From the doorway of his duplex, Mike Pullam squints into the morning sunlight, a cigarette dangling from his lips. “We wait all winter for a day like today,” he says, plucking the cigarette out of his mouth after pulling on it fast and hard. With his other hand he smoothes his gray beard into a loose curl beneath his chin.  His slim-hipped figure is clad in black leather from skull cap to steel-toed boots. When he turns around, a dusty brown ringlet hangs to the collar of his leather vest. Across his shoulders gold embroidery spells out “Destination Riders” above a map of the United States. A pearly white bead is sewn inside every state except Oregon, where a pink bead indicates his motorcycle club’s home turf.

The 53-year-old looks every part the intimidating biker, but up close his blue eyes twinkle kindly in a fine-featured face and he exudes a certain simple integrity. He doesn’t say much, but when he does, he speaks with the throaty echo of a longtime smoker and not a trace of irony. Hollywood, he says, has given all bikers a rough time of it. But while most bikers lament the stereotypical bad biker image, Mike concedes that it’s also part of the allure.

Inside, Mike’s wife Dawn, a bottle blond in an over-sized airbrushed t-shirt, chain smokes while she nervously fusses over two sleeping kittens.  Talking and smoking, she follows Mike outside to the curb, where his iridescent green and gleaming chrome Honda Valkyrie—a 1500 cc, water-cooled, shaft drive, six-cylinder machine —is parked. A sticker on the bike’s console is a reminder to Mike that his bike has been blessed. He also keeps a guardian angel pinned on his vest over his heart. There’s a rule, Mike says.  It goes: Never ride faster than your guardian angel can fly. On the footrests, he’s tied little bells that are supposed to ward off the evil road gremlins that can bring a biker bad luck.

Over his leather do-rag Mike fits an insubstantial black helmet, non-regulation gear he has made to look legal by a sticker he’s pasted on the back.  He stands the massive bike upright and climbs onto the padded leather seat.  The engine ignites with a roaring rumble that instantly blots out the sound of a neighbor’s lawn mower.  Mike rolls out into the street.

Every other Sunday for the past five years, Mike and the other members of Destination Riders, a Eugene, Oregon motorcycle club, congregate for breakfast followed by an all-day ride to a destination unknown. They come from a 100-mile radius and from different lives, their bikes and a love of the open road bringing them together.  With the pavement a dizzying blur beneath them, they find excitement, camaraderie and temporary escape, a fleeting bliss.

On the outskirts of town, Mike turns off the highway onto a country road, which he follows up to Jake and Sandy’s driveway.  They are already straddling their bike when Mike pulls in.  Sandy hides her head of red curls beneath a helmet as her husband Jake fastens his chin strap under a dense white beard that accentuates his jutting jaw line. Mike nods towards Jake and Sandy’s bike—a Harley Davidson with a wasp-like body.

“Yep, Jake’s a Harley man. He likes his Harleys,” he says, with an almost imperceptible roll of the eyes. Just then, Terry, a walrus of a man with long ratty gray hair, rolls into the driveway followed by Two, a younger guy with a goofy, yellow-toothed smile.

The four bikes, Jake and Sandy on one bike in front, Mike in the middle and Terry and Two on their own bikes behind, sway in graceful s-curves up and down the rolling hills and through the verdant countryside. When they hit a straight-away, they go full throttle, feeding and feeling the power of their bikes until forced to slow at the next winding stretch.

“The crookeder the road the better,” Mike yells into the wind.