I went on a "Love Ride" once which is a Jay Leno and a few other folks' motorcycle benefit ride, and it was a joke!! All the weekend warriers out there (motorbike was my only transpo myself) and tons of breakdowns, lost riders (which I ended up in a group of) and it was a real malee.

I can only imagine that big, well-advertised bike rides are going to bring out a ton of freds, yes right now being out of training/out of shape/out of practice I'll gladly call myself a fred. Defensive riding and strategic planning just a GOOD idea!

As for Pro riders, I don't want to use hokey terms like "men of steel" or "people of steel" but ..... when you're in pro shape we're talking skin, bone, and highly trained muscle. Maybe 150 lbs for a man, 110-120 for a woman, and all of it like spring steel - you can fall and not take it nearly as hard as the average 200lb American or even my 140lb out of shape lardass. Let's see, do I want to land on my wrists after training them up for a year, bearing weight on the handlebars and building up the bone and muscle, meawhile decreasing bodyweight, or do I want to fall on 'em as they are, out of condition, probably lost a lot of buscle, tendon, and bone strength with my years out of riding, and putting my lardy weight on 'em? Ouch. Who knows, let's hope not but if I ride this weekend and my fat dumb azz falls down, it might be time for the helicopter, it's not impossible. At least I'll be a good citizen and pay the bill.......