New Year’s Eve A Nice Day To Ride
Monday, January 2nd, 2017
This Harley out front of the Grizzly Rose was decked out in its own Christmas bow.
Our thermometer out back read 37 degrees when I took off on Saturday for the Last Brass Monkey Run so it was a no-brainer about how warmly to dress. I wore all the winter gear.
Still, I had the heated gloves set on the second highest setting and that was too much; I went two blocks and stopped and turned them down a notch.
It was definitely Michelin Man time for me–I was so covered in warm clothing that I felt like if I had gone down I would have just bounced. But I was warm, truly warm. I could have gone for a long ride. Sweet.
I got to the Grizzly Rose and as I expected, there were plenty of bikes. Not like last year where it was cold and icy and there probably weren’t more than 25 bikes altogether. People rode this year.
Still, the place was not crowded. The first year I went to the Last Brass Monkey Run the place–and the parking lot–was packed. From what I understand, ABATE membership has declined significantly since that time. That’s too bad. ABATE is the chief lobbying group for motorcyclist issues at the state capital. But apparently most people don’t thing that concerns them very much. They might think differently if there was no one down there standing up for our interests.
So I went in and walked around and as is pretty much always the case, the only people I knew were all working the event. Taking tickets, running the poker walk games, handing out the door prizes–all that. If I were a better ABATE member I would have been working, too, but agreeing to be the District 10 legislative liaison this year is the first time I’ve ever gotten really involved. Mostly I just go to meetings and then do my bit to get the word out about what’s going on that riders should pay attention to. I consider that a valuable contribution but it’s not like working the events the way all the rest of the folks do.
I got my chance, though. I found Stump manning a table for the poker walk and stopped to talk awhile. He had two bags with marked ping-pong balls in them. Players would draw from each bag and if you got, say, a ball marked diamond and a ball marked 8 then you had drawn an 8 of diamonds. Stump would then note that down on your sheet as one of the cards in your poker hand.
At one point Stump walked away to do something and I found myself there playing dealer. And because he never came back, I stayed there as dealer till the poker walk ended. So I did help out a little.
After that I took off. By then it was a lot warmer out and I had a thoroughly pleasant ride home. Not at all bad for December 31.
Biker Quote for Today
98% of all Harleys ever sold are still on the road. The other 2% made it home.
