“It was a gentle curve! She just kept turning, and rode right off the road!” Sarah was near hysteria, trying to explain to Robert what she had seen. It was about 2 in the afternoon and Julia lay dead in the ditch. “I-I don’t know why; why did she do that?”
As the sun had crawled up into the blue sky over Vancouver that morning, Julia had eased the lavender motorcycle out of the cramped garage space behind her parents’ restaurant on 4th Avenue. Soon, she would be cruising through the turns of the Sea to Sky highway, winding along past Howe Sound. The Hayabusa. Her symbol. All of her bikes were purple, but when she rode this one, she was almost a caricature: the tiny Asian woman, barely 5’3”, riding the most powerful and fastest production sportbike made.
The route they had chosen for today’s ride is legendary: the Duffy Lake loop rises out of Vancouver, climbing hundreds of feet above sea level as it takes multiple thousands of tourists to Whistler each year. Past that worldwide icon of recreational excess, the road drops into oblivion, going through the small ranching and Indian towns then abruptly turning east to head over to the leeward side of the mountains. It leads up into the blistering desert of the central interior, where tumbleweeds loll on the verges of the road, which crumbles away to steep drops on one side and sheer rock faces on the other. For motorcyclists, sport riders who worship the twisty ribbons linking curve on curve, for mile after mile, this road is black asphalt nirvana.
“Where are you going?” It was her mother, speaking to her in Chinese, from the door to the cafe’s kitchen.
“For a ride, with Robert”. Her mother got that look on her face. The one she always got when Julia went out on a bike. Kind of a pursed-lip, not-quite-frown, look.
Her wedding was in a few weeks. Robert was to be her husband. Robert, who had stood by her in the days and weeks following that harrowing ride last year; who had been a good friend to her and Bogdan when they were together. It would be a fitting end to this year of sadness, and a tribute to all of her friends. Julia thought about how her passion for riding, ignited such a short time ago, had grown to encompass her whole life, from the restaurant after she took over, to the women in motorcycling she had gathered around her. The community was awesome, and she swelled with pride when she thought of the success of Motorcycle Mondays and the Hot Chicks Ride. Everyone would have a blast at the wedding.
Not like the last gathering at the Flying Swan Coffeehouse. Lines of bikes down both sides of the street. Riders standing in somber groups. The slow procession to say goodbye.
Inevitably, her mind was again delicately pondering whether Bog would approve of her impending marriage or not, when the road suddenly demanded all of her attention back. A deer had bounded into her peripheral vision, and was poised to dart in front of the bike. She grabbed a handful of the front brake and squeezed with increasing force, slowing the big bike down to a crawl as she passed alongside the deer, which paused long enough to let her by. Letting out her breath, she eased the throttle back on, resuming her pace and spacing out with the others.
Robert rode ahead, and she saw him look in his mirror briefly when she slowed, waiting for her to catch back up to take his wing position. Behind them, the others were evenly spaced, with Sarah riding sweep at the back. Everyone rode at his or her own pace, with the result that the bikes broke apart in a long line, then grouped up together again at a turn or a town, slowing to regroup. The effect was like a long string of pearls, Julia thought, on an elastic rope that stretched out and then became taut, bringing the pearls back in proximity. The sight was captivating, and she never failed to enjoy the sight of the whole string of bikes stretched out in front of, or behind her.
Now the bikes had climbed out of the mountains that surrounded Whistler, and were headed up into the desert of the interior plateau. Julia caught her breath as they rounded a turn, and the brown blazing hills shimmered into view. She had seen it many times, and repeated all the way down the continent, from rides like US 20, winding across the arid country around Winthrop, Washington, to the creeping back roads of central Oregon and California. But it was nevertheless, and still, spectacular.
The bikes hummed along as they traversed some of the sleepy little ranch towns, where childhood games of cowboys and Indians were still occasionally played out in real life. Momentarily, her heart leapt as they passed the spot where she had last held her beloved Bogdan. Bogdan, her soulmate. Her riding partner, her muse. The most wonderful man and the best rider she knew. What had happened? What could have caused the bike to carry him out into space, off that corner, into oblivion? She remembered coming round the corner, bikes pulled up, running to the edge, looking into the abyss…
Too late her attention returned to the road in front of her, to the bike, to the process of a million small decisions a rider makes every second to keep human and machine in that delicate dance of equilibrium with the road. She could have made the curve, could have turned, leaned, cranked it over, but it was too late. Her lizard brain rose and took over. The bike went straight.
Later, the lines of bikes filled the lanes, snaking through the streets of Vancouver, like a dragon’s tail for the hearse, in eerie repetition of the procession that followed the hearse carrying Bogdan to the graveyard, almost exactly one year previously.
