I used to ride a motorcycle as my main transportation when I lived in Reno. I had a big Japanese street bike and I rode it pretty much year round, even rode it in snow a couple of times when I was being extra stupid.

I lived out of town to the south by the Mt. Rose to Virginia City road off of 395 out in the desert, and my girlfriend lived out in Dayton which is a dusty little speed bump east of Carson City. I could get there by going over Geiger Pass and through the mountains which was a long drive for a guy who worked on a grocery store night crew humping boxes all night, so I usually went through the Washoe Valley by Washoe Lake. And there were two ways across that to the pass which brought you into Carson City.

I could stay on the four-lane 395 highway or take the two-lane route around the east side of the lake. I usually took two lanes, less traffic, more curves, more fun, and you could smell the lake, but for expediency sake 395 was the quicker route. The highway through there is one of the windiest stretches of road anywhere. The wind blows all the time and sometimes it screams.

The scariest motorcycle ride I ever took was down that piece of highway. I was on my way to my girlfriend’s after getting off work at 11 AM. I’d worked a twelve-hour shift and I was off the next day. We were gonna have a good time and I was in a hurry. I was driving fast and the wind was blowing. The valley is fairly narrow and mostly the wind either blows north to south or vice versa, but sometimes it would be a crosswind and that was how it was that day.

I was leaned way over to stay straight in the buffeting gale. You can stay steady like that as long as the wind stays steady. I hit a pocket of dead air while I was going probably 90 miles an hour and the bike popped upright. It scared the crap out of me. Before I had a chance to get my bearings I got hit with a gust and the bike moved from the far side of the right lane, into the left lane almost like it got picked up and re-deposited a second later. And it wobbled. I let off on the gas and got slowed down and by the time I got to the side of the highway, I was getting cramps in my butt cheeks trying to hold it all in.

I sat there for a while. I smoked a few cigarettes. I examined the road and the roughness of it. I imagined the rash one might develop sliding along a surface like that. And I slowed my breathing after twenty minutes or so, then cranked the bike back up and hauled ass.

That never slowed me down, but I did slow more and more as I got older, and I quit riding street bikes altogether when I was riding in the town I lived in one day and couldn’t feel the joy over the fear of someone or something crashing me anymore and I sold my scooter and haven’t had one since.