This is a series of letters between myself and a good friend from Italy. Emanuelle and I met under very odd circumstances, in the middle of the Anza Borrego desert. Emanuelle was filming a documentary, and after a lot of years of friendship, we began to make plans to document a few months of riding and building bikes. These were written before we set out in the summer of 2024.
Mengo, I do not have too much time tonight, but I’d like to start thinking about what all this is supposed to mean. I’d like to propose a few larger ideas I have about riding and bikes and building and such. For now I’m trying to focus a bit on riding. Although, there is so much to think about building bikes and the thousands of hours it takes to make a bike. It's a trial, and a bike that runs separates who can set off on the road and who can’t. Real bikes are built by their riders. Many days and sleepless nights of sometimes drug and alcohol induced building and fabricating, machining, accidents, fires, fights, failures and such just to start the trip. It's to the point that being on the road is just the end of the journey. And people who buy a bike will never fully understand. But once you set out, it’s undeniably the harshest and most exposed way to travel. With the motor between your legs you are at best of times both burning hot and freezing cold. The bikes have little control and sometimes next to no brakes so you're not always on the main road. At 80 miles per hour every action has a consequence, and I think that’s what attracts many of us who find modern life somewhat meaningless. People are tired of their actions being disconnected from real meaning, so to put yourself on a death trap of a bike where all your motions are a life and death decision is refreshing. There can be a lot of stress. These decisions and the burning hot and the freezing cold take their toll. The wind leaves your eyes red, and between the cigarettes and the grease and the dirt, businesses and people are not the kindest to you. On most of my solo journeys I slept outside. But when you're with a group there is no rest. No peace at night or in the morning. You fight to get enough sleep and when you wake up there’s not much time to fix up the damage you put your bike through before starting it up and taking off again. But there is a beauty in the fact there is no rest and no escape. You are stuck with your machine throughout the trip and it serves as your vehicle as well as your anchor. As much as you may want to go home or give up for a few days you cannot leave the bike. Motorcycle theft is common and you never leave your bike unattended for a day or night somewhere you don’t know. The bike is everything, and in rural areas the only way to get around. But it is also the reason you cannot fly home when you are sick, and the reason you can’t walk away from it all when you can’t take anymore. So you end up loving and hating it more than anything in the world.
For now Mengo I am going to bed, I am not sure what the purpose of this is. But I’d like to continue to add and edit the experience of riding so maybe I can pull out something more meaningful at some point. I have a much larger album of film photos from trips in the shop that I will try to share with you.
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So Matt, for starting, this is unbelievable.
We had a similar conversation before, I believe at your place or in Vegas and on the phone, when I was in Italy. This conversation about riding. I believe it was more about the old school bikers, about people that started this life style. You once told me about people try to run away from society, not even that, to be loathed by the society and by who belong to it. You told about tattoos, Nazi memorabilia etc. But from what you write it there is a deeper meaning. A deeper connection. You also told about the relation that a biker has with his bike. This new form of man and machine, melted together, where sometimes it not the best of the two, but instead the weak part of both. I don’t know how to say it. But a man with no sleep, high, drunk after countless night outside in the freezing cold or in the burning days, on top of bike built with parts coming from everything, with almost no brakes or control is the complete opposite of the idea of the world where we are going. Where the man is helped by a machine to do tasks and where the best of the two meet.
And in some way I do understand what you feel and those are same feelings that I’m looking for myself. Yes, I’m riding on 4 wheels, but I love my smell of gasoline 24h and I don’t care if my brakes are not working… (of course I’m exaggerating) but I know how thrilling is not having control over stuff. This is the career that I choose. Filmmaking the way I do is like riding a bike. Not sleeping, no money, no knowledge about my future.
Along with all my work and my ideas I’m digging a lot about the old frontier. A time when man and woman they were leaving their comfortable society and home in Europe to come to America and risk it all. It wasn’t just business and opportunity. It was about the thrill. That thrill that makes you feel alive, because is when you are risking it all that you feel the most alive. In short here what I’m referring a theory from Turner:
Turner believed that the frontier experience, characterized by the constant encounter with new challenges, dangers, and the need for adaptation, influenced the American spirit. The rugged environment of the frontier necessitated self-reliance, adaptability, and the ability to confront and overcome various hardships and uncertainties. This environment, according to Turner, helped create a distinct American identity characterized by traits such as individualism, egalitarianism, independence, and a sense of democracy.
The dangers and thrill associated with the frontier life, including encounters with Native American tribes, wildlife, environmental challenges, and the constant need to carve out new territories, contributed to shaping what Turner saw as the unique American character, distinct from the European experience.
Is maybe this that push a man to embrace a bike and ride against the wind? You tell me, this my feelings, the feelings that a man that the only time he rode a bike he miserably chased (and I was going 2mph!). I don’t know, but I might want a bike…
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Mengo, not sure how we should keep this organized, but it is nice to be able to read it all in a chronological order. I am a fan of your statement above, man and machine but the weakest part of both.
This next thing I’m thinking about is not a big point but I do think it’s somewhat important. Bikers, counterculture in general are generally a “fuck you” kind of group and they don’t like to dig in too deep into the meanings of things. With that said, there’s still tons of culture and “wisdom” and ideals, but they seem to do it without analyzing too much. Harleys are some of the simplest combustion engines out there, and it kind of represents how little we are willing to think conceptually. But if you look at how much thought and character is put into the design of the bike, how much very specific culture has been built around bike gangs and such, it's obvious that some complexity is tolerated. So there’s a fine line between not willing to analyze why, but to do some pretty complicated stuff. But my point is, we should discuss in detail what this means and how to create a dialogue, but if we stray too far from “fuck you who cares” I think something is lost. I can’t quite describe it, but in America these groups are outcasts and still highly respected. You’re not sure if they’ve got jobs or families and their clothes are dirty and torn but the bikes are so clean and perfect you could eat off them.
---------------------------------------Nice. Yes, for now we don’t need to keep organized. Let’s keep it writing. No need to be writing always, just when we feel it. I believe that when we had a note with a tag we get a notification.
I think I believe I understand what you say. This kind of two sides of the same coin. I was reading today about the ADHD and how a person with ADHD behave. They are very messy, forgetful, they never finish anything, keep postponing everything especially burocracy and stuff like that. At the same time they are extremely focus on few things. Super organized and precise. And it is not just because they care about this and they don’t care about other things, it is just that their brain tune only with few things that excite them.
Anyway, in what we are talking right now, we don’t need to analyze or try to make a sense of everything. You could also share other stuff, like stories, moments, place, people etc. Whatever come to mind, when it come to mind. I do believe you have tons of stories but the one that matter are the one that you feel you want to share. No need for anything with a deep meaning or such. I don’t need a story with a beginning or an hand, it could be just one sentence with a detail, like: There is one guy, that when he sleeps outdoors he like to keep his hand on the rim of the bike.
So feel free, whenever you want to add anything.
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For me there’s really two types of rides. If you read Hunter S Thompson's book on the Hell’s Angels it’s mostly the social side of bikes, the motorcycle club life which is really interesting. I could attempt to introduce us to some characters if we head out on a ride, but it's sort of impossible to get them to commit to an interview, and I'm not very close to the clubs. But back to the point, there’s the type of ride where you are going to a “party”, and then there’s traveling solo. When I traveled to Montana when I was only 20 or so I had a lot of trust in my bike. It took about a month, it was a very beautiful and also very lonely time. I found myself in Nevada one of the first days and was disgusted by the people and the city. Traveling solo on the bike I get very paranoid about people stealing the bike or my gear. So I left and changed my path to cut through the desert and up into the Rockies at the very base of Idaho. A few nights into Idaho I was much deeper into the “wilderness” than I had expected, and found a very small town with grass fields on either end and I set up camp. Wonderful views of the Rockies. Some people from the town came to visit and see what I was up to. There was a man who took a lot of interest in the bike and wanted to ride it. He would in turn lend me a shotgun for the night so I could sleep without worry about animals. I asked him what kind of animals they had there and he said wolves and bears. Coming from California where there are no wolves and the bears are only small black bears, I was a little shocked. I declined, but spent the night sleeping halfway up an oak tree in my hammock. I spent the next few days riding through the Rockies and wondering if I would rather be with the people in Nevada or the bears of Idaho. I didn’t sleep until reaching Bozeman, Montana, where I got a room at a hostel and meet an Australian who was traveling to Glacier. I agreed to ride to the Canadian border and we spent two nights at the very top of the states. The biggest mountains and the widest plains I had ever seen. It was so open and the sky was so big, we were in high spirits. In Australia he told me it was very expensive to import alcohol, so much so that liquor can be twice the price it is in the states. We drank a $100 bottle of scotch, and talked all night the way only strangers can. On the last morning he left and I was alone again, feeling very far from home. I had a stiff drink and got on my bike. The sky was so huge, I remember feeling the most alone I had ever been in my life. I almost immediately got arrested in Saint Mary. It took me about two weeks of riding to get back home.
There’s a lot of beauty and solitude in these trips but it is difficult to draw a storyline. The other type of trip, the “party” trip introduces a set goal, characters and such. We go to Mexico every other year, it’s a long brutal ride through the desert. There are hundreds of other bikers along the way, though we travel in a pack and don’t engage much with others. People are in a dangerous mood going across the border and several times I’ve been close to getting into a fight that I was not interested in. Folks go down to these parties and seem to make a point of trying to start trouble where there’s no repercussions. Still, there’s nothing like drinking $1 beers all night under the stars and seeing what your bike can do down the Mexican boulevard. Cocaine….strippers…. you name it San Felipe has got it, and at the end of the long hot night you still get a ride in even though you can barely stand. The bike feels tired by the time you make it to the border, the heat when you pass into Mexico is unbelievable. The first time I crossed over it was with about 100 other people. Bikes were blowing seals, gas lines were melting. People on the side of the road looking for oil, looking for gas. The heat is so unbearable you think you're going to be sick. You've got no clue where you're going so the pack rides extra tight and starts blowing every red light in desperation to not be left behind. But eventually the border city gives away to a huge desert and you ride almost 90 miles through seemingly nothing. It's a beautiful ride. You finally roll into San Felipe and fuel up. There's a party for three days straight, bars right on the beach. This guy lands an airplane in front of the party, it's hard to explain. And at night, you ride back into town. Through all the shacks and the dusty roads, the bike seems to wake up again. The air is warm, the whole town is lit up in a hazy seaside sort of way. Every side road brings you to a new bar, and out the back door they're grilling and serving food. To walk back out, in the heat and the thrill of it all and your bike is on the street corner. These kinds of trips we’ve got good and bad guys, goals, destinations... But the beauty of the ride can become obscured by the indulgence of it all. But the characters you gain are notable and make for incredible conversation. There’s also a sense of danger that I get on these trips, and that can add the excitement a story needs. We’ve seen a couple people not make it home in one piece, especially from Mexico.
I'm headed back to the shop for the night. There's some excitement in me from all this talk about trips, and I do not yet get paid to talk about bikes, I've still got to build them.
SB
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