Lately, I haven't been riding dirt. For about a month. I want to, but I seem to have lost some motivation. I don't really have a riding buddy, so that's part of it, but the main part is that a friend of mine died in a street riding accident three weeks ago. His name was Gary Jaehne. Google for him. He's not super famous like some MotoGP rider or anything, but he wrote two books on sport bike riding techniques and was a common site in the Santa Cruz mountains on the weekends when he wasn't doing AFM racing. I rode with him maybe a couple dozen times over the last 5 years or so that I knew him and I attended both sessions of a suspension class that he taught. He was a very positive guy and not quick to judge. He was analytical and in this age where online flame wars happen everywhere, you never saw GaryJ resort to insults. He was a Technical Writer by trade and a former marine. This Sunday, I will escort his ashes to Pescadero State Beach for a Celebration of Life ceremony. I assume his wife will spread his ashes into the wind and sea.
I didn't know him as well as some, but I knew him well enough. He will be missed. I visited the corner where he crashed, I looked at the lines scored in the pavement and the black marks that I think were from frame sliders. They weren't on a line that he would have taken. It was a simple, easy set of S turns just before the town of Loma Mar on Pescadero Creek Rd. It didn't make any sense. But it happened. And a fine rider and man is gone.
I haven't thought twice about throwing a leg over a bike, I've been riding so long it's part of my blood. But it's had an effect on me. He's the second excellent rider I've known that had died in a freak accident in the last year and a half. A 31 year old man died when his KTM 2 stroke's throttle stuck. He ran into a tree. This guy knew how to handle that kind of thing, so you know it happened at just the wrong moment. The Perfect Storm, so to speak. I think that's kind of what happened to Gary. He said, when friends made it down the 70 foot cliff he went off, that he'd got a bad headshake that caused the accident. We could see no reason for it, except a slight rise. If he'd been going fast enough, he could have caught a little air with the front wheel, got it crooked and dropped it down, causing the headshake. But who knows? It doesn't make any difference. Two very good men are gone. And that has left a very big hole in me.
I want to take the Husky out and ride, but I'm at a cross roads. I'm a novice rider. I've ridden street for 30 years, but I wasn't allowed near a dirt bike when I was young. And at 19, when I started riding street, I didn't have much money. A dirt bike was a toy. A toy I couldn't afford. But a street bike was cheap and practical transportation. I got into dirt a couple years back because I got bit by the Adventure riding bug when on a three day street ride we got lost in an area with dirt roads all around us. They were easy, well graded roads for the most part, but it opened up a new world to me. I bought my F800GS so I could explore my world. Then I bought my TE610 to practice on and later the 310 because I wanted something lighter. I love all three of those bikes. But as a novice, I'm at the point where I'm doing the more difficult stuff for the first time. The risk of injury has never been greater. And sometimes I find it hard to go out and ride in the shadows of my fallen brothers. After all, it's not like I'm going to be doing black diamonds on an ADV bike anyways... But some aren't THAT bad, at least on a light bike. They're still very challenging for me. But the reality of an endo or a cliff dive are very real. I keep finding excuses not to do that stuff, even though it's about time I should.
As usual, it's 90% rider and 10% bike. That bike can do anything. I, on the other hand, sometimes seem almost scared of my own damn shadow. It's very frustrating. I'll never give up riding, of that I have no doubt. I'm just worried that I'll give up too soon on some things. I haven't reached a level of skill that I feel will allow me to go on a variety of events or ride with other folks and not be holding everyone up.
So it's not really my injury, although I did severely injure my ankle 18 months back (and it's still not fully healed), that has sent ripples through my riding, leaving me wondering wtf is going on.
. 
... There is nothing that says you have to come back after being knocked out ...
(or at least in my case)
