Speed and an unfamiliar road were factors in a freak accident that took the life of motorcyclist Rick Salim at a downtown Annandale intersection, a friend says. But Salim wasn’t drunk, according to Bret Yanish, who was with him before the fatal crash early Saturday, Aug. 16. Salim, 48, of Kingston was traveling at high speed south on Highway 24, Annandale’s Main Street, about 1:30 a.m. when he lost control at Highway 55 and was thrown from the bike, the Minnesota State Patrol said. He wasn’t wearing a helmet, the patrol said, and alcohol was detected in his system. "He was unfamiliar with the road and he was going too fast," Yanish said. But Salim had consumed only two or three beers since 8 the night before and was acting normally. Yanish said he doubted Salim was drunk. "I really don’t think so." He called the crash "a freak thing. He was an accomplished rider. He’d been riding forever." According to Yanish, he, his wife, Salim and another friend had spent the night listening to music in the bars. He and Salim were in front of Lu’s Cafe on Main Street when another biker roared off the highway and "popped a wheely" – standing the bike on its rear wheel – in front of them. Salim responded by getting on his Harley-Davidson and riding down Main, or Oak Avenue, to a spot in front of the old fire station, more than two blocks from Highway 55. He turned around and sped south on Main but ran out of road. Salim tried to slow down and turn east on the highway, but he leaned the bike too far left and the foot rest hit the road, flipping it over the other way. Salim had been in Annandale only twice before, Yanish said, and didn’t realize he could have followed Main Street across the highway where it takes a slight jog to the right before coming to the railroad tracks. "He didn’t know he could go straight." Yanish, a former Annandale resident now living in Cokato, said he worked with Salim at Firelake Manufacturing in Dassel for the past three months and they’d become good friends. "Everybody here liked him. He was a super-great guy." Salim drew sketches with colored pencils, he said. "The guy was a heck of an artist. He was really, really good at it. He could’ve been a talented artist if he wanted to." 2002 Harley Salim rode a 2002 Harley he’d bought a couple years ago and had put a new front end on it, Yanish said. "He loved his bike. He loved to ride." That was reflected in a memorial friends mounted on a power pole on the south side of Highway 55 near where Salim died. A cross was painted in black and orange Harley-Davidson colors and inscribed with "Rick" and "Harley motor cycles." Salim, a native of Flint, Mich., is survived by his wife, Debra, and four daughters in Flint, three stepsons in Minnesota and his mother, Mary O’Neil, of Kingston. "She took a little bit of comfort knowing he died doing what he loved," Yanish said. "He loved riding his bike."
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