Road Canoe

If a big car is a boat, then a motorcycle is a road canoe.

I coined "road canoe" about ten years ago and didn't think it was very original. I figured that many people must have referred to motorcycles as road canoes, since it seemed such an obvious thing.

But I just googled the term and can't find "road canoe" as a euphemism for a motorcycle.

Can I actually be the first to think of this? Golly.


I came up with the term because at one point I thought it would be nice to have a canoe with a trolling motor. I would ride it quietly, solo, here and there, exploring little-traveled backwaters, away from the speedboats and revelers. It took little thought to realize that is precisely how I enjoy motorcycling.

I don't like to ride in traffic and I don't like to ride in the company of a bunch of other guys on bikes. I like to explore the backroads, alone. And I prefer a quiet and unobtrusive motorcycle with which I can slip in and out of peaceful lanes without disturbing the peace. Road canoeing.

Obviously a non-motorized canoe and a bicycle are equally homologous. But I like a motor. I like to relax and pay attention to what I'm riding through instead of huffing and puffing my way through it. Float trips are nice but you have to keep going downstream. I like to go whichever way the mood swings me.

And yes, I enjoy the exhilaration of quick acceleration and high velocity, sometimes. But the greatest pleasure I get from motorcycling comes from just cruising around, exploring. And exploring is not a thing to be done quickly. Moving fast through new territory is dangerous, and you miss all the finer details of your surroundings.

So the only thing I have in common with the guy riding wheelies down the interstate is that our vehicles each have two wheels.

And the helmetless guys on the big cruisers? They can't go where I go. Those big bikes aren't designed for surprises.

There are many kinds of motorcycling. My kind is road canoeing.