The Iron Butt Rally is long distance motorcycling's most challenging endurance event. It runs once every two years in the continental US and Lobo Loco Rally Master, Wolfe Bonham, is a veteran of the event. Wolfe ran the 2023 IBR and has been sharing his ride on Facebook, but he said he's OK with guest posting on TMD, so here is parts 1-3! Eleven thousand miles in eleven days? Getting ready for this, let alone doing it, is an epic undertaking... enjoy!
The Iron Butt Rally is the Superbowl of long distance motorcycle endurance competitions. In the 11 days of the event riders will cover anything from 9000 to as much as 14000 miles (14-22,500kms!), depending on their routing. It is a delicate balance of miles vs. rest. Get it right and you could find glory. Get it wrong and you could find a hospital bed, or worse.
As entrants into the Iron Butt Rally we know more than a year in advance that we've been accepted into the challenge.
Most riders begin preparations at least 6 months in advance making sure their motorcycle is up to the task, entering other smaller competitions to practice routing skills, and doing a bunch of progressively longer certification rides to get your body used to what you're about to put it through.
In my case I had been so caught up in new home renovations and building a massive workshop that I wasn't able to do any of this. In fact, in all of 2022 I didn't do a single long distance certification ride. And, due to border closures, it had been more than 3 years since I had entered a scavenger hunt style rally.
With a mere 2 weeks before the IBR, I put the final touches on my shop, pulled my motorcycles out of storage, and began the process of building a Rally Bike.
I had three 2003 BMW R1150GS parts bikes, one of which had low kilometers, but clutch issues. That was to be my competition bike.
I spent the next 2 weeks twisting wrenches 18+ hours a day, scrambling to get parts ordered and delivered on such short notice.
I ran into clearance issues with my auxiliary fuel tap into my main tank which had me scratching my head for 4 hours. Turns out my other tank, being plastic, was able to flex just enough to clear the frame. Filing down the brass fitting as much as I dared got me closer but I still needed about 1/16". Desperate at 2am, out comes the big sledge hammer. I'm sure that a 16th of an inch bend in the motorcycle's frame won't matter!
Two days before I need to leave for the start line in Pittsburgh I get my first test ride on the bike. I get home after 30 minutes with a long list of things that need to still change or be fixed.
Some parts are not available in time or can't be shipped to Canada before I leave so I opt to have them shipped to the hotel in Pittsburgh. I can do a few last minute installs in the parking lot. These will include my hydration system and some needed wiring for my heated gear.
I'm packing the bike honestly worried I've bitten off more than I can chew.
The bike is untested. Other than little 250cc bikes on the teaching lot, I haven't ridden any big bikes AT ALL this year, and hardly any kilometers last year. Oh, and I'm 20 lbs heavier than I've ever done an IBR in my life, and I'm still recovering from a bad cold/cough with a ton of meds on the bike hoping it all clears up before the start....
Part Two - IBR 2023
Sitting on the Launch Pad
The ride to Pittsburgh was really my first ride of any distance this year. As I settled into the saddle I began to assess potential long term issues. Relearning how to relax my shoulders, relax my grip, sit more upright, etc. Proper body position would become the key to enduring 20+ hours per day on the bike for 11 days in a row.
Arriving at the hotel parking lot in Pittsburgh was a very emotional experience for me. Most of my life has been lived as a nomad, and as a result my base of friends is spread around the globe. With all the CoVid lockdowns of the past year not only did that mean I couldn't compete in the 2021 IBR, but it also meant that I had been cut off from so many of my friends. Seeing them all after so long meant tons of hugs and a few tears.
But I still had work to do on the bike, and the next morning would be the whirlwind of tech inspections and registrations. I went to the lobby to retrieve 2 important packages that were shipped there in advance... and they were nowhere to be found!
The lobby staff said to check back in the morning. This was unacceptable to me. I had tracking numbers that showed both packages had arrived. The morning wasn't going to make them suddenly appear!
After getting more and more insistent, and involving no less than 5 hotel staff, the packages were finally found.
I proceeded to get my hydration system installed, confirmed the new wiring functioned correctly with my heated gear, and made a few more ergonomic adjustments to the bike that had popped up on the ride down.
After some drinks and an excellent Reuben Sandwich with long missed friends it was time to sleep before the chaos of tech day.
The next morning found all the competitors proceeding through a series of lines and inspections; a mini-rally in and of itself. The lead up to the start of the competition is 2-3 days and includes things like a 30 mile ride to calibrate everyone's odometers against each others, safety and capacity inspection for the plethora of different auxiliary fuel cell set ups, confirmation of our satellite GPS tracking systems, insurance, medical evacuation confirmations, and the sobering video deposition of death, where we acknowledge the risks of this competition and wave all liabilities to the organization.
The whole process takes several hours to complete, and my only hurdle was that "Warchild" didn't like the way my fuel cell was vented. An easy, but necessary fix, as you never want to be on the bad side of Dale Wilson.
The rally poster was put on display beginning the speculation by all the riders as to what the overall theme would be. There was a prominent chicken in the poster, and I was convinced the final leg "hero run" would be from Denver to Chicken, Alaska, before returning to Pittsburgh. Running the math it was 6600 miles... just barely doable in the 5.5 days of the final leg if you managed back to back 1200 mile days.
Greg Camp surprised me showing up with Bam Baker, so we all went on an ice cream run after clearing inspection. We were now off the clock until Sunday's rider meetings.
However, on the ride to the ice cream shop I couldn't help but notice the ever present smell of burning clutch from my bike. The clutch didn't appear to be slipping at all, but something definitely wasn't right inside. Would it hold up for 11 days? Would I have to baby yet another bike to an IBR finish, or would it leave me stranded in some place like Chicken, Alaska?!
Part Three - IBR 2023
Cleared for Launch
Sunday afternoon has our standard rider's meeting, following the rookie rider's meeting. After that we just have to anxiously await the dinner banquet where we're finally given the Rally Book that will dictate our fates for the next 11 days.
And before you know it we're all opening our Rally Packs, which seem oddly thin.
The theme this year is food, and while there are not a lot of locations to choose from in the first 2.5 day leg, we are all given identical Bingo cards with 25 restaurant chains on them. To claim each we'll need a photo of our motorcycle with our Rally Flag in front of the restaurant along with a receipt for a purchase inside. This will prove to be quite a time suck. A normal photo stop can be done by an experienced rally rider in under 2 minutes, including photo and paperwork... but going inside for a receipt could take 5-10 minutes each. They aren't worth a lot of points, but if you start to score Bingo rows or columns the points start to add up quickly. Blacking out the entire card is worth an additional 2000 points. I think I'll go for it.
Back in my hotel room by 7pm I start the planning process for my route. We are now on the clock and decisions about time spent planning/routing vs sleeping the night before begin to set in.
The Rally Book is scanned into a .pdf that I can search through while riding. The points, time limitations, and notes are added to the location codes so that I don't have to look that up later... it all comes up on my Garmins. Weather is checked and locations are grouped by point values. It becomes obvious there are 3 distinct routes: Maine, Florida, and Denver. Given our required 2nd checkpoint in Denver I discount that one almost immediately. Maine looks more promising than Florida, but includes several locations in downtown NYC, which always makes me nervous not being from that area.
I opt for the Florida route, with the goal of getting to the daytime only high point Cedar Key location right at sunrise. That will mean skipping a few lower point locations on the way south, and only getting 1-2 nap on the first night. But, doing so opens up some options on the 2nd day to scoop up everything along the Gulf Coast and end up with some restaurants in Houston before pulling the first leg mandatory rest on night 2. Fingers crossed that sets me up to get to the big points group photo just north of the Leg 1 Checkpoint in Tulsa.
I'm happy with my plan, and in bed by 11pm.
The morning comes sooner than expected after a restless night of barely sleeping, laying in bed playing the "what if" game in my head.
Breakfast is shared with fellow riders, some not saying much about where they are headed, and others sharing ideas and concerns.
Bikes are loaded and we are required to be standing with our bikes from 8am until our final odometer readings are taken.
Cory Ure, parked beside me, is nowhere to be seen as rally volunteers are coming down our line. I look everywhere for him, but it's too late. They bypass his bike, and now he'll be held from leaving until all other bikes have left.
Following a brief last minute rider's meeting we all mount our bikes and nervously await the start. Next to me is Lisa Cover Rufo and her daughter Molly, who is calmly sipping on an iced latte! The luxury of being pillion!
Before we know it we're off! This is my 3rd IBR, and it still brings me to tears every time I start. It is such an honour and privilege to be amongst this elite group of riders.
Pulling onto the highway we all start to spread out on our own individual plans and routes.
Who will have the best plan? Who will find glory? Who will struggle just to make the finish, and who won't get back? Will everyone be safe, or will tragedy strike?
I take the ramp to I-79S on a beautiful sunny morning. My die is cast. Little do I know the next 2 days will be some of the toughest, most dangerous riding of my life.
Here's a link to a video of the start. This is not my video, but enjoy.
That's the end of Parts 1-3. Check out Parts 4-6 so to see how Wolfe gets along on the road! And if you want to find the original story itself, you can find Wolfe on Facebook here.
If you want a taste of long distance riding to get started, Wolfe runs Lobo Loco Rallies, some of which you can run from anywhere in the world (the local ones are based in Ontario, Canada). Check it out here: https://wolfe35.wixsite.com/lobolocorallies
With the monkey butt I had from the oven-hot Indianapolis ride we did last summer, I picked up an AirHawk before leaving on the around Huron trip. They make some pretty aggressive claims about how good this seat cushion is, and 1600+kms around Huron in mega-heat would be a good test. While shopping for one at Two Wheel Motorsport I noticed that the larger 'medium cruiser' pad was almost a hundred dollars cheaper than the much smaller dual sport cushion. The only difference I could see between them was a fancy red stripe down the middle of the DS model. That's an expensive red stripe.
Bigger is cheaper in airhawk world.
An advantage to buying this from my local dealer instead of online is that I could go try it out, which the parts guy at Two-Wheel was more than willing to do. If you factor in shipping the airhawk cost within five dollars of what it's going for online, well worth the chance to try different pads and pick it up immediately. Calling my Triumph Tiger a dual sport is like calling a a Humvee a four by four. While technically true, it's a lot more than just a dual sport. The Tiger is a Swiss army knife of a bike. It can dual sport, but it can also cover long distances and tour, and it can do it in a sporty fashion. Airhawk seems quite flexible with what pad might go on what bike, and the medium cruiser pad fit the adventurous Tiger better than the dual sport pad did, and saved me almost a hundred bucks in the process. How did it perform? Frankly, I was surprised. I got a gel pad last year and it did very little to ease my discomfort on hot, all-day, multiple-day rides. The Airhawk is a revelation. It keeps you cool in heat, distributes your weight across the seat area evenly, removing any pressure points, and meant the end to my monkey butt. The first time you accelerate and don't feel directly connected to the seat (because you're floating on air) is a little off-putting, but you quickly get used to it. If you want to change the angle you're sitting while riding simple remove your weight from the pad and resit on it, and you'll find that you can adjust your centre of balance easily. Once the bladders in the pad redistribute the air the pad conforms to the shape of your backside and is very stable.
The arrow at the top points to the valve, which makes filling or emptying the pad easy and doesn't interfere with sitting at all.
Setting up the pad was easily done. I put air into it at low pressure in short bursts until it was about half full. The pictures online all seem to show the pads fully inflated, but I found inflating it until it had just enough air to suspend my weight worked well and kept me in better touch with the seat. The pad attaches to the seat using a couple of straps. If you're familiar with bra straps (and who of us isn't?), you'll find adjusting the pad a simple procedure. It stays in place remarkably well for such a simple device. The sticky rubber bottom seems to help a lot with that. It isn't cheap, and because of that, leaving it on the bike was never an option. Having to remove it every time we left the bike unattended was a bit onerous, but I'm not in the habit of leaving $160 items on a bike unwatched and in plain view.
Airhawk is pretty sure of themselves, and they have every right to be. Their warranty isn't going to be exercised in my case, this pad does exactly what they claim it will. On hot, high mileage days I was no longer in agony on the seat looking for opportunities to stop. This seat pad means I can ride and ride. What you get is a well engineered solution to a common problem. It isn't cheap, but it's well made and it works. You're getting what you pay for.
The hardest financial part about a long trip is being out of work. It's not just costing you for the trip, it's probably costing you even more for not being at work, but I got lucky in that department. From the beginning of July until the end of August I'm off, and with the semester winding down all I can think about is how I'd best use that time. With the paycheque covered, could I get to Ushuaia in the time I have off? 600km days in North America seem reasonable, and I wouldn't want to lollygag around where I live anyway. The point of this trip would be to go far in a relatively short time. Moving through The States quickly also means not coughing up for first world accommodation any more than I have to. 600km days would wrap up the North American bit in five days. Mexico is where it starts to get interesting, and it's also fairly straightforward, though it gets dodgier the further south you go. Travelling the length of Mexico means just over two thousand kilometres of riding. At a reduced 400kms/day (more in the north, less in the south), I'd be at the border to Guatemala in another five days. The urge to photograph would increase exponentially as I got into cultures and geographies I've never experienced before, so more time wouldn't be wasted. Central America is, by many accounts, the slowest part of riding down the Americas. From the southern border of Mexico to the Colon ferry terminal in Panama is only 2300kms, but in that time you cross six international borders that aren't exactly state of the art. At a further reduced average of 200kms per day, it would be a twelve day ride crossing those borders, mountains and rain forests to Panama. Thanks to the one certain way of getting around the Gap closing down, those twelve days through Central America needn't be rushed. Crossing the Darien Gap looked like it was solved with a brilliant ferry service to Cartagena, Columbia, but the service appears to have stopped. There are other options, but run much less regularly and are more expensive. The best seems to be the Stahlratte, which will take motorbike and rider to and from Panama to Cartagena in quite nice circumstances for about the price of your typical Canadian airline ticket. The scheduled trips for 2016 pose problems though. The Pan-American Highway portion of the ride is 10.300kms, and involves four international border crossings (five if you count the second Chilean crossing in Tierra del Fuego). At 500km average days I'd be looking at 21 days of travel to get down the spine of South America to the end of the world. It's another three thousand kilometers back up Argentina to Bueno Aires in order to drop off the bikes for shipping back to Canada. That'd be another six days at 600kms/day back to the big city and the flight home. The Darien Gap poses problems because it throws the schedule off. With the ferry not running it's either a chartered boat (expensive, timing not great) or air freight (expensive but timely). The schedule below is using the Stahlratte's 2016 schedule:
... but even with those slack days before the trip over the Darien Gap, it still just fits into a summer off. Air freight over the gap is also an option that could shift those six days in waiting in Panama to the push down South America. Shipping back from Buenos Aires looks possible but unclear. The most likely connection would be overseas from B.A. to NYC, probably getting the bikes back towards the end of October. A weekend flight to NYC, picking up the bikes and riding home would be the final bit of this epic journey.
That guy already looks like he's on his way to Ushuaia !
He builds entire luggage systems, knows his way around a firing range, and brews beer, and that bike is up for it!
I'd take Austin's advice in Mondo Sahara and change all the wearable bits (tires, chains, fluids, etc) prior to leaving, but otherwise the bikes would be as they are. A Triumph, Yamaha & Suzuki tumbling down the Americas over a brief summer. If we're not getting manufacturer support (unless all three band together in an alliance against the unholy absolutism of celebrity BMW adventure motorcycling!), maybe we can chase down some support gear. We could do a lot worse than an assisted walk through the Twisted Throttle adventure catalogue. They'd do popular Japanese bikes like the V-Strom and Super10, but they also offer a lot of kit for my older Triumph. The last weeks of school get pretty manic. Daydreaming of massive rides that last all summer is a survival mechanism. Links & Maps
Info on the Bueno Aires to North America transport is thin on the ground- we might have to ride home from NYC!
Work's been heavy as of late, and I've got the middle-aged itch to do something profound before I'm too old to do anything interesting. As usual, money and responsibility tie me to the earth, but in my more imaginative moments I wonder what I'd do with a year off and the money to do things that one day I'll be too old and creaky to manage. If I finished work at the end of June this year and had a year off I'd be back at work the following September. That would give me the better part of fifteen months to explore three of my favorite aspects of motorcycling: road racing, endurance riding and long distance adventure riding. In chronological order, here's my year of living dangerously:
It's seat forward, middle & back, in ergocycle but it looks like I *really* like that Daytona.
1... Road Racing: This spring get my race license, get a bike sorted and complete in the SOAR schedule over the summer. A 12+ year old Triumph Daytona 600 would be a nice machine that fits into specific age (lost era) and displacement categories and wouldn't be what everyone else is sitting on. I also fit on it quite well (see the suggestive gif on the right). Road racing would sharpen my riding skills and let me wrap my head around some of the more extreme dynamics of motorcycle riding in a controlled environment. Familiarity with high speed on a bike wouldn't hurt for what I'm planning to do next, and racing over the summer would also focus my fitness training which would be helpful in building up to #2. Costing a road racing season: ~$20,000 (including race prepping a bike and racing in a local series)
Less than 50% usually finish, it's difficult, astonishing and viciously exhausting, but finishing puts you in a very small and exceptional group.
2... Race the Dakar:Happening over New Years and into early 2017, finishing the Dakar would be the kind of thing that not many people manage. Dreamracer puts into perspective just how difficult this can be. Leaving work at the end of June I'd be full-on training and preparing for the race. There are a number of Baja and other sand/desert focused races that would get me ready for the big one. There are also a lot of off road training courses available well into the fall. My goal would be to get licensed, certified and experienced in as many aspects of motorcycle racing as possible in the six months leading up to the Dakar. Doing a Dakar would also be a fantastic fitness focus. With a clear goal in mind, it would be a lot easier to schedule and organize my fitness. A personal trainer and a clear targets would have me ready to take my best run at a Dakar, one of the toughest tests of mind and body ever devised. It would do a fantastic job of scratching that middle-aged urge to do something exceptional. Costing of a Dakar: ~$98,000 Cdn
3... Ride Home: The Dakar raps up mid-January, the perfect time to begin a ride back to Canada! After resting up from the race I'd head south to Ushuaia at the beginning of February (summer time there) before riding back up the west coast through Chile. A stop in Peru at Machu Picchu and then up the coast through Ecuador and into Columbia before loading on the Ferry in Cartegena to Panama around the one roadless bit in the Americas. Once landed in Panama I make my way through Central America before pushing all the way up North America's West Coast to the Arctic ocean in mid-summer (lots of sunlight!). The last leg has me finally heading south again and east across Canada and back home.
The new Tiger would do a sterling job of taking me the thirty three thousand kilometres home.
All told it would be just over thirty three thousand kilometres. Leaving Buenos Aires at the beginning of Februrary, and averaging 500kms a day (less on bad roads, more on good roads), I'd be looking at 68 days on the road straight. Fortunately, if I wrap up the trip at the end of July I'd have more like 180 days to do it, leaving lots of time to enjoy the magic I'd find along the way. Cost of a trip like this? A week on the road is cheaper in South and Central America than North America. If this is a 160 day trip (with 20 days for potential slowdowns to stay within the 180 day/6 month goal), then the money can be roughly estimated using these approximations:
$150/day (gas, food, lodging, expenses) in South & Central America
$250 a day in North America
The raw numbers break down like this:
14,500kms in South America (43% of the trip) - 69 days = $10,350
5600kms in Central America (17% of the trip) - 27 days = $4050
13560kms in North America (40% of the trip) - 64 days = $16,000
For a total of $30,400 for the trip + $15,000+shipping to Argentina for a new Tiger
For the low, low price of about $150,000, I'd have a year of unique challenges, once in a lifetime experiences and get a chance to do three things that will only become more and more impossible as I get older. Some people like the idea of a holiday where they can do nothing, but that isn't for me. I'll take the challenge any day, if only I had the money and the time money gives.
The goal once I was home and back to daily life would be to collate the notes and media from this year of living dangerously into written and visual mediums. Being able to produce a video and book(s) out of this experience would be the cherry on top. Besides a fantastic set of memories, some new skills and the material needed to write an epic tale, I'd also have a race bike ready to compete on again the next summer. That year of living dangerously might persist.
This is why it's good to be friends with Austin Vince on Facebook, it makes you daydream. What would I do if I were free of money and the time constraints it demands? I'd be planning a month in Spain next year! The week of the 19th to the 23rd (Monday to Friday) would be doing the Pyrenees with Austin and crew on my Triumph Tiger Explorer. The Aragón round of MotoGP happens on the next weekend! I'd aim to get in country with my bike in the first week of September and then have the a couple of weeks toodling about before a week in the Pyranees with Austin Vince! After the Austin week I'd be straight over to Aragon for the MotoGP weekend. After a couple of days of getting organized, the long trek home would begin... the long way round!
A week riding the Pyranees with Austin Vince, and then a weekend at MotoGP Aragon!
Spain to Tokyo via Southern Europe, India, South East Asia and China, would be one hell of a ride. A flight to L.A. would have me riding through the southern States before heading north and home in the spring.
Southern Europe: September/October India/South East Asia: November/December China/Japan: January/February Southern US: March/April This route is about 29,000kms with 3 air cargo bits and one hell of a ferry ride: Toronto to Madrid Turkey to India Shanghai to Osaka Ferry https://www.shanghai-ferry.co.jp/english/unkou.htm Tokyo to Los Angeles
A couple of experiences this season have given me some idea of possible mileage numbers in a day of riding. We did 300 hot, sticky miles, mostly on freeways, coming back from Indianapolis this summer. This involved getting lost for about half an hour before we finally stopped for the day near Detroit. Without the getting lost part, 300 miles would be easily doable with gas and snack breaks if you're making highway miles. We were on the road from about 9am to 5pm. 400 wouldn't be too much of a stretch, and would be an 9am to 6pm with stops kind of day. That run to Detroit was in hot, humid weather and had me saddle sore with a bad case of baboon butt. Less extreme conditions would make those miles easier to manage, but bike miles tend to be fairly extreme even at the best of times. On that same day our riding partner headed straight home, doing Indianapolis to Alma, just shy of five hundred miles in a single day in about 10 hours of riding. Had I not been two up with my son I'd have done it with him. A five hundred mile day is certainly doable on freeways. It's a full day, but you'd sleep well afterwards. On the way down to Indy we did two stints, from Elora to Coldwater and Coldwater to Indianapolis. In both cases we minimized highway riding and spent most of our time on back roads (and sometimes dirt roads and trailer parks when we got turned around). Coldwater to Indy was just over two hundred miles and took us a good day of riding. We left about 9am and were feet up in the hotel in Indianapolis by 4pm. Elora to Coldwater was a long day of riding, leaving about 8:30am and finally stopping just before 6pm. Even that long day had us up and ready to go the next morning, so it was a sustainable distance.
Based on those experiences I'd say a three hundred mile day if you're minimizing freeway use is a reasonable number to aim for, knowing that you could push a bit beyond that and still not be riding into dusk. All of those experiences were on a fully loaded bike with my ten year old son as pillion, so we weren't exactly ascetic in our riding, looking to pound down the miles relentlessly. I stopped more frequently than I otherwise might and for longer. What got me thinking about this was the 178 mile ride the other day that got me over the 30k mark. In cold weather and over twisty, slow roads with no highway at all, I left about 9:30am and was home again just past 3pm, stopping for a coffee and lunch. The cold weather made this feel longer than it was, which reminded me just how much being comfortable in the saddle makes the miles go by.
Your typical around the world trip is about 15,000 miles, so is north to south in the Americas. If you're managing 300 miles a day, that'd be 50 days on the road. If you're doing 300 mile days that means you're averaging 50 miles per hour for at least six hours a day. Not as easy as it sounds when you factor in borders, extreme weather, navigation, bad roads and other potential slow downs. All things to consider when trying to schedule a long trip.
After enjoying The Perfect Vehicle so much I started on The Man Who Would Stop at Nothing. I sent the author a quick email saying how much I enjoyed The Perfect Vehicle and hoped she'd keep at writing so well about the craft of biking. After ripping through the first couple of chapters I did what anyone in the information age would do and looked up what John Ryan is doing at the moment. The assumption was that he was making time somewhere and putting miles behind him.
I have a unique talent for lousy timing, and my starry eyed thanks to Melissa Holbrook Pierson for writing The Perfect Vehicle contained no idea of what was happening with her and motorbikes right now. She was very kind to right back so positively. More people should drop a line to the writers they enjoy and say thanks (says the English teacher).
John Ryan, the main focus of my current read, is a record breaking Iron Butt rider. He covered huge distances in record breaking time. I stumbled across the Iron Butt Association when I was planning my Lake Superior circumnavigation earlier this year, so Melissa's latest book on this hidden subculture wasn't completely new to me. As I was researching circling Superior I saw a blog post where the rider casually mentioned that he did it in less than 24 hours. I was astonished! And intrigued!
I've been greatly enjoying The Man Who Would Stop At Nothing so far, so much so that I wanted to link John's blog to this one. That was when I discovered that he'd recently died in a seemingly benign road accident. I'm frustrated that he was rear ended by a cager in a Mustang, and that no other details of the accident are forthcoming.
So here I am, a week later, mulling over John's fate (yes, I'm a muller). There is no doubt that motorbiking is a dangerous pass-time, one that demands the utmost attention, and I now suspect a degree of fatalism. If John Ryan can be taken out by some idiot texting in his Mustang, so can we all. I've been osculating between despair and bravado in responding to this. A small part of me wants to question what the point of it all is, and the other (larger) part is thinking, 'fuckin' ay! He died doing what he loved." We should all be so lucky. I've lately had the fear that I'll go shovelling the driveway, or be at work... how horrible!
In the book Melissa has a great quote: "Give your best years, your now, so that at some distant point, which may never in fact arrive, you can get all the pills you'll need to extend your shuffle to the grave."The fearful response to two wheeling is, I think, based on this truth that so many people live by.
Melissa also talks in great detail about the calculus of risk in riding. Knowing John as well as she did, I suspect she'd appreciate the fact that he left the world on two wheels, even while wishing he were still here. I crossed the line a year ago when I decided to go take the course and get on two wheels. It's approaching mid-winter here in Canada and that feeling of immersive freedom is as far away from me as it can get. I'm sorry that John is gone, and reading the rest of Melissa's book is going to be tinged with that regret. Does any of this stop me from getting back on two wheels as soon as I can? Not remotely.
