I used to be a great pillion; then I learned to ride

Whatever term you use for the person who rides on the back of a motorcycle, I've become terrible at it.

I realized this recently on the curvy roads of Umbria in Italy, while riding two-up on the Ducati Hyperstrada my husband, Andrea, and I keep in a garage near his mom's apartment in Rome.

Andrea confirmed what I already knew.

"Have you forgotten how to be a pillion?" he asked at one point. "You're throwing off my balance and we're going to end up on the ground."

He wasn't wrong.

I found myself looking ahead at the road and anticipating what I would do if I were riding. I tensed up over some of the rougher stretches and occasionally grabbed Andrea a little too tightly. I was no longer simply sitting behind the rider. My brain was still trying to ride the motorcycle.

I wasn't always a bad pillion. I became one by learning to ride.

The passenger's role is very different than the rider's

Before I had my own motorcycle license, I understood the basic rules of being a passenger. Trust the rider. Don't fight the motorcycle. Don't make sudden movements. Let the person in front be in charge.

Basically, sit there like a sack of potatoes. I was a pretty good sack of potatoes.

I used to ride behind less-experienced riders without worrying too much about what they were doing. I didn't have an opinion on their lines, braking, or how they were approaching the next corner because I didn't have enough information. Being a passenger required a certain amount of trust, but it was also liberating. Someone else was responsible for the motorcycle. I could look around and enjoy the scenery.

Once I learned to ride, that changed.

It's not that I stopped trusting the person in front of me. I trust Andrea completely. The problem is that I now know enough about motorcycles to be aware of what is happening underneath me and enough to imagine what I might be doing differently.

Giving up control is harder once you know what it feels like to have it.

In the United States, Andrea and I rarely ride two-up anymore. If we need to drop off a bike, deal with a mechanical problem, or are on a longer trip and I want to leave my motorcycle parked so I can have a glass of wine with dinner, I'll ride pillion. Otherwise, I'm on my own motorcycle.

In Italy, we have just the one Ducati. We often question whether keeping it is even practical, given the expense and bureaucratic hassles involved, compared with the amount of time we actually use it. But then we arrive in Rome, go to the garage, and see the Hyperstrada waiting for us.

Apparently, that's enough justification.

In Rome, riding together on two motorcycles isn't always easy. I'm generally happy to let Andrea navigate the strange flow of heavy urban traffic since he grew up with it. When we ride together in the city, I'm on the back.

I do pay attention to what is going on around me, of course. I try to be ready for sudden stops or evasive maneuvers. But there is something nice about letting someone else deal with Rome's traffic while I watch what is happening around us.

When we go out of town, though, we usually rent a second motorcycle. This time, however, was different. On our recent trip to Umbria, I rode the Hyperstrada to our destination, following Andrea, my mother-in-law, and our cat, Desmo, who were in a rental car.

Yes, we like to complicate things.

I set out on my own a couple of times while we were there, but mostly I rode pillion. We wanted to get a sense of the roads and the towns, with an eye on eventually buying property in the area.

The roads didn't make being a passenger any easier.

Umbria is full of the kind of roads that make a motorcyclist want to ride: narrow pavement winding through the hills, medieval towns perched on hilltops, long climbs followed by descents and views that make you want to stop every few miles.

One afternoon, we met up with my friend Andrea Angiolini, who lives in Umbria and whom I met during the 2021 MotoGiro. He is a multi-time winner of the MotoGiro d'Italia and Milano-Taranto in his class and normally rides a Gilera in the vintage competitions.

This time, though, he was riding his BMW R 80 G/S from the 1980s, the first generation of the adventure-touring bike.

There were three of us and two motorcycles, so I rode with the other Andrea for a while. This gave my Andrea more room on the Hyperstrada so that he could enjoy the bike without my weight on the back. I also had more room and a much cushier passenger seat on the G/S.

I had fun — just not as much fun as before.

The last time we rode with Angiolini, my husband and I each had a motorcycle. We were three riders sharing roads. This time, I was the woman on the back. It felt strange.

Being a passenger doesn't mean you're not part of the community

In Italy, the word zavorrina derives from zavorra, meaning "ballast." It is a pretty literal description of what an additional passenger does to a motorcycle: add weight and change how the bike handles.

But the word also hints at the passenger's ambiguous place in motorcycle culture. The person in the back is physically exposed to the risks of riding, yet is often treated as peripheral to the activity itself.

That certainly isn't true of every passenger. There is nothing inherently wrong with being a passenger and plenty of people, usually women, are perfectly happy there. Some are deeply embedded in motorcycle culture without ever wanting to operate the machine themselves. They have their own riding gear, understand motorcycles, and actively choose to ride pillion. Online communities in both the United States and Italy are devoted to passengers, sharing advice on everything from gear to being a good pillion.

Being on the back seat doesn't mean you're outside the motorcycle world. For me, the problem is almost the opposite. I'm too far inside it.

I know what it feels like to make the decisions. I know what it feels like to choose the road, control the motorcycle, and decide how I want to approach a ride. When I sit behind someone else, that knowledge doesn't disappear. And that makes surrendering control surprisingly difficult.

Maybe that's why I enjoyed being a passenger more before I learned to ride. I didn't know what I was missing. Now I do.

I'm trying to relearn how to be comfortable on the back. I remind myself that I trust the rider. I remind myself that I don't have to be responsible for the motorcycle. I remind myself to look around and enjoy the scenery.

Sometimes I even manage it.

But I don't think I'll ever be the same passenger I was before I became a rider. Once you've had your own experiences with motorcycles, it's hard to become a sack of potatoes again.

For now, I know that when we do find a place in Umbria, there will definitely need to be space for at least two motorcycles in the garage.