I Should Have Been Riding This Weekend…
Sunday, August 27th, 2006 at 9:46 pm by angrybob
Instead, I worked for much of it.
I was recently invited by a friend to take part in a small group ride to the east side of Arizona. This would have been my first “endurance” ride. The goal was to ride some 500 miles of twisties on Saturday by taking the stretch of the Devil’s Highway 191 (formerly Hwy 666) from Alipne to Morenci and back five times. Each way is just under one hundred miles and I was really looking forward to it.
My problems were three-fold:
- First was the bike. I wanted to leave Friday mid-day yet only passed emissions Thursday night. I had everything I needed to get pates, title, etc., but I just didn’t have the confidence that my almost six month saga was going to properly end. (NOTE: Heh - I just got my six month renewal for insurance today…shhhhhhhh).
That part went well and I now own the bike. - Second was the weather. There was a 30% chance of “Isolated T-Storms” at Alpine and a 40% chance of “Isolated T-Storms”. Now admittedly, I’m a fair weather rider. I don’t mind every now and then getting caught in a rain storm that came out of nowhere, but I don’t purposely ride into them. I don;t have the desire or the proper rain gear. That, and I wanted to put the Futura to the sport-riding test…something that wet roads won’t let sane people do.
- Work. Not much more to say. I worked until almost 11pm on Friday night then went in again Sunday. My problem was that I didn’t sign up for vacation (forgot…DOH!) and was going to play the “sick” card. As the week developed, others in my group really were sick and the work started piling up. It just wouldn’t have been cool.
In the end, the foul weather looks like it all but disappeared after Friday morning when I last checked. I checked again on Saturday morning and poof - bad weather seemed to be gone. That’s just the way it works sometimes. In hindsight, skipping the ride was the right thing to do, because I would have been screwed upon my return to work (after all, its work that keeps motorcycles in the garage!), but I pouted a little this weekend. And my apologies for mentally not being a team player…I secretly wished that it would have stormed the b’jesus out of that area 
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I admire your dedication to your job. The drive to be on motorcycles is great, but in the end the job pays the bills.
If I know it’s going to rain, I usually don’t go either. I have chanced it twice when it was a 30% chance of rain and got caught in gully washers both times, lol. Once during the family vacation and we rode in two hours of the stuff. We have the proper rain gear and it works great! We (my husband & I) always carry them on our bikes. Rain gear is also great for chilly and windy days. They can get down-right toasty warm. So don’t think your rain gear is just for rain.