Sunday, September 11, 2011

A Ferry Ride to the Motorcycle Land of Embarrassed Riders...

Wandering around the Northwest... Settled into Anacortes for a few days... just enough time for a little excitement, and embarrassment.

Yeah... Put the Raider on the ground to tour around Whidbey Island and places beyond... So... We get on the Washington State Ferry to take us over to San Juan Island, and rode around the perimeter of it. A nice ride to make!

It's a little unexpected though. You think you'll be riding through ocean views, and a marine sort of place, but you ride a road mostly twisting through hay fields and small farms with cattle everywhere. It does turn out to the ocean here and there...

*Lighthouse on San Juan Island*

 ... So still a really fine ride.

... and you're never quite sure what you'll see along the way...

*Grey fox on San Juan Island*
Then yesterday they had a small equipment show here at the Marina we're parked in...

Along with the tractors, motors and Old cars... there was a couple old Bikes...

a '48 Harley and a Motoguzzi of a vintage I didn't hear...



So... Now... it's time for the embarrassment...

Got back to the Ferry to load up for the ride back to Anacortes... The staging area was hidden from me by a couple of big trucks... so I rode past it...

When I looked back I said; "Damn! No problem, I'll just hook around and I'm good."

Yeah well... Not so much...

I hooked around, or started to. A tight, slow u-turn on a pretty narrow two lane at the top of the hill... works ok if you take into account that you're NOT riding solo! ... Not so good... if you're two up, going too slow, turning too tight, and your balance is juuuuuuust a touch off.

The result? A big red Raider, laying on its side like a beached whale, with the embarrassed bozo riding it... on the bottom! :)

Sheesh... red faced to say the least... dropping the bike at 5mph!

So now... we're getting read to start working our way south again... this time... hopefully ahead of the coming winter.

Grab Your Handles and Ride!
Brian

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1 comment:

foleybob said...

If you ride a Bike long enough you Will drop it. Just depends on how gracefully you do it. (and whose looking)