As a single mom with three kids, selling my soul waitressing tables at my second job, one evening my boyfriend showed up after my shift to take me out for dinner on a Harley.
I grew up in the southeast of Kentucky, where life was not only tough on the adults who were all just trying to survive, but even worse on the kids who inherited the mental and physical stresses of their parents. We carried all the same worries grown folks did and hid the bruises from our classmates to protect them. If you had classmates and weren’t already working in some coal mine or tobacco field, that is. I was one of those kids. By the age of 15, I had left that life behind to chase better wages, as well as a better version of what I saw projected as my future self—but not before a hard dose of superstition based in cultural paranoia, and backwoods “wisdom” set up camp and left lingering fingerprints on my psyche.
Where I came from, rap music and motorcycles were toys straight from the devil’s workshop. I recall hearing my grandma criticize a leather-jacketed biker in the parking lot of our grocery store one Saturday morning discretely from inside her old Cutlass. I may have been 8 years old and my mouth dropped wide open from fascination and thrill as those twin cylinders purred to life. “Don’t look at him,” she hissed. “They’ll just as soon shoot ya as to look at ya!” Adding in with her critical warning, “Those big ‘ol hunks of metal. They shouldn’t be legal, tearin’ up these roads, out here causin’ wrecks. Menaces, I tell ya. You stay away from those, they’re the devil.”
It’s incredible how repetition cements falsehood into truth. When you’re a kid you don’t know any better than to believe the stories you hear over and over again. They call it the “illusory truth effect” now, but back then, manipulative statements to instill fear into your children so they won’t indulge in dangerous activities was common speech. “Don’t play in the fire, you’ll wet the bed.” Sound familiar? After years of processing fluency, I was conditioned to fear motorcycles. They weren’t just a machine to me—they were omens predicting felonies or death.
The giddy happiness of going on a dinner date with my guy quickly faded into unforgivable disgust when I exited the rear door of work that evening. He sat there proudly on the back of his shiny black Harley, waiting to whisk me away in the wind and join him for an evening of kid-free entertainment.
“What in the hell is that!?” I blurted out aggressively.
He laughed as if it was some sort of sarcastic, joking general inquiry, not knowing that pure anxiety and a traumatic reaction were about to demolish his pride.
PTSD has a cruel sense of humor. You never know what will trigger it: a sound, a smell, a flash of chrome under a streetlight. For me, that motorcycle was a direct line back to a childhood of manipulation, bruises, and bad advice. My chest tightened, my eyes flooded, and I found myself shaking, repeating, “No, no, no. I can’t. I can’t do this.” You can imagine this poor guy’s shock when I hysterically began to cry, continuing to repeat, “I can’t, I just can’t,” instead of joining him in smiles.
I tried explaining it to him how I had spent my whole life viewing motorcycles as something associated with evil, death and crime. In my mind, just standing near one had me breaking some twisted moral code passed down from my elders. Not to mention the very real disability to overcome the massive fear instilled of risking not only my integrity, but my life. I had never so much as touched a motorcycle and now he wants me to ride one! Not a chance.
I didn’t ride with him that night, but walls started to weaken. I was able to put my hands on the machine and he even talked me into sitting on it. I did so calmly, at least until he started the engine. Too much, too fast, and where I drew the line, hopping off quickly as if the seat had bit me.
This guy—Kyle—was stubborn in a quiet, playful and determined way. For months afterward, he showed up on that same bike, patient and persistent. He didn’t mock my fear; he worked through it, gently, like he was tuning a broken instrument. We were constantly going over the irrational, illogical way my brain reacted to the situation. He’d been riding since he was four, a professional racer who’d lived his life chasing adrenaline. He spent more time atop podiums winning awards than I’d spent handing out stickers during potty training for my kids. He was everything I wasn’t—fearless, free from mental chains, insecurities and traumas.
Meanwhile, I was a woman who measured courage against simplifying bedtime routines. My idea of an adrenaline shot was found in clipping coupons for diapers to save a few bucks. I had never ridden anything but a bicycle—not even a roller coaster. I’d never left the state, never known what it meant to be unafraid. It was insane for him to even consider that I could possibly overcome my fear and actually go for a ride on that thing with him.
But at 27 years old, I did just that. Kyle refused to give up on me in more ways than one. I eventually slid on a helmet and threw a leg across that Harley. The first ride wasn’t glamorous. A few laps around a parking lot—slow and awkward, my heart pounding loud enough to drown out the engine. But when I climbed off, shaking and out of breath from holding it all the while, I was smiling.
A year later, I passed my Basic Rider Course and earned my motorcycle license. My first bike was a Honda Shadow 750. That was nearly 20 years ago, and I’ve ridden ever since. From a 250 Rally across Indonesia to a Tiger 800 through Ecuador’s Cloud Forests, through BDR tracks across America, even enduro racing in woods on a TE 300, when I proudly earned a first-place plaque to prove it.
That scared little girl convinced motorcycles would eat me alive is long gone. I have found my passion. I’ve lost count of how many bikes Kyle and I have owned in our 18 years of marriage. Currently, I have more than he does in our garage. We’ve built our life around the ride, itching for those perfect fall days when the air tastes like woodsmoke and the mountain curves pull you in like a good bluegrass song. I can’t lie though, my heart does thump a little harder at the sound of a two-stroke ripping through single track!
Why tell you all of this? Because maybe you’ve got your own version of a Kyle. Someone who pushed you past your fear, stood beside you when you wanted to give up, made you believe you could do something wild and new even though you were convinced you couldn’t. Sometimes saying what we all may be thinking brings us closer together. I have been blessed with the very best riding partners I could have ever hoped for. Encouraging, relentless in support to better my skills as a rider on and off the road. Endless weekends of determination spent in helping me pick up my bike over and over, or slowing down to let me catch up in tough switchbacks. We all have a Kyle that we owe a thank you. My Kyle happens to be my true-life version of a Ride or Die mate!
Learning to ride wasn’t about checking a box or impressing my boyfriend. It was something I didn’t know I needed until I did it. It was survival, healing—reclaiming control from the ghosts that told me I didn’t have any. Beating a fear that had such a grasp on me that it stunted my spiritual growth and prevented me from succeeding in many endeavors. Every time I throw a leg over that bike, I silence a thousand old voices who told me I would never be able to do anything. They fade beneath the rumble of the engine, and I remember who I am now, not the terrified child I once was.
That iron horse beneath me is my therapy every time I need it to be. It is my rebellion from a traumatic childhood, and my peace needed to renew my soul. Each mile is a pat on the back for the girl I used to be and a promise to the woman I’ve become.
Stay safe out there my two-wheeled siblings. If you ever pass Kyle and I on a back road or mountain pass, rest assured we’ll be throwing you all left-handed deuces, riding free and grateful for every mile, every memory, and every miracle that came from choosing to face fear head-on.