{"id":2267,"date":"2012-07-17T04:00:41","date_gmt":"2012-07-17T08:00:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=2267"},"modified":"2012-07-17T06:01:01","modified_gmt":"2012-07-17T10:01:01","slug":"friends-and-safe-riders","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=2267","title":{"rendered":"Friends and Safe Riders"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>I had the opportunity to lead a motorcycle ride for my club on Sunday. I was delightfully surprised by the large turn-out. 17 people and 14 bikes showed up. These rides are listed on a website, and people decide if they want to come as they have time and availability.<\/p>\n

This was a great ride for me, and let me live up to a self-challenge. I admit, I have problems with…
\n
\n…several matters related to being responsible for leading motorcycle rides.<\/p>\n

First, I am “directionally-challenged.” No matter how often I ride on the same roads, leave it to me, I will make a wrong turn. That’s why I rode this ride on a practice run on Friday (photo here of me last Friday, while wearing perforated leather jeans. Quite comfy!) When I do a practice ride, it makes it so much easier for me to lead the “real ride” later.<\/p>\n

Second, sometimes I take things much too seriously. I worry about adjusting the ride to accommodate the rider in the group with the least skills, so he can keep up and not feel intimidated.<\/p>\n

Third, I have ongoing trouble handling the weight of my large motorcycle when making tight turns.<\/p>\n

Fourth — this ride, in particular, was one to overcome past feelings of inadequacy. That is, I led this same ride five years ago during my training as a Road Captain. I was nervous and “white-knuckled” the grips on my bike so hard that my hands went numb. When we arrived, two more experienced road captains gave me constructive criticism, but I felt awful. They were trying to help me, but I took it way too hard. It upset me so much, I took a wrong turn and got lost on the way back.<\/p>\n

So it was my personal challenge to do this ride again, to get there on the planned route, not get lost, maintain speed, relax and have fun. And I did! I had a great ride. My friends were all smiles (though for their privacy, I have blurred their faces in this group photo with me in the middle wearing my Chippewa Firefighter boots.)
\n\"\"<\/a>Did anybody care that this ride was led by a gay biker? Nope. I am an experienced motorcyclist, road captain, and leader in this club. The fact that I live in a monogamous relationship with one man — that I am gay — never was discussed, mentioned, or even thought about. I didn’t lead this ride to make some point that gay men can do this, too. I led it because I enjoy leading rides within my comfort zone, and to overcome a personal challenge.<\/p>\n

By the way my Facebook page lit up after this ride, I can say that all of my fellow riders had a great time. Some good-natured ribbing, including a comment from another road captain who said, “and I was all ready to do a water rescue! thanks for the nice ride, dry boots and all.”<\/p>\n

This came from a situation where I was learning to use a new GPS on my bike, and it directed me while leading a group on a road that crosses a stream at a ford. I tried to get across the ford, and my friend saved my butt by running into the stream and holding me up while I got through. His boots got soaked. This story is one that we will re-live forever, in a good-natured manner.<\/p>\n

Where will I lead rides next? In early August, I’m going to a corn roast festival and in mid-August, my birthday ride will take us to get Maryland Blue Crabs on the West River in Galesville. (My regular Shady Side visitor should write to me<\/a> and perhaps we can visit while I’m in his neck of the woods.)<\/p>\n

Life is short: ride and have fun!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I had the opportunity to lead a motorcycle ride for my club on Sunday. I was delightfully surprised by the large turn-out. 17 people and 14 bikes showed up. These rides are listed on a website, and people decide if … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-motorcycle-ride"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2267"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2267\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}