Charity Ride

We did our first (and only?) charity motorcycle ride  In early December, our RV friends, Michael & Glenda, invited Chuck and me to join them on a Toy Run.  Since the motorcycle ride was only 15 miles in distance, we decided we would do it.  It was to be the first time that Chuck and I participated in a charity ride and we found out the first time for our friends also.

The day of the Toy Run arrived, and was a bright, sunny day - any weather based excuse to not ride was out the window.  The 4 of us started off to the meeting point, leaving our RV park an hour before the ride was to start.  Not 5 miles in to our 20 mile trip to the starting point and we had to go back - the brake lights on Glenda’s motorcycle were not working properly and as we’d be riding in a large group, didn’t want to cause an accident because the biker behind her couldn’t tell if she was stopping or slowing.

By the time we got going again, with Glenda riding shotgun on Michael’s bike, we had 20 minutes to make the 20 miles.  Somehow or other, I was the leader of our little pack and did my darnedest to push myself to get us there - fortunately a good portion of the road we were taking was posted as 60 mph, so I didn’t have to speed to make up time.  (Ok, the real reason I was leader was I knew where the starting point was - the particular parking lot was for a chain store I like to shop at, although I hadn’t been to that particular location.) During our trip to the Toy Run’s starting location I kept hoping they were getting a late start, or that we’d see them coming and find a convenient place to do a U-turn and join the back of the pack.

With one traffic light left between us and the start, I saw the police and fire escort of the Toy Ride heading our way. Rats, I thought, we’ve missed it.  Traffic in our current direction was being blocked from crossing to the other side. I quickly decided to continue just past the turn we wanted and come in to the parking lot from a different direction.  Chuck and Michael with Glenda on his bike had no choice but to follow me.

As we maneuvered our motorcycles around cars in the lot, we saw there were still a good number of motorcyclist waiting to start the ride and we were able to join right in and participate.   Chuck rode right next to me on my left, but I couldn’t see our friends. In front of us was a line of motorcyclist stretching over a mile and I had no idea how far behind us the parade went, all I knew was we were somewhere near the back, but not the tail end.

The ride was one of the most nerve wracking experiences I can recall, our double line of bikes were in the left lane, while vehicles passed us in the right hand lane, every now and then trying to cross into our lane to make a left hand turn, thereby causing a bottleneck and the need for us to drop our speed of 50 down to 20 or even 10.  Because spacing between riders was close I used the brake lights of a motorcycle 4 positions ahead of me to prepare to stop or slow.  At one time the biker who was directly behind me pulled up on my right side as he hadn’t planned on slowing as suddenly as we did.

When we finally got to the end of the ride, I discovered our friends were only 3 positions behind.  We parked our bikes among the hundreds of other bikers and joined the festivities of music, food and a visit from Santa who distributed the toys to the kids.  It took awhile for my nerves to loosen. I told the others in our little group that although that type of ride hadn’t been on my bucket list, I was glad to be able to check it off.

While the experience of helping others felt good, the stress of the ride getting to the Toy Run with no time to spare (not even a chance to get off the bike for 5 seconds before we got rolling) to the number of bikers are not one I think I’ll want to repeat.  I enjoy riding my motorcycle, but prefer to do it with just 1 to 3 other bikes on the ride.

These images are of the ride - the first one shows the lead  bikes on the ride, the 2nd shot is from our friends' point of view - I'm the biker in the right lane with the white jacket and white helmet. Chuck's to my left, silver helmet and green shoulders on his jacket.