The Ride Report

I went down to San Diego Saturday to attend the memorial service for the wife of one of my club brothers, who was killed riding her motorcycle. I was expecting it to be a relatively small affair but, boy, was I wrong. It was huge; there were hundreds of riders there. When we turned the last corner leading to the rally point at the Mount Soledad Memorial in La Jolla, we found a sea of motorcycles, and there were so many of my club brothers there that the hillside looked like it was carpeted with our colors. It was really touching to see so many people turn out to pay their respects.

The guy who lost his wife led us in a prayer, then we all rode over to the cemetery where the memorial service was held. The cemetery is about 15 miles away from the memorial, so several hundred bikes all going there at the same time required some, uh, special traffic considerations. I don’t know if the police had sanctioned it or not (probably not), but we provided our own road guard services, blocking off intersections and freeway on-ramps along the way so the funeral procession could proceed without interruption.

I helped block traffic along the way myself, and it was impressive to watch that line of bikes go by. Riding two-by-two at about 30 mph, it took at least five minutes for the whole procession to pass. I tried to count the bikes going by but I couldn’t keep up and gave up when I hit 250, which was at about the halfway point. It was impressive.

There was a cranky old guy in a BMW at the front of the line at one intersection I was blocking and I don’t think he appreciated the wait — at one point I made eye contact with him and he flipped me off and mouthed “fuck you” to me. I was a little surprised (and impressed) by that — he looked to be in his 70s and a little too old for that sort of behavior, but I recovered quickly and returned the favor.

Following the service there was a big party at a local VFW hall, then I and the guys I rode down with saddled up and headed back home. I pulled into my garage just as dusk was falling and barely beat the rain. My daughter was hugely impressed that I had ridden to San Diego and back in just one day.

275 miles, a funeral, running traffic breaks for a 500-motorcycle funeral procession, a party, and an old man giving me the finger, all in one day? I guess maybe it is a little impressive — if you’re 11. I just thought it was cool.