This Much Time Has Passed?

August 3, 2008 -- Rod Wiseman Memorial Ride

Well holy Hannah, I had no idea that it has been so long since I took the time to add to my blog. All I can say is that riding became a lot more fun and much more important than keeping track of it all. It seems every time I go out the door, provided it's not raining, it's on my Little Hussy.

There was a stretch of almost a month when I didn't do much riding because of a shoulder injury. That truly stressed me out. After all, this is still my first year as a rider, and I sure didn't want to be stuck here at home unable to go out.

I took part in the Rod Wiseman Memorial Ride, meeting riders from Victoria through to Cobble Hill in Ladysmith to head out to the parking lot at Vancouver Island University in Nanaimo. That was on August 3rd... and it was great being with so many of our biking community here on the island. It tugs deeply at the heart to know you're riding in memory of someone who spent so much time on a motorcycle. There's a truly emotional ache when you put your passenger pegs down in honour of that rider who is no longer with you. Rod was a motorcycle instructor, and many of my friends learned to ride with him and his wife Wendy.

On our way up island, we encountered an accident in Nanoose Bay, and we were fortunate to get past before all the emergency personnel came to slow traffic down to an impossible and impassable crawl. We'd broken up into 5 or 6 riding groups with a leader and tailgunner for each group. We did a nice little ride around Schooner Cove before getting back on the highway in Parksville and heading to Qualicum Beach... yep, to the Beach Hut. Oddly enough, thinking that we'd slowed some because of our little detour, we still managed to be the 2nd group in. And the waiting began! And some more waiting, and waiting. Another group finally arrived and informed us that they'd been held back because of the accident in Nanoose Bay.

Things became even sadder as we waited because the next group to arrive informed us that there'd been a crash between a couple of the bikes. It had happened just as they were heading out to the highway from Nanaimo. It was really shocking to hear that one of the riders had run into Wendy Wiseman, Rod's sister-in-law, and her new Harley. She was wearing all the right gear though, and despite minor damage to the new bike, as well as having her jacket shredded to the arm, she wasn't too bad. They did have to take her to the hospital and it sure put a damper on all of us to hear about this happening.

At this point I realized that my aching shoulder wasn't going to let me finish riding all the way to Campbell River... which also meant a three-hour ride home after that... so I said my sad goodbyes to all the great folks on the ride and headed home again. It was actually the start of a real slowing down for me, though I wasn't aware yet that it would mean no riding at all for a little while. But that's another story.