More Motorcycle Conversations on the Ferry
On Saturday, I rode in to Port Jefferson to hop the ferry. I was heading to Connecticut to meet up with another motorcycle blogger: Chris from EverydayRiding.org who is currently on road trip exploring the Northeast.
When I rode my Speed Triple into ferry parking lot there was a couple on a Harley-Davidson cruiser already waiting to board the boat. We exchanged smiles and a “hi”. I pulled in behind them in the line, hopped off my bike and watched the seemingly never-ending line of cars unloading from the boat that’d just come in.
The gregarious gentleman from the couple turned toward me, smiled and made some small talk.
“Howdaya like that Duc?”
“It’s a Triumph.”
“What?”
“It’s a Triumph.”
“Really?”
“Yea. I love it. “
He walked over to get a closer look at the marque on the gas tank. I can only imagine that he was double-checking my work.
“Oh, okay. Well,… I grew up on GSXAwwws, Ninjizzz,… sooo…”
In that moment I figured there must be something more that would follow the dangling “so,” but there wasn’t. It just trailed off to open-ended oblivion.
It pains me to come to the realization that I’ll never know what growing up riding Japanese sportbikes has to do with not being able to tell the difference between a Ducati and a Triumph.
Happy motorcycle man then walked around my bike and looked at the tires. He smiled at me and said,
“Looks like you aren’t using that whole front tire. You paid for it, you should probably use it.”
I chuckled in spite of myself and replied,
“I’ll see what I can do today!”
People are endlessly amusing 🙂
What a douche. This drives me nuts. You should’ve taken his bike from him, shown him how to ride it, emasculated him in front of his partner and then laughed as you rode away, leaving him there alone to pick up what was left of his shattered ego.
Considering you never use all of your front tire even at the track I would say this guy does not know what he is talking about……..Kenny said it best lol
He really wasn’t a bad guy – just… i dunno. He was trying to be friendly.
I just wish that if people didn’t know the specific details about something that they would speak more generally. Don’t try to sound knowledgeable if you aren’t.
I always have something to say, I can never keep my mouth shut and when someone says something as stupid as “you aren’t using that whole front tire” I would have looked at his floorboards and said neither are you, I don’t see the scratch marks on them 😉
Dumb ass….I like Kenny’s response
I used to be pretty bugged by people’s remarks if I got the feeling they were discounting me. Not so much anymore. I mean, i still do occasionally, but I’m learning to let stuff roll off my back if they aren’t being intentionally mean or something like that.
I’ve come to the realization that people just don’t know what to say to strike up conversation.
It was great to finally meet you. Thanks for taking the time to ride over to have dinner. A shame we weren’t able to ride much together. We’ll have to do it again! 🙂
It was great to meet you, too. Its so nice to be able to put a face and a voice to the words that you read. For me, it makes reading your posts so much more “real”. I love that.
Life is mysterious. Maybe we’ll bump in to each other again when we’re doing something “greater than this” 🙂
I’ve come a custom to just sitting there and not saying a word when people like that approach me. Just to make them feel as awkward as I do for them.
How many cc is that?
– silence
Aren’t you hot with that leather on?
– silence
Who makes a ducati?
– a ravish rage like that monkey that ripped off that lady’s hands (coincidentally in connecticut ;))
Small talk again Fuzz? We’ve had this convo before. Just act crazy next time or keep your helmet on with a blacked out visor for the entire ferry ride.