Riding A Motorcycle Is As Much A Part Of Me As My Skin

On February 24th, 2019.  I had a brush with the grim reaper when I wrecked my motorcycle.

I’ve been asked these questions: Will you ride again or why won’t you give up riding after this happened?

Silvia – my bike – has been ‘totaled’ by the insurance company. The damage is just too extensive. It chilled me to the bone when just yesterday I was finally able to view the extent of the damage. The fact I ‘walked away’ – well OK I was in an ambulance - but it still gives me pause. My ‘faith’ is more spirituality based than any specific religion – but I must have had some sort of angels or presence with me – is all I’m saying. It wasn’t my time to go.

People ‘go down’ on bikes all the time. There isn’t one of us in the community that hasn’t been down or known someone that has gone down. What happened to me could have happened to anyone. Those of us who ride know the risks, but we feel the reward is worth it. For some it is difficult to understand the passion we have for riding and why it is so important to us.

I can’t speak for others. But, for me, riding seems as essential to my well-being as air or food or sleep. It is ingrained and imprinted upon my soul. When I get on my bike, I never fail to smile and I always hear a voice saying, “This, this is what you were born for. This is exactly where you belong.” Yes – even after what happened.

My very first ride on two wheels was at 8 years old. Then, as a young teen the ‘boys’ in the neighborhood had dirt bikes and I frequently rode on the back seat of my then boyfriends. In my early 20s, I’d catch a backseat here or there. In the 90s I became ½ owner of a Harley. The backseat was mine. The title said so!

It was September 21, 1996 that I completed the motorcycle course and got my license endorsement – and my first bike. A Yamaha Virago. This was a very big step for me. For through-out my life I mainly jumped on the band-wagon of whatever ‘interest’ my partner had. But this was MY decision and back then there weren’t the number of lady riders there are now. It was anything but “the norm.”

In 2000 – I gave up riding for a time in order to travel. I bought another bike, a Yamaha V-Star around 2005 – but I didn’t ride her much. I had a partner that didn’t ride. I gave her up in 2014 to travel again.

It was odd. While she sat in the garage and I could ride her, but didn’t it was fine. But suddenly – now that I was bike-less it was as though a knife pierced my heart when a group of bikes would rumble by. There I was in some of the most beautiful parts of our country. Beautiful places to ride…and I was bike-less.

My life changed drastically in 2016. It was one of the hardest years of my life and yet now looking back, I am glad for it, for I would not be who or where I am today if all that heart-ache didn’t happen. On my way to reclaiming the ‘self’ I’d lost – I purchased Silvia. It was April 2016. She had 4500 miles on her. Today she has 44825.

Silvia and I traveled alone in June last year to Laconia, NH for the Rally. She and I have ridden up to NC and back alone. We’ve ridden all over Florida from the keys to the panhandle and points in between and even circumnavigated the state at one point. She’s been a great bike.

The only thing I can say about riding or not riding is - something deeply intrinsic to my soul would wither and die if I give it up. Riding is my joy, it is my stress and anxiety relief, it keeps me grounded and it has given me more ties to an amazing community of people than I can count. Some of the very best people I know ride.

If I stopped I’d not only give up my bike, but I’d also give up a community that holds an important piece of my heart. I can’t do that. I won’t. Riding and ‘you’ are too important to me. I wouldn’t be ‘me’ if I didn’t ride. It is as much a part of my identity now as my skin is a part of my body.

Silvia may have reached the end of the road – and yet maybe that isn’t all bad. For in some ways she is tied to past pain but also a lot of healing and growth that has happened over the last 2.5 years. But that chapter is closed – and a new one has already begun.

Perhaps this is symbolic of letting go of old things and looking forward to what is new. No, I won’t be giving up riding. Just give me time to heal and to get a new bike and I’ll be waving the peace sign to you as we pass on the road. Be safe out there.

Wear your helmet.

Sam out