How to Feel Unwelcomed and Dumb

...or like a sociopath?

Almost nothing one can do during course of their ordinary daily life is as socially ostracizing as when one gets bundled up to ride somewhere for utility transportation through cold or crappy weather. You’ll receive the strangest comments, reactions and looks if you find yourself riding when, in the mainstream’s comfortably-sealed-inside-a-car worldview, one isn’t supposed to be out there riding.

I’ve always wondered if this could be slightly similar to what it feels like to be a mildly sociopathic individual. Not a Ted Kosinski or anything so extreme, but still somewhere on that same craziness spectrum.

Right now, it’s a moderately windy 35ºf (and about +5ºf ‘wind chill) at noon and still almost twilight-dark beneath a thick gray-cloudy sky. A typically depressing and moody early winter day, but the local roads have been dry and clear for a week so I rode to work yesterday and on Tuesday, a one-way distance of five miles. I also rode to a short business meeting, a storage rental place, a bank, and a grocery store. 

The bank was a very brief stop to drop something off, so I walked right in without even removing my modular helmet. It was cold enough I didn’t want to mess around. This move was practical, time-efficient, and comfortable, but I might easily have been mistaken for a grubby suicide-bombing terrorist all bundled up in a dirty black Aerostich R-3 and carrying a worn backpack with a small carabiner on each strap from which dangled a loop of parachute cord, a door key and two small remote garage door opener transmitters. I sure didn’t look (or feel) like any kind of recreational, ADV, touring or sport motorcyclist you’ve probably ever seen.

It’s possible I’m too sensitive. Or too dumb. I’ve written about this before. Here are the bullet points:

• Riding is fun and always feels good. Really good.
• Riding can sometimes be logistically a lot harder than simply walking, riding a bus, or driving.
• Riding can make you look pretty good to others if done ‘correctly’.  I.E. – in ways that seem right to non-riding observers. But only if you are wearing the ‘right’ kind of gear for the bike you are riding, and riding the appropriate bike for the situation, during the most acceptable type of weather. Riding done the way non-riders expect riders to look. “As seen on TV” or whatever.
• Non-riding observers cannot fully understand or appreciate the ‘why’ of riding. The only way to appreciate the multi-layered wonderful experience of riding is to actually ride.
• In America, non-riders are the vast and overwhelming majority, and they outnumber us riders by a very large percentage.
• Almost all non-riders in America view motorcycling as an optimal-weather-only form of recreation, sport and/or leisure, and not as any kind of useful or practical all-weather transportation. “Almost” means 98.483% of them, except most spouses and siblings.

There is probably a determinable ratio describing the degree to which riding ostracizes one, corresponding with the adversity or horribleness of the weather. Maybe it’s 1:1. Perhaps when the weather is bad, the rider is ostracized and if the weather is twice as bad the rider is twice as ostracized. In all my years of riding, this 1:1 ratio is about how it feels. And this has become so predictable it’s also quietly more amusing than you might imagine.

For example, yesterday my first stop was a business meeting, and as I put the bike on its sidestand and keyed off its engine a woman looking to be somewhere in her mid-forties turned, stared, and said to me: “Aren’t you freezing?”  She was wearing a nice puffy goose down jacket and had just emerged from her comfortably heated car after pulling into the parking space adjacent to mine. “Not really.” I replied with a smile. That was our entire conversation. She took in my reply with a mildly incredulous expression, then turned away and briskly walked into the nearby building. I followed a few moments later after removing my helmet and gloves, carefully putting the bikes key into my riding suit’s pocket and making sure the Velcro pocket flap was secure.

Moments like this happen all the time when you choose to ride in crappy weather. I collected additional looks and comments at the bank and then at the rental storage rental place where I had to renew a rental agreement at their office. Only at the grocery store did the cashier say nothing. I could see in her eyes and general manner she thought there was something a little off about me, though. I also noticed the same look on the faces of the drivers in the cars surrounding me at stoplights and sign-controlled intersections.

A look like what, exactly? It’s hard to describe. Going from most-to-least maybe it’s a blend of condescension + mild resentment + irritation + amusement + envy? Most notably not a shred of curiosity, either. It’s possible a tiny approval/envy percentage comes from other riders who were on this day sensibly sealed inside their warm and safe cars. You really do feel like an idiot whenever you are riding for simple transportation during bad weather.

But conformity can be for suckers, and maybe discomfort is partly an illusion, too. Yesterday I was comfortably in my regular street clothing above a pair of ankle-high riding boots, with almost everything else beneath a light goose down sweater ‘puffy’ layered within a slightly oversize black Aerostich R-3 Light Tactical one-piece suit. With a small “Road Grimed Astronaut” embroidered patch on the left shoulder. Was I that astronaut, or another everyday transportation riding sociopath? 

I was both, and it was great. 

- Mr. Subjective, 12-21

PS – Or a stupid dumb f**k idiot?