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1.What was your first motorcycling experience?
10 years old, riding our semi-new 1968 Honda 50 Mini-Trail. All that freedom and raw power at my fingertips. Mastering the field next to the house, I headed off across the highway to bigger pastures (literally). I was hooked.
2.What is your current bike?
2005 VStar 1100 Silverado. Big enough to run two up on the Interstate, but still gets better mileage than the hybrid for commuting.
3.What bike would you most like to ride/own?
Almost any Triumph Scrambler. In my mind’s eye, that bike is what I see when I think “motorcycle”.
4.What was your hairiest moment on a bike?
I’ve been lucky, I haven’t crashed since I was a kid, but there have been plenty of close calls riding in traffic. Probably the one that took me to ‘code brown’ was a tractor-trailer on my right side locking up the tires on his trailer and starting to skid into me while I’m trying to not run into the cars ahead who all slammed on their brakes. I was about five seconds from dumping the bike in the median strip and rolling for it.
5.What was your most memorable ride?
Last summer, I rode with my brother up and down the Great River Road on both sides of the Mississippi from mid-Minnesota down through Iowa into Illinois and back into Wisconsin. Nothing but blue sky and sunshine for two days.
6.What would be the ideal soundtrack to the above?
“Exile on Main Street” by The Rolling Stones was going through my head most of that weekend, so I’ll stick with that.
7.What do you think is the best thing about motorcycling?
That feeling of flying you get inches above the highway, it’s liberating.
8.What do you think is the worst thing about motorcycling?
People on cell phones. Automobile drivers already do not see bikes and cell phones only make it worse.
9.Name an improvement you’d like to see for the next generation?
Getting more folks to take a safety course, there are a lot of riders with limited skills.
10.How would you like to be remembered?
Hopefully as a good husband and dad.
