Motorcycle Daze

The last thing I wanted to do was ride a motorcycle to Vintage Motorcycle Days. At 40, I have only a few years’ experience, and took my first motorcycle trip—a 500-mile jaunt—just last summer. On the way back from that trip, I was stuck in a blinding thunderstorm on a farm road. I made the grim calculus that I stood a better chance of survival on the move, dodging fallen trees and fighting for traction, rather than as a stationary object begging to be struck by lightning or a 2006 Buick. I hadn’t touched my bike much since, and besides, I was responsible for half the camping gear for a two-man trip. But my car was in the shop, and I had a longstanding arrangement to meet my father at Vintage Days.

For decades, my dad joked that he never knew how many skiing trips he had left with my grandpa, an eternally youthful World War II veteran who skied into his late 80s and passed a few years ago in his 90s. It’s my turn to make the same joke about my father, now in his late-60s. I had no choice but to ride.

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