Options

Riding home from the workplace I rolled right onto the entrance ramp for K-10. It's a decision point along the sixty mile commute. The US highway goes into the town of Lawrence and K-10, the two lane bypass, wraps around Lawrence with a PRV of sixty-five mph. As I entered the rather lengthy ramp I glanced left and watched a tanker pop out from the underpass. He was rolling pretty well, probably on the north side of seventy. I had no desire to follow the big rig around the bypass, so I twisted the throttle on the Valk and before shifting twice I had pulled past and was well on the way to merging ahead of the tanker. A quick survey of the ramp ahead revealed a little red Civic that appeared to be pedaling hard, but at that uncomfortable place of deciding whether to squeeze onto the road in front of the big truck or slow up and slip in behind. To add to his discomfort, he had a monstrous motorcycle bearing down on him from the rear. I eased off the throttle and paused for the Civic's decision. Suddenly and unexpectedly the Civic jumped off the ramp and onto the roadway leaving almost fifty yards of merging space ahead of him. I hesitated only momentarily before turning the throttle hard, rolling past the little red cage on the right, and merging onto the bypass at some thirty ticks over the PRV.

Options. The Valkyrie provides them. They're good to have.

I almost ran myself out of options crossing Dallas the Sunday prior. We, Lori and I, were in moderate traffic in moderate rain. We were moving at a moderate pace, but not all of our fellow travellers were choosing to do so. Some were crawling; some were flying. It was Dallas, after all. I decided to move one lane to the left and pass up a few that weren't flying. My normal procedure would be to move out of the left track into the right track of the next lane and accelerate past the traffic leaving a hole through which my riding partner could cross behind me.

The road surface was wet and my visibility was less than ideal. I chose to not accelerate rapidly nor encourage my riding partner to do so. I rolled left out of the right track and fully across the next lane to allow my partner to drift gently inside my arc. Well into the maneuver I looked down at the pavement and noticed I was getting a little closer to the dotted lines than I had intended. I tightened the arc of the big bike to stay out of the next lane over and about then one of those moments when all the stars jline up at just the wrong time descended upon me. I'm not quite certain whether it was a crack in the road, a tar snake, or a combination of the two, but the front tire of the bike seemed to momentarily turn loose increasing my lean and moving me in a jerk exactly toward what I was intending to avoid. In an act of minimally conscious mental activity, my right foot came off the peg as if to catch the seven hundred pound behemoth.

As quickly as it had started it was done. I was cruising smoothly down the left track of the lane and the fear that had stopped my heartbeat had vanished. I did notice that I was suddenly almost alone on the roadway. The cage to my left was well back in my mirror and my riding partner had suddenly adopted a much larger interval.

Some of us who think we've been to the edge talk about how close we were, even sometimes insisting that we've never been nearer to crossing over. It's not true. We come close every day. We ride two lane roads with oncoming traffic closing at over one hundred twenty miles per hour and pass within a few feet. A twitch, a sneeze, a nod, a poorly timed tire failure and it's over. Every day we pass within inches of the other side. Most days we don't even know how close we've come.

Pick your options. It's good to have them. Live this day the way you'll be glad you did. Tomorrow's sunrise will be good to see, but it's not in your bank and it's not in mine.

Thanks for listening.