WEST SALEM, Wis. — Ryan Suchanek understands how precious life is, and how it can hang in the balance. His life, after all, is all about balance.

As a professional motorcycle stuntman, the 27-year-old balances his body on the front, on the back, on the handlebars, on the front tire and on the back tire of his Kawasaki 636 cycle. He does tricks that are, well, insane. If you have ever been on a motorcycle, you can appreciate what he is able to do with these powerpacked machines.
Suchanek and his Vertical Mischief partner, Joe Beavers, were at the

La Crosse Fairgrounds Speedway on Saturday night as part of an event called the Smash O Rama. An event that drew an estimated 1,800 people.

There were a lot of things wrecked, smashed and rolled over, but fortunately, Suchanek and Beavers were not among them. Suchanek, you see, has been through enough.

He’s a talented cycle stunt rider, but his real gift, to be honest, is life. His life, you need to understand, nearly ended at 2:45 p.m. Oct. 5, 2007.

“I was riding on the street, coming home from work (on his cycle). It was a blind corner and she was coming right at me (in a Chevy Lumina), in my lane. I swerved right and she served left and we hit head on. The impact sent me flying, and my head went through her windshield,” said Suchanek, of Milton, Wis. “I still got the bike. It’s not in that bad of shape.”

Suchanek, unfortunately, was.

His list of injuries was long, and serious. If you have a strong stomach, read on. If not, you might want to skip this paragraph. Suchanek had five broken ribs, four fractured vertebrae, a broken collarbone, a fractured skull, a mangled left foot that was severed from his leg during the crash and a compound fracture of his left femur (thigh bone). The worst part, or the injury that nearly killed him, was severe bleeding on the brain.

“I don’t remember anything after the impact,” Suchanek said.

That, he now realizes, is a blessing. He spent more than a month — Oct. 5 to Nov. 15 — in the hospital, and said he was in “la-la land” for a significant length of time even upon returning home. For the first time in his life, riding motorcycles became secondary.

For him, and for Beavers.

“They closed the road where it happened, and no one had any answers,” Beavers said of the day of the accident. “Word travels fast in a small town, especially when you close a road, but no one could tell us for sure it was him. I called his parents, and they didn’t know yet. We spent three hours knowing he was missing.”

Once Beavers — and everyone else — found out it was indeed Suchanek, the waiting began. Waiting, and wondering, if Suchanek would live.

“He lost so much blood, and with the bleeding on the brain, it was 1 in the morning before we knew he was going to live,” said Beavers, who lives in Fort Atkinson, Wis. “For three weeks it was, ‘Who cares about riding?’ It was, ‘Is he going to make it or not?’”

Suchanek lived, but doctors were unable to reattach his left foot. In addition, they had to “pound a titanium rod through the center of my (femur) bone,” said Suchanek, explaining the rod is more than two feet long as he showed the massive surgical scar. He also was fitted with a prosthetic leg, which attaches just below his left knee.

While the injuries left him in excruciating pain, the thing that hit him just as hard, or harder, was the fact that for the first time since he could remember, he wasn’t riding a motorcycle for fun, or for stunts.

“I eat, sleep and breathe motorcycles,” Suchanek said. “It is more of an obsession with me than anything else. I have to ride; it’s my life.”

Suchanek started riding cycles at a young age, but he didn’t just ride them like you and I would. He and his friends would push each other to the edge in ways we would never think of doing.

“We would do wheelies until we scraped the tail light, then go (higher with a wheelie) until we broke it,” Suchanek said. “We are people that like to push it to the edge, but what you need to understand is the things we do now, we practice these stunts every day. We have a couple of parking lots we have permission to use, and we are out there practicing every time we are home.”

Suchanek was told he would never ride cycles again, but all that did was fuel his desire to do so. He got back on a cycle in January 2008, but there was a bigger, more challenging goal on the horizon. He wanted to be ready for a stunt show in Shanghai, China, on May 1.

“The Chinese Moto GP at the beginning of May, that was my goal,” said Suchanek, who always — he emphasized always — wears a helmet. “I am still (relearning) tricks, but this is what I do. There was no hesitation as to whether I would do this again. This is what I do. I didn’t get hurt doing this. I got hurt riding on the road. I was wearing a helmet and still got hurt, but without it I would be dead.”

Suchanek, who has a college degree and was working for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources in wildlife management when the accident happened, has yet to return to his day job, but the fact he was able to return to his first love — stunt riding — is good enough for now.

“No, I don’t have any pain-free days — at least not yet,” Suchanek said. “But I don’t feel sorry for myself. If you want to feel sorry for someone, feel sorry for someone who is blind or deaf. Me, I can still do this.”

Jeff Brown can be reached at (608) 791-8403, or at jbrown@lacrossetribune.com

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