Dan Erwin, 63, sped to live each day gladly, robustly

When Dan Erwin fell in love with motorcycles, he fell in love for life.

Their roaring engines, sleek design — everything about them captured his imagination.

Enlarge this image

Family photo

Dan Erwin, who loved motorcycles his whole life, died while riding one across the country.

Mr. Erwin raced motorcycles in his younger days and served as a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. His wife, Amy Pudvin Erwin, of Atlanta, said his time in Vietnam may have shaped his “live for today” attitude.

“I suspect it influenced his desire to make the most of every day and really enjoy life to the fullest,” she said, “because there are no guarantees.”

Daniel Alan Erwin, 63, of Atlanta died Aug. 8 in a motorcycle accident in West Yellowstone, Mont., while riding across the country. The memorial service is 11 a.m. today at H.M. Patterson & Son, Spring Hill.

“Dan had always wanted to do a cross-country trip,” his wife said. He left Atlanta, roared across Texas, connected with friends in Colorado and was planning to meet an old friend in Montana.

“He never made it there,” she said.

Mr. Erwin’s life was shaped by his love of cars, motorcycles, sports and the outdoors. After their marriage 20 years ago, his wife said, “he brought all that to me, that zest for living and a little bit of danger.”

The couple biked across Italy and traveled through Ireland and Ecuador. They went biking, rock-climbing and canoeing together.

Mr. Erwin won white-water rafting competitions and ran more than 20 marathons, including the legendary one in Boston.

He collected guitars and taught himself to finger-pick acoustic blues songs by Robert Johnson.

He could spot a piece of junk by the side of the road in his Morningside neighborhood and turn it into a beautifully restored antique.

“Dan could fix anything in a few second that others had worked hours on,” said his neighbor Dr. Tom Schmitt of Atlanta.

“He had so many genuine enthusiasms and a curiosity and appreciation for so many things,” he said. “But even though he was so incredibly passionate, he was very uncritical of people and tended to just let it be.”

After Mr. Erwin retired in 1999 from AT&T after 30 years as an engineer, he combined two of his enthusiams — cars and writing. His freelance articles were published in Bimmer, Roundel, European Car, Forza and other automotive magazines.

Over his lifetime, he owned more than 100 cars, usually a dozen or so at a time in various states of disrepair. Nothing made him happier, his wife said, than to bring them back to life.

In one of his articles, he chronicled the adventures of “Crusty,” a shockingly ugly BMW 2002 that he miraculously patched together and drove from Atlanta to a BMW convention in Keystone, Colo.

He described salvaging it from an overgrown field, then wrote, “When I got it home, I found that everything not left behind in the field was rotten … the floorpan on the driver’s side was a Flintstone special, and the windshield, well, there was no windshield.”

“Dan had such a great sense of humor, and you couldn’t get him mad,” his wife said. “He was a very upbeat person with a wonderful outlook on life. He believed very much in the carpe diem philosophy of life.”

Survivors other than his wife include three sons: Max Daniel Erwin of Atlanta, Jon Daniel Erwin of Dacula, and Steve Erwin of Seneca, S.C.; a daughter, Laura Erwin Tabilo, of Loganville; two brothers, Timothy Coates Erwin of Zolfo Springs, Fla., and Gregory Bell Erwin of Fort Myers, Fla.; and four grandchildren.