A lot of pilots like motorcycles because, they say, it’s the closest thing to flying that you can get on the ground. My great uncle (a Navy test pilot in WWII) rode a motorcycle. My grandfather says he loved to go fast.
For me, it’s not about going fast. Hahaha, fast is not an option, so much? My bike is a 1982 Suzuki GN-125, which has a 125cc engine. That’s tiny; it weighs about 200 lb. and I have to coax it to top 45 mph going up a hill. Here’s a photo of a similar bike from a later year (I don’t have one of mine on me). Mine is also blue, but I’ve lampblacked my muffler to protect it from rusting.
I have long wished to own a Honda Nighthawk 250, which is the bike I used in my Motorcycle Safety Course. I love its height, weight, the way it handles and responds to the rider. A lot of the steering you do on a bike has to do with shifting your weight. If you want to take a left turn, you lean your weight to the left and the bike follows. Both bikes are a ‘standard’ model, which is the middle-of-the-road shape for motorcycles: the rider sits upright, doesn’t have to stretch or lean forward to reach the handles, etc. and the higher center of gravity and relatively low weight of the bike makes them very responsive to the rider’s movements.
(Cruisers are the slouchy ones that can be modded into choppers, and racing bikes are the ones where the feet are pulled up and the person stretches over the tank to reach the handlebars.)
But yeah. For me, the draw of a motorcycle is…I’m not in a bubble. I feel connected to everything around me. I’m moving with the bike rather than sitting in a car pushing levers, and on my bike, I can feel everything—the change in air pressure and temperature as I go by a field or pass through a wooded area, and the smells. God the smells. You can just about yourself crashing through them, pockets of construction dust and sun-warmed grass and asphalt and cool, rich forest. It’s a really amazing experience.