I wrote this the day before the WWE tour bus accident, so this post wasn’t really inspired by that incident, it’s just an eerie coincidence. This story took place earlier this summer. I guess I didn’t write about it at the time because I wanted to forget about it, ignore the fact that it happened, the fact that it COULD happen to me, and the fact that it happened so quickly.

Thus far I haven’t been able to.

For the past twenty years or so I have been completely addicted to motorcycles. I got my first bike, a ten year old Kawasaki KZ400 as soon as I turned eighteen, much to my parent’s dismay. I also wrecked my first motorcycle when I was eighteen, thanks to a lovely old woman deciding to turn left in front of me. I was OK, though I took a break from riding for a few years. However, once bitten by the riding bug, it stays in your blood for life. Since that time, I’ve owned a Honda Shadow, two Suzukis, a Harley Davidson, a BMW and most recently a Yamaha FJR 1300.

I’ve logged well over 40,000 miles on these machines, mostly trouble free. The problem with trouble free riding is it tends to make riders complacent about the ever present dangers of motorcycle riding. Sometimes a little wake up call is necessary.

One fine summer weekend with nothing much to do, Fiona and I decided we’d take a little ride on the Yamaha up to Santa Barbara, about a hundred and twenty miles away. With the standard perfect California weather, the ride was exceptional. We stopped at Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area Headquarters for a National Passport Park Stamp.

Traffic, for a change was actually not that bad, even on the normally clogged 101. We made it to Santa Barbara in good time, had a nice meal, a few refreshing adult beverages, then called it a night, finding accommodations in one of the lower priced motels in the area.

The next morning we got up nice and late, and started heading for home. Once again, the traffic was miraculously light, flowing along at 75 MPH. I was in the left lane just enjoying the day when suddenly, brake lights exploded in front of me like an angry rash. I saw smoke from a pickup truck’s tires, then the truck slammed into the car in front of him.

It’s amazing how much time seems to slow down when something really bad is happening or about to happen. Here I am doing 70, going along with traffic, when 300 feet in front of me most of the traffic has suddenly just… stopped, and the rest are stopping when they lock their tires or crash into the car in front of them. For this very reason I always try to leave a gap between me and the vehicle in front of me, and now would be the time to find out if my ‘leave a gap’ theory worked.

Life proceeded in slow motion for what felt like the next ten minutes, when in reality it was probably closer to ten seconds.

I grab a handful of the front brake, and squeeze harder than ever. I feel the ABS brake system pumping and rocking and doing it’s job, keeping the front tire from locking up. Thankfully I’d tested the ABS in a parking lot when I first got the bike, to know what it would feel like – it would have been pretty scary otherwise. Not that it wasn’t scary enough as it was. Fiona managed to brace herself on the tank, which kept a lot of her weight from sliding forward into me, making it easier for me to control the bike.

While all this was happening, I remember thinking at first, “Oh fuck! Here comes my wreck!” then “This is gonna hurt. I hope we live through it.” That was about all I had time to think about, the rest of my time was spent trying to avoid crashing.

The car directly in front of me came to a dead stop, it’s evil brake lights glowing right in my face, and I was still doing about thirty miles an hour. The gap was rapidly closing. Quickly checking my mirror, I saw a little room between cars in the next lane, and squirted into it. As I passed the stopped lane of traffic on my left, I saw the pickup truck had rear ended an Audi pretty hard; steam and liquid was pouring out from under his crumpled hood. Cars were stopped in front of the wreck as well, so this accident wasn’t the reason for the abrupt deceleration.

I giddily pumped my fist in the air, elated that we’d missed becoming part of the chain reaction. Then the realization of exactly how lucky we’d just been and the jolt of adrenaline hit me full force at the same time, and I shook uncontrollably for about ten minutes. It was only much later that the true acceptance of how seriously bad things could have turned out hit me. And that hit hard.

As is so often the case in California traffic, the reason for the stop was never discovered.

Though that little incident was a good wake up call about the dangers of my chosen method of transportation, it wasn’t enough to make me want to hang up my riding gear and call it a day. I still think about it quite a lot though, and it did change the way I ride and will ride from now on.

In what is seeming to become an annual tradition, another cross country ride is in the works for early October.

Some addictions just aren’t worth curing.

Author: frenchy