Eddie Doyle was pleased with what likely was his last motorcycle ride.
Traveling with around 110 motorcycles, Doyle rode Saturday night from the Adams Street Place care center out to Osage Bend and back.
"It was hard to believe," he told the News Tribune.
The best part, he said, was "when they started up the bikes" all at once.
Doyle, 76, is in hospice care, suffering from progressive supranuclear palsy.
In a recent conversation with his nurse, Doyle talked about his memories of riding, and without telling him, she and a co-worker began working to fulfill his dream.
"They kept it a secret from me until about two days ago," Doyle said.
"Big Jim" Rosenberg, of Jefferson City, state director for the American Legion Riders, put out the call for those 110 motorcyclists to join the Saturday evening ride.
"I got a call from Hospice Compassus" telling him about Doyle, Rosenberg said. "One of his last wishes is to take a ride on a motorcycle again.
"Who am I to not help grant this man his wish?"
Rosenberg said the route was chosen to avoid four-lane highways and "to take him on a beautiful ride and see some countryside - and we have to get out of the city to do that. I want him to feel safe and enjoy the ride."
Doyle, a retired auto mechanic who once operated his own service station, noted Saturday his legs are weak from the disease, so he rode in a special sidecar.
And that "third wheel" had a different, but good, "feel."
Mike Hardin owns that sidecar, which he also uses for a son who has cerebral palsy.
"He just loves it," he said. "Usually with my son, I stay on straight roads," because riding with the sidecar "wears you out."
Saturday's ride offered hills and curves to make the ride with the sidecar more challenging, physically.
"You can't lean at the corner; you actually have to turn it," Hardin said, adding the motorcycle-sidecar combination actually drives more like a car, "but a little worse - there's no power steering."
Even with the physical challenges to the motorcyclist, Hardin said, "If he wants to ride, I'd do it in a heart beat."
Doyle's wife of 29 years, Pam Doyle, also went along on the ride, and when it was over, she said she wasn't sure she'd stop feeling like she was riding.
The highlight for her was "seeing all the guys that turned out for him, showing him support and being there for him," she said. "It was overwhelming."
With a sparkle in his eye, Doyle quietly said the ride was everything he wanted it to be, and he saw parts of Cole County he'd not seen before.
And his advice for the rest of us?
"Don't misjudge someone because they're on a bike," Doyle said.