Edward James Almost

... as in "almost bought the frackin' farm."

We had an epic ride goin' on, this past Sunday. And I will say right now, this accident was no one's fault -- nor will I identify the person who wrecked, other than to say he really does resemble Edward James Olmos... in a helmet, anyway. Anyway, here we are, cruising along too fast on a curvy rural road in the middle of nowhere, when BAM! Down he goes.

We're a group of six. He's #3 in the pack to my #6, so I saw the whole thang, and I was scared. This did NOT look good in any sense. We were going 35-40mph, and he drifted towards the shoulder, got caught up in some loose gravel, went sideways, and over the handlebars into a ditch. OMG.

After everyone got stopped or turned around to check on what had happened, it was obvious his remaining problems were more with his scooter than his bones or internal organs, so that was a big relief. The forks weren't perfectly aligned with the handlebars, any longer, but it wasn't so far out as to think "Gee, this is gonna kill me if I try to ride it back to the country store," so that's what we ended up doing. In fact, it was okay enough that our low-speed ride back to country store convinced the rider that we could limp it all the way back to town, so I followed him all the way back, successfully.

Now, I'm trying to write up some basic "Here's how we ride, and here's what you can expect" rules so people will never feel like they have to ride faster than they're comfortable in riding to keep pace with the gang. 'Cause that's not how we roll! We just wanna have fun, and we're very good about making sure everyone makes it from Point A to Point C (and we really WILL come looking for your bleeding-at-the-side-of-the-road ass if you don't catch up with the rest of us in 5-10 minutes). It is NOT a competition. We're just having some fun, y'all.
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