The ride this past weekend was fun albeit a little drama. Even worse, the drama was partly my doing.
It started off well enough. Beautiful day, great weather. We met up as usual. A couple new riders as well as some regulars. No one really wanted to lead so I stepped up to lead the first half of the route. I made it pretty clear I was a tad vague on one section of freeway (or so I thought.) Long convoluted story short, I got confused on one of the exits and my hesitation (and veering across a lane) caused one of the riders to miss the turn and get separated from the group.
We did go back for him but thru a serious of errors, we never found each other. Normally, if a rider gets separated you just continue until the next stopping point to rejoin the group. Why he chose not to do this is unclear but its irrelevant at this point. The point is he got separated in part due to my hesitation.
Afterwards, the lost rider left a rather biting message on the group message board. I felt it was over the top but having had issues w/group leaders myself, I was willing to look beyond it. Besides, we all say things out of anger we don’t mean at times. And never being one to back down from controversy or my own behavior, I replied via the group owning my mistake. I explained what happened as well as re-iterating my previous offer to take him to dinner to make up for it. To my surprise, he replied back and apologized for his “snarky” comment, as he put it. [1]I also got several personal emails from guys thanking me for being ‘brave enough’ to speak up. Whatever that means. I plan to redeem my invitation this weekend if he is around.
The rest of the ride went well. The guys were a tad annoyed w/me whining about leaving a rider but other than that we had fun. We stopped for lunch at a burger/shake place in St Helena and pigged out. OY, was I full afterwards. lol The strip thru Napa Valley and back down thru the petrified forest is great for moto riding. Nice country side with windy roads snaking thru it. The only sucky part was the traffic. Naturally, the holiday weekend had people out in droves.
This weeks ride is fast approaching. The irony is the route starts off the same as the last one. But this time, I don’t take the exit!
References
| ↑1 | I also got several personal emails from guys thanking me for being ‘brave enough’ to speak up. Whatever that means. |
|---|
Is everyone in this motorcycle group gay? Or is it mixed? I am just curious.
@Brett ~ We are accepting of anyone but these groups were formed for gays to find and ride together. We do have a few straight riders though.
It's good to see you're wearing a full-face helmet – the better to protect that handsome face of yours.