Sturgis, Bike Weeks and the One Friend Left at Home

by Leslie
(Old Orchard Beach, ME)

I do not ride. I would like to ride and I have made it abundantly clear that I am fine riding pillion behind some stud should my friends want to set me up. So far, no takers. I am an independent woman, a very smart and very mouthy independent women. So don’t give me any of that crap about being my own woman. I am that and can still be that without having to buy my own bike. Meanwhile, my group of friends, which includes quite a few biker lasses, some obvious, some quite shocking to see on a bike, are all getting ready for a number of events. There are six of them heading to Sturgis this year and while that is all great for them, it means that I am the one who is officially manning the phone. I did it for their Daytona run a few years ago when two of them took off on a rather half-baked and unplanned bike week trip. This year is different. This year, they know what they are doing. Or, at least, that is what they keep telling their friends and family.

I am no sexist. I have changed the tire on every vehicle I have ever owned as well as the oil and more than a few miscellaneous parts. My dad taught me a split finger knuckle ball that would stymie the greatest batters in the game. I can talk hockey, bikes and beer with the best of anyone. I am, though, a realist. It is dangerous out there for any biker, let alone a group of women bikers. Of these six, I know that two can hold their own on the open road and those two are the only ones I would ever want on my side in a brawl. (Ironic that the “non” biker of us is the one that always seems to run the yap that gets a brawl going in the first place.) That Trish even owns and rides a bike is a shocking thing to all of us. She is dainty, prissy and definitely not really what you would call a “biker.” Other than the fact that she does in fact own her own bike and rides it, you would never dream of her even knowing about Sturgis, but there she goes. I hope that no one ends up knocking her cutesy-pie helmet off of her even cutesier head. So, I will sit here and wait for that phone call: Trish is hurt, missing or worse.

Every group of friends has to have that one who is perpetually betting her heart on the nearest beefcake and then weeping into her whiskey when it goes belly up. She has been married three times already and no longer owns the cute little house she bought with her own hard earned money. Ask sometime; it’s really quite a story. She is lucky to have managed keeping her bike on that deal. I will sit here and wait for the call that Becky is getting married again.

One year, I will go with them or another group of my friends to Daytona for Bike Week or to Sturgis or somewhere, anywhere, just us girls and the open road. Until then, I will be the one that takes the calls and makes sense of it all of for them when they finally get back.