Staying Safe Through Knowledge

Part of the goal through the Older Bikers Riding Club is to help "teach" other members how to ride safely and how to live safely.

Normally, through our chapters, when we have group rides, we will take a few moments at the end of the ride so the more experienced riders can offer a few riding tips to the newer riders. These tips can cover the road conditions, curves, emergency stops, weather, handling problems resulting from mechanical failure or anything else they may have experienced during the ride. But, there is another very important aspect involving safety and that involves the interaction with other bikers.

For those of us old enough to remember living in the 40's, 50's or 60's, we can remember and age when many of us did not lock the doors to our homes, cars or bikes. But times have changed and I doubt there are many people out there now that leave there homes unlocked when they are gone or would leave their bikes sitting outside a motel room unlocked, because we have learned that we need to protect our property.
I am in the process of writing a series of articles that will be posted on this website to help educate our members as well as anyone else that likes motorcycles and plans on attending motorcycle shows, races, bike nights, biker rallies, leather shops, tattoo parlors, motorcycle dealerships, motorcycle repair shops or any other location where they might run into "hardcore bikers."

Through these articles, I will teach our members the difference between a Riding Club and a Motorcycle Club, the importance of a one piece patch vs. a three piece patch, the meaning of a 1% club, an LE Club, a MM club, an MRO and many other terms used in the biker world.

I realize that our members just want to ride their bikes, get together to eat at restaurants and have a good time. They don't want to get involved in fights or legal trouble and I don't want them to get involved in those things and that is the main reason for this series of articles.

It's like the little boy that just wants to walk through the open field and play. He just wants to have fun. He sees the grass moving and reaches down, looking for a frog, turtle or some other critter, only to discover a snake. Is it a garter snake, rattle snake or copperhead? Knowing the difference could save that little boys life.

Or how about a little boy that sees a stray dog. Is it really a dog or could it be a coyote, or even a wolf. Is it alone or is the rest of the pack hiding just beyond the rise in the field?

My point is there are a lot of people out there that ride motorcycles. Some of them simply use their bikes as a form of transportation to and from work, while others only ride them to bike night and maybe once in a while they will ride on a poker run. These are normal everyday people that just happen to own and occasionally ride a motorcycle.

On the other hand, there are also some people in our society today that drink alcohol excessively, use mind altering drugs, carry guns or other weapons and will steal your LOCKED bike if they get a chance and some of these people happen to ride motorcycles too.

My goal is to help you learn to tell the difference, so you can avoid trouble and simply enjoy riding your bike. Think of it like learning to look closely at a dog. Is his tail between his legs or is the hair on his back standing straight up? Hopefully, by helping our members learn to look for certain signs, they will be able to enjoy their last few years feeling the wind in their face and smelling the wide variety of scents nature has to offer as they travel down the open road with their friends and fellow club members and not have to worry about anything.

TO BE CONTINUED
As I write additional articles, I will post a notice in the forum to let you know they are available and add them to this intro.

I would also like to encourage any of our members or website users to contact me with any educational contributions you would like to offer.

Thank You
FTW