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Moment in the sun…

“In a normal sort of way, like I am you and you are me.”
–Clem Snide

My cast is unofficially off. The doctors expect me to continue wearing it until its official removal in a couple weeks, but I have shorted my time into it and my hand continues to heal. My own physical therapy is bringing back the strength and motion that it once had, yet I understand that I will never come close to regaining where I was at before my motorcycle accident.

My motorcycle is ready to ride once again, and I sat on her and she felt good to sit upon. Putting my right hand on the throttle grip felt natural and right, proving to me that I am physically capable of riding. I can throttle and front brake accordingly, and I have no reactionary problems in the event I needed to be quick about something.

The new dillemma is I still have metal sticking out of my hand. Once I go see the doctor in a couple weeks, a few of these metal shards should be removed which would allow me to put my hand back into a glove. At that point, weather dependent, I hope to ride once again. It’s been a long time.

Then the next question is will I continue to ride motorcycles, in light of the events that caused my injury? I am undecided, rather waiting to see how life plays itself out. I look at it as I have ridden the last 12 years covering 165,000+ miles on the street, telling me I could hang it up and close a chapter in my life. Closing chapters can be just as hard as starting the next one.

I have learned that nothing in life is certain, but our will can take us farther than our minds can imagine. I am at peace with walking away from motorcycling. One thought process keeps me riding for at least one more year on the street, which would provide me the last opportunity to take one more long cross-country motorcycle trip. I would love to ride to all four corners of the contiguous United States, taking 1-2 months to do it, and my motorcycle is more than capable. Another thought process has been retiring off the street and taking my hobby strictly to the race track. The track would provide a minimized risk environment, and would keep my motorcycle fix where it needs to be.

Either way, I still have some time to see how things pan out. Winter is on its way, and my life has a lot happening. I am thankful that the cast is finally off, so that I can get back to typing. Along with getting caught up on work, I am granted with the ability to get back to my involvement within the various forums and communities online. It’s good to be back a part of PNW Riders, as I am emotionally attached to the great community of riders we have on there.

This picture has been my avatar for over a year on PNW Riders, it was taken in May of 2006 as I sat on top of Spiral Highway, which is on the border of Clarkston, Washington and Lewiston, Idaho.

Breaking in that new Honda means a video!

My friend, Barry, has been getting better with his video production. He was not a man when he was using Pinnacle, so I like to tell myself thanks for supplying him with Adobe Premiere as he now produces some top notch videos. I am not just saying this, but they are getting better and better!

Barry travelled from Kirkland, WA to Clarkston, WA to pick up his new 2007 Honda CBR 600RR from Mac’s Cycle, and the opportunity to break in a new motorcycle presented itself as good subject matter for a ride with some friends and a video to produce.

 I will be entering into the video podcast world, with the help of Barry - more on that another time, for now just enjoy this cool video:

I have a date in the Operating Room.

I just received the call from the hospital scheduler, and I am first in the Operating Room tomorrow morning. I have chosen not to do a local anaesthesia instead choosing a regional anaesthesia. I guess that involves seven shots in the arm pit to nerve block off everything, and I’ll be awake during the two hour operation. The doctors told me I wont be able to make any legal decisions for 24 hours afterwards, so I guess I’ll just be taking it easy. I have never had surgery before so I am blind going into the recuperation period.

I think the most annoying thing about everything is having my hand and wrist immobilized in a cast for a few weeks afterwards - talk about putting a damper on my lifestyle. Yet, I am thankful for my overall health and know the issues with my hand and foot should resolve in due time.

I love cheese tortellini.

The Longest Ride

So yeah… I rode back from Colorado Springs, CO back here in one-shot and it was a ride full of everything - too much to get into. I experienced a full adventure on that ride back and it was the craziest, insane, exhausting, longest ride of my life.

In my days of riding, my top 3 longest rides are now:

1) Colorado Springs to Seattle - recent
2) Las Vegas to Bellingham - earlier this year
3) Sacremento to Spokane - 2004

Not only was it the longest, it was the most painful ride ever. I dont think I have ever gone through so much to get back and then be so exhausted.

They had me do more xrays today, this time focusing on the thumb area of my right hand. They said it “looked” borderline broken but its been fine so I dunno what that was all about. I’m in a lot of pain but I’m managing it.

My foot has been just on fire as of late…but the real time is going to be Tuesday August 21 - I am set for surgery. I’ll be in a cast after that and go from there.

When will it end?

I spent a lot of time at the doctors today, mainly because I was a walk-in at the emergency room in Denver, so it was very packed in there.

My original thoughts were I had just 2 broken fingers, so they sent me to get xrays and then the doctors thought my right foot was broken too. My foot has been swelling up, with pain in the ball part of the foot, and the main joint at the big toe spot. I have been unable to walk on it with any pressure so they wanted me to get that xrayed just to see how it looked.

After reading the xrays, the results came back showing my right foot is not broken, and only one of my two fingers were indeed broken. The second finger was just bruised up, but the end finger had continued to worsen and the xrays show why.

I am no doctor. However, as it was explained to me… the upper portion of my end finger was broken up into many pieces and it is unsure how much concern it went into the “joint” portion of the finger. Tomorrow morning, they are having a orthopedics specialist from the University of Colorado review the xrays and make the determination if the joint is affected. If the joint is/was affected, then they will recommend surgery.

If I was to get surgery, I have to wait about a week to do it so the swelling can come down some. It would also have to be done right at a week, because they said with no surgery, the hand would be healed in about three weeks and I would have to live with whatever it ended up healing as. So tomorrow, I find out about the extent of the damage into the joint area and whether surgery is recommended. If I do need surgery, I will entertain the idea of sticking around Colorado to do it here or getting back into Washington in time to have it done there.

My 2 fingers on my right hand are wrapped up in a joint splint (it’s so hard to type on the right side of the keyboard uggg), and for now I’ll hobble with a soft shoe on the right foot. More bruises are showing up on my shoulder and rib cage, but overall my spirits are very good and I am truly thankful and counting my blessings as it could always be worse.

About the bike…I am actually thankful that I took the dive in the soft sand as it probably lessened the extent of the damage. I am slowly ripping the bike apart looking into it more and more to see the true extent of the damage to make a determination on what to do next.

So tomorrow, I will know the final disposition on my body and my bike.

My body has been aching all day today, and I am amazed at how much the body can do and perform when running on high adrenaline as I was right after the accident. Once that adrenaline high comes down, it brings one down very fast and the up and down experience is amazing in a bad way to say the least.

Here are some pics from the day:

All in an afternoon…

Well, today has been one of those days. I dont even know where to begin…

I was leaving the Sturgis Bike Rally in South Dakota, en route to Colorado. I was trying to avoid going through Wyoming, so made way through Nebraska instead to work my way south. The majority of my entire trip has been completely off the Interstate, all on backroads, mainly to have more fun, avoid all the RV’s and traffic, and to lighten the LEO’s that I may run into.

Got through that and was another 25 miles down the road, turned off on another backroad to avoid the traffic, and was only 2 miles down this desolate road when it happened again - soft sand replacing the road - only this time, there was zero warning.

The speed limit sign said 50mph, right where the road turned to soft sand/gravel. I was going right around 55 when I saw the road change, but it was too late. The road crested there, so my warning was only maybe 15-20 feet in advance. I hit my brakes very hard, fished tailed the rear, but straightened it out as I hit the sand and gravel. I dont think I slowed down to anything under 40mph when I hit it - the bike dived to the left hitting on the right side and throwing me about 3 feet from the bike. It all happened so fast. Adrenaline and shock combined was making me go crazy.

I’ve been riding since 1996, never wrecked a motorcycle up to this point. Sure, I’ve dropped a bike at a standstill due to stupidity, but I have never wrecked a bike while in any kind of motion. Damn! It all happened so fast!

So here I am in the middle of nowhere, roaming on the ole cell phone, and not enough energy to even lift my bike. A couple fingers on my right hand were blatantly popped out of place, I popped them back into place, but one of them keeps staying popped out. Right foot and knee were sore, not sure of what. Adrenaline was pumping like crazy! I know I went into shock, it was hard to come to any calmness, my mind was going stir crazy!!

I was wearing full gear, and I really mean full gear. I had my Vanson Leathers for my pants and jacket, with armor, Sidi boots, gloves, and helmet of course. I know, without a doubt in my mind, that my injuries would be way worse had I not been wearing all my gear.

I finally got the bike up, pushed it two miles back to a nearby gas station from where I had turned off of. The bike was not starting, and my mind was going crazy trying to think about any troubleshooting things.

I made a few phone calls, asking for medical advice and bike advice. I knew I broke two of my fingers at this point, I dont think I have ever felt such pain in my life - amazing in a bad, bad way!! My right foot was, and is, in such pain that I dont know of what. I really dont think I broke it, but something is not right.

The bike appeared toast and I didnt know what to do stranded in the middle of no man’s land. I kicked all the sand and gravel out of the bike and starting working through it. I did a good visual inspection, looking for leaks or electrical issues that may have been grounded off. The extent of the damage was pretty bad, I’ll probably find out how bad tomorrow - granted, it could always be worse.

Armed with some advil in my stomach, guzzling 2 liters of water, and starting to get somewhat calm, I was determined to see what I could do about riding out of there. Duct tape is my friend - used it to duct tape my motorcycle up to keep it together if I could get it road-ready. I took a couple ball point ink pens, and used them to duct tape to my fingers to keep them straight. I didnt want to take my boot off, because I was afraid my foot would be so swollen up that I wouldnt be able to get it back on. I figured I could deal with that later.

I was able to make the bike rideable using a lot of creativity. I had a problem getting my bags secured back on the bike, so I strapped down what I could and backpacked the rest on my body. Off I went…

My original plan was to goto Cheyenne, Wyoming but then the rain came. This was probably some of the hardest rain I have ever seen and been in. I pulled off at a gas station to shelter myself, but after 30 minutes, it didnt let up so I knew I had to go. What sucked is I was unable to wear a glove on the right hand, so the rain just stung and pierced my hand.

So with my body duct taped up, my motorcycle duct taped up, 2 broken fingers, one very bad right foot, missing one glove, backpack on back, in the downpouring rain, I pushed onward for another 4 hours finally arriving at my final and original destination - Colorado Springs, Colorado. The bike is in the garage, and I finally got a shower, and I’ll be going to the hospital tomorrow morning to get checked out.

The last 4 hours of riding probably wouldnt have been too bad if it wasnt for the 2 fingers and the nonstop rain. It was just miserable and i would never wish this upon my worst enemy.

For now, rest is what I need. I just wanted to let everyone know what happened and we’ll see how things play out from here.

The Reason

Every summer, I try to go on my annual motorcycle road trip across the United States. The first destination, every time, is always to visit my parent’s gravesite. It’s been over ten years since their passing, and so I try to make it out every year to pay my respects.

Too much Seattle rain…

Rain, rain, go away! Do I need to say please? I spent the additional money to add some more motorcycle riding gear to my collection, but of the rain kind. It’s not just about staying dry, but staying warm also!

Seattle got shut down by the snow not too long ago, and the roadways are still covered with too much gravel and rocks. This can make it unpleasant during commutes. When I’m driving in the car, other vehicles love to send my windshield some rock messages that dont go over too well. When I’m on the motorcycle, the rocks act as pellets to the body armor. I suppose if it wasnt for these little rock missles that happen, I’d find myself riding the motorcycle more.

Motorcycles are built for the rain, not for the rocks on the roadways!

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