Why I Won’t Have a Motorcycle at Billings Bike Nights

Our first Bike Night of the season happens tonight. My bike won't be there because I don't own one.

I've always loved going fast. Two wheels or four, it didn't matter to me. Growing up riding my Aero Bee Stingray bike, I only crashed a couple of times but I usually won my race. And my dad would talk of how he had to get new pairs of cowboy boots stretched for his left foot which was misshapen from a motorcycle crash that he had when he was sixteen. I never felt comfortable on a motorcycle though because I didn't grow up riding them. But I bought one anyway.

I had a buddy that was selling his Kawasaki 650 in the summer of 1990. I was careful to drive the rural areas and stay away from traffic. But, one sunny summer day I was running errands and needed to do a  couple of things in and around downtown Billings.

I had a pickup run a red (and I mean RED) light and just miss plowing me over. Then within 3 minutes, at another light where I was stopped waiting on green, some lady took her foot off the brake and rolled into me. It didn't knock me off the bike, but it did heighten my desire to vacate the downtown area. But we needed one more incident to clinch it. And I got it.

Drunk pedestrians are harder to avoid than I thought they would be. And I was only doing about twenty-five miles per hour when I saw him.

I locked up the brakes. I drove back home and put the for sale sign on it. From that day forward, it's been a minimum of four wheels for me.