Friday late afternoon we got a break from the heavy rain and decided to ride to Oark for some dinner. The trip to Oark was great, mostly gravel roads. All 3 of us ate dinner and enjoyed it as usual.
It was dark when we left Oark, and the fog had set in pretty good. I had some trouble getting the gps to re-route us back to camp with just staying on the pavement, but finally got it to cooperate. We road out of Oark heading west on 215 then onto 103. The visibility was very poor, maybe 15 feet at the most. Anyone that has ridden 103 knows the constand tight curves and switchbacks. It was very slow going traveling between 20 to 30 mph. Switchbacks and some curves were at 10 mph.
With all of the curves, all I could do was take a very quick look in my mirror to insure that the rider behind me was still back there. Could not tell if the 3rd rider was far behind or not. The road finally straightens out for a bit and I can start to look if the 3rd rider was coming or not. I did not see him, so i slowed down to about 10mph for a bit to see if he would pop up over the hill or not. He did not show in my mirror, so I pulled off and left the lights on. 2nd rider pulled up and said the 3rd fell waay behind and was not keeping up. About 5 minutes later, the 3rd rider pulled up to me and cussed me out about leaving him behind. I began apologize and then started to explain that I had no idea he was that far behind, and he then told me to f off and that he would find his own way back to camp. 3rd rider then gassed it and left.
Stunned, feelings hurt, we wiped down our faceshields again, geared back up and started to ride ourselves. It took us 2.5 hours to get back to camp due to having to stop because of faceshield fogging, and some gps issues wanting us to go gravel/logging road at one point. The fog heading up that way was even worse, and the deer were moving also. In the two hours that it took us to make it back to camp, the 3rd rider had managed to make it back, load up all of his camping gear and bike, and left camp to go home. No concern I guess about wheather or not we actually made it back or not.
I'm a little confused and upset over all of this. I have ridden with this guy before several times since we are what I thought, pretty good friends. I or him has always waited at the turns off of roads that we were making, etc. for everyone to catch up. I've only been riding for 3 years now. 3rd rider has been riding since a child, and is 50 yrs old now (still acts like a child sometimes too apparantely). 3rd rider was on a bmw r 1000 gs, myself and my other friend were on klr 650's.
I'm not sure that I really did anything wrong here. There was nowhere safe to pull off during that mess witht he tight curves and switchbacks. This also prevented me from babysitting all 3 in my mirror. It was all eyes on the road in this weather. Just looking for opinions on this situation I guess. Not sure what I could have done different, how I should be feeling about all of this, etc. No emails or phonecalls from him since.
It seems clear that this was a tense situation and thus potential to ruffle nerves was high. It was dark and foggy, and perhaps cold, too? Perhaps there had been some disagreement about the wisdom of riding to dinner in the first place? (I don't know of course.) Maybe this guy had felt like a 3rd wheel in your group because of events leading up to this night? (For real or imagined reasons.) Then perhaps some tension as you futzed with your GPS. Perhaps he argued that he knew the way but you wanted to figure it out on the GPS?
