This Is How I Find Joy
Last weekend, we were invited by Moldavia Bikers to Bacău for their end-of-season party. The kind of event you go to for the people, the atmosphere, the stories, the music, a drink, a handshake, and, inevitably, for those more or less unspoken comparisons between “how they do things” and “how we do things.”
And this should be said from the start: the people at Moldavia Bikers did an impressively good job organizing it. The clubhouse, the music, the atmosphere, the way they welcomed us, everything was beyond expectations. It was a proper party, with that rare feeling that you’ve arrived in a place built by people who truly put their heart into it. I’m sincerely glad I was there. Thank you, Moldavia Bikers, for the invitation and for the warm welcome.
The invitation came through the HOG group, nicely organized, with departure on Saturday and return on Sunday. It was the kind of wording that, if taken seriously enough, could make you imagine a detachment of men leaving for the front, rather than a group of bikers heading to a party in Bacău.
But, well, every community has its own poetry.
A separate group was also created for the ride, where we tried to find out, among other things, who was coming by motorcycle and who was coming by car. I asked the question in my own style, more jokingly, maybe a little too jokingly for a context where everyone reads messages through whatever mood they happen to be in at that moment.
And, as sometimes happens in groups, the joke didn’t land with everyone the way it had left me. It was taken more seriously than I had intended, and the discussion quickly moved toward the idea that participation matters, regardless of whether someone comes on two wheels or four.
Which, in the end, is true.
But that whole little episode switched on a light for me. I realized that beyond the joke, beyond the poll, and beyond who was coming to Bacău on what, I felt the need to write about something else: the joy of riding a motorcycle.
Not about who is more of a biker. Not about who is right. Not about who freezes more gracefully, or who gets to park closer to the entrance because they arrived on two wheels.
About joy.
For me, riding a motorcycle is pure joy. And I know that sounds grand, maybe even a little sentimental, but I can’t find a more honest way to put it. It’s the joy of simply riding, regardless of the weather, the road, the temperature, or how comfortable or uncomfortable everything is.
If it’s cold, I’m happy.
If it rains, I’m happy.
If it’s 45 degrees and I can feel the air boiling between the asphalt, the engine, and my leather jacket, I’m happy.
That doesn’t mean I enjoy suffering. Let’s not dramatize. I don’t leave home romantically dreaming of numb fingers and underwear glued to me like a temporary ID card. I don’t go looking for rain, I don’t pray for crosswinds, and I don’t wake up in the morning saying, “Lord, send me a cold drizzle on the Prahova Valley today, otherwise I won’t feel alive.”
But if they come, they become part of the story.
The cold in my hands and feet, the icy water finding its way between my helmet and the collar of my jacket, the heat that makes you sweat until you wonder whether you’re still human or a packet of instant soup, none of it cancels out the joy. It makes it more present.
I think that’s the difference.
On a motorcycle, you’re not a spectator. You don’t pass through the weather as if behind a window. You don’t press a button to make it 22 degrees, you don’t shut the rain outside, you don’t turn the music up so you can stop hearing the world. On a motorcycle, the world gets in. With wind, smells, dust, cold, sun, splashes, bad asphalt, good asphalt, villages, trucks, ambitious dogs, and gas stations where the coffee tastes like heated plastic.
And, strangely enough, that’s exactly what calms me down.
Every moment on the motorcycle makes me more present. It puts my thoughts in order. It pulls me out of that constant rush where my mind goes in ten directions at once and none of them are where I actually am. On a motorcycle, you don’t really have that luxury. You have to be there. Mind and body.
You feel the road in your palms, your shoulders, your lower back. You feel the temperature drop. You feel when the asphalt turns shiny. You feel when the bike runs smoothly and when something isn’t quite right. You feel tired before you admit you’re tired. You feel when you’ve entered a bend a little more optimistically than you should have and, suddenly, all your philosophical problems disappear, because you have a much more concrete one to solve in the next two seconds.
The motorcycle brings you back.
Maybe that’s why I wouldn’t trade these sensations for the comfort of a car. Not because cars are bad. God forbid. A car is wonderful when it’s raining hard, when you have luggage, when you have people to carry, when you want to arrive dry, warm, and with your textile dignity intact. We don’t need to turn every choice into an ideological battle.
But for me, if I have to choose between the comfort of a car and the joy of riding a motorcycle, I choose the motorcycle.
Not because I’m tougher. Not because I want to prove anything to anyone. But because this is how I find joy.
And I think this is where we sometimes go wrong in our little communities. We fall too easily into judging. We stick labels on other people’s foreheads at a speed we couldn’t even reach on the motorway. That one’s a real biker. That one isn’t. That one came by car. That one only rides in sunshine. That one only goes out for coffee. That one is showing off. That one is too cautious. That one is too crazy.
And on it goes, until we forget the simplest thing: everyone has their own way of experiencing motorcycling.
For some, the joy is the long road. For others, it’s the gathering at the end. For some, the motorcycle is the main reason. For others, the people are the main reason, and the motorcycle is the ticket into the group. Some come on two wheels regardless of the weather. Others come by car if it’s cold, if it’s raining, or simply because they feel better that way.
And that’s okay.
What is joy for me may feel like unnecessary torment to someone else. What feels like a natural choice to someone else may look to me like a missed chance to ride a few more kilometers. But that doesn’t make us enemies, it doesn’t put us in opposing camps, and above all, it doesn’t give us the right to measure each other’s “motorcycling” with the moral measuring tape we keep in our pocket.
My joy should not become someone else’s standard.
I try to remember that too, because I’m not immune to this stupidity. I judge sometimes. I look sideways sometimes. I also have moments when I feel like saying, “What do you mean you’re coming by car to a ride?” Then, if I’m lucky, it passes quickly enough for me to realize that the person may have their own reasons, their own pleasure, their own limits, or simply another definition of joy.
But my definition remains this: if I can ride a motorcycle, I ride a motorcycle.
In Bacău, beyond all this, Moldavia Bikers showed us beautifully what it means to build something around a community. Their clubhouse, the way they prepared the party, the good music, the atmosphere, the people — everything felt settled, natural, done with care and with a genuine desire to bring bikers together.
And perhaps precisely because the party was such a success, the simple question I had started from became even clearer to me: what actually brings us together?
For some, it’s the gathering at the end. For others, the group. For some, it’s the music, the stories, the feeling of belonging somewhere. For me, it still begins with the motorcycle in motion.
That moment when you start the engine and leave. It doesn’t matter whether you’re heading to Bacău, to the seaside, to the mountains, for a coffee 40 kilometers away, or just for a short ride long enough to untangle the mess in your head. What matters is that moment when the wheel starts turning and the world shifts slightly.
You’re not quite the same person who came down the stairs.
You have a helmet, gloves, a road ahead, the engine beneath you, and for a while, life becomes simpler. Problems don’t disappear. You don’t suddenly become wiser. It doesn’t pay the bills, fix relationships, cure back pain, or answer the messages you’ve been ignoring for three days. But it brings a kind of peace I can’t seem to find anywhere else.
A strange kind of silence, made of engine, wind, and noise.
Maybe that’s why it’s so hard to explain to people who don’t feel it the same way. How do you tell someone that the cold can calm you down? That rain doesn’t necessarily scare you? That discomfort, in bearable doses, can bring you closer to yourself? That sometimes you’d rather arrive wet, tired, and with cold hands, but with that stupid smile on your face, than perfectly dry and completely absent?
You can’t really explain it.
And you don’t have to.
For me, motorcycling is not an endurance contest, nor a certificate of being a “real man.” It’s not about who endured more, who rode through worse weather, or who has the best “man, that was awful, but I made it” stories. I don’t want to turn my pleasure into a test for anyone else.
It is, more simply, the way I enjoy the world.
I enjoy the road when it’s easy, and I enjoy it when it’s uncomfortable. I enjoy the motorcycle when it runs flawlessly, and I enjoy it even when it wears me out. I enjoy the group, but I also enjoy those moments when I’m alone inside my helmet, with my thoughts finally no longer stepping on each other.
And if someone else enjoys it differently, that’s perfectly fine. Let them come by car, by motorcycle, by train, by whatever gets them there. Let them come to the party, sit around telling stories, listen to music, laugh, build places, clubs, and gatherings. All of that matters.
Let’s just remember that joy doesn’t look the same for everyone.
Mine has two wheels. Sometimes it smells like gasoline, sometimes like rain on hot asphalt. It numbs my fingers when it’s cold and makes me sweat like a man who made questionable clothing choices at 45 degrees.
And I wouldn’t trade it for the comfort of a car.
Not because I’m tougher.
But because I’m simply happier this way.
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