The narrator is a middle-aged man with an unusual past. He is a brilliant individual who has studied Eastern and Western philosophy and spirituality, and easily uses scientific and analytic thinking to get his points across. He has served in the armed forces, been a university professor and is a technical writer for a living. As the novel relates, he is preoccupied with thinking, indicative that there are unresolved issues in his life. His perspective on motorcycle maintenance actually works as a way of life for him, one that he hopes others might benefit from. Riding motorcycles is not just a hobby for the narrator, but a way of viewing life.

Phaedrus is the name that the narrator uses to refer to his old self, the consciousness that once occupied his body. The name is taken from an ancient Greek Sophist who appears in Plato’s Socratic dialogue, Phaedrus. Phaedrus, the narrator, was an academic prodigy who was highly analytical and grew disenchanted with the limited Western notion of reason. Having abandoned science, he began teaching English at Montana State University and began to develop a philosophy that revolves around a concept he calls