Item: Pristine red/black 99 Honda Valkyrie F6
Price: $13000 OBO
Email: paulshaw@xxx.com
Date: 8/3/99
Time: 6:16:08 PM
Description:
Must sell or find new wife. 600 miles, garage kept, spotless, std factory equipment. paul shaw voa#561, gwrra#10959 home 610.539.xxxx work 610-354-xxxx

*****

THE RIDE OF THE VALKYRIE

Please, God, I don’t want to die. We’ll never make the corner!

The handlebar dips, we lean, the foot-peg scrapes the road with a frightening rasp – the corner is sharper than it first looked. A wobble, a correction, and we’ve made it through. As the motorcycle returns to upright, I’m flooded with relief, which lasts only until the next turn. The rain beats its rhythm against my visor and the road ahead is slick and treacherous.

Why did I come? Was I mad?

Even this morning I knew the weather wouldn’t hold. But I knew that with the bike finally up for sale, Paul would need one last ride. And I knew he would put it through its paces. I think I came along to share in his last moments with the bike, so that he might realise why he was parting with it. So that he might find it easier to turn from the bike towards me at the end of the day. But deep down, I knew that I came along in the hope that he would ride more safely with me on the back. I came so that I would not pace the floor, or jump with each ring of the phone, until he returned. I came so that my life would not be on hold until I heard him throttle down at the end of the driveway.

The handlebar dips again, down to the right. The rear tire slips and slithers, testing, challenging. He loves these winding roads through the mountains. Roads to die for. I close my eyes and give in to my fear. When I open them again, I see a car edging onto the road from the shoulder.

Please don’t pull out. Doesn’t he see us? Can we stop in time if he doesn’t?

I brace myself for whatever Paul will do. He brakes firmly, then manoeuvres around the impertinent car nosing into our lane. With a surge of offended throttle, we leave the car far behind.

You have pulled us through. You have kept me safe. Thank you, God. Thank you, Paul, my love. How could I have doubted your skill, your years of experience? My heart swells with pride and with gratitude and with love, for you have protected me.

You are my hero, my chevalier, ‘mon brave’. I have put my life in your hands. You hold the power of life and death over me. I feel your strength through your leather jacket as I tuck myself close in behind you. I sense the flex of your muscles and know to prepare for the next turn. We crest a hill, the road drops to the left, and for a moment in time, there is only you, and me, and a machine. We are flying. We are weightless. There is nothing else. I love you and the rain and the wind and the trees and the mountains. I am one with all of this.

The road rises, as if to meet us. I feel the motorcycle buck and squirm. Now, within the unity of man and machine, it is man pitted against the machine as he struggles to control all 714 pounds of it, a metallic beast whose throaty roar comes from its 1600 cc’s rather than from flesh and sinew.

The road unwinds from its corkscrew through the mountains as we enter the gentle undulations of the valley. I can feel my heart slowing to normal and my body growing weak after the adrenaline surge. Does Paul feel this way on every ride? What drives him so? What calls him to these hills?

Maybe it is Neanderthal, an atavistic call answered by technology, a need to reach down and live at the visceral level. Surely this is why we push ourselves to do extraordinary things, like bungee jumping, like mountain climbing, like racing cars in the attempt to fit our lives to those basic urges that have been with us since time immemorial. To attune our bodies to the elements. To return mind and body to common ground. To live life by the rhythms, if only for a few moments. To risk. To protect. To feel the flow of adrenaline. To live by courage and not fear. To live…

Some understand water, some the air and some the road. Whether we scale heights by the strength of our hands, or steer a course through cascades and white water, or drift with the air currents, perched on a hang-glider, or read the road ahead to keep the car or the bike just this side of the limit of adhesion, it is all about intensity and mastery – mastery of the elements, mastery of the circumstances, mastery of our fears. I think I now understand the expression “Go deep”. We have slain the dragon, wrestled with demons, outsmarted the ogre. We have defeated fear. We have stepped outside the cubicles of our corporate existences and free-fallen into life.

“La vitesse tue” (Speed kills), advises the billboard at our exit. But I think I disagree. Perhaps boredom, shallow, fragmented attention, indecision, and lack of awareness are more to blame. We slow and turn off towards home.

Dismounting, I am surprised that my neck is fine and my head does not ache, even after five hours of riding. The helmet felt quite comfortable, although I am glad to take it off. I shake out my now freed hair and let the rain cool my upturned face. My quiet embarrassment at my earlier fears will stay private. I will not tell Paul. Maybe I did not truly close my eyes on the most frightening of turns. Perhaps they were just long blinks after all.

Funny, the swagger when you climb from the bike!

Paul has already wheeled the bike into the garage, and is lovingly, sorrowfully wiping the chrome dry. I feel it as poignantly as if he were caressing me.

“Oh, Paul. I love you. More than you know.” My whisper is lost to the rain.

It is a beautiful bike, all six torque-y, resonating cylinders of it - not an ounce of hesitation when climbing those mountains. It exudes power, strength, freedom, joy, exhilaration. I know I would never be strong enough to handle anything that size, but maybe a 500, or a 750 … My heart beats a little faster.

I’ll check the classifieds tomorrow morning.

Copyright ©1999 C. J. Calder. All Rights Reserved