When a Man Loves a Motorcycle

Steve Pearce’s life-long romance began when he was 14 years old.

“It was a Vespa,” he said. “A beautiful powder-blue Vespa.”

There would be other motorcycles, of course, but that Vespa introduced the restless, self-styled “undersized” teenager to a world of freedom and adventure. Today, 75, Pearce looks back on the triumphs and trials of the open road.

As a child, Pearce had a tepid relationship with school. But he was fascinated with mechanical things of the two-wheeled, motored variety, and by high school, Pearce had found his tribe.

His motorcycle adventures began when the 15-year-old waved an innocent goodbye to his mother and made a motorcycle trip from Miami to Fort Meyers and back.

“Helmets were not included, but what fun,” he recounted.

Another trip in his senior year had different results. That time, Pearce collided with an erratic driver. The accident wasn’t fatal, but Pearce broke his collarbone, wrist, and knee and lost most of the skin from his back. Still, his love of motorcycles continued.

He would go on to own the powder-blue Vespa, a Honda CB450, a Honda CB550, a Harley-Davidson Sportster, a Kawasaki Vulcan, two Yamaha FJ1200s and a Kawasaki KLR650. These dependable friends would take Pearce across thousands of miles of the United States and beyond for 60 years.

Eventually, despite his past ambivalence toward school, Pearce earned two associate degrees, Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science degrees, and an R.N. licensure.

“At 30, I got a clue,” he said. “I went to Wake Forest and became a nurse anesthetist.”

He was licensed in 13 states and ran his own busy NA group, all the while using his motorbike to take road trips through the Midwest, into Canada and to New England every chance he got.

“And then came Peru.” In 2019, traveling with fellow biker Henry Brown, another nurse anesthetist, Pearce and five others set out from Cusco south toward Bolivia by bike.

“We rented Suzuki DR650s, and for a sea-level guy, those 11,000-foot Andes, the hairpin turns, the vistas filled with herds of llamas, the ancient ruins — Machu Picchu included — and the people were the thrill of a lifetime,” he said.

Henry Brown joined Pearce on a 2019 trip to Peru and two TransAmerica Trail attempts, one in 2022 and the other in 2023. Photo by The Workmans

After Peru, with a supportive wife and now a taste for the long journey, Pearce was ready for one of the most daring motorbike challenges available to any rider — he and Brown set out on the TransAmerica Trail.

Created by Sam Correro in 1984, the TransAm Trail takes riders across the country, mostly on unpaved roads and trails, through farmland, mountain passes, forests and deserts. Suggestions are to cover 200 miles a day and take about three months to complete the journey, starting in Tellico Plains, Tennessee, and arriving on the Oregon coast.

Pearce is the first to acknowledge that the pair’s first attempt in 2022 was “a debacle.”

In 2023, Pearce and Brown set out on the TAT after their “debacle” of a trip in 2022, but the trip had its own challenges. At one point, Pearce wound up “taking a swim.” After three flat tires and a laundry list of other broken motorcycle parts, the pair drove home. Photo courtesy of Steve Pearce

“From the start, it was raining and foggy, and the trail was, essentially, mud. We had gone about 13 miles when my rear tire swung out from under me and crashed the bike into a tree. It destroyed the tire and wheel. And there would be no fixing it for the next four days.”

Pearce pushed the twisted bike miles out to a paved road, rented a U-Haul and returned to Florida to rethink and regroup. In 2023, Pearce and Brown tried again. 

While they didn’t reach the West Coast that time, either, the pair rode through Tennessee, Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Kansas, New Mexico and Colorado, aborting only when their list of broken parts included shocks, clutches, three flat tires, and they received word of 120 inches of snow in the Ophir Pass.

Besides, after almost three weeks on a bike, “We were beat to hell,” admitted Pearce.

But when asked if traveling only a portion of the famed TransAmerica Trail was worth it, Pearce said, “Absolutely.”

“The characters we met along the way, the Midwestern people I got to know, and those Oklahoma sunsets were priceless.”

After 60 years on the road, Pearce said his riding days are behind him. He no longer owns a motorcycle; however, his love for them persists, and he looks back fondly on the memories made, the distance covered and the storms weathered.