The Perfect Vehicle: What It Is About Motorcycles (Paperback)

By Melissa Holbrook Pierson

What is it about motorcycles that inspires such devotion? In The Perfect Vehicle, Melissa Holbrook Pierson explores the attraction of riding with curiosity, honesty, and a sharp eye for the myths surrounding motorcycle culture.

Part memoir and part cultural history, the book looks beyond familiar ideas about danger and identity. Pierson considers the motorcycle's beginnings, the often-overlooked history of women riders, the intensity of racing, and her own life on two wheels. The result is a thoughtful account of why riding can become far more than transportation.

Why we carry it: It asks one of the central questions behind Luck & Spite: Why does riding matter so much to the people who do it?

Book details

• Paperback
• 242 pages
• Illustrated
• Published October 19, 2012
• Dimensions: 6.15 × 8.26 × 0.67 inches
• ISBN: 9780393318098