The other day I registered for the Distinguished Gentleman’s Ride, nothing particularly special about that, my profile tells me my first ride was back in 2015.
But it made me reflect on all the previous rides and how things have changed. Back then I was a father to a couple of young kids, who are now adults and I am now approaching retirement age -how did that happen!
I did my first ride by myself, on my trusty BSA A7 Shooting Star and not knowing if people actually participated in the dressing up part I wore semi-normal bike attire.
I found out later that an old school friend of mine, Noel, had actually been on the same ride, but somehow we missed each other. When the next ride came along I was able to use the donation/messaging system to reconnect with him and we went together. We’ve since done all these rides together and also met up for other motorcycle related activities, I really enjoy his company.
In the last couple of events, we’ve even reconnected with another old school friend. It’s a great vehicle for reconnecting and general socialising, the ride itself is pretty unspectacular but looking at the bikes and chatting to people is great and as they say, this is good for your mental health.
In the earlier years we had to stop at traffic lights and intersections but now, with over 300 riders, we get a motorcycle police escort and the lights are all ‘greened’ for us, so no holdups. I did hear a couple of these police motorcyclists chatting after one event and they were saying how much fun it was.
A couple of years ago we had a new host and in the general briefing before the ride, he talked about himself and relayed how he’d been in a bad place and attempted to take his own life – I couldn’t believe the courage of the guy, I cannot imagine having that kind of courage myself.
I did about 10 of these rides on the BSA Shooting Star and it was utterly reliable. My only issue was on one ride, my rear brake cable broke right before the start and I did wonder if I should continue. I had something like 300 odd bikes in front of me and a pretty ineffective front brake, so I was having visions of myself ploughing into a huge bunch of riders! But by being extra cautious it wasn’t an issue.
For this years ride, I’ll be on my BSA A10 Golden Flash and I’ll be one of the few British bikes attending.
I didn’t write this to attract donations but if you’d like to here’s my link https://gfolk.me/beezageezer
Journey's with British Motorcycles 