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Friend’s death en route to Sturgis doesn’t keep Otis Smith from hitting the road on his motorcycle
|By George Diaz | COMMENTARY
The roar of Bike Week beckons Otis Smith to Daytona Beach this week. He longs for the breeze whistling in his face, giving him a therapeutic pick-me-up.
But assuming he can break free from his Orlando Magic family, Smith's journey will be bittersweet.
Memories of his friend Bruce Rossmeyer will be scattered throughout Daytona Beach. There's a video tribute at Destination Daytona. There will be stories. There may be tears.
Magic fans remember Rossmeyer as the big guy with the beard who always sat by the visitor's bench. Others remember him as one of the nation's largest Harley-Davidson dealers, and a guy with a charitable heart.
Rossmeyer rode to Sturgis, S.D., for a motorcycle rally with five other riders last July. He never made it back home. On July 30, he was killed in an accident with a pickup truck in Wyoming.
Lt. Shawn Dickerson of the Wyoming Highway Patrol described it this way: "Four of the motorcycles passed to the left. When Mr. Rossmeyer attempted to pass, the truck made its left turn and he hit the driver's side door. The sixth motorcycle swerved to the right and avoided collision."
Smith was the fourth rider, immediately preceding Rossmeyer, able to make that pass.
Smith prefers not to get into details out of respect for the family. "It was a very tragic accident involving one of the great people I got to meet," he said.
He understands the inherent risk of straddling a motorcycle. They are dangerous adult toys. Motorcycle deaths went up for the 11th consecutive year in 2008, the latest year of available data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. The number rose to 5,290 in 2008.
But Smith, like so many others, lives to ride. There are choices to be made in life, with different degrees of peril. You can choose to stay home and watch TV all day, or you can step out to dive into a bottomless pit of the ocean, ride the asphalt jungle of our nation's highways, or pick another passion that invigorates.
"It hasn't changed my perspective," Smith said of the accident. "You get away from it all. You're not attached to a computer or a phone when you're on a motorcycle. You think more clearly. If I have an issue, by the time I get off the motorcycle, I've resolved it."
Original article...
http://articles.orlandosentinel.com/2010-03-02/sports/os-diaz-otis-smith-biker-0303-20100302_1_motorcycle
