Paul Richardson: Don't ever drop the bike

It took me several years after we were married to convince the good wife to get on the back of my motorcycle. 

It may have had something to do with my past, but also had something to do with her past. Past experiences for her were somewhat of a mixed bag of issues such as quality of ride and a feeling of security.

The co-riding began slow at first and then quickly grew to more frequent and longer experiences. Eventually she expressed her fears from the past and assured me that these had been vanquished. In fact, she went beyond escaping the fears, but indicated that not only did she feel safe and comfortable but enjoyed this time we had together in a new and unique way.

There was only one caveat, do not ever drop the bike with her on it! That would be the deal breaker. She would leave any such incident and never look back and we would return to pre-riding days and this connection would be lost.

Over the years I had my incidents. If you ride, it is not a matter of whether or not you will have incidents, it is a matter of when. They may not be serious accidents resulting in injury or property damage, but there are and will be incidents. 

I had a few of these from sliding in on loose gravel, repeating this on wet grass, t-boning a car that pulled out in front of me at 55 mph, and then hitting a deer that jumped in front of me at highway speed. The car put me down, minor injuries and totaled the bike. The deer did not. This totaled the bike, but I kept control and remained upright in the saddle.

But it was in 2009 on a trip to Chama, New Mexico that fate would find us on a remote logging road, on the top of a mountain, somewhere between Chama and Santa Fe. 

My old friend Charlie Moore was leading us back to Chama after a visit to Santa Fe when he diverted us off of the main routes to a more remote two-lane state road. There were a lot of problems associated with this decision, but one of them became prevalent when the state pavement ended and all that lay ahead of us was a dirt road leading into a state forest on top of the mountain. 

This wouldn’t have been so complicated if there was a fuel stop within a reasonable distance and my grandson wasn’t riding on the back of Charlie’s bike. Knowing the only way to reach fuel in a proper amount of time and distance and not leave my grandson to the uncertainties ahead, was to continue on forward and hope that the five-mile gap was all that lay between us and the next main route.

As luck would have it, that five-mile gap turned into a twelve-mile trek over a dirt road that was rutted from logging trucks. It was when we hit one of these ruts that the unimaginable, but inevitable, not whether or not, but when, happened. I dropped the bike with the goodwife on the back. We were moving at a slow speed, there was no injury or property damage, but I remembered the caveat. Was she going to sit on a stump here, waiting on our return with a different vehicle? I didn’t know.

The good wife is a lot tougher than most would assume. She jumped up, helped me get the bike up and after much more and a lengthy process we were able to continue on. She has continued to join me on rides ever since, but I still abide by the rule: Don’t ever drop the bike!