Passing the Torch

About 10 years ago Daniel bought his first motorcycle. It was a Ninja 250 sport bike and he was thrilled to have it.  

We were dating at the time and we enjoyed many rides together. Not long after he purchased it, we went to Gatlinburg with his family. We took the opportunity to ride up to Newfound Gap. The views were beautiful.  

Shortly after we were married, Daniel went out for an afternoon ride {alone} from Cookeville to the Maryville area to ride Tail of the Dragon {which happened to be out of cell phone range}. It ended up storming and I was very worried when six hours later he still had not made it home. 

I assumed that the worst had happened and I had absolutely no idea where to begin looking for him. He finally arrived home and informed me that he had had to take cover at a gas station b/c the weather was so bad. After he stopped riding, he learned he that had ridden through a tornado warning and near an actual tornado.

While he was still an undergrad at Tennessee Tech, we would often ride up to the school to play racquetball. One game ended when Daniel twisted his ankle. Thankfully it was his right ankle and not the left {you need your left foot to shift gears} so he was able to ride the bike home {with me on the back}. Unfortunately his ankle prevented him from driving either of our cars for a week as it is hurt to push the gas pedal. So instead, he rode his motorcycle around campus with crutches sticking out of his backpack.

After this mishap Daniel decided that I should probably get my motorcycle license. So I took a weekend MSF riding course and enjoyed learning how to ride. Once I had my license Daniel let me take his bike out with him as a passenger. He learned that it is a lot harder to be the passenger than the driver because you have no control.

When we moved to Charlotte, NC I gave up riding because it made me nervous to be on roads in a big city. The motorcycle came in handy on several occasions when one of our old cars was getting repaired. We actually spent two years as a one-car family and the motorcycle {along with his bicycle} became the vehicle that Daniel used on a regular basis. As we got older {and heavier} it became harder to ride the little 250 together. Daniel had to get stiffer shocks so that we could keep riding together. When there was a gas crisis in Charlotte a few years ago, we parked both of our cars for two weeks and relied on the motorcycle and our bicycles as our only modes of transportation.

This is  painting I did in college. Daniel made the frame from a motorcycle tire.

For 10 years the Ninja was good to us, but Daniel recently decided to sell it because he wasn’t enjoying it like he used to. A couple of weeks ago he wrote an ad and put the bike on Craigslist. Just before Easter weekend, a buyer in Murfreesboro, TN contacted him. It turned out to be a 15-year-old kid whose parent's were going to let him get his motorcycle license and a motorcycle so that he could ride to and from school. He was extremely excited. 

Daniel spent Friday afternoon going over every possible detail about the bike with the kid. It was a sad day for Daniel. He was ready to move on and someday would like to buy a bigger and faster bike, with better brakes and suspension, but it was still hard for him to say goodbye to something that had been with him for 10 years.