{"id":568,"date":"2009-10-07T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2009-10-07T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=568"},"modified":"2019-04-10T07:30:17","modified_gmt":"2019-04-10T11:30:17","slug":"bike-cop-surprise","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/?p=568","title":{"rendered":"Bike Cop Surprise"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>After work yesterday, I got on my Harley at the Metro station and began my ride home, as usual. I stopped at the light near the station, signaling a left turn. When it turned green, I carefully executed the turn. Knowing that the next light would be red due to the timing of the traffic signals, I proceeded slowly and stopped at that light. When it turned green, I slowly accelerated and maintained a steady pace until I reached my cross-street, where signaled and turned left. I stopped again at the next light. Then when it changed to green, I slowly accelerated until I reached my street, signaled, and turned right.<\/p>\n

It was then that I noticed a bike cop riding behind me. I thought to myself, “what did I do?” which is a natural reaction, even though I know that I was riding well within the speed limit and didn’t run a red light.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>I stopped, and the cop pulled up next to me. He smiled and said, “I followed you from the Metro as I was headed out this way anyway. I thought I would tell you that I thought you were the most graceful motorcycle rider I have seen in a long time.”<\/p>\n

WOW!<\/p>\n

Who, me? “graceful?” The guy who would trip over his own shadow if it were possible? Who trips himself walking on a flat sidewalk with no obstacles? Who calls himself a quarantasinestrapede when it comes to dancing? Who, as a kid, was always picked on for being such a klutz and uncoordinated?<\/p>\n

The cop said that he sees a lot of bikers, and few ride the way I did. He then ticked off each maneuver I made: gentle stops, smooth acceleration, steady pace, sweeping turns well within the intended lane of travel, and using my turn signals where appropriate.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The cop and I had a nice discussion about motorcycle riding. I explained that I had been riding for more than 30 years, have participated in many training courses over the years, and continue to practice my skills from time to time. I like to ride with safe riders in my club, and continue to learn a lot from them as we ride together safely.<\/p>\n

This “bike cop surprise” was delightful, and made me feel better after a rather difficult day at work. When my partner arrived at home, I told him what happened. He smiled, hugged me, confirmed his belief that I am a good rider, then asked (because he knows me so well), “what kind of boots was the cop wearing?”<\/p>\n

Life is short: ride gracefully!<\/p>\n

N.B.: the photos accompanying this post were captured from a video that I put on my YouTube Channel<\/a> a while back. I was dressed more warmly yesterday (tall boots, chaps, motorcycle jacket, gloves) than I was dressed in that video, which was produced in the heat of summer.<\/i><\/span>
<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After work yesterday, I got on my Harley at the Metro station and began my ride home, as usual. I stopped at the light near the station, signaling a left turn. When it turned green, I carefully executed the turn. … 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":[6,7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-568","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-harley-davidson-motorcycle","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\/568","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=568"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/568\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=568"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=568"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bootedmanblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=568"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}