The risks we take

Because I move around the fringes of the filking community, I did not personally know John Caspell, aka drfilk who died recently after being involved in an accident on his motorcycle. While talking about it with technoshaman I told him about Mike Hendrix of Cold Fury who lost his wife in a motorcycle accident about a year and a half ago. Mike's side gig is as occasional author for Outlaw Biker magazine and he wrote an article a year after the accident that claimed his wife that I read on the magazine's website. I told technoshaman something of what Mike wrote and after our discussion, he wrote a followup post. I went back and reread Mike's article and thought it was worth posting a link to. Fair warning: There's about a 50 percent chance that the image in the site's header will NOT be safe for work so browse discretely. You can read the article here. The particular point I mentioned to technoshaman was this:

We all, all of us who live this lifestyle, are as familiar with the risks as with the rewards. The feral joy of flying down some old two-lane blacktop with the sun on your face and the wind at your back is ruthlessly counterbalanced by the ever-present possibility of a fistful of loose gravel in the wrong place at the wrong time leading to being torn literally to pieces in another senseless tragedy. Every time we saddle up is another roll of the dice; we know it, and yet we go out and do it anyway.

An old greybeard Harley guy told me years ago that the first time you swing a leg over one of these things without being a little afraid, that’s the time you need to start thinking about selling it and walking away for good. He was right, like the older ones usually are. After all, so many of us are denied the opportunity to get where the old road dogs are, to learn the lessons that only survival can teach. Their knowledge -- and the price they’ve paid for it - demands that we pay careful attention.

Indian Larry died a couple of years ago, only a few miles from where I sit typing this. Think he woke up that morning knowing that he was going to end up a pile of parts lying broken on the asphalt before sundown? Hell no. Think he woke up that morning knowing he might? But of course. And yet he went out and did it anyway.

There is always a risk, and we try to mitigate that risk though some do more than others. Many riders wear minimal gear, especially hardcore Harley types who often wear the absolute minimum helmet (in those states which require them) necessary to satisfy the law. Others, like me, wear a full-face helmet, protective riding pants, a protective jacket, riding boots, and gloves every time we ride regardless of the weather (see: ATGATT). But no matter what we do, there's always the chance a given ride will be our last.

Why do we ride anyway? Well, I could say it's because the rewards are worth the risk. But perhaps Mike has a better answer:

It’s been said that one can’t jump into the arms of God; one has to fall. Perhaps that’s the answer: the letting go, the surrender to outrageous fortune, the risk we accept in exchange for whatever earthly payoff we can manage to harvest from it. I won’t say it’s worth it; nothing whatever can compensate for the permanent loss of a precious loved one, nor fill the void created in the hearts of those left behind. But I won’t demean that loss by saying it isn’t, either. I’ll just say that I’ll keep riding, and I’ll keep smiling into the sun when I am, and I’ll know that when I feel its warmth on my face and in my spirit, she’s smiling right back at me. Because, if only for a little while, she felt it herself.