I’ve been riding motorcycles for almost 40 years. I bought my first bike, a little Yamaha RD350 two-stroke, in 1973. I really wanted a BMW 750, but my father wisely advised that, since I had no experience of riding, maybe I wouldn’t like it. Nah! But it was good advice all the same, because I discovered that you fall down a bit with your first bike—first rainy day, first wet manhole cover, first experience sliding down the road with the bike tumbling on ahead, showering sparks. But I persevered and did buy that BMW R75/5 the following year. I’ve been a fan of big, heavy, powerful motorcycles ever since. Usually in black, if I can get it.

Sometimes I go off motorcycles entirely. Sell the bike or bikes in hand and vow to drive a car forever more. At the time, it usually feels as if I have acquired too many tachyons, like the starship Enterprise—or too many near-misses and unrealized bad luck—and need to equilibrate to a less scintillating state. Once I sold my motorcycle thinking it would be not all that different, except cheaper and probably healthier, to try commuting on a bicycle. I hadn’t been on a bicycle since the sixth grade, of course. I got out in city traffic and discovered that I had zero acceleration (except what I could pump into that chain with my own two feet), zero braking power (two little rubber erasers gripping the wheel rims!), and zero mass (well, maybe twenty pounds of pipe and sprockets) under me to stabilize the ride. The bicycle lasted about a week.

Over the years, I’ve owned an even dozen of the big motorcycles. As Col. T. E. Lawrence favored the Brough Superior marque, I favor BMWs for their reliability, good engineering, and maintenance-free shaft drives. My stable has had ten of the German beasts, evenly divided between the two-cylinder, air-cooled R bikes and the four-cylinder, water-cooled K bikes. Lately I’ve taken an interest in Harleys. “Why?” my BMW friends ask in horror. “Well, because …” I reply. Because they are big and stable, well constructed if not exactly a modern design, and made in America. The native Harley is not all that powerful. I’ve had two of them, starting with an air-cooled Dyna in which I immediately installed the 103-cubic-inch engine, to get the power up to about 75 horses. Then I discovered the V-Rod shown below.

Sometimes, instead of going off bikes for a couple of years, I flip the other way and own two motorcycles at once, as is the case right now. Some people find this strange. But look, I know where in the Bible it says I can only have one woman—and she’s a darn good one, too—but I don’t see where it talks about only one motorcycle. Usually, the decision is based on having a combination of engine types and riding positions, as discussed below. But so far with me, as with the Sith, there are only two at any one time.

BMW K1200S (2008)

The K is my “go fast” bike. BMW claims 167 horsepower in a package that weighs about 550 pounds. I’m not a speed-demon, really. But when the guy in the Cadillac is drifting into your lane, it’s comforting to be able to give a little twist of the wrist and leap 15 feet ahead, with the stars blurring around you like the Millennium Falcon going to lightspeed. As a sport bike, the handlebars are in a moderately forward position, and the footpegs moderately back. This makes sense when you’re going 50 miles an hour or faster, but it’s a tiring position when you’re going around town. This bike is docile enough at city speeds, but the engine doesn’t really come alive until you’re doing 7,000 rpm. The gearing makes that awkward inside the city limits, or within the State of California. But the K floats along really nicely at speed.

BMW K1200S

Harley-Davison V-Rod Muscle

Harley-Davidson VRSCF V-Rod “Muscle” (2011)

As I say, I have an unexplained affection for Harleys. But as a long-time BMW rider there are also amenities I’ve come to expect, like dual front brakes, an antilock braking system (“if it only saves you once …”), and a European power band, which means the redline is around 10,000 rpm, rather than 5,500 like a car. Although for most Harley riders, this is a devilishly fast motorcycle, for me it’s my “relaxed” bike. You sit low but with all the motorcycle’s mass still below you; the handlebars are at elbow height; and the footpegs are forward—like sitting in a chair holding a newspaper. But still, when someone invades your space, that little flick takes you out of trouble in a blink.