OK, so here is the deal. I used to ride with the American Legion Riders on my motorcycle. Not often, but enough. However, I have stopped doing so. There are a lot of reasons for this, but the primary ones are that I am not a huge fan of group riding in the first place. Couple this with my desire to keep riding after more than fifty miles and the riding styles between myself and them simply diverge heavily.
I ride a lot. I ride for very long distances, and see a lot of stuff. I could care less where the next bar is to visit, because I would rather be riding. I sometimes ride further before breakfast than some of the rides that the ALR will do in a full day. Couple that with what I consider to be unsafe riding habits and I simply won’t ride with them anymore. I won’t go into what those unsafe habits are here, because I don’t want to call anyone out.
In general the ALR is kind of disappointing to me as well. They are using the riding as an excuse to fund raise. I get that. But that is ALL they do these days. There is no riding for the enjoyment of the ride. There is also the issue of where the funds go from these fund raisers. No, there isn’t any bad stuff going on…the money is going towards good causes. They just happen to be causes that are not very high on my priority list. I think that the funds could be used towards other causes that can use them better. However, I am not one to judge.
So yeah. I was planning on making this entry a lot more caustic, but as I wrote it I just can’t do it. There are some things that I could say that would probably blow some people’s stacks if they saw them, but it isn’t in my nature to bad mouth people.
