US bike sales never recovered after the recession. To figure out why, a new citizen put an American tradition to the test.
Skyline Drive in Shenandoah National Park is one of America’s most magnificent roads: 105 miles (169 kilometers) of flawless blacktop threading through the undulating peaks of the Blue Ridge Mountains. Built in the 1930s and just recently repaved to a velvety smoothness, it was intended to be “the greatest single feature” of the park, a bucolic drive for middle-class families newly discovering the freedom of the automobile.
It is also, I discovered, potentially lethal on a motorcycle.
