Moto and Design

You only get one lap in this life…..make it count.

Yesterday there was a motorcycle fatality on the I-15. My co-worker saw the wreckage, and our printer knew the lady rider well. Her name was Wendy. Wendy was on her morning commute to work on her Harley, just another regular day, when a pick up truck on the opposite side of the freeway punched through the cement jersey barrier. The force of the flying cement fragments tore Wendy off her motorcycle (which continued riderless for many feet) and into traffic, where she meet her end. Wendy’s fiancee was also commuting to work, and drove by the wreckage, and didn’t realize his whole world had changed until he spotted her crashed motorcycle. 

I cleaned my street bike today. It was covered in dust. The last time I rode it was nearly 7 months ago now, a quick jaunt around the neighborhood to make sure she still runs. I crashed on a CA freeway last year, I had a bruise or two and some cosmetic damage to the bike. I wiped my rag across the scraped paint, over the hole where a blinker should be. I thought about my husband finding me dead, I thought about me finding him dead…. my heart tumbled and ached for Wendy’s fiance. I admired the shiny clean side of my gleaming silver SV, I frowned at the marred fairing on the other side. 

The two sides of the coin. Metallic beauty on one side, mangled scared plastic on the other. Heads or tails. Life or death. More then ever I reconsidered keeping my street bike. More then ever I reconsidered the dangers of racing. More than ever I counted all the lucky stars for my husband, my friends, my family, my life. 

But I can’t live in fear. Because life is too short, and eventually we will all meet an end. We do not get to chose when, we do not get to chose where, or how. But we can chose how we will live. Hug your loved ones, live for each moment of each day, live with no regrets. You only get one lap in this life…..make it count.