360Bikers Foundation

This week is busy with rides, but that makes it nice after work.  While a lot of people have today off (Good Friday) there are those of us that have to work.  I’m not complaining.  I like my work and the rides afterwards have been nice.  Tuesday was a short ride to the Tiki Bar in West Palm Beach.  It was a nice little ride of just under 70 miles when all was done.  I appreciated that two of our friends from the Stuart area rode all the way down to join us.  Will and Steve made it, too.  Yesterday I rode over to the Sgt. Reyka Meet and Greet and saw Ian there.  The shirts for that ride are great.  I’m looking forward to that.  After that, I rode over to meet the group for JJ Muggs and Bike Night at Abacoa.  Well, no one showed.  I rode up and Steve came after reconsidering several times.  He lives 5 minutes away.

Tonight we have the Full Moon Run, which is being emulated by other groups already.  I’ll be a nice ride if anyone else shows up.  Sunday has the Port Mayaca Short Run, a nice leisurely short ride for relaxation.

It seems the interest is waning lately.

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This was a nice ride and went more or less as planned. Four of us ate at John G’s and Ian joined us later. The bikes rode along the ocean to Hobe Sound where we cut over to US1 to make up some time. We joined the Stuart group and set out along the ocean and A1A.

Now, the ocean rides in Broward are a bit boring due to the endless building of condos. Riding in Palm Beach County is better, but very slow. Most speeds are 30 or 35 and if it’s hot out the ride becomes painful. I had never been on A1A in St. Lucie County and it was a pleasure to learn about. The speeds are generally 45 or higher. While you aren’t up against the ocean very often, you have a lot of natural scenery. It was a great ride most of the way to Cocoa Beach with only a few slow spots. The only down side was that you were not riding along the water as you often due in Palm Beach.

I managed to have a bug fly down the back of my shirt which made for an interesting 30 minutes of the ride. It was either a beetle or a bee and was biting along my belt line where it finally settle on my back. That took a lot of the pleasure out of that part of the ride. We stopped for gas on the north side of Cocoa Beach and I shook out my shirt.

We doubled back through 520 and found a nice little restaurant on the water. Vic had to breathe that salt air and Ian thought it was medicinal for his cold. After they figured out how to put 11 chairs at two adjacent tables (Vic had to help them) we finally got seated and ate. This was a good group. The pictures are on the meetup.

The ride back was something I really looked forward to. Vic and Ian had family commitments and peeled off at I-95. They missed the best part of the ride. We took 520 to CR528. Naturally I missed the turn which was clearly marked as St. Cloud. We would have ended up in Orlando if it hadn’t been for the group pulling me over. We took 528 for awhile and almost missed CR419, a tiny little road that isn’t marked until you are right up on it. Both of these roads were incredible. There were nice curves and some areas were wooded. If the wind hadn’t been so high I would have done it again.

We rode to US192 west and connected to the every popular US441 to Okeechobee. The rest of the way home was very familiar since we come up that way often. The sun went down and the unbearable heat turned to cool air. I left the house at 6:45 AM and returned at 7:20 PM. It was a nice day of riding and gave me more ideas. It is unfortunate that the battery on the cam died as I was taping our fly-by and I didn’t get any of that footage. We have a special event coming up that we’ll have lots of highlights from our group.

While the video wasn’t what I had wanted it to be, I created one anyway and published it.

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I just got an email from Brian, the officer managing the Sgt. Chris Reyka Memorial Ride later this month.  It’s quite impressive and there’s room to grow.  There have been 665 people that have given their support to this project and 533 of them are riding in the event.  What impresses me most is that 240 of these are not police affiliates.  They are under the heading of citizens.  It really shows a strong support from the community.

There are several levels of support that you can offer.  Just getting a T-Shirt is the beginning.  As part of that, you can sign up to be part of the ride.  The first part is from Pompano to Lake Worth.  This will be a ride that is a higher end class 1.  While there is distance involved, we will be in a very large group with police escort.  To this date 222 people have signed to do that part of the ride only.  Their participation is greatly appreciated.  The second part of the ride will go to Titusville for Chris’s induction into the Hall of Fame.  Right now 311 are signed for that ride with more everyday.

It’s not too late to sign up and I would really like to see everyone I know participating if they can.  If you need more information, Click here.

Two important dates, March 20th for the Meet & Greet of supporters that have managed to get their checks in and then March 29th for the ride.  Details can be found at http://motorcycle.meetup.com/210/, on our meet up site.

Try to make this one.

Sgt. Reyka was a neighbor of mine.

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Every riding group in the country should do one of these.  We had so much fun on a 40-mile ride with 6 stops.  It took all day and created a great riding experience for beginning riders, though we didn’t have all the beginners with us that should have come along.  It was just great.

Our stops included Harley-Davidson of the Palm Beaches, Broward Motorsports of the Palm Beaches for Honda, Suzuki, and Kawasaki, Greater Yamaha, Iron Eagle for used Harleys and Customs, and Triumph – Victory Motorcycles of Palm Beach in Boynton Beach.  Of course, we had the ever popular lunch break which was at Russo’s, a new experience for half our group!

This ride was so much fun that we are already talking about doing another after new models come out in the late summer and early fall.  Missing this ride would be a bad move.  It’s just too easy and too much fun.  Oh, and our weather was great.  Dry roads, sunshine, and enough wind to provide some experience for riders without blowing them off the road.

See more pictures and read about this ride HERE.

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360Bikers expanded to using Meetup.com in early December. Within one week enrollment expanded from 1 member to 13. I felt pretty new at planning group rides, but I jumped right in and began doing things I like best. Planning projects has always been a passion of mine. I like attention to detail and the logistics needed to bring things together. I don’t like making the mistakes, but I like learning from them. You can click that link to join our group. It’s free.

Since those early days we have grown to 59 riders in our group. Our rides have attracted some key people like Ian, Will, Rich, Frank, Andre, Rabbi and Vic. I’ve learned from members of our group and we have evolved into a very well organized riding team. We support new riders, intermediate riders, and rely on experienced riders to help everyone learn. Through this group I’ve made some truly great friends.

A key to our rides is classification. Riders at different skill levels and with different size bikes have a need for different types of rides. Will set out to create a classification order which we continue to refine. Our three basic rides are targeted at beginners, intermediates, and experienced riders. The variables are centered around bike sizes, rides speeds, and distances. Class 1 rides are short and rarely have speeds over 60. They are usually less than 125 miles. Class 2 rides mix some highway speeds with local speeds and are typically around 200 miles. Class 3 rides have a big mix of speeds with highways, back roads, and in-town riding. These rides are always over 300 miles and can reach 500. Higher classifications are typically more miles and multiple days.

Reaching the different kinds of riders isn’t always easy. Here are some dates of upcoming rides by levels so you can pick where you want to go. Some lower level rides have themes that attract experienced riders, too.

Class 1 Rides

• Saturday, March 8 – 360Bikers Dealer Run
• Tuesday, March 11 – Bru’s Room
• Thursday, March 20 – Abacoa Bike Night
• Friday, March 21 – 360Bikers Full Moon Ride
• Saturday, April 12 – 360 WPB Quick Loop
• Wednesday, April 16 – 360Wings @ Island Jack’s

Class 2 Rides

• Sunday, March 23 – The Port Mayaca Short Run
• Sunday, April 13 – The Okeechobee Reverse
• Saturday, May 17 – The Flora & Ella 360Bikers Pie Ride

Class 3 Rides

• Saturday, March 15 – The East Beach 360 North
• Saturday, March 29 – The Sgt. Reyka Memorial Ride
• Sunday, April 20 – The Fisherman’s Village 360 Ride
• Sunday, May 11 – The Wachula 360 Run

Join us for a ride!

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