Man’s function is not to survive but to live, to put life in our years not add years to our life. The world belongs to those who regard their life loosely while holding their dreams tightly and at our passing, as our life plays out before our aged soul, we will contemplate a life fully explored or squandered in safety.
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September in the Pacific Northwest is Gods gift to motorcyclists. Cool air descends from Cascade Mountain crests chilling the warm valley floor like God’s own air conditioning, as select leaves turn colors, giving a preview of the fall to come. Crisp water from the appropriately named Icicle River dribbled to our left, foaming over smooth boulders as we rode.
So I celebrated the priceless moment by goosing the throttle, letting the rear step out in a slow, steady dirt drift while ahead of me Donni Reddington did the same, only in a much better way since she coaches dirt riders for a living at Skool Of Moto. If you asked either of us we would tell you, life will never get better than this, or more strange. I never thought I would be doing this on a Harley. But is it really that surprising?
Fall came today like always does in the Northwest, like a light switch flicked by the finger of God.
Yesterday, smoke from forest fires hung in the air perverting the sky sour and sunsets blood red, lingering in the air with depressing tenacity, draining spirits and permeating pores until residents could scarcely remember a day without the smoky blanket of depression draped over them. Then today, the unofficial first day of fall up here in the PNW, God cried “Hold. Enough.”
This one goes out to the man I never met, to the man who read my stories, loved my work and now is gone forever. Your name was Robert Terrance Brooks Sr. and you were my editor Rob Brooks’ father.
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No two forms of art blend so wonderfully as photography and the beauty of the sideways motorcycle. Difficulty in properly capturing the elusive bike in the passing drama makes motorcycle photography equal parts technical challenge and craft developed over time.
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I purchased the Cardo Pactalk Bold before my cousin Dave “White Girl” Wensveen and I left for our two-week trip to cover the MotoAmerica races at Laguna Seca and can summarize this review with two words: buy one. It paid for itself in the first minute I had it.
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Deposited like an ambulance delivering two terminally ill patients, a pair of ancient Honda Trial 90s were dropped off in front of my house silently; no fanfare, no excitement, no hurry or joy, unloaded quietly, then slowly rolled into my garage, their future operating room. Last licensed and running when President Clinton was entangled with Monica Lewinsky they languished outside for dozens of years worth of northwest sub-zero temps and triple digit heat. Decrepit and decaying, my job was to get them running. I promised their owner I could. I opened my mouth again.
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Such is the passage of time, the dreadful metronome plowing forward keeping its pace, measuring out our remaining days toward our end. Time is uniform for every soul; a day, is a day, is a ticking away day. God tracks our days, life’s invisible odometer set from the beginning to expire at a mileage unknown to us. Who is able to stop the meter of time? There is no ceasing it, no killing the march, no rolling back of life’s odometer avoiding our conclusion.
But there is a way to pause it, to ever so briefly suspend the turning of life’s odometer. God cannot be tricked, but there is a part of time He does not count against us. It came to me in a river.
Jake Gagne has won every race he has finished in the 2021 MotoAmerica Superbike championship, in dominating fashion. His string of seven consecutive victories astride his Fresh N Lean Attack Performance Yamaha R1 has him standing firmly atop the Superbike points race. He’s drawing comparisons to five-time MotoAmerica Superbike champ Cameron Beaubier, even as Jake smashes lap records set by his predecessor. Man and machine are truly dialed in with each other, as evidenced by Jake’s mastery so far this season. He’s riding like we’ve never seen him ride before.
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