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The Dinner Ride
The Dinner Ride
August 3, 2010
By: Ken Foster
I feel like most of us the infamous dinner ride isn’t about the destination so much as it is about the journey. Of course if there was an organized ride to some local McDonalds or Dairy Queen I’d probably have to pass without bothering to look into the route. Since my discretionary budget for eating out is limited my idea of an organized dinner ride doesn’t involve an eating establishment I can go to anytime.But what does it take to put on a well-executed dinner ride? I can’t speak for other groups but for the one I usually ride with the dinner rides begin with an idea for a destination at our monthly meeting. If the idea is a good one we agree to do it, determine the date, time and meet up location. Most of our dinner rides are on Wednesday and Saturday nights. Then someone qualified has to volunteer to lead the ride. Then the ride must be posted in our meet up group. But the ride doesn’t end there, as a route for the return trip has to be planned even though most of the riders drop out of the return ride when they reach a turn for their home trip.
With just a few exceptions, our club president Chris Rice has planned the route, handled the entire meet up information and led most of the rides this year. That’s a real chore especially since we never know how many bikes and riders will show up. Even though we have an RSVP for the ride things do happen and someone doesn’t show up or they forget to RSVP and just show up (which is a real treat because we end up with more bikes).
Our latest ride from when this was written was Saturday July 31. We left Al Lambs Honda dealership at 5:15 pm. It was the hottest part of the day at 104°F so only the most hardcore or foolish of us showed up. We were headed to Snuffers in Rockwall, which from the dealership was only an easy fifteen-minute ride to the east, by highway.
However Chris had other plans because who wants to just spend fifteen minutes riding? So we headed north on 75 to McKinney and worked our way through its scenic downtown area. I can’t remember all the roads in McKinney we were on but we ended up on the way to the airport before turning right on FM 546 then turning right on FM 3286 crossing lake Lavon. Eventually reaching a light at a three-way intersection. We turner left on Southview Dr. Then another left on FM2514, which took us into scenic Wylie after a quick stop for some water. Another left on hwy 78 then a right on hwy 205 took us into Rockwall, there we took the fork to FM 740 then right on Laguna Dr and into Snuffers parking lot. It was about an hour and a half ride in the heat and we were all ready for the AC.
Even with the heat and a very low turn out we still had a great time. After a wonderful dinner with friends we split up and three of us made our way back home stopping for a well-deserved ice cream before saying good-bye.
Putting on a dinner ride takes a lot of work and planning before the kickstand goes up. The weather doesn’t always cooperate and rider skill levels vary, as does the turn out for the ride. But spending the evening doing what we love with like-minded friends makes the thankless behind the scenes work worth it.
