Diana,
the freedom of riding is lovely but the danger is omnipresent. And, even if you do everything you can to avoid getting hit, one small patch of sand can send you to the highway sliding along on your backside at 70 mph. Just the thought of that make me cringe.

There are people who have been riding for decades and never been injured. There are kids who have been riding for a week and been taken out at a stop light. Sometimes you're lucky and sometimes you're not but being unlucky on a motorcycle can mean loss of limb or loss of life. It's that level of trade-off that make Linda so uncomfortable about me riding and ultimately that made me quit. Don't get the wrong idea: I'm a very good driver and I carved my share of mountain roads with the cycle -- peg-grinding we call it. But the idea that one small mistake could be your last is just too much. So now, we restrict our risk-taking to finding parking places at the closest shopping mall .

Jim