up the throttle off a stoplight, feel the bike launch out from underneath me, feel the front end get light as I roar toward the red line. Pushing the handlebar into a deep lean around a wide, fast, swoopy turn. Feeling the tires grip as I bank into the corner. There is something sexy about the motorcycle. The swagger in your walk the result of heavy leather and stiff boots. The wide eyes of young boys as they watch you from the passenger window. The girls who slow down to check you out, the guys who nod in appreciation as you pass.

Yeah, there is something sexy about riding a motorcycle.

It could be the leather and the rubber and the steel. It could be the bravado of the subculture, the ever-present cultural icon of the rebel on the open road. It could be the inherent danger of it all. The rush and the wind and the speed all keeping the endorphins and hormones steadily pumping in your veins. But it could be more. It could be that riding a motorcycle is a lot like sex. It's beautiful. It's exhilarating. It takes patience and technique and often as you want to open up the throttle and go full-bore, the real joy is in the gentle touches, feeling the bike respond as you work through the gears, urging it through a turn. Like love and sex, a ride on a motorcycle is inherently risky, definitely exciting, and when you fall, it's bound to leave scars.

Then again, it could just be the 125 horses all vibrating hot underneath your crotch.