From test tubes to exhaust pipes, Woodgrove’s chemistry teacher Ms. Linda Palmisano is a jack of many trades. One of those trades is years of experience around motorcycles and riding. She was first introduced to the bike scene by her friends. “I’ve been a passenger most of my life. The people I hung out with, they were all bikers and they all had motorcycles, so I was a passenger,” Palmisano stated. Then, when she married her husband, a biker, he would take her on rides. “After I had my son, he started to ride in between us when he was just a little baby. He has a little helmet and everything,” explained Palmisano.
“She’s like, ‘I rode my Harley in today.’ And of course, it is a beautiful blue Harley, and I’m thinking, that’s just about right,” commented Ms. Erin Barrett, a Woodgrove physics teacher and friend of Palmisano’s. She was not always aware of Palmisano’s riding habit, but at some point early on in the 2021 school year, after Palmisano walked in holding a riding helmet, Barrett was not surprised. She pointed out how Palmisano “is a tough woman from Baltimore who grew up very experienced,” and if there was anyone she knew who was able to ride a motorcycle, it would be Palmisano.
At the same time, Palmisano is humble about the epic endeavor. Barrett stated that “she is never posing when she’s on the bike,” because she has had experience and does not try to do too much. Palmisano’s number one comment about riding habits is that “you do not have to prove anything to anyone,” so you should ride responsibly and ride for yourself. Getting on a bike that’s too powerful for your experience is how you can tell someone is “posing,” or does not know about riding. “Inexperience is what kills the most riders,” per Palmisano.
For her, that journey began with a little Honda 250 rebel street bike, which she got her license on and rode for a year. That was a good, relatively lower powered bike to get started on, because for Palmisano, understanding your experience level when riding is what keeps you safe and a genuine rider. Next, she upgraded to a 1992 Harley Davidson Sportster 883, which was her first major upgrade. She rode that bike for 18 years, and was ready for something a little more serious with “a high center of gravity and you can take curves real easy on it,” as she put it. Now, she rides a Dyna Low rider, a beautiful 2006 model which she has ridden ever since, a reliable beast with loud low-riding exhaust pipes. When asked about whether she likes to rev the engine to hear some exciting exhaust sounds, Palmisano simply said, “you don’t really need to rev it” to make it loud.
Once Palmisano gained more experience on the bike, she started to travel further and further. While she first rode with groups on day trips through the Blue Ridge and Appalachian mountains, she quickly found longer trips, between two and three days, and eventually started taking cross-country trips. She would join up with giant rallies made up of hundreds of bikers. However, after all of her trips and experiences, her trip to the massive rally in Sturgis, North Dakota remains her favorite. Despite sometimes persevering extreme 109-degree heat, Palmisano loves biking across the country because “when you ride through places in a car, you’re riding through them. But when you’re on a bike, it’s like you’re really in them. There’s a difference. It’s a different feel to it. And that’s what I like about it,” Palmisano expressed.