My brother, James Michael Ohl, passed away on March 6, 2020 from Fentanyl. He would have turned 42 on April 4, 2021. Fifteen minutes after his birthday ended (there’s a family history of people dying on birthdays), at12:15 am April 5, 2021, I departed with a backpack on my Tiger 1050 down I-75 straight through to TN 129 … arriving at the Tail of the Dragon shortly after 3 pm. Fastfem told me about Tail of the Dragon shortly after I bought my bike and I’d wanted to ride there ever since (she declined to race me there). 318 curves in 11 miles… Despite not sleeping for 30 hours and having ridden 600 miles, I managed to avoid the Tree of Shame.

Stopped for the night in Hickory, NC after a near-miss in Asheville when an SUV came out of nowhere to pass and cut in front of me for an exit downtown (she slammed on her brakes on the freeway to cut behind me when she realized she wouldn’t make the exit — should everyone be required to ride a motorcycle to get a drivers license? would bikers be safer if they did?) …

Continued across NC the next day, after stopping in Raleigh to split the Universe, and on to the OBX (Nags Head) for fish tacos at Tortuga’s Lie, then camped at Oregon Inlet, Hatteras National Seashore. I didn’t have camping gear, but as luck would have it someone had flown in, bought camping gear, checked out the day I arrived, and left their new camping gear with the National Park Service for “the next person.” After sleeping in my motorcycle gear (the low was 45 degrees that night), I woke up early to a Red Sky and rode through Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge … storms were coming and I had to leave to catch a weather window back to MI.

Note: the “palm throttle” — bought mine from “Wheels” at the OBX Harley dealership— may be more comfortable on motorcycles without cruise control, but your hand is too far from the front brake, as I learned when I locked up my rear tire and skid into an intersection on 158 after the BMW in front of me slammed on his brakes for a yellow light. I managed to swerve into the lane adjacent and hesitated before I hit the brakes to stop… then hit the gas to get out of the intersection. Luckily there was no cross-traffic. I stopped immediately to remove the palm throttle…

Planned for Pittsburgh, but the storms caught up with me in Frederick, MD, so I stopped for the night. Next morning, I went down to breakfast (I noticed the chef’s name — James, my brother James had also worked as a chef). My hands were numb from riding and I dropped my orange juice on the table after having a sip. Not a good sign for riding. The waitress at the hotel, in her Southern accent, was friendly; she suggested I check out Buffalo Chip at Sturgis and brought me more orange juice… Then she told me about riding motorcycles with her husband… “We used to ride year-round in Ohio. My husband was out riding one winter and hit some gravel, went head-first into a tree, no helmet… didn’t make it. I laid my bike down in 2009, messed up my shoulder, haven’t ridden since. Then there’s my son-in law, he T-boned a car. Ya know, they taught him to walk again, taught him to talk again, but he ain’t never gonna do IT work again.”

She paused, looking outside at the weather, then turned back to me. “So you’re doing some rain ridin’ today, huh?” Her stories were sobering and I had 500 miles left that day. Hit the road on wet pavement… two ambulances sounded off before I made it to the freeway, a half mile away. Rainy mist riding through MD, then the mountains of PA, wiping the condensation from my face mask in the fog areas with 20 yards of visibility at best. The sun finally came out, dried up the pavement, and my Tiger roared through the PA mountain curves, through the straightaways of OH, and back to Michigan (5 days, 8 states, 2,000 miles, toasted rear tire and chain). My brother James loved road trips, too, and adventure.

I’ve had many close calls in the years I’ve ridden (shhh… don’t tell my sisters) and I’ve seen, as has everyone who rides, how distracted drivers have become. I’ve seen the commercials for “lawyers who ride” and, yes, I represent bikers who have been in accidents.

— Artist At Law