The Bilbao Incident

The names of the individuals have not been changed, although the name of one individual has been fabricated due to not having learned the real name.

One important piece of information that sets the stage for this tale is that both motorcycles have UK license plates. In most cases, this works out in our favor, because the people of the European Continent are generally tolerant of the British. There is no lack of uncertainty, however, that several of the "continentals" have said to themselves: "That motorcycle has all the signs of being from the UK, however, the rider certainly rides it like some asshole from California." That's a loose translation from several languages.

So, here is the scene. At approximately 20:30 (8:30 PM), two upstanding, scholarly lads mounted upon steeds of glory enter the city of Bilbao after a long day of riding through mountains, and chasing a misguided GPS system to the current location. On the screen of the GPS flies a triumphant checkered flag, announcing, in it's ever so simple way that we have arrived.

One of the riders taps the GPS as if to indicate "Hey, little buddy, are you sure we're in the right place?". The other rider, lifts his visor and makes audible the sentiment of the first rider: "Colorful neighborhood, huh?"

Before the first rider could respond, a voice says in slightly accented, yet perfect English: "You guys from the UK?"

Both riders turn to see a dark skinned, gangly figure in skinny jeans and a long sleeved, gray polo shirt approach. To this day, it's unknown whether the shirt was actually gray, or if it was once white and made gray from wear. This is the individual of the story for whom a real name is unknown. Through the course of the conversation, we learned that this soul is from the Netherlands, so we'll call him Tweaker Von der Tulip.

The ensuing conversation went something like this:

Rider 2: "Yeah, well, we're from the states, but we left from London."
Tweaker Von der Tulip: "Are you guys staying here?"
Rider 2: "We're meeting a friend who lives in this area."
Tweaker Von der Tulip: "You have a friend who lives here? This is the worst place in Bilbao. There are drugs, prostitutes... do you have a garage for those bikes?"
Rider 2: "No."
Tweaker Von der Tulip: "Well, you should be careful. I wouldn't leave something like that out on this street. You know where there are really good hotels? Over by the museum, that's a better area."

At this point further small talk follows, until Rider 2 says: "Well, we gotta go find our friend. Thanks for the information."

This is the point at which I wish that I had a third party view of the events.

As Rider 1 begins to pull away, he hears a crash and an explicative. Upon turning around, he sees that Rider 2, in his haste, had clipped his left pannier on a light post, and dropped the bike into a wall. Fortunately, the wall prevented Rider 2 from falling all the way over, and provided some support, so he recovers fairly quickly. This is the first of the dropping of the motorcycles.

Both riders make a beeline for the end of the street, and along the way, find the section where the drug dealers and prostitutes hang out. I will tell you this now... there is no discreet way to close a motorcycle visor in a situation to avoid eye contact from all the people who know that you don't belong there and who also know that you don't know that you don't belong there.

Upon reaching the end of this section, a car begins to merge, and at the same time waves Rider 1 on, however, a pedestrian has decided to cross the street without a care in the world. Rider 1 executes an emergency braking maneuver, but Rider 2 is paying attention to the car and fails to see that Rider 1 has stopped moving. Here we have the advent of what is commonly known as a clusterfuck, and it breaks down as follows:

• Rider 2 sideswipes Rider 1, resulting in Rider 1 dropping his bike, the second dropping of a motorcycle within a 45 second period
• Rider 2 narrowly stops in time to avoid the pedestrian
• The car accelerates by giving some sort of international gesture of "How did you like that clusterfuck, you oddly Californian British motorcycle rider?"
• Rider 1 hastily picks up the motorcycle and continues on the way, thereby ending the clusterfuck

The good thing is that both the pedestrian, the car, and both riders left the area without further incident.

Either by coincidence or some cosmic displaced sense of humor, this area of Bilbao is called San Francisco de Bilbao.