Cycle News

CN III CROSS-RUTTED P122 BY JEAN TURNER THE TIES THAT BIND I t was the middle of the night, and something woke me. I got out of bed and walked down the hallway. I could see the bathroom light was on and the door was open. I walked in and saw my dad rummaging through the drawer. "I can't find my toothbrush," he said, matter-of-factly. "Uh, Dad... we got rid of that a long time ago," I said. My dad passed away 15 years ago. I was dreaming. "Oh," he said, shrugging and turning his attention to me. "So how've you been? It's been a long time!" "Yeah, it has. I work for Husqvarna now," I said. "Wow, really? How'd you get that job?" He sounded delighted. He sat on the edge of the tub and I sat on the counter as we got into some midnight bench racing in the bathroom. "Mark and I found this gnarly single-track canyon in Dove Springs. Oh, and then I took this awesome trip to Mexico! Did you ever ride Baja?" I mostly talked while he listened, wide-eyed and smiling as I jabbered on about our off-road adventures, and told him stories that I wished for years that I could tell him. It was a great dream, but short, like they always are. Just a few minutes later, I said, "Well, I'd better get back to bed, but it was great seeing you!" I came back down the hall to my room and climbed back in bed – a seamless and all-too-real dream. We lost my dad to Parkinson's in 1998, a disease that took his mind long before it took his life, so there's not a whole lot I got to experience with him. But we still managed to share a passion for motorcycling – a tie that I like to think continues to bind us – even if our collective experience took place before my birth and after his death. My dad raced motocross and enduros back in the late 1960s and early '70s – the "golden age of motorcycling," but once he settled down and my brothers and I came along, he parked the bikes. My dad didn't want to risk hurting himself and not being able to provide for us. We got a few Honda ATC three-wheelers and used to putt around on those a few times a year, but for the rest of his life I never saw my dad throw a leg over a bike. Ironically, it wasn't until after he passed that my brothers and I even started riding dirt bikes. The weirdest part is that we all developed the same style – bad habits and everything – which we can only assume came from Dad. I think we all picked it up as a means to stay close to him, and we stuck with it because it ran in our veins. We picked up right where he left off – taking desert trips every weekend, partying as much as riding, and racing every now and then. We looked through old pictures and tried to identify where they used to camp. We even dug out some of his old camping gear from the garage and tried to use it. His old Carhartt jacket fits me perfectly. It's amazing to me how something we never actually got to experience together is still what connects us. Though the experience was never there, the idea always was, from when I was five years old, looking up at his trophies in the hall closet, asking my mom about them just to hear the same story for the hundredth time. Or from when my dad brought home On Any Sunday for the first time. We watched it that very night and again the next morning. I always thought he looked like Steve McQueen. Perhaps only those who know can truly appreciate these ties. It's so much more than a sport— it's a way of life. It's where your safest childhood memory, your proudest rite of passage, or the greatest adventure of your life can be found. And best of all, you get to share it with your family. I shared it all with my dad and my brothers, whether they were physically there or not, because

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