Passes & Canyons Blog

It was just a year ago when I went on my first ever poker run, except no one rode motorcycles. It was the ABATE District 10 Coffee Run and the weather was miserable. Well, the Coffee Run for 2010 was held this past weekend and this time the weather cooperated. We rode bikes.

There was a lot of interest for me in this run because of all that has happened in the past year. A year ago I was a new ABATE member and when I showed up at this run I didn’t know anybody. I’m not an overly gregarious person and it can be hard for me to mix comfortably with strangers. But I learned long ago as a newspaper reporter that as long as I assume a role I can play that role instead of being simply me. So I shifted into reporter mode and talked to a bunch of people, got a lot of good story ideas, and felt pretty good about it all.

This year was so different. I walked into a crowd of people I knew, greeted and was greeted, and was happy to see some folks I hadn’t seen in quite awhile. Folks I met last year at the Coffee Run, as a matter of fact. I didn’t have to play a role, I could just be me. And of course, as I always do, I did come up with some good contacts for some story ideas. Any journey starts with the first step. It can be hard to take that step but once you do you’re on your way and from then on it just gets easier.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
MSF President Tim Buche discusses motorcycle safety studies

Biker Quote for Today

Crawl, walk, ride

Judy and I went on the Randy Run on Sunday. After doing the Broken Wings series on Randy and Joan there’s no way I was going to miss it.

If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile you know that going on poker runs and such is not something I’ve done much of. My first poker run turned out to be one without motorcycles, due to cold, snowy weather. This was only my second.

The weather was great but I still couldn’t really do it right. We had a conflict. We had tickets to yesterday’s Colorado Rockies game, which they won, for their 11th win in a row. We weren’t going to miss that.

So we gathered at the appointed time and place, greeted folks and chatted a bit, but then in order to get to the game we took off ahead of the group. We barely had time to get to the final destination and then head straight for the ballgame.

The route was nice, down some roads neither of us had ever been on, and we were taking our time and enjoying ourselves. Suddenly I saw in my mirror that a horde of bikes was racing up behind us. I pulled over and waved them around and the Randy Run group, with Randy and Joan in the lead, roared on by. I jumped in behind them and found that I needed to really crank it to keep up with them.

Arriving at the final stop, I heard the guy we parked next to laughing about how they should call it the “Randy Race,” not the “Randy Run.”

So for me, the jury is still out on doing poker runs and all. The truth was, we were having a very nice time riding the route, taking our time and enjoying the scenery. Once we joined up with the group I don’t even remember the roads we took or the countryside we went through. I was just riding to keep up.

I’m going to have to try this at least once more, and try to do the whole thing, without any competing commitments.

Recent from National Motorcycle Examiner
Inaugural Motomarathon event now in progress

Biker Quote for Today

If you ride for the rush don’t rush for the ride!