Why I ride: To get the most out of life

By Karen Moseley-Mattox

I never owned a dirt bike, motorcycle or scooter as a kid. It didn’t make much sense in midtown Newport News, Va. But nearly all my relatives were farmers and lived in the rural reaches of North Carolina between Tarboro and Greenville.
Magic! One of my cousins had a small Honda mini bike -- blue and white, if I remember correctly. And there was nothing but land around their house. It was a small little thing and didn't even require a clutch to shift gears.

I'm sure Uncle Billy got annoyed at my tracking him down on the farm and asking him to refill the tank (again) because I'd run it dry. I was somewhere around 10 years old and just loving that bike!

The closest I could get to that feeling back at home was strapping on a toy plastic blue helmet, with no shield and, of course, with no padding whatsoever. I'm not sure if it was suppose to be a football helmet or a motorcycle helmet. Anyway, after foraging the shed for items that could be fashioned into some sort of ramp (bricks, 2x4 pieces of wood, and old plastic padding from a baby bicycle seat), I'd get it all set up in the backyard. It must have been a staggering 6 to 8 inches high! This was going to be just like those guys I saw on TV who were motocross racing!

Pulling out my red bicycle, I would strap on my helmet and crank it up (at least in my mind). I would peddle as fast as I could around the front yard and come to the back and hit the ramp. Whoom! Wow! This must be like what it feels like to fly!

Those are some of my first motorcycle memories. I didn’t become a real motorcyclist until much later, however, and it was a decision inspired by a life-changing event.

Since college I've been slightly near-sighted, but not enough to warrant wearing my glasses everyday. In fact, for the majority of the past 15 years, I would only wear them for the routine eye exam every other year.

In 2004 I decided to give contacts a shot and wore them for a couple months.
Early in 2005 I began noticing flashes of light in my right eye, sort of like strobe lights at a dance club, and I thought they were more frequent after I'd been wearing the contacts. So I began to wear the contacts only for the movies and such. I would just reserve them for special occasions and sporadic wear.

When I moved to Charlotte in 1992 after graduating college (go, Hokies!), my commute took me past the community college and I would often see several folks in the parking lot learning how to ride a motorcycle. It was a Motorcycle Safety Foundation course in full swing. "Wow, I really want to do that," I would think. The years ticked by.

Fast forward to August 2005. I'm on the road to an early morning meeting in a city two hours away. For some reason, I decided to wear my glasses. Perhaps I made that choice because I was never out of the house at that hour and thought I might need some extra focus. Soon, I began to sense that my right eye felt funny. There was no pain, and I couldn't call it discomfort. It just felt odd, different -- almost as if plastic wrap or some other film-like substance was covering it. Then I began to notice the interstate signs looked different. I tested my vision by covering the left eye, then the right eye.

Yep, writing on the signs was definitely different when viewed with only the right eye. I thought maybe I was developing a lazy eye or that it just wasn't awake yet so early in the morning. All through the meeting, I subtly covered one eye, then the other. Yep, still different. That eye should really be awake by now, I thought.

It did not improve over the next week, so I called my eye doctor to set an appointment. It had now been six to eight months since I first noticed those flashes of light. I was sent to a retina specialist. During that exam, numerous pictures of the inside of my eye are taken with extremely bright lights, and I had an ultrasound on my eye.

I was told it could be a benign growth to be watched or choroidal melanoma -- a malignant tumor in the eye. I was then sent to Wills Eye Hospital in Philadelphia for a more definitive diagnosis. Indeed, it was melanoma, right next to the macula. Within the month, I was treated for four days in Philadelphia. A couple months later, with eye still bandaged and ointment required every few hours, I was flying to my previously schedule pilgrimage in Israel and Palestine. Four months later, February 2006, I got the all clear both in Philadelphia and in Charlotte.

I was no longer commuting past the community college where I had so many times seen the MSF course underway, but I had never forgotten about it. As a result, it was the first thing that came to mind in Spring 2007 when my Charlotte retina specialist saw something during one of my six-month checkups that he wanted Wills Eye to weigh in on. Here we go again. More ultrasounds. More pictures. More excruciatingly bright lights.

The verdict? I'm OK. Some typical side effects of the radiation had emerged. First order of business? Sign up for that MSF course. Some things on the Life List just got bumped up in priority.

I took the course over a weekend at the Matthews campus of the community college. There was a dedicated range for the course so we didn't have to worry about parking lot traffic. Truthfully, I had no intention of going any further than simply taking the course. It was something I wanted to do, so I did it. Although, I did purchase a helmet, just in case. Anyway, I needed it to participate. I had done some research and knew I wanted something with both Snell and DOT ratings. He said he could see where this was going.

My course occurred during a wonderful Charlotte spring weekend. I did not sign up for the women-only class, but it so happened that only one male was in our class and our instructor was a woman as well! I got lucky with a small class size -- only six or seven of us total, so we got lots of riding time.

The man in the class hadn't ridden in many years but had just purchased a Gold Wing so he and his wife could travel together. He wanted to brush up on his skills. As we approached the fleet of Kawasaki Eliminators, I heard him say, "Oh, those are little bikes." They looked big enough to me, and they were certainly monsters in comparison to that Honda mini bike.

At first I was quite intimidated. What if I couldn't do it? What if I dropped the bike? What if I broke my leg? But soon all that vanished. It was an absolutely incredible experience! I couldn't believe how much I was smiling. There was no way I couldn't continue to do this, but buying a bike was so out of the realm, and my husband definitely was not interested in the hobby. How could I justify it? Maybe I'll just sign up for the class again, I thought.

Enter Ebay, Craigslist and Cycle Trader. I wonder how much a little 250 would cost? Just curious. As fate would have it, my husband thought it was time to shed one of our 1993 vehicles and replace it with the newer car his parents were thinking of selling. Suddenly, I had the exact amount in my pocket that could land me on a small bike. Next thing he knew, my husband was driving me to Clover, S.C., to look at a 1999 Yamaha Virago 250. (Thank you, Cycle Trader.)

I would become the third of three female owners. It had just 1,400 miles on it and in the two years I've owned it, the odometer has cleared 8,000! It's been my commuter, my joy rider and my steed on my first solo trip. a cold weekend ride in February to Greenville, S.C., for the International Motorcycle Show.

Now, I'm planning to sell my faithful friend and delve into the 800cc-900cc class. In August, I'll fly to Denver and ride a rented Sportster 883 to Keystone for the AMA International Women & Motorcycling Conference. I'll learn new things, take demo rides and seek wisdom for the 3,500-mile solo trip I am planning for Summer 2010 as part of my professional sabbatical.

What does riding mean to me? Life and freedom. Riding seems to have awakened me from a long period of unrecognized slumber. No cell phones, no chatter. Just the wind, the pulse, the smells and heat of asphalt. It means figuring out how to strap those extra grocery items onto my 250 because everything I needed at the store was buy one get one free. It means learning to chill out when someone cuts you off or rides your taillight. Every ride, every commute is a combination of facing fear and rejoicing in the courage and ability to do so. My husband continues to say that he has no death wish and no interest in joining me. Well, I don't have a death wish either. I have a life wish. I live; therefore, I ride.

Karen Moseley-Mattox is a motorcyclist who lives in Charlotte, N.C.