Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Go New Places, Meet Interesting People

If you want to meet interesting people, get a motorcycle. Folks who are, uh, interesting, will come running to bask in the glory of your motorcyclitude.

The reason the interesting, or as I like to call them, "batshit crazy," folks talk to motorcyclists is that they aren't afraid of us like all the uninteresting folks.

At least, that's what I'm assuming. Maybe I'm just a loony magnet.

Some of the interesting people also ride motorcycles. If you ride, it's guaranteed you'll meet one or two.

On my way home today, I had a baffling encounter with a motorcycle-riding interesting person on the freeway. As I rode, I suddenly noticed a duplicate of my shadow in the HOV lane. With the speed and grace of a stationary brick, I realized that there was another biker very close to me.

Being a friendly sort, I waved at this mysterious blind spot-dwelling rider. He then pulled up next to me, waved, and then just stayed there, right next to me in my lane.

I pulled ahead a little bit, and soon enough he was right there next to me, helping me to storm the castle or whatever the hell he thought he was doing.

I didn't know if he wanted to race (not gonna happen during rush hour, bud) or just decided he was my new pal but he stayed there, an arms length away, apparently content.

I waved him forward. No dice.

So, I backed off.

Soon enough, he speed between two of the cars in front of us, and continued on his merry way.

I caught up to him shortly. Someone in a car next to him evidently pissed him off, because he energetically let this driver know that he or she was "number one."

He stayed next to the car, and started humping his bike while looking at the car next to him.

WTF?

A series of other communications between them transpired, but my New American Biker Sign Language skills are a bit rusty, so I couldn't tell you what they were discussing.

They were still communicating after I exited the freeway.

So, there's another interesting person I've met because of my motorcycle.

2 comments:

Unknown said...

You do meet some crazies! But there is nothing like a good ride!

Anonymous said...

About a year ago a bunch of us in our riding club were having lunch at a Mexican restaurant. A stranger walked up to our table and expressed his gratitude that he witnessed us carrying on intelligent discussions and employing good table etiquette.

He said that we were not like the other clubs, and he named some of them as examples, "Hells Angels", "Mongols", etc., that get drunk and disorderly in public.

So to reward us, he paid for our beer and margaritias. I guess when you meet a group of bikers acting maturely, you give them free booze.