Oh No, Not That Guy
On an RMMRC ride.
I did a ride Saturday with the RMMRC and just before we were about to head out one last rider showed up. When I saw who it was I groaned to myself–not him!
Let me explain. I wrote about this previously, at the time, so I’ll just recap. This particular rider came along on most of the earliest rides I did with the RMMRC and he consistently rode much too close, right on the tail of whoever was in front of him. I mean, to the extent of having to hit his brakes and run off onto the shoulder when that person in front touched their brakes. Dangerous!
I want to make mention that a guy who read that earlier post put up a response saying perhaps this guy has poor eye-sight. He said the same thing had happened to him once and it turned out the guy was nearly legally blind. So in order to see where he was going he stuck right on the tail of the person in front of him. That sounded pretty plausible to me.
Well, this guy had not shown up for quite some time and that was fine with me. But then Saturday, there he was. I just wanted to make sure I was not the one in front of him. Fortunately (for me, not Bob), he pulled right in behind Bob, who was leading the ride. So I was several bikes behind him.
I watched with interest as we headed out. Surprisingly, this guy stayed pretty much staggered away from Bob and it didn’t look like he was crowding him at all. Maybe it was because the roads we were on were pretty much straight and it was easy to stick with the white line on the side of the road. Who knows.
Anyway, we got out to Kiowa, to Patty Ann’s, and had lunch. Leaving there we had one group of five who were inclined to go home via one route while the other group of five wanted to take a different route. So we split up. The question arose, who is going to lead the group I was going with. Someone said, “How about Ken?” Fine, I’m perfectly happy taking the lead but of course the person in question was also going with this group. I tried to figure how I could make sure he was not right behind me but he was the first out along the road and the others lined up behind him. He was going to be right behind me. Dang!
Well, I don’t know what the deal is. Maybe he had cataract surgery and sees a whole lot better now. Maybe it’s just the straight roads out east of the city. Whatever the explanation, he stayed all the way to the right as I stayed all the way to the left, and he even rode a good ways behind me, not just 10 feet back. What a relief.
So now maybe next time he shows up I won’t cringe quite so much. But I’m still going to cringe a little.
Biker Quote for Today
“TAT” (aka Technical Anti-talent) referring to any student that despite every possible analogy, teaching method, or other, could not master even the most fundamental motor coordination needed to ride a motorcycle. These guys and gals we kindly failed as not to harm themselves or others. They were few and far between….but certainly out there.
Tags: riding while blind
