I went on my first real group ride yesterday. Till now I've just been riding around solo, getting comfortable with the feel of the bike/etc. I've followed a few of the weekend packs that I've seen on the road, just to see if they knew of some good roads, but never really rode "with" them. All in all, I had a blast, and will definately be doing it again.

We started out and met a a little diner for breakfast... About 18 of us total. We headed off to take the Edmonds-Kingston Ferry across the water over to the Olympic Peninsula to start our ride. For those of you that have never taken your bike on a ferry before... In WA State, motorcycles get first-on, first-off rights on the ferry's, and don't have to wait in line, just ride on past all those people waiting in their cars and up to the front of the line.. It's a wonderful thing.

Then we were riding around, a few nice twisty roads, a few decent straight aways, and then we hit this NAST road with just a crap-load of loose gravel all over. Each bike was kicking up a rooster tail of gravel... It was all I could do not to think about my radiator and all the damage that was being done by all those small rocks <wince>. Then, the road clears up, and there's some wonderful twisties... Still some loose gravel, so the pace was relatively slow, but no more rooster tails. I'm thinking to myself... Wow, that guy in front of me is following the person in front of him awfully close. He's a bit staggered off to the right, so he's closer to the edge of the road as we enter a shallow left hand turn. I give him a bit more space that usual because you never know when we'll see more gravel again. Then blam, his bike is no longer underneath him, and I'm staring at his head as he's sliding on the ground looking up at me. I shout to myself "DON'T LOOK AT HIM YOU IDIOT!!! YOU'LL RUN HIM OVER!!!" and look for a path to the inside of the curve where I know he won't be. Turning as gently as I can as there's obviously loose gravel if he's on his side. I then come to a stop and U-Turn my way around to him, and meet up with the rest of the group that was immediately behind us.

We lift his bike up, and push it off to the side of the road. Not 2 seconds later, the first and only Sheriff that we saw on the entire trip comes up and turns around, pulling off to the side of the road. The rider is okay, he smashed in the carbon-fiber knuckle guards and scuffed up his jacket a bit, but he's otherwise okay. Part of the shift lever snapped off, but there was just enough on it to be able to click it through the gears. We had to rock it back and forth a bit to get it back into neutral, but once we did she started up right away. Only other damage was to the stator cover, and the frame slider. That thing did its job! The rider was pretty shaken up. I think we were only going about 30-35. The Sheriff asks what happened and if he needs any medical assistance. He was very nice about the whole thing, seemed more interested in how he could help and if everyone was okay than anything else. We sat on the side of the road for a while, letting the rider collect himself, kicking rocks out of the corner.

After a while we hopped back on our bikes and finished the ride... We avoided the nasty road on the way back, and there were no more incidents... The guy that was right behind me told me I "did a nice little dance" to get around the fallen rider... All I could say was it scared the **** out of me!

So, again, all in all it was good... A little freaky knowing I almost rode over someone's head, but on the bright side, I feel more comfortable knowing I was following far enough behind to avoid something like this, even on gravel... Phew.

-g

 

Way to go Gerg! Good thing you didn't fixate on the guy's head. Hehehe.

Gear definitely did it's work, without it he would probably be in a much much worse condition than what he found himself in.

 

Heh.. Thanks! I'm just glad I had enough distance to correct myself after I was staring at his head... I'm sure he's glad too!

 

Congrats on your first group ride Gerg! Sounds like you had a good time! You deserve a good pat on the back for keeping your head and getting around that guy!

We have a lot of ferrys around here too (I haven't taken the bike on one yet though). Same rules here, bikes are the first to get on and the first to get off.

 

Very nice write. Glad you had a good time and glad the other rider was ok too. I have not done any group rides in years but back in the day we would ride 10-15 deep and it was fun.

Have fun on the next one and ride safe.

BTW Good job missing that guys melon.