360bikers.com

The obstacles of creating a charitable foundation are many.  Still, I seem to continue on this endeavor to create something that benefits our fellow bikers in a time of need.  One focus of this project is the 360Bikers USA Grand Tour and the six regional tours that work with it.  There will also be many local tours supporting the regional tours.

First, I should briefly explain these rides.  The Grand Tour is a 10,600-mile ride around the United States in 29 days.  Inside this monster circle are six regional rides from about 2,000 miles to 3,000 miles that each take about a week.  These rides will coincide with the Grand Tour for part of the region.  The local rides are managed by local dealers and ride part of a single day with the regional ride.  These obviously connect with the Grand Tour at some points, too.

So, aside from the charitable efforts of these rides, what would one expect to see?  Well, that’s part of the beauty of this event.  It covers a lot of ground and riders will see different things depending on the level of participation.  I’ll use the Grand Tour to emphasize some of the highlights.

Starting in Key West, Florida the ride begins with a stretch through the islands and across 7-Mile Bridge.  Riding the east coast of Florida, we stop for lunch in Daytona Beach, home to Biketoberfest and Bike Week.  The second day culminates at Arlington Cemetery in Washington, D.C. to pay respect to our veterans of all wars.  A planned stop on the third day includes Rockefeller Center with an appearance on a morning show.  If possible, we’ll have lunch with the guys from OCC, but that hasn’t been arranged at this time.  The fourth day takes us into Boston, Massachusetts for a little while, but by the end of the day we leave the country as we enter Canada for part of the ride.  Day five tags the second point of the USA Four Corners Ride (another sanctioned ride you can participate in as you do the 360Bikers Grand Tour) and then rides back into Canada as we move through Quebec and back into New York at Plattsburgh.  Day 6 is a scenic ride through Adirondack State Park, a forest ride that exits to the Finger Lakes region and on to Buffalo.  The first week ends with a ride to Cleveland’s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and then on to Dearborn, Michigan.

Our second week takes us to Chicago on the first day and gives the second day off to enjoy the area.  The week continues on the tenth day as we ride into Harley-Davidson country in Wisconsin on our way to Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  The eleventh day visits Mt. Rushmore and stops in famous Sturgis for dinner.  Day twelve rides across Wyoming to Yellowstone National Park.  Day thirteen begins with a leisurely ride on one of two routes through this great park and then into Montana for some exciting rides in the mountains.  Day fourteen concludes the second week with incredible scenery as we pass through the spectacular mountains of Washington on our way to Seattle.

Recognizing you might be tired or want to enjoy this great part of the country, day fifteen is a day off for riders.  Day sixteen hits the third corner of the 4 Corners USA ride and then doubles back along the Pacific Northwest into Oregon.  The seventeenth day enters Redwood National Park and ends at Ft. Bragg, California at the top of the infamous Pacific Coast Highway.  The eighteenth day rides along the Pacific Ocean to San Francisco where I’m working on a special reception.  The nineteenth day continues along the ocean route through the country of movie stars and ends at Ventura.  Excitement builds as we wind through Greater Los Angeles and end at San Ysidro, California, the southwestern most point in the USA.  If you did the 4-Corners USA sanctioned ride at the same time, you just finished it!  Our 21^st day begins our ride across the desert scenery as we aim towards Tucson, Arizona.  That three weeks of riding and seeing a lot of America.

Week four has many great events as we ride across southern USA.  It begins quietly riding across Texas in areas where you won’t see a major city.  This is the old west with a concrete ribbon to ride on.  The twenty-third day we ride to San Antonio and take the twenty-fourth day off to rest and enjoy local riding opportunities.  The twenty-fifth day rides into Louisiana and visits the French Quarter of New Orleans before riding to Mobile, Alabama.  The twenty-seventh day runs back into Florida as we ride along the coast to Tampa.  Exiting Tampa on the twenty-eighth day as we move across the famous Skyline Bridge and down to Coconut Grove in Miami.  From here, it’s just a leisurely ride back along the Florida Keys as we return to Key West on our twenty-ninth day in preparation for the end-of-ride banquet.

This ride promises to be a fantastic view of the United States and sets the standard for future rides with 360Bikers.  I hope some of you can join us for this great ride or at least one of the regional rides.  You can be assured I’ll write more about this in the future.   

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.

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!

Sgt. Reyka lived in my neighborhood, just down the street from me. While I talked with him a few times, he was part of life here where I live. Everyday you passed his house you couldn’t help but notice the Broward County Sheriff’s car in the driveway. He worked the late night shift.

A few months ago, Sgt. Reyka was shot and killed in the line of duty. I don’t need to go into a tirade here about the scum that does something like that. Rather, I need to let everyone know that there will be a memorial ride to pay respects to him and other fallen officers. I encourage everyone to participate at one level or another. You can register for the ride at www.sgtchrisreyka.com. You can ride with our group if you’d like or bring your own group. You can drive your car to the breakfast if you don’t ride.

This is a worthy event to participate in. As details evolve I will post them in our event. Just click here.

The ride out of Tampa had been changed due to the need for fuel and once we found it we were totally off course.  I asked for some direction to the an expressway I knew would take us to SR60 and was surprised that it was more than 80 blocks away and in a direction that I hadn’t suspected.  So, we were off again.

I verified instructions as we drove through the city.  Traffic was light and the ride wasn’t bad.  It gave us a perspective of the complicated group of islands, inlets, and connecting roads of the Tampa area.  Reaching the Gautney, we road across a beautiful causeway that hovered 20 feet above the water.  It was possibly the most relaxing and serene part of the ride.  The bridge is a couple miles long and gives a great view of the city’s inside coast.

We exited the causeway and drove a few lights to the Cross-town Expressway.  This would take us across water to SR60 in Brandon, but I had no idea about the new Brandon Expressway.  labeled as Sunpass only, they must be releasing the gate on Sundays.   This bee-line had one or two other cars on the entire road.  We flew unimpaired all the way to Brandon where I felt a little more familiar with the area.  We scooted through the Brandon Mall parking road to SR80 and were back on track for our ride.

One the way to Brandon we had caught a short shower for 30 seconds or so.  It was enough to remind that the forecast in the Tampa area diminished as the day went on.  Our plan was to be out of the area before any major storms occurred.  We found the storms were there first.  Much of the road we traveled now had evidence of rain from less than an hour previously.  In the distance, we saw lightning as we progressed back to the east.

Our ride was looking good except for one cloud that insisted on blocking our path.  It was dark and looked like heavy rain.  I decided it was the right time to stop and let those that had rain gear put it on.  Our temperatures were in the high 60’s to low 70’s and the extra clothing wouldn’t feel bad at those.  We started up again with the weather making my decision the right one.  While the storm lasted only 10 or 15 minutes, it was good to have rain gear on at parts of it.

Coming out the other side of the rain we found the temperatures had gone up 10 degrees.  Now, it was too warm in the gear so when we found our stop at Yeehaw Junction it was an opportunity for everyone to get into cooler attire again.  Andre got more gas and we were off.  Someone had called home and found it was pouring rain in greater West Palm Beach in spite of nice skies in our current location.

It was at this point that I was disappointed a bit.  The group shattered as we entered US441 and those with the need for speed found satisfaction.  I stayed back and kept us together a bit until it was just Ian and me riding.  The ride home from there is relatively simple and one that most bikers are familiar with .  As an emergency vehicle passed us I thought about the worse case scenario and was relieved that none of our group was involved.  In Okeechobee, they were actually waiting for us and we joined back together.  The rest of the ride we looked much more like a group, though we still hit speeds that were not acceptable at time.

As we moved into Palm Beach County the roads began to get wet.  We rode SR710 (the Bee Line) to Haverhill Rd. and by then it was raining.  It was actually amazing that in the rain we still did not get very wet.  Those with lower fairings were enjoying a basically dry ride in light to moderate rain.  (Note to self: next bike has lowers)  We rode through town and Ian peeled off to have dinner with his family.  Good man.  The rest of us continued to Nothin’ Fancy, a biker bar with some attitude and live music.  Definitely a place that every rider visiting West Palm Beach should visit.  After a beer I took off as did Andre.

Summarizing this ride is difficult.  The first leg included making some new friends and then leading them through very dangerous conditions in the dense fog.  It was the most intense part of the ride and could have been a good reason to call it off once we saw how bad it was.  The second leg was great riding for Florida with hills, turns, and the Skyline Bridge soaring across the bay to St. Pete Beach.  The final leg felt like the ride home as we had been out riding since before 6:00 AM to get to our starting point and leave by 6:30 AM.

If I have one recommendation for this ride next year it would be that we do not return on SR60.  Brandon has grown with some of the other communities and this is no longer a pleasant ride on a country road.  SR70 and surrounding roads will give us a more rural setting that takes us through hills and turns.  It will also give us another chance to ride across the Skyline Bridge.  Now, we have a few local rides coming up before February’s big ride in the SoFla360.  I’m looking forward to these.

Several weeks ago I looked at the traffic from our banner ads and was, well, depressed.  We were part of an affiliate company through which we could advertise the companies we select and provide our guests with some nice opportunities at sales and discounts on motorcycle and automotive related products.  The problem is that the ads were so static and predictable.  Hit refresh 10 times and you’re likely to see the same ad again.

Recently, I switched the banner point to Google’s Adwords taking advantage of their full-size banner opportunities.  The nice thing about Google is that it has a lot of clients and it rotates a lot of content.  While there aren’t as many doing full-size color banners in the Google network, it’s more targeted to what is on the page.  If you’re looking at a Harley-Davidson computer your likely to see Harley related services and products.  If you’re looking at Yamaha or Honda, the same thing happens.

The result is that our ads are more geared to what you are looking for.  I find myself wandering off from time to time because the ads are much better.

Yesterday the 360Bikers group had a great ride. We met at John G’s for breakfast and after a delayed start rode north along the Atlantic Ocean for a great view of nature and multi-million dollar mansions. The weather was perfect. Some of my fellow riders asked about safe riding in groups and while I could explain some of the basics, I found it a good idea to create a page with the information as a reference. So, here are some pieces of information for you.

There are at least two major social groups within the riding community and they are separated by those very words. The first group is the social group. They will typically all gather at a restaurant, club or bar to talk and meet other riders. They typically ride to their destination alone and meet others there.

The second group of riders is more like 360Bikers. We’re about the ride. Socializing is part of the whole picture as we meet lots of really great people on our rides, but mostly we like to ride somewhere and feel the wind.

Often we have riders of varied experience when it comes to riding as a group. There are some basic rules and hand signals that help the group ride together safely. I found the link below in a search for a quick, easy-to-learn presentation of the basics for group riding. I recommend you read them before riding with any group. They are important to the safety of the group as you ride.

The file below is in PDF so you will need a reader such as Adobe Acrobat Reader. Just click the link. The information sheet is only two pages and has excellent graphics. It takes just a minute or two to read, but I recommend studying the hand signals as if every ride is a test you’re taking. Safety is a primary concern in our group rides at 360Bikers.

Group Riding

I also found the video below to be a nice perspective on riding.  CLICK HERE to link to that video.

There are also some animated instructions on the meet up site.  CLICK HERE to go to the page on group riding safety.

Cyclepalooza presents a Drag Bike Bash at Moroso Sports Park off the bee-line highway on January 26th and 27th.  While the Moroso web site has very little information about it, the Cyclepalooza site has details to give you an idea of the event.  Planned activities include motorcycle drag races, drifting (in cars I hope), bikini show, foxy boxing, a charity poker run, live bands, bike show, and a burn out pit.  There will be food, beverages, and a full bar.

Details are still sparse, but I thought you should know in advance if you’re making plans.