6/25/09 Biker Puberty

365 Group (f)

Today would be a good day to go fishing. Clear and sunny. Not an offensive looking cloud in the sky. To my way of thinking a perfect day to ride over to the lake and do a little bank fishing from the shade. There is only one thing wrong with this plan. Work. Oh well, hopefully there will be other days.

I managed to get around early this morning and was on the road a good half hour ahead of normal. Thinking this amazing feat over I decided to make a run down some of the back roads. Maybe someone else had the fishing idea? I pulled on to Blue Springs Road with the thought in mind of riding down to the ramp area and seeing if there were any early risers wetting a worm. Along my way I came upon one of the local characters,a young guy I'll call Chuck, on his bike beside the road. Knowing that he didn't ride very much, I pulled up expecting to hear that something had gone "pop" instead of "bang". Shutting my engine off I asked what the trouble was. No trouble. Just taking a break. How far you coming from this morning. Just the house. Hummm, a whole three or four miles? Yep! Then it hit me he was serious. I asked him if he felt OK and he replied yeah. Just restin up for tonight. Tonight? Yeah, Bike Night is tonight. OK?? I couldn't help myself and asked, you don't ride a lot do ya? Nope, once in a while. That explained a lot about this situation. Bike Night you say? yeah it's a big deal every Thursday night over at Jose's in Fayetteville. Everyone rides over and shoots the breeze or a beer and something to eat. The bike nights we used to have had gotten kind of stale and I as well as some of the other riders in the area had stopped going. If he was needing to rest up this early for tonight's bike night, maybe there was something new and improved going on. I started to ask him about what all was happening now days when I got a look at the time and had to take off.
I couldn't help thinking about him needing to rest up. Guess I'm going to Bike Night tonight.
I pulled on to Hwy 412 from Blue Springs and headed East. Traffic was light and moving along really well. Before I knew it I was coming into town. Coming up on the Harps Grocery I noticed a couple of riders in the lot that I recognized. I pulled in and ask whats going on with bike night these days. They both said "same old same old." I quickly told them of my earlier conversation with Chuck and they both looked like I was conning them. They both couldn't remember anything special last week. Just a few beers and a little visiting.
I pulled back out and "pin balled" my way on up to work. It was kind of an odd way to start my morning.
As my day wore on I asked everyone at work that rode a bike if they knew of anything "special" about Bike Night lately. No one seemed to know anything more than I did. Finally I ask a line supervisor named Lynn and told him about Chuck. Lynn started grinning from ear to ear. "Chuck is the best part of the show at bike night". What? Seems Chuck discovered bike night sometime last year and hasn't missed one since. From what I gathered, it was the most exotic thing he's ever experienced. According to Lynn, Chuck acts like he has crawled inside one of the better issues of any of the old bike magazines from the seventies. He really "walks the walk and talks the talk." Lynn said I need to go and just watch the "Chuck show". If nothing more than to get set straight on the true meaning of "old school." The more I listened to Lynn about Chuck it dawned on me. Chuck was going through "biker puberty". I told Lynn my theory and he stopped and thought for a second. I never thought about it like that but that's what it is. Most of us in our circle of riders are older. Chuck is standing on the outside. Not in our group and not in the group his age. That's why he is so noticeable and comical. That was it!
Thinking, as I noticed Lynn doing the same, about "biker puberty". OUCH!!!!
I'm still going to Bike Night tonight. I've got a bunch of other "hard cases" lined up to go with me. Lynn said he and a couple of his riding brothers would be going too.
Who knows, we might be able to give Chuck a hand and nostalgically wax the fact we were all once young.
Catch ya on the road