The Ride So Far: Tales From a Motorcycling Life

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Nobody has to ride a motorcycle, so why do we do it? Despite the icy rivulets of rain that sneak past a jacket collar or the sharp shrapnel splat of suicidal bugs, we spend our stationary hours planning, imagining, and anticipating time spent in motion. Few explain our collective excuses better, or paint a more vivid and varied picture of the paradoxical joys of riding than Lance Oliver, a man who has spent more time than most of us parsing the entertaining reality of life on two wheels.

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Whether describing a laid-back, homeward-bound ramble along an Appalachian backroad, racing non-stop around Lake Erie on a tiny motorcycle barely capable of reaching the speed limit, or piloting a Kawasaki Ninja to 170 mph on the surrealistically smooth straightaway at Losail International Circuit in Qatar, Oliver’s road stories and ruminations from the garage seek to uncover the essence of what makes motorcycling so much more than just a way to get from here to there. You will find yourself leaning your armchair into the turns, nodding in recognition, and saying to yourself, “Yes, that's it exactly!” as these unusual destinations inspire you to write your own adventures across the face of the earth.

About the Author

Lance Oliver took his first motorcycle rides on a humble Honda 50 step-through (see “The Most Important Motorcycle Ever Built”) and has since ridden just about anything he has been able to get his hands on, whether fast (“Dream Riding in Boomtown”) or slow (“Slow Way Around”), old (“Blind Date in Vermont”) or new (“Dropping the Ducati”), from the familiar hills of his original West Virginia home (“Almost Heaven for Riding”) to the mountains of his adopted second home of Puerto Rico (“Evolution Island”).

Over the years, he has worked as a newspaper reporter and editor in New York, Florida and Puerto Rico; as a volunteer English teacher in rural Costa Rica; and as a magazine and website editor at the American Motorcyclist Association. He currently lives in the woodsy hills of Ohio with his wife, Ivonne, and a collection of formerly homeless animals, and works as a freelance writer and translator.