It was really a bit too hot to go for a motorcycle ride today, but that rarely stops a motorcycle rider from riding….So we just tried to get out on the road before it got to its hottest. A quick run to Squamish for lunch, and then home again.
Or so we thought.
We got the run “to” Squamish dialled in, and the lunch part too. But the “home” part was a little trickier.
We left our watering hole and got only one intersection past our entry point to the highway before it got bogged down. We were stopped at the next light, a police vehicle beside me turning to head to the detachment, another behind it. It kinda catches you off guard when the vehicle next to you in the turning lane suddenly lights up and starts wailing, as done the one behind it, and then they veer out into the intersection and head in the same direction you’re headed.
That’s just never good.
We got a little further before everything ground to a halt and we could see lights ahead in the distance. An ambulance came filtering through behind us shortly afterwards, and we opted to creep across the stopped cars and onto the shoulder to make for the next turn and the Starbucks we usually frequent.
Turns out a rider was hit a block further on. A driver pulled out of the gas station and nailed the motorcyclist coming down the highway. A short while later we heard the air ambulance arrive on site. Not good.
When I first got my Class 6 licence the first thing my brother said to me, and a statement that sticks with me every time I get on the bike, was….”When you get on your motorcycle, you have donned an invisibility cloak“.
We grabbed an iced coffee, settled into a couple of chairs outside in the shade, and hung out for close to an hour until it looked like we could probably get through, albeit slowly. In 30C heat, it’s just not fun being caught in traffic on a hot bike, in motorcycle gear. All the cars have their air conditioning, riders don’t. SO the next time you see a ride like me, filtering slowly down the shoulder to keep moving, don’t have a rage, be compassionate and think “geez, that must be freaking hot and s/he could suffer heat exhaustion quite easily” and let the rider go without being a jerk to her/him. Their riding the shoulder isn’t going to make your drive any longer.
And keep your eyes open for riders. They are less visible, smaller and therefore often traveling faster than you think, and may be in a different part of the lane than you think they are. Also please remember that they do not have a metal box around them, keeping them safer from harm than those in cars/trucks. They are vulnerable.
By the time we crept past the rider was long gone, but the bike and the car that hit it were still in the middle of the highway as we did a little tipsy-doodle detour around it and got back up to speed, which is always so much cooler.
So how does the moth feature in all that?
It doesn’t.
Well…OK, maybe I could segue it in my saying it was a strange ride in that there were no bugs! Not one bug to clean off my visor on return. I murdered no moths. But when we walked into the house Kirk mentioned that a pretty blue-green moth that had flown into the dining room the previous night had died and was on the floor. I probably could have done better if I’d used one of the big cameras and a macro lens, but after I took this shot and moved it, the antennae broke off, so it was a one shot deal and this is what I got.
So there you go…..I can always find some weird way to connect seemingly unconnected things.
Day 189