Polar Bear Motorcycles: Riding Among Liberals

CT Polar Bears in Shamong, from left: Token2, Mac, Anonymous Ed (hands only) Grumpy, CT Blogger, Captain.

Motorcycle Polar Bear Blog, Polar Bear Grand Tour, ride to Shamong, NJ, January 22, 2017

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

Riding home Sunday northerly, up the New Jersey Turnpike then the Garden State Parkway, we found ourselves surrounded by liberals. New Hampshire and Vermont licensed Priuses swarmed around us in numbers never before seen. Coexist and Hug a Tree and No Nukes bumper stickers adorned them. And in many ways it was a good thing.

For the most part these drivers were kind and considerate. Traffic flowed more smoothly than usual. People signaled their lane changes, did not tailgate and moved over or slowed to let us merge.

There must have been some milk of human kindness, camaraderie and belief in the better angels of our nature, as the liberals headed home from their Saturday Washington D.C. protests.

Oh there was that one d**k in a Mercedes who cut into our line of bikes, then back out again, then cut off the leader, all to get a few cars ahead. But there is always some jerk in a BMW or Mercedes or Audi on the New Jersey freeways, often sporting Connecticut plates. Not to pick entirely on the Germans, we also encountered a less than polite Maserati. (By the way I love how a pedantic detail like a car having four doors turns into the car's exotic name when spelled in Italian: Maserati Quattroporte, 0-60 in 4.8 seconds, $103 - 145,000, depending upon options.)

Not all the liberals were kind. One of my favorite bumper stickers looked to be made by hand from electrical tape. It said, "Eat the Rich." I'm not even sure what that means, but it certainly seems a less than friendly sentiment.

Connecticut Polar Bears lean both left and right. Talking politics for us is as unavoidable as it is for everyone else in the nation. Fortunately our shared motorcycle experience trumps, um, uh, overrides, any political differences we may have. Your lane discipline, following distance and speed control are much more likely to be criticized than your proclivity for republicans, democrats or tea.

Nevertheless Sunday's pastoral and happy ride dissolved at our home state border. Slogging up the Merritt Parkway we once again were confronted with cars too fast and too slow and too aggressive and half asleep and there were more of them in our short home state run than in all of New Jersey.

Our ride down to the Pic-a-lilli in Shamong (I am NOT making up those names) was pleasantly uneventful. Grumpy led, Mac swept, Anonymous Ed, Captain and I were in the middle, joined by Token2 at the bus stop. I invoked EDP (Early Departure Protocol) for this ride because rain was forecast for later in the day. It worked really well, so well in fact, we were quite nearly the first to arrive at our destination.

Unfortunately rain caught us early all the same. After lunch as we mounted up for the ride home morning fog turned into actual rain drops. Since my riding gear is old, I need to put a rainsuit on top to stay dry. I got the jacket on as my fellow bears not so patiently waited. Token2 assured me the rain was forecast to stop soon and it was only raining in this local town. Feeling the glare of a dozen eyeballs I took a chance and skipped the ordeal of threading rain pants over my already bulky outfit.

Token2 was bang-on. Two miles out of town the rain stopped and never returned until my Honda ST1100 was safe in the garage and I'd peeled all those polar bear layers.