This Motorcycle Life Podcast

Can an epic ride really change your life? Meet Chris Donaldson, whose unplanned 39,000 mile odyssey still burns bright forty years later. Bright enough to write a vivid book from his original diary. Bright enough to keep the motorcycle he rode. Bright enough to want to finish the intended journey on that same bike at the age of 63. Interrupted then by a revolution and now by a pandemic, Chris remains undeterred. And his incredible story proves the best thing about epic rides isn’t that they grow you up, but that they guarantee the best part of you never will.

What makes a great mechanic tick? Meet Miss Emma Booton, a ‘humble wrench’ who builds, restores and fixes some of the Bay Area’s most special motorcycles. What begins as an inside look at life in the back of the shop becomes an expansive conversation about the role of machines in motorcycle culture… and a profile of someone who’s dedicated her life to keeping our love for them burning. An affectionate look at ourselves in the mirror of the people who do this work, and proof that keeping our bikes running and our hearts aflame can often be the same job.

What is a motorcyclist? And are we really as different as we feel under our helmets? Meet documentary photographer David Goldman, whose continuing odyssey to document our community might just be the most ambitious attempt to find out ever… even if that wasn’t the plan. Goldman’s growing collection, The Motorcycle Portraits, portrays the faces and voices of motorcycling with an authenticity that suddenly seems long overdue, and he’s not done yet. And the answer? As with so much about having motorcycles in your life, discovering who we are turns out to be far more about the journey than the destination.

Is dirt riding as good for us as everyone says it is? Meet retired NHL power forward Scott Thornton, whose transition from life in professional hockey began in earnest with a ride in the woods. Unsurprisingly for an elite athlete, Thornton’s off-road riding career would draw him to the unforgiving world of hard enduro. But what he found was something more satisfying than adoring crowds and more universal than victory, and it’s there for anyone with the courage to ride where there is no road. A compelling conversation that just might leave you thinking you’ve got room for one more bike.

Is progress costing motorcycles their souls? Not if we do it right. Meet Nashville recording engineer and avid rider Chris Mara. In his business, the war between the analog past and the digital future was settled a generation ago. His take? It’s all good. If the music industry can teach motorcyclists anything, it’s that yesterday and tomorrow can get along fine together, if we simply decide to let it happen. Bikes are just “stuff we use to go places,” he says… and as long as that’s what we do with them, there will always be more than enough soul to go around.

What if one terrible moment on a motorcycle took away almost everything that mattered to you? Would you ride again? Meet Omar Petralis, who’s lived through exactly that nightmare. His answer might amaze you… or it might not amaze you at all. Either way, Omar’s story is dramatic proof of the deep hold motorcycles have on the people who ride them, and of how resilient our passion can really be. A raw and difficult conversation about facing the specter that haunts us all, every time we ride. A warning that this interview includes some graphic and emotionally intense moments.

Are endurance motorcyclists crazy? Iron Butt riders call themselves “the world’s toughest,” so you know there’s more going on here than long hours in the saddle collecting gas receipts. Meet Rick Muhr, an overnight convert to endurance motorcycling. Muhr, a marathon running coach, was a casual sunny day rider until the tragic events of the 2013 Boston Marathon sent him on a healing journey that changed his life forever. When the road inside is even harder than the road ahead, Rick’s story shows us how enduring both makes us stronger… and that sometimes an insanely long ride is the sanest thing you can do.

If you had to do it again, how hard would you fight to have a motorcycle in your life? Meet Angie Sandow, whose mid-life return to riding faced her with every obstacle you can imagine, starting with the fact she had been born with only one hand. Angie shares the story of how a cancer diagnosis and a random gig with her AC/DC tribute band led her back to her childhood passion, and with it a newfound sense of purpose. A timely reminder that anything is possible if we want it enough… and that we can never take for granted the battles we’ve already won.

Are motorcycles beautiful? What is it about the sight of our bikes that sets our hearts on fire all over again every spring? Meet Amy Shore, an avid rider and automotive photographer who has made a career of documenting beautiful machines and the people who love them. She calls motorcycles “the most artistic form of transport”. But in a conversation by turns funny and insightful, she dispenses with any notion that we’re manipulated by design. Instead, Amy affirms what anyone who has ever been obsessed by a motorcycle already knows: stories are what make them beautiful, and they only become more so every time we thumb the starter.

Where is motorcycling going? Depending on whom you listen to, the answer can be anywhere from soulless techno-utopia to outright extinction. In this episode, we’re listening to legendary racer, designer, engineer and entrepreneur Erik Buell, who thinks the sky’s the limit. In a wide-ranging conversation that takes us from his “terrifying” 1980s race bikes to the electric imperative that could secure the future of the sport for us all, Buell shares what might be the greatest lesson of his storied career so far: that the past may be prologue, but the future will always be up to us.