I've been down once, but it was my own damn fault. Out riding too late on a cold night in Januray, caught a patch of ice on a manhole cover while I was accelerating through a turn, and bit it. I was only going ~15 mph and had on full gear, but I still broke a wrist and bruised some ribs. Had some nice rash on my jacket and helmet chinbar, too.

But I recently stopped riding because of a couple of way-too-close calls I had with idiots on the higway. Back in March I was going about 60mph in the left lane on my way to work, and an idiot in a Volvo decided to merge across 4 lanes of traffic without looking and almost put me into the center divider. I moved to the inner shoulder (about 2 feet wide, but glad it was there at all), jammed on the horn and brakes, and barely missed getting clipped. That would have ended me.

About 2 weeks later I was riding to work in the HOV lane in an area with no left shoulder and a concrete center divider. The 3 lanes of traffic to my right were at a standstill. Speed limit was 45 on this street, but I was only going about 40 because I was wary of someone turning out of the regular traffic lanes into the HOV lane. Guess what -- someone pulled into the HOV lane right in front of me. I jammed on the brakes and missed ramming into them by a couple of feet, but if they had done that 1 or 2 seconds later I would have hit them square on with no way to avoid it.

After those 2 incidents -- added to the additional factors that I know the girlfriend worried about me everytime I got on the bike, I could use the money from selling the bike, and I didn't have a good storage situation -- I decided the risk/reward ratio just wasn't there for me. While I loved riding, I felt like sooner or later I would get into a serious accident. It just wasn't worth the risk to life and limb. :sad: