Rides Stimulate More Rides

I took a ride Sunday with one of the newest members of our riding club, Jack. Actually, he and I rode last Thursday, as well as Saturday.

And after the ride, well into the evening, each of us rested in our homes and chatted together on our cell phones.

"Do you realize we just did 330 miles of riding today?" he asks.

"Was it 330 miles?" I answered.

"330 fricken miles!" he says.

Jack went on to say how this whole week has been awesome, starting with a short little ride on Thursday, a ride up to Joshua Tree National Monument on Saturday, and a ride out to the Salton Sea on Sunday. I could hear the satisfaction in his voice.

"I mean what more could I ask for?" he goes on. "We rode some roads I had never ridden before, and been to places I had never been, and rode a ton of miles!"

He also expressed enthusiasm when he asked, "Hey, did you see that Joe posted an overnight camping trip on the forum for later this month?"

"I saw that!" I said.

"I am going", he said emphatically. "I think it's cool that he's putting this together, and I want to support him on it".

"That's because he had such a great time on the last overnighter we did", I responded.

"Well, rides stimulate more rides", Jack said.

And that's a good point. When people have fun on rides, they want more rides. Except what we try to do in this riding club is encourage everyone to make something happen. Instead of having a club leader, we empowered each person to take matters into their own hands, and make something happen with this group of riding junkies.

And I'll give credit to Jack, he made the Thursday, Saturday, and Sunday rides happen. He called people up, posted on our forum, and rallied the folks together.

And now today, a Monday, Jack is trying to get me out riding this afternoon. Neither Jack or I are retired, we're just fortunate to have jobs that give us this kind of freedom. And while I do have plenty of things to do with my work, I can't help but reward that kind of enthusiasm for riding.

"Yeah", I told him. "I'll meet you at the Shell Station at 10:00am".