Crashing was the reason that I got off my fast bikes and onto slower ones. I was having a great time on the forest roads up north on my full race Husqvarna until one day I was doing one of those all crossed up skid turns on a dirt corner when it turned into blacktop halfway through the turn. High sided it down the hill and into the woods. The bike was on top of me and there was warm blood I thought from a head wound running down my face. This must be the way it feels to die I remember thinking to myself. Nope, not yet. It was gear oil from when I punched a hole in the gear case when I'd hit a rock. Brought it home, fixed it and sold it for a third of what I'd bought it for.
Reminds me of the worst wreck we almost got into.
I was always the slowest rider of the group. Less daring, and much less skilled, so I was always at the back of the pack eating dust. But some days that is a good thing.
My two cousins thought the USFS roads were meant for flat track race practice. Around the corners they would have the bike nearly sideways with the front forks twisted to the lock, laid back at a 45 degree angle and the back tire spraying gravel all the way through the bend in the road.
The problem with that practice is half the corners are blind as the road bends around a ridge line, and you have no idea what is on the other side.
One day, as typical, I was bringing up the rear on a string of four bikes, and I see weird stuff starting to happen in front of me. I saw a brake light on the one bike that was so equipped, then I saw my buddies off the road and headed through the downhill into the forest, each a little slower than the one before.
I started downshifting and hit the brakes, down to about fifteen or twenty MPH, wondering what the hell I was coming up, expecting a logging truck, or a herd of cows.
But no, there stretched across the road piano wire tight was a 1/2 steel cable just a bit higher than the handle bars on my XR 250. Some jack ass out gathering next winter's wood supply had a snatch block anchored to a tree just above the road. One end of a 500 foot cable was tied to the back of his 4X4 pickup, which was headed down the road in the direction we had been traveling. The other end was tied to the butt of a 36 inch diameter doug fir which was being dragged up the hill to the road for easy sawing and loading.
I suspect the first rider, or possibly two in our procession might have stained his tighty whiteys that day.
