Buying a Motorcycle After ACL Surgery Is Peak Dumb
The crash happened in May. After a long day of testing the Yamaha Ténéré 700, I low-sided in the north-Georgia hills. It’s one of a hundred similar falls I’ve had over the years, the sort of thing that happens when you spend time playing in the dirt on big, heavy, street-oriented machines. Usually, it’s good for a laugh, a bruised ego, and some scratched plastics. But not this time. My right knee was on fire, and when I stood the bike up, that leg bent off at an unconventional angle. The pain was immense.
Two weeks later, I was on the phone with an MRI technician.
“You’ve completely torn your ACL,” she said, apology thick in her voice. “I’m amazed you walked in here.”
Don’t mind the flop sweat.
Later, an orthopedic surgeon calmly explained how he would remove a piece of my patellar tendon, drill a couple of holes in the necessary bones, and thread the piece through, creating a new ligament. He did this with perfunctory air of a mechanic describing the steps involved in replacing a control arm. I’d have a pretty new bouquet of scars, six months of aggravating physical therapy, and a solid year to think about that day in the Georgia dust before the swelling and pain abated for good. So of course I bought a brand-new, zero-mile Husqvarna Vitpilen 701 a month later, my leg locked in a scaffolding of aluminum and Velcro.
Maybe that was peak dumb. I wouldn’t be cleared to ride the thing for at least another month, and even then, not without stuttering pain. We’re in the middle of a raging pandemic, our economy teetering on toothpicks, and no one in America can say for certain whether or not they’ll have a job in six months. The cash I spent on that bike had a thousand other places to go. And yet, none of that mattered. Motorcycles have always been beautifully irrelevant, the kind of thing that cannot be justified or reasoned into your life. They require a leap. They demand a kind of faith in the world, the optimism that says you can sail through the universe with all its fangs and come out unscathed on the other side. I needed that.
Despite an uncommonly low tolerance for self-preservation, that mangled ACL is the worst injury I’ve suffered. I’ve been lucky. A lifetime of driving fast, chasing out unfamiliar single-lane country roads at night; of riding faster, throttle pinned as the blood-and-bone colors of the Utah desert blurred past my visor; of swimming flood-swollen rivers and chasing the forgotten corners of our country; all of it spared me from serious harm. Humans are remarkably stern in that way. And fragile in equal parts. Waking up from surgery with my foot immobile and my leg trapped in gauze and brace was a gut punch. Those things I prize the most, being self-sufficient, capable, and confident in my own skin, had been pried away, leaving only dependency and pain in their absence.
Recovery meant spending two weeks in bed, leg locked straight, watching the sweet, long hours of summer drag by. Learning the lessons of humility, of having a family member tie my shoes. Of watching my wife shoulder all the burdens of our home and daughter. But I didn’t understand how badly I’d fucked up until the doctor unlocked the brace and the physical therapist put me on the treadmill for the first time. With a panic, I realized I couldn’t walk. In two weeks, my leg had atrophied and the muscles had forgotten their rhythms. It was terrifying, punctuated by the fact that I could not drive. Not for six weeks. If COVID had made 2020 seem like a prison sentence, ACL surgery made it feel like solitary confinement.
I had plenty of time to meditate on the nature risk. Of what I ante when, as a father, I throw my leg over a bike. I’ve written about it before, but now I had the experience of actually paying some small part of the price. It’s a steep tab, and I’d be lying if I said some part of me didn’t consider quitting all together, selling the machines and the gear and turning towards more responsible hobbies. Ones less likely to include a bone drill in the list of potential side effects. It didn’t last long, in part because there is no mechanical high quite like a motorcycle.
They offer us what sports cars once did. A little danger. A little speed. And maybe more importantly, ever-elusive mastery. While anyone can hop in a Bugatti Chiron and crack off world-besting performance, riding a motorcycle well means devotion to the craft. The same as wringing speed from a ’67 911. The only difference is that you don’t have to sell your home to own a quick motorcycle. The fastest production bike in the world costs less than a well-optioned Corolla.
Which brings us to the Vitpilen. With 75 horsepower, its 700cc engine is the most potent single-cylinder in the world. The big thumper spins to 9,000 rpm and can sling you to 60 mph in 3.6 seconds. That’s quicker than a Ford Mustang GT350, and because this bike was a left-over 2019 model, it was an eighth the cost of that rippling muscle car. But the performance wasn’t what drew me to the Husqvarna. I’ve wanted one for more than year since a handful of idiots and I spent a week chasing each other up the California coast, the Vit one of a handful of merry misfits along for the ride. The bike excels at the type of riding I love most: that mix of wide sweepers and technical apexes that keep you from licking past 100 mph. At 346 pounds, it weighs nothing, your inputs as close to telepathy as you’re likely to come in this lifetime.
And, it is gorgeous. A perfect mix of familiar and new aesthetics unlike anything else on two wheels. Good proof of what’s possible when we’re freed from the confines of safety regulations, and rare because of it. I’ve never seen another on the road in the 1500 miles I’ve put on it since getting cleared to ride a month ago.
More than anything, the Vit has been a constant source of encouragement, first as motivation to slog through endless, trying physical therapy, and now as a needed push to continue building muscle in that damaged limb. To hone the fine motor control I’d enjoyed for the majority of my life. These days, when the weather is perfect, the sky clear enough to drown in, and the air cool, it’s an escape from everything this year has meant. Maybe buying it wasn’t peak dumb after all.
You Might Also Like
