Riding Season on Hold

I spend at least a few minutes each day browsing a couple of motorcycle forums. One, advrider.com, is an excellent source of information and inspiration for all things concerning my BMW R 1250 GSA. The other is hdforums.com and feeds my appetite for information about Harley Davidson motorcycles. The former is geared toward all motorcycle riders interested in adventure style riding while the latter focuses exclusively on Harley Davidson bikes.

There is one type of thread that shows up with some regularity on both forums in some fashion or another. It has to do with which of us are "real motorcyclists". I generally avoid these threads, but sometimes they pop up in unexpected places and I find myself reading down the rabbit hole. The arguments range from type of motorcycle, how it's equipped, the type and amount of riding gear worn by the rider, the number of miles ridden each year and wrenching skills. It all makes for some righteous internet outrage.

This was on the day Wisconsin went into Safer at Home.

But the one thing that defines all motorcyclists is our desire to ride. Maybe it's around the block or it's around the world, but we all own motorcycles in order to ride them. In the northern hemisphere some of us parked our bikes when the neighborhood was alight with jack-o-lanterns. We have spent the last several months planning the routes to new or old destinations. The bike magazines have been filled with articles about rallies and events scheduled for the 2020 riding season. Some of us attended motorcycle shows over the winter, perusing the latest bikes and bike gear. As the calendar turned to March, the beginning of the season for north country riders, the anticipation built.

Back in December the news out of China was troubling, but China is far away. The months of January and February did not bring about any real concern. I attended the International Motorcycle Show in Chicago on 8 February and the Automobile Show in Milwaukee on 27 February. I purchased a ticket for the Milwaukee Brewers opener to be played on 26 March. But by early March I began to sense that things had changed. If the Brewers did play their opener on schedule, it looked like it would be to an empty stadium. I took the BMW out for its first ride on 7 March, but there were ominous clouds on the horizon.

The new Acura NSX in Milwaukee.

The world changed on the evening of 11 March. A National Basketball Association player had tested positive for the coronavirus and the league shut down play indefinitely. All college and pro sports soon followed suit and we have been on a path toward isolation since. As I write this. my state, Wisconsin, is under a Safer at Home order until at 24 April. This means all non-essential businesses are shut down and citizens are expected to stay home unless they have a good reason to be out.

The result is the riding season is on hold. All of the planning may in fact be for naught, as we are in the grip of a pandemic the likes of which we have not seen in over a hundred years.
Whatever your attitude toward other bikers, we are all faced with the same reality. Bikers want to ride, and it may not happen in 2020. A popular refrain in the media is, "We are all in this together" and that applies to all of us as motorcyclists, no matter how we or others define the term. There will be stories of compassion, heroism and sadness throughout the next several months, or however long it takes to find a  vaccine for COVID 19. As motorcyclists, let's use this as an opportunity to realize that there is more that brings us together than keeps us apart.

Stay safe, wash your hands and keep those riding plans handy!