What the Ride Cost Me and What It Gave Me

What the Ride Cost Me — and What It Gave Me

Throwback to 2016.

There are moments in a career that don’t stay in the past. They follow you.

I’m reminded of this one every time I look at my watch, use a fork, pick something up, or hold my kids.

When these photos were taken, both of my wrists had been broken for about a week. We were only on stop #2, and there was still a lot of riding ahead of us. There was no cast. No real time to heal. It was ice, manage the pain, get back on the bike, and ride.

I never casted the broken wrist. I just rode through it.

At the time, that felt like part of the job. You learn how to separate pain from performance. The crowd doesn’t know what hurts when you put your helmet on. They only know the show they came to see, and I always wanted to give them everything I had.

But the body remembers what the mind was willing to push through.

Ten years later, that decision still lives with me. The mobility in both of my wrists is bad. I can’t even turn my left wrist over flat to hold something normally. My right wrist has limitations that I feel in one of the simplest and most important parts of my life: holding my kids.

That puts sacrifice into perspective.

I’ve given a lot to this sport and this industry over the years. Bones, blood, time, pain, relationships, miles, and pieces of my body that will never work exactly the way they once did.

I don’t say that looking for sympathy, and I don’t say it with regret.

I say it because every dream has a cost, and sometimes you don’t fully understand that cost until years later.

Motorcycle freestyle gave me a life I could have never imagined. It gave me a career, took me around the world, introduced me to people who became family, put me in front of crowds I’ll never forget, and allowed me to build a life around something I truly love.

So when my wrists hurt, there’s gratitude mixed into that pain.

The scars are real. The limitations are real. So are the memories.

I gave a lot to the ride.

But the ride gave me a lot, too.