BE SAFE ............
I've had people tell me that for years... "Be Safe!" "Ride Safe!" "Be Careful!" I gotta tell you, it never sat well with me. I'd think damned... 'grow a pair' ... 'really?' .. you name it. I've been riding for 35 years now. Over that time frame, I've had 4 incidents, 2 of which I went 'down' on, and 1 of those... had an injury. Still, I felt invincible. Still do, to some degree. But, we're not. Yet I never like to hear those words. I felt .. and to some degree still do, that riding a motorcycle is worth the risk and if you ride correctly not much more dangerous than many other things in life, short of riding in newer Dually loaded up with air bags.
Thirty four years ago, I hit sand while living in Nebraska and found myself doing 3 flips into a four lane road , hearing tires screeching. Mangled the handle bars on my first bike, and screwed up my shoulder with an injury that I have never 100% recovered from. Several years ago I went down on an HD Roadking. I'm still not 100% sure how it all went down exactly. What I do know is I couldn't get the bike stopped and in a last ditch effort hit both brakes with 100% effort and found myself stopped ..... and sliding .. and .. down. Ego was damaged, skin torn and bloodied, shirt and pants ripped up, and bikes' Highway Bar mangled. All fixable. I'm still here, and a better rider than ever after it all.
Still, I've never been down .. in a 'bad' way. Last year, a close friend of mine went down here in Greenville TX and totaled his bike. He found himself in the median of the Interstate with a totaled Chieftain and multiple fractures in his neck. Today he's on a newer '17 and back riding though with a stiff neck.
Several months ago I was leading a ride and we had 2 incidents within an hour of each other where pickups almost took out our entire group. I'd have been first to feel the impact, but the others were right behind me at full speed limit. Both times the drivers of the trucks stopped or moved over, just in time. When I got back to the hotel I thought .. and wrote .... "Home Safe Home". Started to have some meaning.
Then, last month I saw my first 'bad' one. I wrote about it last month; it'd happened on the last day of my MN trip. A younger guy on an HD went down into the median at about 85mph, next to the cables that divide the highway. I was right behind him , staggered several bike lengths back. I'll never know how bad it was but I do know he survived. Besides the fact that he had a full face helmet on , I don't know how he did.
Well, yesterday I was traveling back from Missouri in a group of 7 of us, when one of our own went down. He was #2 in the group, I was #3 in line. He was right in front of me, as we entered a left sweeping turn his front tire caught the edge of the road/shoulder and he couldn't recover from it. Seeing a bike run at full speed through a ditch for a 100' before it flips, throw's your brother off then landing on him... is a brutal sight and shook all of us to the core that were there. The good news is he's still with us (initially, I thought we'd lost him). He's in the hospital with fractures he has to deal with in various parts of his body. He's a former Ranger; I believe we'll be riding together again at that same event next year, but between now and then he has a lot of healing to do.
"Be Safe" ... it has a new meaning to me the last few months. It's no longer just a few words.. .. it means something. And not just on two wheels, but in all vehicles .. in life. Life is short. I enjoy it to the max. But ... I'd like to be writing in this blog a few decades from now as well, and not from a wheel chair!
My advice to you all ... Live life but still ..... BE SAFE!
Thirty four years ago, I hit sand while living in Nebraska and found myself doing 3 flips into a four lane road , hearing tires screeching. Mangled the handle bars on my first bike, and screwed up my shoulder with an injury that I have never 100% recovered from. Several years ago I went down on an HD Roadking. I'm still not 100% sure how it all went down exactly. What I do know is I couldn't get the bike stopped and in a last ditch effort hit both brakes with 100% effort and found myself stopped ..... and sliding .. and .. down. Ego was damaged, skin torn and bloodied, shirt and pants ripped up, and bikes' Highway Bar mangled. All fixable. I'm still here, and a better rider than ever after it all.
Still, I've never been down .. in a 'bad' way. Last year, a close friend of mine went down here in Greenville TX and totaled his bike. He found himself in the median of the Interstate with a totaled Chieftain and multiple fractures in his neck. Today he's on a newer '17 and back riding though with a stiff neck.
Several months ago I was leading a ride and we had 2 incidents within an hour of each other where pickups almost took out our entire group. I'd have been first to feel the impact, but the others were right behind me at full speed limit. Both times the drivers of the trucks stopped or moved over, just in time. When I got back to the hotel I thought .. and wrote .... "Home Safe Home". Started to have some meaning.
Then, last month I saw my first 'bad' one. I wrote about it last month; it'd happened on the last day of my MN trip. A younger guy on an HD went down into the median at about 85mph, next to the cables that divide the highway. I was right behind him , staggered several bike lengths back. I'll never know how bad it was but I do know he survived. Besides the fact that he had a full face helmet on , I don't know how he did.
Well, yesterday I was traveling back from Missouri in a group of 7 of us, when one of our own went down. He was #2 in the group, I was #3 in line. He was right in front of me, as we entered a left sweeping turn his front tire caught the edge of the road/shoulder and he couldn't recover from it. Seeing a bike run at full speed through a ditch for a 100' before it flips, throw's your brother off then landing on him... is a brutal sight and shook all of us to the core that were there. The good news is he's still with us (initially, I thought we'd lost him). He's in the hospital with fractures he has to deal with in various parts of his body. He's a former Ranger; I believe we'll be riding together again at that same event next year, but between now and then he has a lot of healing to do.
"Be Safe" ... it has a new meaning to me the last few months. It's no longer just a few words.. .. it means something. And not just on two wheels, but in all vehicles .. in life. Life is short. I enjoy it to the max. But ... I'd like to be writing in this blog a few decades from now as well, and not from a wheel chair!
My advice to you all ... Live life but still ..... BE SAFE!
Comments
Now being older and seeing tragic things happen around us and having incidents of close calls of life changing situations, we utter those words as almost a prayer to ward off tragic events that are outside of the riders control. If a rider goes down because of poor choices on their part, while tragic, dismisses our mental ability to feel sympathetic towards that rider. Now if they go down to something out of their control (ie cut off, nature interference, distracted driver) then we feel anger and sympathy.
Simply put, I use those words as a way to feel better knowing that I have made a respectful prayer to keep that rider safe from outside causes of tragic life altering events.
Make sense?