Eso es sentirse motero<\/strong>, eso es lo que se espera de un amigo motero.<\/p>\nAndy ya est\u00e1 en Inglaterra con Sarah, recuper\u00e1ndose poco a poco, y estoy seguro que alg\u00fan d\u00eda nos volveremos a encontrar, y contar todo esto como una an\u00e9cdota m\u00e1s, con risas, motos, carretera, amistad\u2026<\/p>\n
En \u00e9sta ocasi\u00f3n y dado que Andy no lo va a entender si se lo env\u00edo en espa\u00f1ol, he pedido a Javier Rodr\u00edguez Gesto, profesor de ingl\u00e9s y socio de la Asociaci\u00f3n Moteros de Hoy, que hiciera el favor de traducirlo, y aqu\u00ed va:<\/p>\n
What it means to be a rider!<\/p>\n
Some people just don\u2019t understand the passion one can get to experience when riding a motorcycle. For some bikers, the mere fact of starting the engine to listen to its magical sound gives them goosebumps. Other riders need to feel the adrenaline of cornering fast circuit bends at impossible lean angles, where your kneepads softly caress the flat tarmac. Others simply enjoy travelling around, alone or in groups, more slowly or faster, but anyhow sensing the changes in temperature when coming close to a river, or feeling the smell of burned wood out of a smoking chimney in a remote village, enduring the fresh chilling air of a road across a forest, or marvelling at the sight of multi-coloured flowers in springtime. Imagine this: you\u2019re riding along and you notice an eagle is flying over you, eyeing you from the heights, and suddenly you recall some great moments you\u2019ve had with that rider who, unfortunately, is not with us anymore, but you feel is now keeping you company. That\u2019s kind of how I feel, alive and joyful, you know, just like when a dog takes its head out of the car window and feels the air on its face.<\/p>\n
Some way or another every rider feels the passion in a different way, but we all have something in common, and that\u2019s the idea of fellowship among us. Whether you belong to a Club or you\u2019re a lone wolf rider, anyways, when the time comes and you find trouble down the road, be sure some other rider from another Club, or some other guy you don\u2019t even talk to anymore, will stop by to lend you a hand. Yeah.<\/p>\n
And yet there\u2019s these other blokes who, simply because they\u2019re wearing a motor club waistcoat, believe they\u2019re superior to the rest, when it should be the other way round. Instead, they should be a model of what they\u2019re precisely trying to represent without having to be backed by big powerful motor clubs.<\/p>\n
More often than not, the passing of time, the distance or the everyday routine takes us a little apart from family and friends, but surely in dire need, we\u2019ll stop to give them a hand and prove we\u2019ve never really left them.<\/p>\n
Well, let me tell you a story that took place just about a couple of months ago.<\/p>\n
Back in 2015 I happened to meet Andy Evans, a great rider (and now a close friend). I used to go on road trips with him and some of his friends from Portalegre (Portugal) – yeah, even though he\u2019s English, he landed there with his Harley and settled there. So, on the road, whenever we stopped we would have a beer and laugh at anecdotes, scary moments on the bikes, or our experiences on the road.<\/p>\n
Now, for three years I had been involved with the organization of motorcycling charity events when all of a sudden I was contacted by some Milka employee (yeah, exactly, Milka the chocolate brand!!). My first reaction was \u201cwell, sorry mate, wrong number!!\u201d and I thought \u201cgosh, Milka? It had better been a beer brand, a whiskey brand or a motorcycling brand, but no, chocolate !!\u201d Anyways, they told me they wanted to make a donation of toys to an institution in Madrid caring for children with oncologic problems, having seen we\u2019d done it in Badajoz. That\u2019s why they had contacted me. Well, I explained all the procedures so that they could do the same and find motorcyclists in Madrid, but they insisted they wanted it to be done from Badajoz, starting in Badajoz. The idea was to make up a team of six riders (they would pay for petrol and full board accommodation) in order to film a TV commercial and obviously hand over a truck full of toys.<\/p>\n
You see, what we thought would be an adventure (which really was) resulted in a breathtaking, heart-touching experience, especially when looking at those children\u2019s faces, amazed at the boxes with gifts that we were offering them. The December cold during the journey, the slippery snowy roads of the Madrid Sierra, where the TV spot was filmed, the hours on the bikes, all of that simply vanished when we got into the care centre and felt the warmth in the hearts of those little persons. We didn\u2019t want to leave. Eventually, that proved to be our reward. An unforgettable reward which would always stay with us.<\/p>\n
And there we were, Andy Evans (nicknamed \u201cel ingl\u00e9s\u201d) from Portalegre, Juan Carlos (\u201cel primo\u201d) and Miguel \u00c1ngel from Valencia, Rafael Hernando (\u201cTijeritas\u201d) from Madrid, and Soraya (\u201cCaipi\u201d) and myself from Badajoz.<\/p>\n
A couple of years after that, Andy returned to England and naturally our contact was reduced to social networks. Suddenly, like two months ago, I happened to read on his wife Sarah Evans\u2019 Facebook account that Andy had had a very serious accident and was hospitalized in Germany. I couldn\u2019t believe my eyes!<\/p>\n
Soon after that, I saw that some of Andy\u2019s friends from his motorcycle Club in Portalegre – Grupo Motard Novo Milenio – had organized a fund-raiser to collect money to help Sarah out with the expenses of the journey from England to Germany in order to be with her husband.<\/p>\n
Andy was in a coma for three months, but he\u2019s a strong guy, and those children in Madrid taught him how to fight too, you know, how to gather the strength from nowhere.\u00a0 Our life is in our mind and in our heart. And that\u2019s how he\u2019s recovering.<\/p>\n
Let me quote from Sarah<\/span>: \u201cAndy was on a-week holiday,\u00a0 touring the Black Forest region in Germany, where the roads are incredible and the landscape is spectacular. But on Tuesday 22nd September, at 15.25, he got involved in an accident, near Freudenstadt, Germany. He was run over by a car which came out from his right side after not giving away on a crossroads, and consequently cutting Andy\u2019s trajectory. <\/em><\/p>\nAndy turned left to avoid the car, and as a result the car hit him, not the bike! Andy got most of his ribs broken, both lungs punctured, his right arm broken in six different parts, some of his left upper arm muscles torn, his left shoulder fractured, and a mild concussion. But on top of that, he was in a coma for three weeks, with life support,\u00a0 for his lungs wouldn\u2019t work.<\/em><\/p>\nTwo months after the crash Andy is at home with me, still with some injuries on his arm, and it might take months before starting \u00a0rehab treatment .\u201d<\/em><\/p>\nHaving heard the terrible news, I contacted the Portalegre motorcycling Club – Grupo Motard Novo Milenio – and was told they would soon send Sarah whatever money they could raise. Immediately, members of the motorcycling Club Moteros de Hoy, which I am the founder of, started collaborating with Andy\u2019s cause with whatever money they could afford, leaving their donations in a piggy bank at the Bar El Nuevo Lazo (even though it\u2019s not our Club House, but it\u2019s a typical stop for motorcyclists in Badajoz) for any riders to participate. And, not surprisingly, many left their contribution at the bar, even coming straight down from heaven above (yeah, well, spiritually!) like our friend Ram\u00f3n Menacho \u201cRarri\u201d -who\u2019d left us almost a year and a half now -, whose wife and friends had also met and ridden with Andy, and wanted to take part.<\/p>\n
Due to Covid-19 restrictions, only six bikers could go to Portalegre, but incredibly enough, this time our friend Rarri truly became the Captain of our Route. Just leaving Badajoz, an eagle spread its wings and took off, accompanying us for some kilometres. The first thing I thought was that my friend \u201cRarri\u201d was coming with us, because that eagle kept flying over us for a while (something very uncommon!), its shadow reflected on the road ahead of our bike formation. You know what? I\u2019m still freaking out! And that\u2019s what it means to be a rider<\/strong>!<\/p>\nSaludos y r\u00e1fagas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hay personas que no entienden la pasi\u00f3n que se puede sentir por circular en moto. A algunos el hecho de arrancar la moto y escuchar ese sonido embriagador, ya hace que se le pongan los pelos de punta. Otros necesitan de la adrenalina de tumbadas incre\u00edbles en las que puedes rozar con la rodilla el […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":49,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[13,1],"tags":[1428,1431,1430,622,1429],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hoy.es\/moterosdehoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2990"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hoy.es\/moterosdehoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hoy.es\/moterosdehoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hoy.es\/moterosdehoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/49"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hoy.es\/moterosdehoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2990"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hoy.es\/moterosdehoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2990\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2993,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hoy.es\/moterosdehoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2990\/revisions\/2993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hoy.es\/moterosdehoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2990"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hoy.es\/moterosdehoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2990"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.hoy.es\/moterosdehoy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2990"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/static-blogs.hoy.es\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/45\/2020\/11\/Andy-Evans.jpg\")
<\/a>