Saturday, August 29, 2009

A Man and his Bike

My Dad, who died in '05, and his beloved Beamer.

Truthfully, though, you really didn't want him to take you for a ride. The guy had a tendency to show off. Plus, he'd had a few accidents. His first BMW pretty much died one Father's Day, when my wife and I went riding with him--Deb and I riding my old Yamaha 500 with its dented gas tank. We'd pretty much safely made it up into the Baraboo hills, when Dad suddenly went swooshing past us, up over a hill and soaring down into a valley, on one of the Hills' famous little windy roads. Two things happened at the bottom of the hill: the road veered right. And it turned to gravel. Sort of hard to see from the top of the hill, or while going 60 on a motorcycle.
Dad didn't quite make the veer, and disappeared in a cloud of dust into a rapidly narrowing gully. By the time we caught up to him, he was standing next to a smoking motorcycle. Bloodied but unbowed.
End of ride.

He had a new bike three days later. Some guys just never learn.

4 comments:

Unknown said...

That's a nice looking bike. I remember getting a quick ride on it over at Floyd Pl. before it was sold out from under.

Bruce Gee said...

The bike pictured may have been Dad's first BMW, not sure. I think the deck and ramp had been built at Floyd Pl. before he finally sold the second bike, ten minutes after you and I had our final (and first) ride on it together. In this pic, no back deck and no ramp, so...

Yeah, one of Dad's swift ones: I'd offered him $800 for the bike, but he took a fancy to some fella who came along, and sold it to him for $600.


Grrr....

Anonymous said...

I had the honor to go sailing with your Dad, and the wisdom to not throw a leg over his bike.

Larry

Bruce Gee said...

Wisdom indeed. Yes, that old HobieCat sailboat was great, wasn't it? Many memories of sailing, although a sail with Dad was always an adventure.