Polar Bear Motorcycles: Peer Pressure and the Unappreciated Sweep

Bridgewater Bears, back row from left: John J., Captain, Fonz, Scott, Thumper and Mac.
Down front, CT Blogger and Token2.

Motorcycle Polar Bear Blog, Polar Bear Grand Tour, ride to Bridgewater, NJ, Sunday, November 13, 2016.

By: Chris Loynd a.k.a. CT Blogger

We say, "Ride your own ride." It's an important reminder to ride safely within your abilities, assiduously avoiding peer pressure, using your own best judgment. It's also an acknowledgment that each of us is responsible for his own safety.

Still, if we are to ride together, there are a few conventions that serve us all. We take advantage of having a leader who sets a good pace, chooses good lines in traffic and knows where he's going. We take advantage of a sweep who keeps us together, helps any who fall behind and clears lanes of traffic making it safer for us to merge and change lanes. In the pack we keep to a certain code and lane positioning so other riders can predict our actions, keeping the group together and tight in neat, staggered, safe formation.

Or not.

In his book Social: Why Our Brains are Wired to Connect, renowned UCLA psychologist Dr. Matthew D. Lieberman proposes we are social creatures, more than we know, hard-wired by evolution to run in packs. Based upon his brain scan research he writes, "We intuitively believe social and physical pain are radically different kinds of experiences, yet the way brains treat them suggests they are more similar than we imagine."

Supposedly bikers are tough and independent. But we love to ride in groups and join clubs.

You must have courage and a thick social skin to lead a group of bikes. Peer pressure is behind you, sometimes 10 or more deep.

For the Connecticut Polar Bears you run the extra risk of being excoriated in this blog. Sooner or later every CT Bear gets raked over these coals, including the author. Ripping on each other is part of the fun. And believe me, not all of what gets said around the lunch table or over coffee at the top of the Garden State Parkway makes it onto these digital pages.

We encourage everyone to lead a ride at least once. Not all are willing to face the potential pain.

Sunday morning my wife Cynthia asked me if I was going to lead this Sunday. This is the first ride this season where I've started from the start. The first two rides I started Sunday morning from my folks' house in Delaware. I said I might. "You don't decide ahead of time?" she asked. "No," I said, "We generally just call for volunteers."

When I offered to lead as we were gathered at our Dunkin' Donuts starting point, it turned out Captain had already goaded Token2 into taking the lead this week. "You can sweep," he offered. Ah well. Why not?

Off we went, four of us from Stratford: Captain, John J., Mac and me in last position. Captain took the lead which he planned to relinquish in New York when we picked up Token2 en route.

Fonz joined us unexpectedly as we rode past the Fairfield rest stop. I dropped back to let him into our formation ahead of me. At Darien we picked up Scott and Thumper; again I dropped back and waved them into line. Token2 was waiting for us on the shoulder of I-287 and as we passed he shot to the front, offering a perhaps imperious wave as he passed each of us. With near military precision our riders changed sides in their staggered formation as Token2 took his position in front of Captain.

We rode tight and clean right up to the Route 22 exit. I moved over to the lane for north, thinking to control it so no cars cut us off as we exited for south. That was a bad choice on my part. Token2, perhaps swayed by peer pressure, and flummoxed by sun glare on his minuscule GPS screen, followed my lead and led us off onto 22 northbound. In his defense, there was not a lot of time to make that decision.

No biggie! We rode a few hundred yards north, exited into an office park and made a u-turn,, actually two lefts, the last aided by a traffic light.

The short remainder of our ride to the Eagles was smooth and tight. As often happens, the ride home wasn't.

Maybe it's fatigue. Or there is an overwhelming sense of heading home. They say a horse always runs faster on the return trip, a warm stall and grain bag on its mind.

We were a bit disorganized going through the first set of tolls just after we entered the Garden State Parkway. Thumper and I cracked our throttles a bit and caught up to the main body.

After a coffee or coco at the top of the GSP, I rode around to the back of the parking lot to take control of the merging lane so our guys could enter at the top of the lot and would not have any cars in the way opening a clear shot onto the expressway. But Token2 jumped ahead instead of patiently waiting for the cars ahead of me to clear the lane.

As the rest of the group powered onto the Parkway, I was stuck behind two cars that stopped to turn into the parking lot and a third that merged onto a 65 mph speed limit highway at 30 mph. It's a left lane merge no less. So this car was pulling into the passing lane at less than half the speed limit. Scary! Meanwhile our group was now out of my sight.

Fortunately traffic was light here. I was able to find plenty of room and took advantage of the "sport" in my Honda's Sport-Touring designation. I don't know if Token2 ever even knew I was left behind. I caught up to the back of the pack just as they all slowed down awaiting our turn to merge onto I-287.

Now that merge is always a challenge. I'm not sure we've done it right yet in the 14 Polar Bear seasons I've been riding. Pogy and others with training in safe motorcycling have complained. Token2 prides himself on being an accomplished and disciplined rider. So I thought this week we might finally pull off a smooth and controlled merge.

In theory it's a simple process. The last bike in line, the sweep rider, me this week, moves over first. He then holds traffic behind him. As the cars in front of the sweep move on ahead, our riders can file into the now open lane. Then the sweep waits for a break in traffic and moves over to the center lane.

Because this part of 287 approaching the Palisades Mall tends to be heavy, stop-and-go, traffic. we like to take the far left lane.

Rolling down the on ramp, I found a gap and moved one lane left right away. As the cars moved forward, our group began filling in front of me. It was working! Then Captain passed the lead bike, Token2, advancing farther up the on ramp. Meanwhile, with all the rest of our riders in the first lane, I'd already moved over to clear the middle.

But now Captain was impatiently leading a mad scramble mishegas across the remaining two lanes. Following peer pressure the rest of the riders cut in front of cars and worked their way across the lanes. By the time I'd cleared the far lane, they were bunched up in the center and left lane several cars ahead of me. I ended up with six cars between me and the pack. In dense traffic there was no way I could easily catch up to the group. I wasn't about to split lanes or use the shoulder. I took a deep, cleansing, breath and rode my own ride, by myself. Still peer pressure gnawed at me.

We may get this right someday. But not this Sunday.

Traffic finally loosened enough on the Tappan Zee bridge itself for me to make a safe, three-lane, maneuver to rejoin my pals.

After the bridge, Token2 peeled off for I-684 to head from home, handing the lead back to Captain. Unlike our morning ride, it took miles for the bikes to preposition themselves. I think it was only when Mac peeled off for the Merritt Parkway that the mishmash sorted itself, sorta by default.

Meanwhile, Captain, smelling the barn, twisted the wick a few notches. Scott was making peripatetic use of his prerogative in staggered formation. He was also rubber banding, brusquely punctuated by his Harley straight pipes.

As we approached the merge onto I-95, Thumper pulled out of line into the center lane. I rode up even with him to see if all was okay and we traded thumbs-up. I'll have to ask him next week, but my guess is that between Captain's pace and Scott's mercurial lane position, Thumper decided to "ride his own ride."

Thumper actually rejoined us in Stamford. Traffic jamming reunited us this time, instead of separating us as before. By then we were also down to just four bikes: Captain, John J., Thumper and me. Small group riding is certainly less challenging.

Speaking of peer pressure, as we sat around the table at the top of the Garden State Parkway taking our coffee/coco break, Scott was feeling, perhaps, a bit left out. Scott rides with us only occasionally for Polar Bears. He never signs up for the patches and pins. That's all good with us. Anyone is welcome to ride along on one or all the rides, with or without signing up.

So Scott notices all the rest of us have a black stamp on the back of our hands. My guess is he'd noticed for some time that everyone but him had the stamp. He finally worked up to asking, "The stamp, is it a Polar Bear thing or something? Did you all get it when you signed in?"

Uh oh mateys, the black spot!

"You mean you don't have one?" I asked, "Dude! They stamped us when we paid for lunch!"

"Where did you pay for lunch?" he asked. "Right there at the end of the buffet line, the guy with the cash box," I said. "The one we were all giving 15 dollars to," Token offered. If you're reading this from the Fraternal Order of Eagles, Scott has promised to send a check. Oh, and you might want to invest in some stanchions or bigger signs.

The lunch was wonderful, by the way. A non-Connecticut Polar Bear in line with me complained about the $15, it used to be $10. One of the Eagle Brothers overheard and offered that when they first started hosting the Polar Bears they offered us only hot dogs and hamburgers for 10 bucks. This Sunday they offered salad, bread, pork loin with apples, roasted potatoes, pasta, chocolate pudding dessert and the worst coffee I've ever had. There was a small urn with hot, burnt, bitter coffee and a larger urn with cold coffee so weak it looked like tea. It didn't occur to me until just now that I probably should have tried mixing them into one cup.

Oh and as we all sat down to lunch Captain waited almost 15 seconds to mention the election. He was magnanimous though, hardly gloating at all. He and Thumper actually had a measured conversation at the top of the GSP.

See you next week. I'll be starting from Wilmington again and will gladly take one of those comfy spots in the middle of the pack.