Member story: Dale and Beth Duscher

For riding couple Dale and Beth Duscher, the open road has become a source of refuge during challenging times

There are some events that happen and change everything about your life. A few years ago, my wife’s and my life changed when she was diagnosed with a melanoma on her cheek. Following the initial surgery, which required the removal of a large portion of the right side of her face and a facelift, the reality of what we truly need in life became clear.

The most important needs are often overlooked and taken for granted. Simple things matter and become more apparent after an event like this. Love of family and friends, being outdoors and around nature, and feeling secure, needed and purposeful.

A major need awoken from this experience was the need to feel in control. Cancer takes that feeling away from you. I was thinking recently, after surviving five-plus years of this, how did we get to where we are today? I remember the diagnosis and the surgery, and I will never forget the recovery, but the rest is a blur – like someone else was driving our life, like we weren’t in control. The three-month checkups and multiple surgeries (that continue to this day) to remove cancer cells that just pop up out of nowhere, the time away from work, the anger and despair, the feeling of defeat and everything else, all out of our control.

Rewind to 2015. Our dream had always been to buy a Harley-Davidson and tour the country. We put that on hold with the arrival of our daughter, Laura Beth, our only child and the mainstay of our life. We decided we would wait to pursue that dream until she was out of school and on her way. We followed through with that decision; once our daughter was in college and immediately after my wife’s diagnosis, we pulled the trigger on our dream. It was time to take back the control.

It didn’t take us long. I got my motorcycle permit, and on the very same day, I bought a 2011 Super Glide Custom (it’s still our favorite). My wife and I attended a college-sponsored riding course, got our licenses, and the rest is riding history. Including the Super Glide Custom, we’ve owned five H-D motorcycles. A 2010 Road King, 2018 Road King, 2022 Road King (our current bike), and my wife owns a 2011 Sportster. She loves riding her bike solo, but on big trips we ride two-up. We’ve carried the Harley-Davidson “Live to Ride, Ride to Live” theme on each one – it’s our mantra; we live to ride but mostly we ride to live.

Since we bought our first Harley in 2015, we’ve ridden more than 110,000 miles, averaging over 14,000 miles a year – and we live in Minnesota with a short six-month riding season at best. We’ve been to the Florida Keys; the Going-to-the-Sun Road in Glacier National Park; Yellowstone; the Beartooth Highway and Bighorn mountains; the Smokies and Tail of the Dragon; Sturgis; Door County, Wisconsin; Indiana; and the U.P. as well as Canada (just to name a few). We’ve traveled to Colorado via North Dakota (3,700 miles round trip), and we’ve also ridden the Great River Road from start to finish, Minnesota to Louisiana.

The feeling of not being in control is gone on that motorcycle. Every curve, hill and valley is ours. Every mile and white line on every stretch of asphalt we ride is ours. Rain, sun, sleet and snow, we’ve ridden through it all, and those experiences are OURS. We own them. We control where we go and when.

Although the cancer is still trying to reroute our lives and is always there, it rides in the backseat when we’re on our motorcycle together. We can’t hear it because it gets drowned out by the wind, the rumble of the motor, and the music of the tires on the asphalt. Our 2022 Road King keeps us in control and has reunited us with what’s most important in life. We live to ride and ride to live; we ride to stay in control.

First published in Vol. 107 Issue 03 of The Enthusiast^®.