District Educator Article

Conducting a Rider’s Meeting
By David Dirig

This month, I want to cover one of the simplest and most effective ways to reduce the risk for your group on a ride. In the same way that a Safety talk at your Chapter Gathering and a Safety Article in your newsletter really bring Motorcycle safety to the forefront of your Chapter activities, there is a simple effective way to do this something on every ride. In fact, not performing this simple activity before each ride is dangerous! What I am referring to is a Rider’s Meeting.

I was surprised and shocked to find out that some chapters do not have a Rider’s Meeting before each ride. The concept here is to get all the riders (and co-riders) together before departure to discuss the specifics (see below) of how the group is going to get from Point A to Point B. This simple 3-5 minute meeting should be performed before EVERY ride, whether it’s a dinner ride, a day trip around your area, or a multi-day long trip. With some larger chapters (and smaller growing chapters), you may have a completely different mix of riders from day-to-day and ride-to-ride. Just having a Front Door and Back Door who know what’s going on is not enough; it’s a GROUP ride, not a blind-leading-the-blind ride. Get everyone on the same page before they get on the bikes!!

If you don’t have a rider’s meeting, how do you know who is going to lead, what CB channel you will run on, and what channel you will go to as an alternate in case of high CB traffic or interference? I’ve heard of groups who know to meet at a certain place and then they kind of work out the order and route and such as they’re going down the road. This is certainly far from a risk reduction technique. Some will say that ‘my chapter members’ already know this stuff since we ride together so often. OK, that’s fine; so what happens when someone new joins your group? They’re lost, don’t know what everyone is doing, and they’re riding right behind YOU! Not only is it intimidating to that new member (meaning they might not return), its downright dangerous to the group as a whole.

So you’re leading a ride; the last thing you want is one more thing to deal with. “Great!” you say, “I have to get a dozen bikes organized and on the road, allowing for the couple that over-slept, the other two bikes who arrived without gas, and that lone rider who always wants to ride by a different route than the one I planned last night (every group has one J)! Now Dave has something else for me to do before I get to ride.” Like a friend of mine puts it, trying to get a group out of the parking lot/ Dairy Queen / souvenir shop on time is like herding cats!! The Rider’s Meeting can actually help with this. Call your Rider’s Meeting about 10 minutes before your departure time; this will draw everyone in and get them thinking about the ride instead of that one last fresh-baked bear claw. Gather them in and tell them how and where they will be going and in what fashion.

Remember that the key is clear and effective communication. Just like over the CB, it is critical to make sure that everyone understands how the group will ride and where they are going, as well as other details (see below). Take special consideration for those new or infrequent riders. Your regulars will know the drill, and can probably run a Rider’s meeting in their sleep. This is a secondary goal so that on those occasions where you cannot make a ride, the regulars can still step up and give a Rider’s meeting. The important thing is to get the chapter into a Safety Routine, having a Rider’s Meeting before each ride with certain key points ALWAYS covered.

Everyone has his or her own style for how to run this. Here’s the way I do it:

Count the number of bikes going. Break it up into groups of a maximum of five bikes.
I generally leave one or two groups with 4 bikes/group to allow for those last minute arrivals.

Call the Rider’s Meeting!! (I have Dori yell, since her voice carries further than mine ;-)

OK, we’re going to leave in a couple minutes here for a ride to __________. After I get done with the Rider’s Meeting, our Ride Coordinator/Road Captain will cover the route as well as where we will be stopping for meals and gas.

Do we have any new riders or bikes without CB radios? Sometimes there will be new people I haven’t met yet or a regular whose radio is on the fritz. If someone can receive over the radio but cannot transmit, I don’t worry so much about this since they can still hear what the group is doing and going through. Anyone that is new or without a CB rides in the #2 slot behind an experienced front door. I make eye contact with that new rider and tell them that they will be riding behind me (or indicate who they will be riding with). If you have anyone new or without a radio, you need to review at least three basic hand signals (single file, staggered formation, and hazard – refer to the Road Captain’s course for more on this topic)

We run in staggered formation on Channel _____. If we get static or someone harassing us on the radio, our alternate channel will be ____. If we call for the alternate, don’t announce it over the radio, as we will be trying to avoid someone.

The most important thing is to Ride Your Own Ride (say this 3 times to emphasize). “If the group is riding too fast for you, DON’T try to keep up. Ride Your Own Ride (that’s 2) and the back door will let the group know that they need to slow up some. If we’re riding too slowly for you, we will be more than happy to get out of your way and you can out-ride and meet us there (nothing wrong with out-riding!). The most important thing is to stay within your personal comfort zone and not fall prey to peer-pressure. Just Ride Your Own Ride (that’s 3) and have a good time.

On multi-lane roads, we will generally be making lane changes from the rear. The Front Door will call for the lane; the Back Door will secure it and announce it is clear, and the group will move to the target lane from the rear. Always do your head-checks for yourself. When you make your lane change, be sure and take it in pairs (this is more advanced). When you do a lane change in staggered formation, don’t cross the path of the bike in front of you. If you don’t do this, you end up right behind that bike in front of you as you cross their track. When you do this, you just cut your reaction time and braking distance in half. This defeats the purpose of riding in staggered formation in the first place. Take the lane in pairs and remember that the bike closest to the target lane moves first. (This is a more complex topic for a group riding seminar, but at least you’ve gotten people thinking about the concept).

OK, we have ____ bikes going, so we will split up into ____ groups of 5 and ___ groups of 4, since we were expecting _____ and he/she/they are always running late. I need ____ Front Doors and _____ Back Doors. I will lead Group 1, which will stage over by the _____; Group 2 will stage behind Group 1 and be lead by ____, etc. Now we’ll turn it over to the Ride Coordinator who will tell us the route and any hazards or dangerous areas (construction, narrow roads) along our planned route.

OPTION: If you have a large group of bikes (meaning multiple groups trying to stage in the same parking lot), this organized meeting can easily devolve into chaos when everyone gets on their bikes. What was 20 bikes parked next to each other is now 25-40 people trying to get ready and get staged in their respective (but undesignated) groups. We were nice and organized in concept, now we have one group staged with 8 bikes and a FD/BD with no one else in their group. In order to avoid that, what I do is have the FD/BD team for each group separate themselves from the circle at the end of the Rider’s meeting. Then, we have everyone pick a group (before you get on the bikes). When you have 4-5 groups of couples signifying each group, you can then review where the groups are going to stage. As I said at the beginning, the whole goal is to get everyone on the same page BEFORE they get on the bikes.

Now obviously, if you’re on the third day out on the way to Billings, you won’t go into this much detail. But you should still have a Rider’s meeting, albeit abbreviated. Maybe someone else wants to lead or one couple is going to split off and take a different route. Someone may have discovered an alternate route for the day over breakfast. Why discuss it over the radio at 70mph, splitting your attention between your map holder and the road!!?? The Rider’s meeting is the time to bring up such things.

The most critical time to have a detailed Rider’s meeting is any ride where you expect new or infrequent riders or when you expect a large number of bikes. Dinner Rides and post-Chapter meeting rides are the biggest ones that come to mind. You have a larger group of people who don’t ride together as often. Set some ground rules at the outset and brush the cobwebs off of everyone’s group riding skills. This may seem like a lot to cover, so pick the most important points and start from there. Give it a try and let your own style and the chapter’s needs address how your Rider’s Meetings go. How you do it isn’t as important as making sure that the Chapter does it before each ride and gets into this Safety Habit.

Ride Safe and COAST (Concentrate on A Safe Trip)