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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Yosemite Valley stranger’s interaction stood out since it was rare, a blip on my travel radar because overwhelmingly I find the American spirit of kindness to strangers permeates every place I visit. I could write stories ad infinitum (kind of my job here at Road Dirt) about total strangers who have waved hello, offered a kind word, given me food, welcomed me into their homes, granted access to their garage to repair my bike, given me shelter in a storm, let me spend the night on their couch, became close friends or even adopted me into their family as their own son. This is the rule. Yosemite Valley man, you are the exception.
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This is for you, mister random Yosemite Valley stranger who spun on your heels and approached me while I dismounted my bike that sweltering July day, who stopped your walk along God’s Country to ridicule my exhausted frame as I peeled sweaty gear off my back, who halted gazing at El Capitan so you could critique me. You pulled your focus from where it should have been to where it had no business being, aiming your spiteful arrows at me to offer a cutting remark to this travel weary vagabond.
“Is it worth it?” you inquired rather sarcastically. Then before I could respond, you turned and walked away.
Joining our squad of swift, veteran riders was my 16-year old son Matt, who earned his driver’s license and motorcycle endorsement simultaneously little more than a month before. A motorcycle I nicknamed the Zombie Ninja was his mount, a Kawasaki Ninja 500R that absorbed parts and money like a giant, sucking black hole of bottomless misery until it roared to life just days before departure. Before us lay the 30 miles of Canada’s 31A, technical tarmac where beauty reigns, crashes are frequent and speed is a punishable commodity.
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Motorcycle parked in my driveway, I walked up the stairs to my front door as a dead man walking, dead man walking, I was a dead man walking. A 3-day, 900-mile tour of Canada complete, I was returning home without my 16 year old son. I had no idea where he was. Inside waited my wife whose blissful world was about to be ripped apart by the news, and I would deliver the blow that would drop her to her knees.
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