Thursday, March 22, 2012

Running With The Pack


Rolling in a pack. Man, it's such a cool feeling. It could just be you and a brother or sister, or it could be dozens riding to a run or a funeral. You get a real feeling of connection with your riding partners. It's hard to describe that to people who don't ride. It may just be impossible to understand until you experience it.

Hell, it can even translate into driving cars and trucks. I remember one time my ex and I were moving. A bunch of the brothers came over in their pickup trucks to help. I was leading the way to the new place in my car, and since we were all driving cages instead of riding, we got separated. However, when I signaled to exit the interstate, I looked in my mirror to make sure everybody saw me, and I'll be damned if every single one of those vehicles, separated by multiple cars, even, didn't move into the exit lane at the. Exact. Same. Time.

Every group, whether a club or just a bunch of friends who ride together a lot, develops a style, and the members of the group learn to almost read each others' thoughts. Gestures and a certain sign language develop that may not mean anything to anyone else, but can convey all kinds of things to the group.

I recently had a couple of experiences riding with brothers that brought home that telepathy that has developed within my own club. I was leaving a gathering and there was one brother who lived in the same direction as me, so of course we rode together. Now, I've never ridden one on one with this man before. We've both been in the same large pack, but never even in a small group together. Yet, when we pulled out onto the street, we fell into a certain rhythm. Hell, I think we were even shifting gears at the same time. You know you're synchronized when you can ride handlebar to handlebar with somebody for the first time and never feel nervous about it. He was riding on the left and I was on his right, and even when he needed to exit the interstate first, it was like we'd rehearsed the shift.

A couple weeks later, four of us had gone out of town and while we were on the highway on the way home, I realized that without even thinking about it, we'd fallen into riding positions that enabled those who needed to exit first to do so without disrupting the pack. The guy in the right rear had his exit first, then the guy in the left rear, etc. We never talked about it or planned it, or hell – even thought about it. We just subconsciously knew where to position ourselves.

Connection.

It's such a good feeling; and those who refuse to ride in a group will just never know what they're missing.

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