First group ride

As I am the only one of my friends and family that has a scoot, I am normally a lone wolf. Recently I signed up for the forums for the Canadian Motorcycle Cruisers. The ones that post on the forum for the local chapter seemed like nice folks so last night I managed to go out to the weekly meet/cruise to meet some and go on a cruise. Sadly, due to a case of GasOilâ„¢, I could not take either my XS750 Special or my XJ1100 (shakes fist). My XJ750 Maxim-X was the one to go on this "maiden" voyage.

They say that they meet at the local Tim Hortons around 6pm for a cruise departure time of 6:30pm sharp. I arrived shortly after 6pm. A couple more showed up a few minutes later, then a rather steady stream for the next few minutes. As the local chapter is for a small town (somehow considered a city officially) I wasn't sure how many people would show up. We had about 15 show up ready to ride.

The route that was decided on wasn't a long one (my trip meter showed 121km for the cruise) but would be enough to learn the finer points of throttle control to stay in relative formation. Our route consisted of only secondary hiways. We took #13 from Wetaskiwin to #795. From there we went north to the town of Calmar, where the locals stared at us with strange looks on their faces as we rode through. From Calmar we went east to the City of Leduc, where we stopped at another Tim Hortons for more coffee and doughnuts. Upon our arrival at the Tim Hortons, a gentleman approached most of us trying to score an ounce of coke. He kept insisting that he wasn't a cop, and we kept insisting that none of us wanted anything to do with that crap. As he was already high as a kite, it took him a while to understand that we really didn't do that crap and he loft. After standing around, chatting about bikes and such for about an hour, we headed back to Wetaskiwin on #2A.

I wasn't sure I would enjoy group riding, but I am glad I took the chance. I plan to try and make a couple more meets before the riding season is over and get some more rides in.

 

i rode with a few people way back in time (early 90s) but never in a 'pack' so to speak...

i just started to ride with 5 other guys from work this summer and its been pretty fun...

keep the shiny side up and make sure you dont have too many adult refreshments during stops...

 

Group riding is a lot of fun if it's well organized and the riders are experienced. Can be a nightmare if not.