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| Riders meeting outside of the Red Kettle |
It all started with Ken’s innocent question on the
Southern California Victory Rider Facebook page, “Is anyone riding Saturday?”
83 comments later a ride was loosely organized. We made our way to a meet point
at Moreno Valley’s Bravo Burger in the Inland Empire (IE) from all over the
Southland – Anaheim, Ontario, La Crescenta, right there in Moreno Valley, as
well as other exotic locations. I bought lunch for the rider coming furthest to
the meet point and I enjoyed every bite. We road in on Victory Visions, Cross
Countries (VCC), and a couple of Harleys; 10 riders on 9 bikes with 5 men and 5
women, as even a distribution as I’ve seen.
I arrived before 9 a.m. for the 9:30 meet because I
missed the thread about the pre-meet meet point for 9 and worried myself a bit
that I’d be riding solo for the day until Tim showed up on his new red and blacked
out VCC with less than 1000 miles on it. His was the bike that we most talked
about for the day, pretty, shinny, and new with an excited rider; Tim is a good
fit with the group. Once the pre-meet group joined us we caught up a bit,
ragged on a couple of riders who bailed on the day’s ride and elected Brad to
lead us out. This was my first chance to get to know Brad and I was amazed to
hear the story of his boating mishap if you can call a 200MPH drag boat crash a
mishap. He is still in recovery but couldn’t resist and little ride to feel the
wind whip by and see the road roll on. Two other riders of note for me were
Dale and Vicki who had finished up a two-week Sturgis Rally adventure totaling
over 4500 miles and still showed up for our day ride. Honors to Vicki, Dale,
and Brad with kudos to Tim for his new ride.
We mounted up and filed out of the parking lot and easily
fell into a nice tight staggered riding formation as Brad led us to a quick
fuel stop at Sam’s Club where he treated us to gas. Well, he used his
membership card and we paid for ourselves. That being done we fell back into
formation and took a short freeway hop to Highway 243 and on up into the San
Jacinto Mountains toward Idyllwild. 243 is a two-lane mountain road which had
been closed just the day before due to a relatively small wildfire of which we
saw evidence in burned out brush and chard trees on and off during the earlier
miles of the 243 hop; even some burned out out-buildings with the residences
saved by heroic acts from the firefighters.
I’ve only been on a handful of group rides and it really
struck me on this ride how easily we fell into riding formations from the
staggered formation of the freeways and surface streets to single file along
the technical mountain road run. I was about mid-pack and we looked like a
snake winding its way along a mountain trail with Brad setting a nice pace and with
a solid riding line through the curves. After a while we had two sub groups,
one a little faster than the other with me in the second group. I never once
rode out of my comfort zone, neither too slow nor too fast but at a nice
relaxed pace. Once in a while a rider would feel like stretching it out and
testing himself and his bike (Tim) and that worked out just fine as well.
Lunch was at the Red Kettle in Idyllwild and there were a
number of bikes already there and more passing by every minute; this is an
obvious destination spot for day riders. We found enough space to park in and
backed the bikes up helping each other up the graveled incline. I sat across
from Ken and next to Brad where I heard Brad’s story and got to know the other
riders a little better. Good food, good ride, better people.
We congregated outside and held an impromptu meeting of
the riding minds and ended up adding two more riders, a couple with one on a
Victory Kingpin and the other on a Cam-Am Spyder. We headed down to the valley
for a final group stop at Tom’s Farm just off Highway 15 with a short stop to
regroup in Hemet at 112 degrees Fahrenheit. We lucked into a good parking area
with shade and a couple of pick-a-nick benches where we could hydrate and
continue the personal interaction. I love sitting on the edges of a group and
observing everyone and the easy conversations and comradery that appeared to be
an extension of the natural way we fell into riding with each other. At one
point Ken commented to me about the quiet way I had about me. Quiet waters?
Could be, but I do enjoy a mountain ride or running rapids and I suppose I’ll
break out sometime.
Thanks for the ride folks, and even better, the
community. Keep the iron side up.
