It was back in mid-July when I got an email from our Vice-Chairman. A young woman had reached out through the contact form on blueknights.de with what she called an "unusual request." (You can find the original version of Luis's report here)
Her biggest wish was to ride on the back of a motorcycle one more time. Since she lives in the Münsterland area, Axel forwarded the request to me.
Kim is 30 years old and has had a brain tumor since birth. Because it also affects her eyesight, she's never been able to get a driver's license. So riding as a passenger was the closest she could get to feeling that freedom on two wheels. She'd tried to make it happen through classified ads, but none of the replies ever felt trustworthy or serious enough to actually go through with.
Can't say that surprises me. So she turned to the local police, and a friendly officer there pointed her toward the Blue Knights. After looping in the board for a quick word, I wrote to Kim, we swapped contact info, and met up at a café to get to know each other. We hit it off right away, and agreed to make her wish happen. After a few health-related delays on both sides, yesterday was finally the day. I picked Kim up at her place in the morning, where she was already waiting for me in her brand-new riding gear.
She got a bit of a surprise too — I wasn't riding alone, Trudero had decided to tag along.
So off we went, cutting across the northern Münsterland. First order of business: get a feel for how she handled being on the bike.
Didn't take long at all — Kim turned out to be a great passenger, I barely had to hold back. 🙂 Along the way, right on schedule, we met up with Bernd, and now it was three bikes rolling together. We kept a good pace all the way to the Nordkirchen bike meetup, where Trudero and Bernd got to know Kim a bit better over a cup of coffee. For the next stretch, up to Drügen Pütt,
Kim rode with Trudero on his BMW, then switched over to Bernd's Super Ténéré. From there, without Trudero, we carried on to the Longinusturm, where Bernd said his goodbyes too, and I took Kim back home. Kim was over the moon as she thanked me and said goodbye — and pretty worn out too, to be honest. Because truth be told, Kim had been expecting a short little loop. In the end we were out together for almost six hours and covered about 220 km. Not bad at all for a first time, if you ask me. I think she did brilliantly. Oh, and the three of us had a blast too, didn't we, guys?
Lui Blue Knights Germany XVII
*Is this even "charity"? No idea, honestly. Didn't matter — it made for a nice headline. Truth is, it was simply a beautiful day.
To be repeated. 😊
