"How come you don't look like a biker?" The put together, female college professor gets asked that question all the time. She decided to write a book about her answer.

Even as a little girl, Wendy Pojmann, Ph.D., professor of history and director of the Honors Program, thought motorcycles were cool. Her parents absolutely did not.

"They didn't want me around bikes or the people who rode them."

This isn't a story about rebellion, mostly. The studious daughter did date a guy with a bike in high school, but Pojmann never drove the motorcycle herself and mainly stuck to ballet class. Years later, she was still taking ballet and still hanging around a guy with a bike. This time it was her husband.

"I rode on the back of his bike for a long time. I enjoyed it, but at some point, I got bored with it. We considered selling the bike."

It would have been different if Pojmann had her own bike, but she was a clean cut female college professor who took ballet and was taught that motorcycles are dangerous. Then one day at the ballet studio, a petite female dancer walked in with her helmet under her arm.

"Until that moment, it never occurred to me that I could do it."

Pojmann got her license in 2012 and within months, found the second love of her life - Little Blue (below, right). Her husband discovered a 1974 Honda CL200 from a guy who buys old bikes and flips them. When Pojmann and Little Blue were united, her life, as she says in the introduction to her new book, "became more interesting."

One bike became two. Then two bikes became 17. The riding enthusiast and collector has a bike permanently displayed in her living room. She has a vintage 1954 Ducati 98 S that may have run in Italian road races of the 1950s. Perhaps it's the history professor inside the biker that was drawn to vintage bikes? It's her Italian husband that drew her to Italy.

Pojmann's spent plenty of time riding in Italy and years ago, she noticed that question, "How come you don't look like a biker?", was never asked of her there. She got curious. Pojmann started reading motorcycle journals and personal narratives. She visited museums and came across inspirational stories of women and their bikes, and she pored through publications in the U.S. and Italy. Her curiosity became a book, Connected by the Street: the Myths and Realities of Motorcyclists in the USA and Italy (read about the book, below).

Pojmann rides her bikes to campus when the weather is nice and she's found a community of bikers here at Siena in other faculty and administrators. When you break through the myths and the stereotypes, two wheels can be for anyone, and there are proven therapeutic benefits to riding. And if you find the right bike, a soulmate like Little Blue...

"You become a centaur with your machine."

Connected by the Street asks readers to reconsider what motorcycles represent in American life. Pojmann examines why riding is often framed as dangerous and deviant in the United States, while in Italy it is treated as an ordinary part of daily life.

Drawing on cultural history, interviews, and contemporary debates, the book explores how media coverage and safety narratives shape public attitudes toward motorcycling. It also highlights what is often missing from those conversations: the benefits of riding, from focus and stress relief to community and charitable engagement.

Written for general readers and with many examples from upstate New York, Connected by the Street invites Capital Region audiences to see motorcycling not just as a pastime, but as a lens on culture, mobility, and belonging.

Order your copy HERE!