In 2003, my daughter and I were planning a motorcycle trip to the Sturgis Rally in South Dakota. At the time I was riding a 1996 Honda Shadow Ace 1100, freshly serviced and cleaned — I was a week away from departing Arizona to pick Sarah up at her friend's house in Bozeman, Montana. I was on my way home from getting new tires when I crossed the Agua Fria River on Bell Road, and my eye caught a hawk struggling to gain altitude to clear the bridge. He was struggling because he had a good-sized cottontail in his talons.
I was doing about sixty in a forty-five zone and made a quick check to be sure the cars ahead were still a safe distance off. They were, so I let my gaze drift back to the hawk. I fixated on it a little too long. When I looked up again, the cars in front of me had stopped, and I'd closed to about twenty yards — still doing sixty. I hit the rear brake and the front brake at the same time, locking up both wheels.
Releasing both brakes to stop the slide, I prepared to launch myself off the foot pegs — land on top of the car ahead, slide over it, and hope not to die or break every bone in my body. Somewhere in there it occurred to me that the bike would be totaled and there'd be no way to make the Sturgis trip after all. I looked toward the bridge rail and figured if I could get over there, I might just scrape off my saddlebags and bend a handlebar or engine guard.
It still amazes me how I pulled that off without touching anything.
Running the gap between the bridge rail and traffic, I passed four or five vehicles before I'd slowed enough to merge back in.
I never told that story to anyone for a couple of years — too embarrassed that I'd made such a rookie mistake. Eventually I was at the metal club, making a part for one of my other bikes, and a bunch of the guys were swapping stories, so I shared this one. I mentioned up front that I was a little embarrassed to even bring it up, especially since one of the guys was a retired Seattle motorcycle officer, and this was about as inexcusable a mistake as they come.
The retired officer's only comment:
"It sounds like good motorcycle riding to me!"
Looking back on it, I'm still amazed by just how fast the human brain can process all of that and still find time to make the saving move. I was fifty-four when this happened, and I'm seventy-six writing it down now. I'm not sure I could pull that maneuver off today, and I really do try to keep my focus on the road, my looks around narrowed to short visual snapshots of the scenery.