The Perfect Vehicle

The Perfect Vehicle

THE CW LIBRARY

YEARS AGO, A NON-MOTORCYCLING FRIEND OF MINE said he was able to get through only half of Robert Pirsig’s Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance before he threw the book on the floor, jumped out of his reading chair and said, “Okay! Where’s my bike?" Melissa Holbrook Pierson’s The Perfect Vehicle may have a similarly enlivening effect on initiates to the sport, because the book presents such an engaging and intelligent look at the motorcyclist’s world. No one who reads it will want to be left out. Veteran riders will go to their calendars and start plotting their next trips. It’s that kind of book.

“What It Is About Motorcycles” is the book’s subhead, and Pierson spends 240 pages telling us just that. She tells us about her own seduction by bikes (mostly Moto Guzzis), tells tales of summer pilgrimages to Laconia with riding buddies, gives a lively and accurate thumbnail sketch of the history of motorcycling-and who its famous i advocates have been in this

century-and takes us on a road tour along the Blue Ridge and into the v deep South, as well as on a transJr European ride to the Guzzi birthplace at Mandello del Lario. There’s a bit of self-analysis and psychological soul-searching along the way-as well as a little selfconfessed neurosis over riding’s dangers-that some readers may find excessive, but it gives the book a heartfelt, personal tone. And, what the hell, Pirsig did it for hundreds of pages.

This is a book about motorcycle culture, full of candid and sometimes startling observations, that carries the weight of authenticity and careful reflection. A recommended read-and re-read-by a poetic and gifted writer.

Peter Egan

The Perfect Vehicle: What It Is about Motorcycles, Melissa Holbrook Pierson, 240 pages, $24; W.W. Norton & Company, 500 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10110; 212/354-5500