No Fun Riding Alone?
The Harley in question.
A fellow down the street has been riding a Harley for, I don’t know, a year? Maybe two. But now the bike is for sale. Wonder why?
So we were out for a walk Saturday and one of the guys living in this house was out on the porch smoking. “Why are you selling the Harley?” I asked. I don’t know these guys, I don’t know who owns it, but I figured this was sufficient to kick off a discussion. It did.
“It’s my buddy’s. Yeah, it’s for sale.”
“Why?”
“He’s got no one to ride with. It’s no fun riding alone.”
And we continued walking.
Wow. No fun riding alone. That is so wrong, and such a sad reason to quit riding.
OK, so first, this is a young single guy and his idea of having a motorcycle is probably to go for an occasional cruise with a bunch of friends and hit a few bars. I can see how that doesn’t work if you don’t have someone to ride with. It’s not about the riding, it’s about the socializing.
So does he really not care about the actual riding? Because if he does it’s not that hard to find people to ride with, and then to make friends with others who ride. First off, there are plenty of organized rides he could go to. And then there are clubs. After all, the guy has a Harley–all he would have to do is go on some of the rides by the HOG group sponsored by the dealer he bought the bike from. He’d meet plenty of other riders there. Lots of socializing.
But you know me, I have to take exception to the whole idea that riding alone is no fun. Sure, I like riding with friends, but when you get down to it, I probably enjoy riding alone the best. People think of freedom when they think of motorcycles and there is no freedom like being on your own. You go where you want to go, stop when you want to stop, do whatever it is you–you–want to do.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve been riding with the OFMC and I’ve seen something I wanted to stop for but didn’t because I didn’t want to interrupt the ride. The more people in your group the longer it takes to get rolling again. And then I have regretted again and again not having stopped. No, riding with the guys has its pluses but it definitely has its minuses as well.
I could ramble on and on with this particular topic but I won’t. If you never ride alone, maybe you should try it. Isn’t simply riding the bike fun?
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Biker Quote for Today
To ride or not to ride? That is a stupid question.
October 14th, 2013 at 6:03 pm
Sad, very sad. Riding alone is the best kind of riding IMHO.
October 14th, 2013 at 9:29 pm
I agree that majority of the best rides I’ve had have been as a solo rider.
At most, I can tolerate one companion – they are few and far between, but are the ones where we both seem to really “click” and have the same gas tank, bladder, meal and endurance intervals – almost a psychic connection where we each know what the other is going to do when meeting up with the various obstacles that travel can present.
November 18th, 2014 at 10:01 pm
I’m a 47-year-old kidney cancer survivor, happily married Mom of two teenagers. Hubby doesn’t ride (he’s been a car guy for all of our 16+ years of wedded bliss). And I LOVE to ride alone!!! Every spring, I buy our state’s ABATE Poker Run book — this year, it covered 5 counties and we had 170 locations to visit over the course of 5 months (I hit about 110 of them). It’s nice to have a destination, and I’ve met some wonderful people.
All that solo riding helped me garner up the courage to do an ‘Iron Butt’ ride — 1000 miles in 24 hours. I left from our home in central Wisconsin and rode 740 miles to Deadwood, SD. Slept a few hours and headed out at 4am to Cheyenne, WY. That was my 1000 — I then spent the next 2-1/2 days meandering back home over those 1300 miles and 3 states. NO offense to my Hubby or kids, but it was the BEST vacation of my LIFE. To steal a quote from an older Train song: it was my SOUL vacation.
Don’t get me wrong — I love to ride in groups, too, and actually wish I had more ‘friends’ in my area to ride with (most riders around here are guys who are, apparently, a little shy about asking a married woman to join them!) But riding solo is definitely one of the most awesome things EVER — and I’m now planning my next ‘Iron Butt’ — 1500 miles in 36 hours (my daughter’s high school Show Choir is competing at Nationals in Orlando in March….hmmmmm…..it’s just about 1500 from our town to Orlando….)
Ride on. Live free. And keep the shiny side up!!! :)
November 20th, 2014 at 8:51 pm
Great to hear from you HarleyMom117. Yes, I love riding alone. I’d say anyone who has to have companions or they’re going to sell the bike is not really a rider, they just think they’ll be cool if they have a bike.