Ride of the Patriots 2019

Memorial Day weekend in DC means Rolling Thunder. I've been seeing lots of motorcycles for several days leading up to the event. I made my plans to set up on a bridge over Interstate 66 to photograph the Ride of the Patriots, which is a group of riders who line up in Fairfax and who then ride to the Pentagon to join the Rolling Thunder riders. Well, I botched it:

1. I got there too late; the best spots on the bridge were taken and I had an obstructed view of the road as a result.
2. I somehow managed to get my camera into single focus mode and couldn't figure out how to get it into continuous focus mode. It's not obviously marked on the camera. No problem, I thought, I'll just look at the manual...
3. But I had left my phone in the car, and I'd lose my (bad) spot if I left to get my phone, on which I could read the camera manual.

OK, I had to improvise. I basically picked a spot on the road, then focused on that spot, then waited for motorcycles to enter the frame. I managed to get some keepers after all.

Nice Shirt

The ride is dominated by men. Almost all of the women in the ride were hanging on to a male rider. At least that's the way it has been in previous years, and this year was no exception. But, surprisingly large numbers of women rode this time. With thousands of bikes going by, I look for a few things that stand out to be worth shooting. Beards, tattoos, facial expressions, gestures, children, helmets, the rare female rider, ...

What a Beard!

Of course the cops were busy providing traffic control. So I guess you could say they were in the ride too.

Fairfax County's Finest

There are so many back seat riders using their phones, I wonder how many phones get dropped on the road during the ride...

Selfie?

Another theme this year was the number of smokers. There were lots of cigars, and a few cigarettes.

Got a light?

This guy's working on a painful sunburn. Maybe he burned his face riding to Fairfax the day before?

Red Face

This kid is hanging on to the flag and his rider, maybe his/her father? I saw lots of women riding as passengers, and a few children, and even a dog.

Hold on Tight!

I guess makeup was important for this rider. It seems most of the women riders show more skin than the men. Talk about skin abrasion if she falls.

Lipstick

And finally, here's a nice smile to end the series of photos:

Smile!

This year the riders did a poor job of keeping a consistent distance from the bike ahead, and consequently large gaps opened up. Toward the end of the ride, the motorcycles were going by really fast to close the gaps and it became hard to get good shots as they whizzed by. I eventually just put my camera down and watched the show.

The organization that organizes Rolling Thunder announced that this was the last one; they're not doing this anymore. Well, we'll see. Maybe the local chapters will figure out how to keep it going, maybe with smaller groups of riders. Or maybe the national chapter will settle their grievance with the Pentagon over costs and perceived sleights. But maybe this was my last chance to shoot these people and to hear the deep rumble of thousands of bikes.

One last bit about my camera... In spite of my issue with getting it into the right mode to follow objects while maintaining focus (and I've since read the manual and fixed that setting), I'm loving my new camera. I'm stunned by the high quality of the photographs, the ability to do aggressive cropping and still have a nice, sharp photo, and the fact that I've had it for a few months now and still haven't filled the buffer.