Women ride

This past weekend (the first one in May) was wonderful, emotional and sad. 

On Saturday, May 2, I woke up to loads of sunshine and the first order of business was the bike blessing at the downtown park strip.  I meandered down and it was awesome to see the hundreds of bikes lined up on all of the streets surrounding the area, as well as the tents with vendor wares, motorcycle groups with T-shirts for sale, my friend sewing on patches. 

Bikes were lined up like this all the way around the block and then some.

It was fun to see the bikes coming and going, to see people I’d not seen in a while, and to visit with others that I’d just seen the previous day.  The sun made everything bright and cheerful, and I had a warmth about me that made me feel good.  Maybe the temperatures are getting warmer.  No matter the reason, I was glad to be out and about.

Personal bike blessings were available if you wanted them.

From the park strip I rode Princess Bee-a-trix out to the New Motorcycle Shop on the Old Seward Highway where women with bikes of every denomination were meeting.  It was International Female Ride Day and we were going to ride to Hatcher Pass for lunch and a photo.

When I arrived at the shop there were about 20 bikes, maybe more.  It was impressive to see this group of women with all makes and models, big and small, standing around and waiting to mount their two-and-three-wheeled steeds.  

Jaz handles the pre-ride safety briefing.

And the sun was shining down on us, lighting the path we’d follow, after our illustrious leader, Jaz, of course.  The Purple Haze was the sweep of the day.  The first challenge would be getting through the light to get onto the Old Seward Highway.  That didn’t go well.  We lost several of the ladies.  They’d catch us.

The road was laid out in front of us, pavement filled with cars, trucks and other bikes going their own separate ways.  They didn’t present any problems for us.  We had a great ride, arriving at the Hatcher Pass Lodge and its dirt parking lot.  Whoops.  Bike down.  No damage.  We found out another bike slid out in a corner.  A small amount of damage, but the important part is there were no riders injured in any of these obstacles to our riding day. 

The setting was gorgeous ... a road, bikes and snow where it should be, in the background.

Lunch was probably the most difficult part of the journey as there was one cook and one serving person.  It went very slow.  And that’s all I have to say about that. 

Waiting for food.

 

It truly was beautiful ... and there were ladies basking in the sun.

The lodge was perfect with an interesting decor.  With the sunshine it made for a great time to visit and look around.  All too soon it was time to head back to town and to the barn. 

Good night.  Tomorrow will be a hard day ... an anniversary.