Personal Best Moments On Motorcycles
Thursday, February 27th, 2025
At the Grand Canyon on a different OFMC trip.
Sure any day on a motorcycle is better than just about anything else, but still, we all have had especially good days. So I got to thinking about what I would list as my best days riding.
The first one comes instantly and requires no consideration. This was the day Kevin and I rode a couple of his V-Stroms over Cinnamon Pass. This was a September day and if you have spent time in Colorado in the fall you know that there are some days in the fall when the sun, the air, and everything is so perfect it’s a true Rocky Mountain high. It was being here for a few of these days when I traveled for a year after college that persuaded me to come here when I decided it was time to put my roots down somewhere.
This day with Kevin on the V-Stroms on Cinnamon Pass was one of those incredible days. On top of that, Cinnamon Pass itself was beautiful. The fall colors were in full profusion and it’s a beautiful mountain location. The pass runs from Lake City over to the Silverton area, on US 550, the Million Dollar Highway. How could it not be an incredible ride? It was. I’ve never had a day on a bike I enjoyed more.
Another best day was really nothing special but circumstances made it special. This was in 1996 and the OFMC was heading out with Deadwood, SD, our destination for the first day.
The circumstances were this: I was married just a year at this point and, about six months in, my wife’s three kids became ungodly terrors. They hated me and made that utterly clear. And for the next seven years they made our lives a living hell, day after day after day. They finally all moved out, they’ve grown up now, and they are adults I actually like and even care about. But back then I was in shock.
John and Bill and I took off this day and as we rode north and I knew I would be away from it all for a week the anger and frustration melted away. I found myself riding along throwing my head back and screaming into the wind, “I love my motorcycle!!!” I will never forget that day. There haven’t been many days in my life when I felt that good. But for the next six years the situation with the kids made my one week on the bike trip something I longed for like crazy, and I was overjoyed each year when it finally came.
After that it gets harder to identify best days. I actually have to think about it.
I guess another best day was also one of the worst. It was at the end of the day when all the woes of the day were overcome that I felt absolutely wonderful.
This was on another OFMC trip, and I’ve told this story before. I had taken my bike in for some work and the shop promised me a dozen times it would be ready by the time we were set to leave. And it wasn’t. John and Bill left without me and we agreed to meet at the campground at the North Rim of the Grand Canyon. I finally got my bike and blasted off in that direction. After two days of very hard riding I got to the campground, found the campsite but no buddies, so I went looking for them.
Not finding them in any of the obvious places I considered the non-obvious. Perhaps they had ridden out to Sunset Point to watch the sunset. This point is about 25 miles out a narrow, winding road, max speed about 25 mph. I rode out there and they weren’t there so I turned around and headed back. Then my bike died. I was miles from nowhere and there was not another soul on the road. With all the other stress I’d been through up to this point this was where I broke.
Standing there next to my bike in the darkness on this deserted road I pounded on the seat of my bike screaming “God damn it!! God damn it!! God damn it!!”
Then it dawned on me that maybe I’d just run out of gas and I needed to go to Reserve. I flipped the lever down, hit the start button, it sputtered, and then fired up. Talk about exultation! I hurried on back to camp, John and Bill were there, I grabbed the last beer they had out of John’s hand and drank it down, and I felt great. I was with my buddies, all was well, and oh my god the horror was over. You don’t ever feel much better than I felt right then.
OK, that wasn’t quite what I had in mind when I started writing this but that’s where I ended up. Maybe I’ll come back to this topic if some good rides come to mind. Meanwhile, there surely must be some quote I could use that is appropriate to this piece.
Biker Quote for Today
The best moments are always unplanned.
