Riding Partners

Originally Published in Southeastern Rider Magazine, November 2016

Most of us that ride a motorcycle look at it as an activity done in solitude.  Even if you ride with someone else on their own bike, you couldn’t talk to them except when you stopped. Got a partner on the pillion? You would have to yell and fight the wind to hear the voice. Intercoms and Bluetooth has changed all that, so choosing a riding partner has become more important. Here is my history with riding partners.

The first person I shared riding with was probably my father, while he was teaching me to ride. The practice I got after that came from making ruts in my parent’s yard with my brother.  He had a few years experience on me, five years my senior, and like a lot of things when you are young, you don’t get to pick who you do it with.

Age brought the usual divides; he entered his teenage years, and I was just an anchor. Once he got his driver’s license, the law forbid me from following him. By the time I got my license, finished up school, and got back to riding, we had our separate lives.

My brother and I on an epic journey to Gathering of Eagles
in Philly. We took a scenic route, including this stop in Maine.

Flash forward through my twenties where, like my father and brother, I spent my time riding alone. I really used the motorcycle I had at the time as a second car, running errands and going to work. I don’t remember where the idea came from, but some where along the way, we came up with the idea to take a trip on our motorcycles. That first long ride included our father, and my brother’s brother-in-law. Long was a relative term, as it was just a three day weekend into neighboring Kentucky.

Though we each had our problems on the ride, the idea became an annual event. Besides these trip, we still weren’t really riding together. That would change with a chance encounter while helping a co-worker, and new rider. I agreed to ride his new motorcycle home for him. While waiting in the parking lot to follow him, I met the then Vice President of the Indianapolis Cruiser Club. I had never ridden in a club, and my only vision was that of a gang. I found out there lots of great people, and the possibility of riding partners.

About a year later, after hearing me talk about the group at every family gathering, my brother joined the group, and we were sharing the road together once again. We eventually moved into the roles of me being Road Captain, and he being my Tail Gunner. Citizen’s Band (CB) Radios were added to the bike so we could communicate.

I grew into the role of a Road Captain by traveling a lot of miles with a fellow member “Shooter” Jim. He was a bit of a mentor for me when it came to group riding. We became friends and partners on the road quickly, and it lead to one of my motorcycle phrase: “I choose to measure some friendships in miles, not years”.

Another Jim, “Easyrider” Jim was another member that I spent many miles on the road. “Easyrider” always had a story to tell. He spent most of his time at my right on group rides, and kept an eye out for hazards in the road, warning the rest of the pack. We explored a lot of the Hoosier Landscape together.

My favorite riding partner, Kasey and I after a trip on The Tail of the Dragon.

Moving a bit closer, it took me a lot more time to find a partner to fill the pillion. There was not a lot
of the time that the back seat on my bike had someone in it. One of my proudest moments was when I was going to ride down the street from my parent’s house to see where a firetruck went, and my father hopped on the back seat. Other than another time when my niece rode with me, I don’t recall but a few true riding partners.

About the same time my brother and I were getting back into riding together, I had a woman in my life, but she had no riding history. She would go every once in a while, but most of the time she was a biker widow. I’m not listing here to complain. I just never got the impression that she enjoyed it, only tolerated it, and it was one of the things that lead to that relationship coming to an end.

So with a vacancy sign on the back seat of my bike, I found a few potential partners, but none of them worked out for the long term.
A second date with one of these potential partners would change everything. It was oour first ride together, the story is in on my blog, and maybe a subject for a future essay. I will just sum it with the fact that she mentioned numerous times how much she loved it on the whole trip.

Eight years later, we have cleared 30,000 miles together, and we vacation at least once a year on the motorcycle. Those miles include many day trips, a long weekend of touring Covered Bridges, and  a near 4,000 mile odyssey to Jacksonville, Florida through Hershey, Pennsylvania and back to our starting point in central Indiana. We even officially became a couple on a motorcycle while rolling along a Parke County, Indiana road.

So far, all these partners have been human, and living. I do have one partner that has been with me for over 100,000 miles. Shooter Jim from the Cruiser Club has been an inspiration for traveling on the motorcycle, and before he left on his first long trip, his daughter gave him a small, plush duck. He named it Drake, and it went with him on every mile he rode his motorcycle.

I know a good idea when I see it, and so I had to have my own riding partner. I picked my own, and I knew exactly who and what it would be.  I found a small Wile E. Coyote plush, because we super-geniuses have to stick together. That Acme Product ordering coyote has watched over my shoulder through quite a bit. Cold mornings, scorching afternoons, torrential downpours, and took leave of the bike, along with my trunk, ending with a long skid down a Louisiana Highway. It was part of nine day trek with “Shooter” Jim, and another riding partner, Duncan. We had ridden from Indianapolis to Carlsbad, New Mexico, and were riding through the state shortly after Hurricane Katrina ravaged it. A large chuck hole jarred my trunk snapping it from its mount, and Wile E., went with it. Luckily, the 18 wheeler behind us was able to get stopped, and all was recovered.

Along the miles and the years, Wile E. has acquired a few accessories. He sports a strands of pink beads, earned while we were part of the second edition of the Conga Ride. We were presented with the gift when we lead the group through Indiana, and Flo Furh, the Conga Rider, gave them to us personally. Just a few months ago, we lost Flo, passing away after a surgery went wrong in Mexico.

Duncan's Riding Partner, my Wile E. Coyote, and Drake, "Shooter" Jim's
travel companion. Wile E. is now adorned with a Pink Feather and Wrist
Band for other riding friends I have lost.
Photo courtesy of Steve Duncan Photography.

Wile E. is also adorned with a wrist band, embroidered with the name Jodie.  Jodie was a member, along with her entire family, of the Cruiser Club Chapter in Farmville, Virginia. She lost her life to cancer a not too long ago; the wrist bands were passed out as a memorandum.

I know I have many miles and more new people to meet and ride with down the road. So, while I still spend a lot of miles being the only one in the seat, I never really ride alone.