A Favor

I was out riding today when I noticed something that I notice a lot. Something that pisses me off. Something that almost took me and Rhea out of the picture a couple of years ago.

I'm talking about loose parts on cars.

I was riding down Rabbit Road here in Santa Fe when I noticed the car in front of me had something hanging from the underside. Whatever it was kept bouncing against the pavement, only a couple inches off the ground while the rest of the undercarriage sat much higher.

Something was broken. Something was loose. Something was hanging on by a fucking thread. And the driver appeared completely oblivious.

I don't get that luxury on a motorcycle. Particularly not on a performance bike.

If something starts coming loose, I fix it. Immediately. Because small problems become big problems at highway speeds when you're balancing on two wheels.

A loose bolt becomes a vibration. A vibration becomes a failure. A failure becomes a very bad day.

Motorcyclists learn this lesson quickly.

Car owners, on the other hand, often seem to take a weird pride in neglecting their vehicles. The check engine light has been on for six months. The funny noise has been there since Christmas. The bumper is secured with zip ties and positive thinking.

And apparently that's just fine.

Until something falls off.

And that's where my problem begins.

Because when a piece falls off your car, it doesn't simply become your problem anymore. It becomes everybody's problem. Especially for motorcycles.

A loose muffler. A piece of plastic. A chunk of metal. A suspension component. A tread separation. At highway speeds, any of those can become a projectile. And when you're surrounded by airbags, seatbelts, steel doors, crumple zones, and six thousand pounds of vehicle, you might never even notice what happened.

The biker behind you absolutely will.

The pedestrian crossing the street might too.

A couple years ago, I experienced exactly that. I was boxed into traffic when a chunk of metal broke loose from a vehicle beside me at highway speed. It slammed into my front fork, ricocheted around the motorcycle, and smashed into my leg.

Had it struck the pavement in front of me, I might have gone down.

Had it hit me directly, it could have broken my leg.

Instead, I got lucky.

Motorcyclists survive on luck often enough already. We don't need additional challenges launched at us from underneath your car.

So here's my favor: Take care of your vehicles. Inspect them. Listen to them. Pay attention when something changes. If you hear a new sound, investigate it. If you feel a new vibration, investigate it. If something looks loose, hanging, cracked, broken, or otherwise questionable, investigate it. Because you're not just maintaining transportation. You're maintaining a machine that weighs thousands of pounds and shares the road with other human beings.

And when parts start falling off, the consequences don't always belong to you. Sometimes they belong to the family riding behind you. Sometimes they belong to the pedestrian in the crosswalk. Sometimes they belong to someone who never saw it coming.

Take care of your fucking vehicles. Other people's lives may depend on it.