The bike, in addition to any other links to rock and roll, sets up the joke when Colon sees it coming towards the just closed gates and says "Don't do it! Don't do it" - a line from the song "Leader of the Pack" - and then the following reference that the bike was not designed to slow down except "catastrophically at the end of the third verse" (I think it was catastrophically - if not it was something similar but I don't have the book immediately to hand - and I'm not sure that I have spelled it right anyway) - a reference to the same song.

The Dean's leather coat became a reference to "Bye Bye Miss American Pie" - the line in the song being "In a coat he borrowed from James Dean" - so Death was wearing "A coat he borrowed from the Dean" - there is also a passing reference to "The day the music died." from the same song. There are so many clever references in Soul Music that I doubt if anyone but PTerry understands them all - but that is part of his genius!