Martin's Motorsports, where I bought my scooter, offers seminars and other fun events to keep the motoring community interested during the long winter months.
I recently attended one of these lectures, on riding in groups. Unless you count riding with my boyfriend, or avoiding other cyclists on the blacktop course, I really don't have experience doing this. But it's important to know because at some point it will happen when you ride on two wheels.
The seminar was very good, but even better was the group that had sponsored it, and offered some really, really good grub afterwards. The EZ Riders Scooter Club had hosted the speaker from the Valley Forge Star Riders Assocation. Afterwards they offered anyone not in the group to come up and find out more.
And I soon learned that a group might be a way to get on the road, despite my nervousness, and gain more experience and confidence.
When you start out on two wheels, it's hard to feel confident talking to those who have more experience. You don't want to look like a fool, or feel like one. But when I met Hammy, who had spoken about the group, I felt perfectly at ease, maybe because this wasn't a group of people riding to be "bad" or "cool." They just rode for the love of it, and they weren't afraid to admit that love was hard to come by.
Hammy made me feel at ease because he told me when he first got his scooter, he hadn't been able to get through the motorcycle class (kept stalling out when he worked the gear shift) and was deathly afraid of riding his scooter because he kept thinking about how he was going to die while on it.
Those are my fears exactly!
But then he told me once he started riding in the group, he began looking forward to it, and he's riden more than 10,000 miles in less than two years! All because he rode in a group and was no longer afraid.
I always thought it would be harder in a group, because someone could slide out and into me. But they said they've never lost anyone and all ride as much as they can -- even in the winter.
So I'm going to give it a shot, and hopefully it will be the beginning of something good.
Better get to studying my hand signals while I can.
