Farewell to a friend and a lesson learned

[MIXR]

We lost one of our FarRiders last week and I will be attending his funeral service on Wednesday. While the rider was not a member of this Forum, and did not ride a BMW, the manner of his passing serves as a salutary reminder of the fragility of life and the risks we take every time we ride. There are cues here for all of us to be careful when we ride, and I post this in the hope that the lessons learned may help to save a life. John was a friend, and a damn fine bloke. He lived in the same city but we mostly only ever met on FarRides, a long way from home. Such is the nature of endurance riding.

John was an experienced rider who had completed numerous FarRides and was a certified IBA member. He knew his way around a bike and was a very competent and careful rider. The ride he was doing was the return leg of another long-distance ride that had been completed. John was riding his Harley Davidson, and was returning to Canberra after a fun-filled few days away. He had plenty of rest on the way home. The Police did not believe that tiredness, fatigue, speed, alcohol, recklessness or other vehicles were factors in his accident. The road was.

Another FarRider, and numerous other motorcyclists, were travelling the same way at the time. I was not amongst them. Upon overtaking some vehicles towing caravans on a wet road in light rain, John’s bike hit an unseen lengthwise depression in the road. We call them potholes, but this was more a shallow trench than a round hole as I understand it. The road veered left at this point. The bike became uncontrollable after impacting the shallow depression and left the road. The details of what happened next are unclear, but John was thrown from the bike and died at the scene.

The FarRider fraternity is in shock and mourning over this accident due to the nature of its occurrence. We all take risks when we ride, but we mitigate those risks by ensuring our bikes are in good condition and our ride gear is as good as we can afford. Hope for the best but prepare for the worst as they say. There is a great deal of anger at the condition of the roads upon which we travel here, and the loss of a friend to inadequate road construction or maintenance is galling. However, many of us are preparing for another endurance ride in a few weeks’ time, so we live with knowledge that what happened to John could happen to any of us.

It has been said that John died doing what he loved. This is an old cliché that carries no sway with me. He did not head off on a journey with the expectation that he would die. I doubt he was fully prepared for what eventuated. Far from it. The possibility may exist, but it should never be an expectation. There is a saying by Henry Van Dyke that goes like this: “Some people are so afraid to die that they never begin to live”. We all ‘come alive’ when we ride. This is another often clichéd saying, but one which many of us subscribe to. It has its place I suppose.

John has joined the growing number of friends I have lost to a pastime I love. I am deeply saddened by his passing and troubled by the circumstances. The lessons from this tragedy are obvious. The roads we ride can be treacherous and unforgiving. All I ask is that you take care when you ride. Be aware of your surroundings and ride to the conditions in which you find yourselves. My apology if this is seen as preaching. It can never happen to me. Right? Think again. Farewell my friend. You will be missed. RIP John Ainsworth, FarRider and IBA Member.

[Boxer]

I salute your friend MIXR, and join with you in saying a goodbye to a fellow rider, even though I do not know him. Having you as a friend I'm sure made his life more fulfilling as a motorcyclist.

Thank you for a reminder that we all need now and again. Take care, be well, enjoy life and ride often. We really never know when our time is up.

Phil aka Boxer

[nylife]

I am sorry for your loss and have a questions was he wearing any protective gear?
and the question is really for me, i am in the middle of researching gear, i understand i take a risk everytime i get on the bike, and before a jeans and jacket used to do, but now i have 2 small children.

Be safe

[Dr. Strangelove]

Mick, sorry
Nearly a eulogy, not a sermon at all, but sobering reflections that can affect us all.

take care

John

[GypsyRR]

I'm so sorry for your loss Mick.
Thank you for the poignant reminder of the fragility of life.

I was reminded of the same recently on a month long trip in the Rockies. A motorcyclist died instantly on the road in front of my motel in a small town in Wyoming. No helmet. No other vehicle involved. No weather involved. No clue what happened. But death was obviously from head injuries. I was warned to not look, but they say it was a very eery scene of him laying in the road... gone, while his music on his hardly damaged Harley continued playing, "The Road Goes On Forever and the Party Never Ends." It does not go on forever, and the party does end.

[Ric]

Sorry for the loss....thanks for the reminder for all to be safe.

With all due respect to the rider lost....

Lesson learned: Don't pass in the rain. I've been riding 45 years. Been a road racer. Owned some 30 or more bikes. Was nearly killed twice in my youth. And as I sit here now, I can't remember ever once making a pass in the rain. In the end, it may have been the road rut; but reduced vison and water on the road possibly hidding the rut may have had a deciding effect.

Lesson learned: an 800 pound motorcycle is not a machine conducive to taking any kind of risk. They're just too much weight to quickly manage evasive or corrective action.

Prayers for him and his family.

[MIXR]

I am sorry for your loss and have a questions was he wearing any protective gear?

Nylife - John was a very experienced long-distance rider. We all wear good quality gear, and items like helmets are compulsory in Australia. Sometimes the gear you wear, no matter how good, cannot save you. The impact with the road, or the bike that flipped on top of him as he left the road, shattered John's helmet. It wasn't a typical Harley rider's Sunday helmet. It was a full-on brand name touring helmet in good condition and not very old. All of that will be in the coroner's report that I won't ever see. The Police were so concerned that they called it a 'crime scene', as the circumstances were not easily explained other than the road had clearly played a significant part in the accident. Small comfort for the family and difficult to accept for the rest of us.

[iowabeakster]

Mick,

I am so sorry to hear of your loss of a friend, and fellow rider.

Thank you for sharing your thoughts.

Ride safe everyone...

[Doug]

Sorry for your loss, and thanks for the story. These are good to read once in a while to ground us in the dangers of riding a bike.

Keep safe everyone.

[MIXR]

Just a brief addendum to close this off.

Thank you all for your good wishes on John's behalf. Your condolences have been relayed to his family.

The service was very well attended by family, friends, business associates and fellow riders from a number of groups to the point where we were overflowing the small chapel and spread to the outside assembly area. The weather was cool, wet and miserable, but even so several of our riders travelled big miles to attend, in part as a tribute to John.

A poignant touch was his wife's request that John's framed Iron Butt Association ride certificates were to adorn the casket during the service. She bears no malice towards motorcycles, endurance riding, or anything else that took her husband's life. It made us all feel much more at ease.

I've grabbed two file photos that I believe are appropriate. One is John's bike against a sunset backdrop that he took on one of his rides. The other is at his service. Both are moving, in different ways.





Thank you. Mick.