To turn right, push the bar left
Here is the strangest thing about riding a MOTORCYCLE at any real SPEED: to go right, the RIDER pushes the right HANDLEBAR forwards, which points the front wheel very slightly left. The wheels move out from under the machine, it leans to the right, and round it goes.
The technique is called countersteering, every competent rider does it constantly, and a surprising number will insist they do not. You can feel it on a bicycle too, at anything above walking pace. Leaning is not a flourish either — it is the only way to balance the sideways force of a turn, and it is what puts a racer's knee on the tarmac.
Light machine, big engine
A family car might have 120 horsepower to shift a tonne and a half. A sports MOTORCYCLE can have 200 horsepower pushing barely 200 kilograms, including the rider. That ratio is the whole appeal, and it is why a modest-looking bike will out-accelerate almost anything with four WHEELS away from the lights.
It also explains the rest of the machine. The BRAKES have to stop something that stops very fast indeed, the TIRES are round in profile rather than flat so they still grip when the bike is leaned over, and the CLUTCH and GEARS sit under the rider's left hand and left foot, because there is nowhere else to put them.
A scooter designed by an aircraft engineer
The Vespa was drawn up in 1946 by Corradino D'Ascanio, an aeronautical engineer who disliked motorcycles. He thought they were dirty, difficult and impossible to ride in ordinary clothes, so he designed the opposite of one: a step-through frame with no oily chain to straddle, bodywork covering the mechanical parts, and small wheels fixed on one side like an aircraft undercarriage, so a puncture could be changed at the roadside without stripping anything down.
It sold in millions and became a symbol of Italian city life. The SCOOTER is still what most of the world actually rides: cheap, quiet, and able to carry a family and the shopping through traffic that cars cannot get through at all.
The sound they tried to trademark
In 1994 Harley-Davidson applied to register the sound of its V-twin ENGINE as a trademark — that uneven potato-potato rumble made by two pistons sharing one crankpin. Rival manufacturers objected, arguing the noise was simply what that engine layout does, and after six years of legal argument the company withdrew the application. It still counts as one of the most determined attempts to own a noise.
The rest of the culture is just as recognisable: CHROME, a LEATHER jacket, the long forks of a custom CHOPPER, the laid-back CRUISER, the occasional SIDECAR. Leather is not only a look, though. It is worn because it slides rather than tears, which matters a great deal to any BIKER who ever meets the road at speed, and a HELMET remains the single most useful thing on the bike.