I remember seeing a series of shots taken during a huge ride in Europe a couple of years ago. They were coming into a city intersection on an elevated freeway. First a couple of people fell then more and more just kept riding into the mess. There were bikes and riders falling all over the place. You wonder if the people were just caught up in the moment and forgot to look ahead.
...and people wonder why my stomach turns as I watch 1,000 riders leave our lot, doing the 'duckwalk', for Rolling Thunder.
I'm from a military family. I love and respect our troops. But, you couldn't PAY me to go on that ride. And that's a shame, because I would love to show my support. Guess I'll have to keep doing it on my own.
Big rides scare the hell out of me. Some riders are worse than soccer-mom-texters in SUVs. No thanks, I'll stick to the hills
There is often a slowdown or complete stop of traffic at that section of I-5.
Vehicles are slowing down to pull into the rest area and drivers speed up at the entrance ramp from the rest area trying to keep from being stuck behind slower traffic.
If you look your 12 seconds ahead you can react to changing conditions otherwise the reaction times pile up and there are collisions. There is usually an accident on that strech of I-5 every week.
A group of very smart, very alert riders with highly honed skills, exercising appropriate cautions for the existing conditions were simply the collective victims of unavoidable circumstances.
That looks like the one I was talking about. The pics I saw were from a car driving the other direction that had stopped and was trying to slow the bikes down. Yet they just kept coming obivious to the mayhem ahead.
Like the guy that was leading when we were on our trip this summer. I saw the trooper on the side and slowed down. He just kept on going and got pulled over. I didn't see brake lights until he was past the trooper.