I sort of have this mentality...maybe just a selfish motive, but when I go riding, I am perfectly content with going it alone. At times I will ride with others, but it is because they know I have the good roads picked out, and it all falls into my schedule. When I say my schedule, I mean we will ride someplace, take a scenic photo or two, stop if something is interesting, and have a beer close to home before parting company.

I have tried a few group rides, I get tired of all the delays, the constant monitoring of the group so we all stay in the group, etc. I will do one of these on occasion, but I am not into these types of rides because it takes me away from the element of being on the bike and looking at the world and only having to pay attention to where the bike is going and what is ahead.

Fortunately my college roomate just bought a new Indian Chieftain, which he really likes to ride...after he got divorced and sold his BMW K1200Gt. Anyway, he is the "follower" type, so I just call, ask how many miles we should put on, and he is all in. We will stop for a beer on the way home, and call it a day. We once stopped at a place about 12 miles from home, had a beer and watched the poker run crowd stop in. They probably had put about 50 miles on the bikes, and were soaking up alcohol like prohibition was being re-instated the next day. Anyway, not my type of an idea for a ride, but the gang of bikers was about twenty bikes and they were having a good time by their standards.

Photo of the ride from yesterday.