Sharing the LA freeways with crotch rockets in the 1980s


A crotch rocket is a term that describes a motorcycle that's built for speed. Very high speed, very, very high speed!  I don't know how popular these types of bikes are nowadays, but I used to see them a lot on the freeways of Los Angeles in the 1980s. That is, if I looked fast. These things were absolute rockets!

I did a Google search to find the image at the top of this post, but I really don't remember what they looked like, they were usually just a neon-green blur. I just Googled 1980 motorcycles, and set the color to green. If I'm wrong, let me know and I'll change the pic.

And yes, of course the LA freeways were very crowded in the 1980s, often with traffic just inching along, and even coming to complete stops, so you may be wondering how these crotch rockets managed to go so fast? I'll tell you, they wove, and split lanes. It was quite impressive to see! These guys were good!

And I do mean "were", because this sort of thing tended to be fatal most of the time. And there was a time when I would feel sad about these young men, but as I drift into my senior years the sadness fades. Yes, their young lives were cut short, but what lives they led! While the rest of us just sat in traffic, they flew!

Of course they were wearing helmets, but at that speed even the best helmet might as well be made of out eggshells. I met nurses who called them "donorcyclists", and hospitals depended on a steady supply of their vital organs for transplants. I wonder if that's still true? Kind of a morbid thought, but nice, too, to think that their strong and healthy bodies would help other people. I've always been an organ donor, and I will be donating my strong and healthy body to the medical school here in Arizona (with apologies for its age!).

I drove a sports car when I lived in LA, and have always been very mindful of motorcycles, and even then I can remember a crotch rocket flying around me, with inches to spare, on an exit on the Hollywood Freeway. If I had sneezed he would have ended up on top of the Castle Argyle, but I saw it at the last second - neon green. I still see that instant in my dreams.

None of us lives forever, and it's my wish to be doing what I love when my time comes, which is mostly being in my garden with my dogs. I find it a comforting thought that other people would be able to do the same, whatever it might be.

Then I'm down in the bottom of a pit in the blazing sun,
Torn and twisted at the foot of a burning bike.
And I think somebody somewhere must be tolling a bell.
And the last thing I see is my heart, still beating,
Breaking out of my body and flying away,
Like a bat out of hell.
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