By: Chris Loynd
Fortunately, I thought to put this
week's destination address into my GPS just minutes before I headed
over to meet the guys at the Dunkin' Donuts in Stratford.
My morning had a monkey thrown into its
wrench. If you are a faithful blog reader, you may recall I purchased
a new Gerbing heated jacket liner a few weeks back. The old one was
not heating the gloves. Well I have not yet gotten around to sending
out the old liner to be repaired. Meanwhile my long-suffering wife
got tired of seeing it thrown over a chair and hung it up for me . .
. along with the rest of my motorcycle gear. Sunday morning I could
not tell which was the new, or the old, jacket liner.
Figuring it out had me pressed for
time, and with no time to spare, I thought of skipping the GPS. At
the last minute, I figured I might as well put in the address, just
in case I got lost or something.
Turned out I was leading this ride.
I guess they took a vote at the Dunkin'
before I arrived, just two minutes before departure time, and I was
elected in absentia . Since I knew the address was plugged
into my GPS, I said, “Sure! No problem!” I had only glanced at a
map days earlier, and that vaguely.
Grumpy was going to sweep. He pulled up
and shouted something about 287, 87 and, dang, what was that last
number?
Well I figured I would just follow the
GPS.
I knew better to ignore Mr. Garmen when
he tried to send me across the George Washington Bridge. Once we were
firmly on our way to the Tappan Zee the miniature, satellite-enabled
computer settled down . . . for a little while.
It started acting up again as we
cruised on out I-78. Darn if I could remember that last route number
Grumpy had given me. I kept ignoring the GPS' exhortations and stuck
to the Interstate, hoping that at some point the computer would pop
up a familiar number.
Fortunately for me, Grumpy had an
unfortunate equipment problem. He zoomed up from the back of the pack
to lead all of us into a highway rest stop. There he zip tied his
shifter linkage back together. It had lost a joint or something. I'm
no mechanic.
As we were getting ready to go I
nonchalantly fished for that missing route number. “Uh, yeah, we're
going up here to, uh . . .,” I said. “Route 309,” Grumpy
finished my sentence. “Yeah, that's right,” I offered. “Exit uh
. . .” “I don't know,” Grumpy said.
No problem! I'm back in control and
nobody knows. I'll just keep my eyes peeled for the exit.
After a little while my GPS gave up on
all other options and served up “Route 309, Exit 60A.”
We left the rest stop, shifter
repaired, riders relieved (no facilities but an accommodating tree),
in a different order of bikes than we had been riding. Grumpy was now
my wing man, replacing Jim O, a new Polar Cub who joined us for the
first time Sunday.
By the way, Jim O was a good wing man.
He rode so tight to me I could usually feel him more than see him.
But he's an experienced rider and a MSF instructor. So I was
comfortable with him at my shoulder.
I guess Fonz, arriving just a few
moments AFTER the last possible moment, had pulled a u-turn and taken
the sweep away from Grumpy. Freed of his sweep duties, Grumpy moved
up with me for the rest of the ride.
So as we approached Montgomeryville
Cycle Center, my GPS was now simpatico with the route I'd forced upon
it. Only I remember the last time I led this ride, the destination
appeared on the opposite side of the road from what I expected. I
shot past the dealership, Russ sticking faithfully by my side
(another of the great wing men), as the rest of our guys hit the
binders hard and made the dealership. Russ and I eventually found a
u-turn after what seemed like 15 miles.
Embarrassment being a powerful teacher,
I distrusted my GPS as we approached the Cycle Center, still hidden
behind a ridge, and put on my right blinker. Grumpy immediately put
on his LEFT blinker and threw in a hand signal in case I didn't catch
his drift. I quickly changed signals and cut left into the merge lane
for Montgomeryville Cycle Center.
At lunch I 'fessed up to the miscue.
Not that a confession was required, though they say it is good for
the soul. Everybody behind me saw the blinker mistake.
After gassing up for the ride home, my
GPS was again acting up, wanting to send me down some country road. I
again consulted Grumpy. He started offering alternate ways to get to
Route 309 to go home the way we came.
I expressed my worries to Grumpy. I was
concerned about taking some long-about detour with a line of bikes
behind me. I was afraid to plunge into unknown territory with these
guys strung along the highway behind me. It's one thing to make a
u-turn at a dead end road by yourself. It's quite another with a
eight to a dozen bikes on behind.
And what if it took a lot longer to get
home? Some of our guys don't like to ride in the dark. I jokingly
asked the Captain if he was flying the colors. He said now, he held
them in case we were late and that morning ran a Navy ensign up the
pole instead.
Seeing, but not sharing, my
consternation, Grumpy came up with one of his typical responses,
“F**k 'em. Follow your GPS. See what happens.”
I took courage in Grumpy's show of
confidence and off we went, turn-by-turn, with nary a sense of the
map in my head.
My Garmin took us on a beautiful ride
down winding country roads. Fields stretched beyond our site. Horses
and cattle dotted the landscape. We rode through quaint small towns
with small brick buildings build right to the road and with 1950s
style Christmas garlands strung between light poles, across the road
over our heads. We even scored a covered bridge.
Cars came toward us with freshly cut
evergreens bound to their roofs. Some of our way tightened down to
mere country lanes with no lines painted on the road. We crossed the
Delaware River from Pennsylvania to New Jersey on a very narrow
two-lane, steel grid decked bridge, speed limit 15 mph.
Like Token a few weeks before, I even
ran into a closed road detour. Recalculating!
And it turned out my Garmin did not
lie. We left the gas station after a sizable group of Jersey Bears.
On I-78 we saw them again. They passed us. We were ahead of them. We
had in fact taken the faster route going cross country.
Sometimes you just have to say, “F**k
'em. Which is what I did when I stuck in the left lane up the Merritt
Parkway with our long line of bikes.
It was a great ride, well led, with a
little help from my friends.
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