Rehearsing Disaster

I kept seeing myself riding right off the edge of the road. I am navigating this treacherous, rutted road called the Shaeffer Switchbacks. It is a one-lane jeep trail in the Moab of Utah. Five feet to my right is a wall of rock. Five feet to my left is a one thousand foot drop-off. 

I have Kathy on the back of the motorcycle. She’s fine. In fact, she is more than fine. 

She thinks the views are amazing. 

I’m terrified to the point of being frozen. 

One unexpected move and we’ll either fall over or, worse yet, go over.

With every tiny turn of the throttle and slip of the clutch, I am fighting target fixation. If you’ve ridden a motorcycle for more than a minute, you’ve experienced it. The rule is simple. You go where you are looking. 

I’m looking at the cliff. I can’t stop looking at the cliff. It is pulling me in. The bike is moving in that direction. “No! No! No!” I scream in my head. “Look at the road ahead. Stay on the road.”

That was the movie playing in my mind every time I thought of the western motorcycle tour. Kathy was excited. I was terrified if I let myself go there. I called the head of the tour company intending to cancel. 

I told him a more manly version of my fears. 

He talked me through the whole trip and ended with, “I’ve done this a lot. We will get you and Kathy through this safely.”

And he did. We rode the 1,550 mile trip without a “close call.” Well, that’s not quite true. There were a couple of close calls on the same pass, just a couple of miles apart.

I was following the three rabbits, the faster riders, up Ebbets Pass in California. It is a paved road with lots of twisties. Because I was following them, my eyes were laser focused on the road ahead. 

I was using the white line on my right and the double yellow lines down the center to give me a good line and keep me centered in the lane. We were riding at a fast pace. It was exhilarating and challenging, and I was loose and in control.

As we got closer to the peak, the double yellow lines were no longer there. The road was just a two lane 55 mph blacktop with white lines marking the border of the road. It was then that a pickup truck came around the bend. He was headed down the mountain. His presence tightened me up, but we got past each other. 

But now my eyes were looking left and right and not just on the road ahead. I let the rabbits scamper off. I slowed down a bit. I realized for the first time, I’d been riding a mountain pass with a big unprotected drop-off on my right. 

Yikes. I tightened up. 

It was just then that I came to a 270-degree turn. I thought it was a 180. That was a bad assumption. I came in too hot and in too high a gear. I increased my lean angle and dragged my right foot peg while headed up an unexpectedly steep hill. With no time to downshift, I hit the gas to exit. Being in the wrong gear, the bike bucked a bit. But thankfully there was enough torque, even in this lower gear, to pull us upright and out of the lean. If it didn’t, we were over the edge. 

A few minutes later, the exact same thing happened again. Now I was rattled. I slowed our ascent a little bit more. I was not used to unmarked roads. I discovered in California, they don’t mark the roads with signs telling you the shape of the upcoming turn like they do in Georgia. A scary lesson to learn at 60 mph on a twisty uphill with a canyon drop-off.

When we got to the top of the mountain, I was relieved. 

But I was shaky.

I found myself dipping into those initial fears before the trip. I call it rehearsing a disaster. 

We took a lunch break. The tour guide handed out sandwiches. Everybody was pumped and filled with the energy of having just taken a spirited ride on a phenomenal mountain pass. I decided to wander off for some peace and quiet. I needed to reflect on what had happened.

I’d lost my confidence. This is a very bad thing for a motorcyclist. Having ridden for over twenty-five years, I knew this made me dangerous. A lack of confidence is always followed by tension. And tension overcomes the physics of the motorcycle, and that ain’t good. 

Now I was faced with riding the pass down the other side. 

I asked Jesus to give me my confidence back. It was just Him and me as I looked out on one of the most beautiful views I’ve ever experienced. “Keep your eyes on the road ahead,” I heard Him say. “Just keep your eyes on the road ahead.”

On the way down, that’s what I did. I focused on staying loose and following His advice. There was no close call. There was no tension. We simply did what we always did. We slowed as we approached a curve, leaned in together, then accelerated in the straightaways. 

We made it.

But what about the Shaeffer Switchbacks? Just before we were to ride this road, we broke for lunch at an intown restaurant. At the end of the meal, Owen, our tour leader, came to Kathy and me and said, “It’s been raining, so I am not sure of the Shaeffer’s road condition. I don’t want you attempting it while two up.”

It was the voice of God. I had no problem obeying it this time!