Bob Bitchin with no sleep. Then came our downfall. A road called the George Wallace Highway, also known as Alabama 80, looked like a short cut on the map, so we decided to take it. That was a mistake. This road is used by all of the big eighteen wheelers to go around the weight scales and they do it at no less than 80 miles an hour, curves and things that no sane man would try at 60 included. We dodged the big trucks and tried to stay awake. After 34 nonstop hours we were starting to weaken. Then we hit this foolish drawbridge and almost lost the game. I figure the designing engineers must have hated bikes and known the width of motorcycle tires. They put steel girders just far enough apart to catch bike wheels and hold them. We had to go over almost at a crawl speed, with 18-wheelers disputing our right to be there. I recall this to be the trickiest riding required in the entire 10,000 miles. A large truck crossed the double line a few miles farther up the road and knocked one of the sleeping bags off my bike. Billy Jack tried to turn around to pick it up, but his front wheel lost it in some gravel, and he ended up on his keister in the middle of the road, with two large 18-wheelers bearing down on him. When I pulled my hands from my eyes after the longest screech of brakes, I saw Billy Jack sitting in the middle of the road with two large trucks about 5 feet from him, their tires smoking from a king-size panic stop. We got his bike out of the way and loaded my sleeping bag back on the bike. We headed into the 5
Biker, 2022 for PDF 10_19_21 - MKC.indd 5
4/19/22 6:07 PM
