I ride my tricycle on rock-hard tires. You don't have to expect grip from former Soviet rubber. But with three bars in the rubbers, the Ural combination runs faster and with thirty horsepower I can tackle whole roundabouts powers-sliding. And that is nice. I think.
Of course there can be no tubeless tires around the spindly spoke rims. So I drive with tubes. Ex USSR inner tubes. I once brought a box full of it from Kladno. If a band with three bars claps, that really gives a blow. I put the team on the roadside and started to fit my spare tire. That is equipped with the toughest Siberian studs, but it would bring me home.
Stop for fellow motorcyclists?
That no longer happens, I knew from previous experience. But exceptions confirm the rule. The Suzuki pilot put his V Strom behind me on the roadside. He was wearing his panic mowers. He placed such a handy flat foot under his jiffy support and set the engine so nicely stable.
Before he started talking, he took off his helmet, a correct gesture. Whether I needed help? I said the case was completely under control and we looked at the exploded tire. I lifted the rear tire off the ground and went to work. In the meantime, we continued to talk pleasantly.
Somehow the chatter came at motorcycle clubs
My helper in the not so bad situation reported that he was a member of a motorcycle club for homosexuals. I always have a hard time with things like that. I understand clubs for like-minded people. But it's about the criteria. Motorcycle clubs? For me, they are about motorcycles. I don't quite understand how someone's sexual, political or religious orientation can be important in his or her hobby. Motorcycling for homosexuals? Shuffleboard for Gryffos? Sculpting for Buddhists? Cooking clubs for vegans? Well, maybe the latter. And there is also a motorcycle club for Muslims. And I understand that in terms of group prayer. Within a non-religious environment, the daily bows to the east could have a disruptive effect on group events.
Moreover, I have seen a very bad example of the combination between motorcycling and being religious. I once spoke to someone in a wheelchair in a motorcycle shop. When he realized in a long, fast turn that he had made a judgment error, he had thrown his hands up in a reflex and called on his creator. It was apparently just as offline at the time. That was the end of a motorcycling career. What was strong again was the genuine 'Inshallah' with which the story ended.
But a motorcycle club for homosexuals?
In all the years that I ride, I have never been interested in the sexual, religious or spiritual thinking of fellow motorcyclists of the genders known to me so far. I have never seen much in motorcycle clubs for general practitioners, pulmonologists, guinea pig fighters, math teachers, second generation war victims and so on. I believe in a motorcycle club for war veterans. And things like Satudarah and the Hells Angels? They are only referred to as 'clubs' in the media. And at brand or type clubs I can also imagine something. I have a motorcycle-riding knowledge that I know he loves men - he has a BSA A65 Lightning, I know the motorcyclist with Arabian roots mainly from his Kawasaki six-cylinder engine and there are a few more. Including a motor-driven acupuncturist. And what about Ghislaine with the astonishing bottle-green eyes? He drives better than I have ever seen a man do. But because of her lobbying in Brussels, she naturally learned to navigate very sharply.
The friendly motorcyclist who had stopped to offer his help saw something different
He had not become a club member for the most adventurous reasons. As a gay man he just felt less at ease between groups of heterosexual men. So it was a vulnerability thing. And we fully understand that nowadays. But for me it is all overrated. I slept in a tent between two women without sinful thoughts. I slept in a small tent with three too big guys.
I had my only sexist prejudice in a conversation with Jinny, Madame électricienne. The gays and humos that always appeared in the conversation? Those were the HoordMotower and the HulpMotower aboard the ferry where she did the wiring.
Let us not make life more complicated than it already is.
