Ever since I saw that "Why are women attracted to motorcyclists/cycles" thread, I've felt like this is what I've really been wanting to get at... not why hypothetical "other people" admire our machines from afar, but why we feel a bond with them that could often be called love.
There are people who love their cars, who give them names and call them by a pronoun. But in the average car community you won't find too many of these people. In the motorcycling community, it's a much higher proportion.
We anthropomorphise our bikes. We talk about "bike bonding" courses, using images like this:
And we're constantly seeing this kind of photo on Pinterest and other places.
I confess I feel the same way about my bike. She has a name, she has a gender, she has a personality. She's not just a machine and there's no way in hell I'd just trade her in a few years down the line to get totaled by some squid.
We know why we ride. We might have ideas about why others admire our bikes. But why do we feel this depth of love for them? (Those who do, anyway.)