I Did a Bad, Bad Thing

I HAD BEEN WARNED by fellow sidecar passengers and a couple of drivers, including my husband, that wearing a lap blanket in the sidecar can be very dangerous if you’re not paying attention. Their forewarning played out dramatically on our eighty-seven and a half kilometer journey from Campbell River, British Columbia to Gold River.

September 28 offered up a bright, blue-sky morning, the perfect conditions for a ride. The fall weather called for my fur-lined leather jacket and my favourite blanket to wrap around my legs. I heard the motor roar; we slid out of our parking lot onto Dogwood Street, continued north on Highway 19 and turned left onto Gold River Highway. The autumn smells included the pungent odour of dead leaves and the cool scent of clean water wafting from Upper Campbell Lake. The contrast between the stoic dark green of the coniferous trees and the sharp orange and yellow of the semi-dormant deciduous types brought a smile to my face. I nodded off three kilometers before the Muchalat turn off into Gold River.

I was startled into reality by a striking sensation that my blanket was being torn from me.

“Frank, stop!” I shouted. He couldn’t hear me over the distinct growl of the motor. I slapped his knee to get a reaction and had my hand swatted away. I covered the top of one hand in a T-shape with the other, my signal that we need to stop, and showed it to him. He made a left turn and could I see from the panic in his face that the resistance from the sidecar wheel was interfering with his steering. He struggled the bike into the driveway of a gas station and turned off the motor. His bunched up face told me he was angry.

My lap blanket was gnarled around the sidecar drive shaft. I looked on as Frank and two truck drivers, who had seen the incident, slid under the Ural, taking turns hacking away at the blanket with their knives.

The excursion home was a bit chilly without my blanket. Since then, I’ve created a snug, zipped sleeping bag that doesn’t fly around. 

The lap blanket fiasco

One of the rescue knives