Episode 005 – Art of the Group Ride

Transcript:

(00:00) tips to ride better at night on closed [Music] roads hello and welcome to best motorcycle roads I’m Tom and I’m Todd we have over 30 years of motorcycling experience and 15 years of planning and riding motorcycle trips we’re here to share with you everything we’ve learned over those years our goal at best motorcycle roads is simple make your next motorcycle trip the best it can be we’ll dive into technology planning packing the roots and other tips and everything in between from essential

(00:41) prep to Unforgettable Roots we’ve got you covered before we Kickstart today’s Journey we ask you to sign up for our BMR Rider alerts it’s our way of keeping you in the loop with the latest rides tips and stories we promise no spam only the essentials to enhance your motorcycle Adventures join the BMR crew today we’ll put a link in the show notes this segment about motorcycle gear reviews and tips we call the toolkit um I picked one a few things like just having cruise control um big one like I

(01:13) mean this is honestly right now is the first bike that I’ve had an actual cruise control on ever ever um I’ve had throttle locks so okay I’ve there’s a lot of times people call cruise control throttle locks and they’re only slightly I mean they’re extremely different but but similar like so throttle lock is literally something that locks your throttle at the same spot so if you’re going up hills you’re going slower the engine’s going to slow you down if you’re going downhills you’re going

(01:41) faster they’re just for temporary relief of that um throttle hand right right yeah shake your hand out you know stretch your ear your side whatever you got to do yeah but I would say that most high I didn’t want to say highend but I mean the top touring style motorcycles now have literally cruise control like you you could imagine on your car yeah and that is really the ticket I mean that’s when we if we ever go on a trip somebody with actual cruise control has to be the one leading the group I would

(02:10) say like it just it doesn’t work very well without it right yeah no we we always put the cruise control person in front and uh yeah it just it helps the whole ride yeah so I mean one way or the other you want one of those two things I know I’ve went a thousand or more mile trip without any of it and your hand is hurting um Mike still does it I don’t know how he does it never takes his hand off that oh my gosh like an iron grip um the second uh tool tip or toolkit item today is extra lighting mostly in the

(02:42) rear um this is for rear safety purposes I guess um your bike when you bought that Gold Wing uh was littered almost littered with lights everywhere so many lights you know what you don’t at first you’re like oh my gosh is a gimmick this is funny oh you know Todd’s got all these lights but you have extra lights I mean you have probably five sets of extra lights just on the back I would say and and I’d say three out of five are vanity and look just for looks but the two that I think are really

(03:12) important is those motor the like the brake light flashing um and they come in different flavors some blink for three four times and then go on um that’s usually some rep some combination of blinking and boy oh boy can you really see that um catches your attention doesn’t it yeah you know and I I think it was gimmicky when I first thought about it but and then yours has a really cool and you’re you’re riding like a O2 Gold Wing now and you have those um where the passenger armrests are the ones that I really like also has those

(03:44) extra turn signal that also blink yeah they’re up high and they’re out a little bit wider yeah yep um man I just can’t say enough for you don’t have to go crazy and put every light Under the Sun on it I mean if that’s what you’re into that’s fine but like really those eye-catching like rapid blinking it really catched your attention um yeah I haven’t seen those before I don’t know where the person that put my motorcycle together found those but they’re very small and inconspicuous when I would

(04:13) call them like high output LEDs they’re tiny but they’re very uh very bright they’re very bright yeah and I know when we’ve been in like foggy conditions or rainy conditions um often you guys ask me to take the lead because you can see if I’m slowing down if I’m putting on the brakes making a turn uh you know in those those low light condition not low light yeah low visibility conditions yeah so yeah I think at a minimum I would say that like if you’re going to be riding on highways much I would

(04:43) highly recommend just you can get a really simple add-on for a brake light that just pulsates it’s an eye-catcher and it’s I’d say it’s worth it yeah absolutely and then lastly front light add-ons we we’ve talked about this a little bit before um the top shelf brand is called Clear Water M that’s that’s what I have on the current bike I mean these are they’re expensive but they’re also amazing um I think they’re high output LEDs they make two different versions the one I have has the person

(05:11) that put this bike together actually bought two separate ones one has a 12 high output LED on one side and a seven on the other um so they’re slightly different he put the lower W lower lead one on the in on the left hand side of the bike so that little bit less light pointing out towards like oncoming traffic and then so these are super bright just insane I mean like lasers I’ll we’ll put a link to the Clear Water uh video on YouTube it’s out of control I mean like but it’s so bright and then

(05:43) they also so they have a cover on them that’s clear and then there’s another cover that you can put on that’s yellow and I’ll tell you I rode that bike home in the rain and I never in my life had people pulling over when I’m coming you know passing them on the interstate because you you just can I had those yellows on and they were just right in people’s face yeah not to over brighten them all but my goodness I mean it’s nice to be seen yeah um you know that’s the big one of the biggest things

(06:10) on a motorcycle you’re riding like you’re invisible because people can’t see you and is that one that’s on the right hand side is it pointed more towards the side of the road like it’s so you can pick up animals and Wildlife that’s going to jump all the above okay and it’s just super bright um and then these particular clear waters they have a they have a they have a dimmer on them too so like if you’re writing during the day you can turn them down a little bit so maybe they’re not just in like if I

(06:35) was writing behind you guys at night you’d want me to turn them down um but like if you’re in front you could turn them up and I mean if you’re the leader oh my gosh on right yeah I mean they don’t everyone doesn’t like the look of them because they don’t I don’t think they make the bike look great but boy oh boy do they they they do their job so that’s what you want I want to be able to see I would agree and there’s smaller versions there’s there’s more in you know conspicuous um on one of my

(07:00) motorcycles I had a pair of lights mounted on the front fork MH that was great uh they’re small but they were really effective again LED so there’s options they don’t have to be ones that are just stupid on the mirrors that’s what I like you know I like being stupid sometimes but I like lights you know so so yeah but I highly recommend something in the rear something in the front if you’re going to ride at night more than five times couldn’t be worth it more so yeah ridewise is the section we focus on

(07:29) planning and safy tips how to deal with instant changes or challenges uh know who will decide early you know if if it’s a lead Rider and you’re making Road changes that’s the person to just make the decision and everyone just goes with it you know if if it if it comes up you know we I think the points here is having pre-ride meetings kind of getting a good idea what’s going on but you have to be flexible when things come along on on the way right and speaking of PRI uh pre-ride meetings we’ve we’ve talked

(07:57) about that before um you know we like to get together uh you know a couple weeks before the trip after you’ve kind of planned a route you know a basic route idea locations and uh you know we talk to everybody and find out have we missed anything here’s the route we’re planning is there anything you must see anything you must do um make sure everybody agrees that yeah we want to stay in those places those towns and that’s about the amount of writing we want to do for the day um and then you know we

(08:29) we usually allow you you just take and make the plan the road plan and then someone else will kind of take over and um you know make all the reservations you know and kind of divide up the the work that way yep I think it’s good to have that second person sometimes it’s just um it’s helpful it’s it’s also nice you know like when you make all the plans and something goes wrong you just feel bad because and it’s nobody’s fault like right we I know one I think in Kentucky and I stayed in questionable

(08:57) Hotel the one night and it was like whatever like no one yeah is gonna get hurt here well we could have there may have been some B but uh you know like it happens right I mean like everything’s never perfect so I think that’s just maybe like sometimes you’re just going to have to roll with it yeah and if if someone else is helping to plan then they’re then they’re vested in the whole thing as well like yeah everybody has a little skin in the game when they’ve taken part to help plan and and I think

(09:24) you see that in all kinds of planning but I think but some of that help that’s kind of what makes it fun too is the pre-planning getting ready hoping thinking looking um so yeah I think you’ve said it before but I think just kind of being AG green you know agreeable is the best way we always talk about setting some ground rules you know kind of beforehand you know and we like to talk about no whiners on the trip you know if you’re a whiner just stay home that’s okay uh but yeah we just want to

(09:52) make sure that everyone’s going to be um you know agreeable to if we have to change suddenly in the middle of a trip uh we’re going to avoid some rain r or you know bad weather something like that um and I would also say that like even when that case you also don’t want everyone like we don’t need opinions from everyone either sometimes because it’s like you can have and then kind of when we’re talking about this is titled the art of group riding you like you kind of let got to let the leader lead

(10:18) right like whoever is going to take the lead you kind of got to let them lead you got to know that they’re going to make mistakes GPS is really hard if you’re pre-planning routs sometimes you’ll drag to the center of a city and you’ll it’ll be like oh we’re a right and then it’s like oh turn around we’re going right back you know those things happen I try really hard to pull those out but they happen right so you just got to give them slack because right leading isn’t always the most fun

(10:41) because you’re really watching that GPS you’re trying to pay attention I’m always making sure I’m counting five bikes in the back you know like you don’t want to get too far ahead you don’t want to get too far behind I mean the communication as we’ve talked about is the communicators and the helmets those those help with that a lot hey you know Mike something happened back you know like whatever ever right someone slowed down yeah just pull over we’ll we’ll catch up to you in a minute um but

(11:04) yeah that’s kind of the the EB and flow of the whole thing I guess yeah that and that lead person is always thinking about obstacles in the road you know watching for you know traffic maybe that’s coming across center line or pulling out from a side driveway or a blind driveway right gravel on the road you know those sorts of things so uh yeah as as the lead writer you really you’re hoping people will give you some Grace because there’s going to be some M turns along the way and just everybody

(11:32) kind of roll with it for sure yeah and then kind of maybe just the bigger the group The more difficult and the slower everything comes it’s just AB it’s hard um and you know I don’t I would get start to get uncomfortable if we start looking at like 10 bikes like that starts to get to be kind of a chore so I I would just caution you try it out if you’re going to have something that’s that big I would recommend doing maybe a couple day rides with that with as many people as you can um just to kind of get

(12:02) used to the way that people ride you know we’re used to each other now more than since we’ve been doing it for so long but it takes time to get to get used to it right yeah absolutely and when you have large groups you have to remember too that when you get to uh a fuel stop it’s not going to be a 10-minute fuel up your bike and take off because there’s 10 people that need to get fuel and 10 people that need to go to the bathroom and 10 people that need to get something to drink or eat and you

(12:29) know you can be sure that it’s going to be a you know 30 minute 40 minute hourong stop so even with five or six people the first person’s fueled up and parked before the last person is getting fuel in their in their bike and so you’re right I mean sometimes I think I’ve been the first one I think I’ve been in have a drink before someone even gets pulled over there you know and then you’re just to get you know so yeah yeah and that’s I mean it’s a good time to to stretch and you know yep uh you know get

(12:57) your leg stretched out and your back stretched out again and um just put that in your pre-plan put that in your plan that uh each stop you’re going to be is is you know at least a half hour no problem 30 minutes you can burn pretty quick and I would also then just say too like plan that too like we had mentioned you just don’t things get dark at 6 7 o’clock at night you want to be I like to push to get done at 5 5:00 p.m.

(13:23) is yeah because it just it’s not fun riding at night um as well it can be more treacherous and yeah just more you’re getting tired so yeah yeah and I I can’t remember if I’ve talked about this already um in a previous uh episode but when you have some new riders in your group um automatically you’re going to want to go slower right um because you don’t want them to have kind of a White Knuckle ride trying to keep up with everyone and feeling like they’re falling behind or having to push through

(13:53) you know some technical riding areas that they’re not you know ready for and um just make everybody feel comfortable slow down a bit make sure those uh those new writers are feeling good and comfortable and and I I know that the very first time I took a a group ride even though i’ had been riding motorcycle for quite a long time um your mind is starts thinking about things that really don’t matter that much but they matter but you know I was thinking about the Stagger am I in the right side of the lane or the left

(14:22) side of the lane how far back should I be from the person in front of me and you know you start worrying about stupid things like that and you stop enjoying the ride or you you kind of tense up your neck is tense your shoulders and arms and pretty soon you’re yeah you’re fatigued just from yeah you know being tense and worried about am I doing things right U so yeah I would say just make that person feel at EAS slow down take your time and you know just keep the communications going the next segment is

(14:49) what we call the mile marker it’s our story segment um we l into it with the night riding on closed roads and one of our biggest group rides was a ride to a place called boscabel Wisconsin not too far from us you know 5 hour drive four hours lots of inexperienced people with us that time I mean we had probably three people that hadn’t been on a group ride before Y which meant three people that were almost not prepared gear this that I just remember we rode into the night it was dark um you could see the

(15:24) storm clouds are coming so then there was a little tense and then we got to in the neighborhood really we were probably 5 miles from the hotel MH um and road closed and we’re like oh my gosh what a pain so we turn on a road to you know avoid the road closure and what we hadn’t realized is that we actually turned on the the closed Road onto the closed Road right so Not only was it dark and at night we were riding a closed road that was basically being re repaved so we rode gravel road at night and it happened to be right next to a

(15:57) river right a river um mosquitoes everywhere I just remember bugs everywhere yeah so um just one of those things again where it was really good it worked out well we ended up going a pretty big detour but we ended up parked before the rain came and it was good yeah but one of my enjoyable things about that ride was the first time that I think we had stayed in the one hotel multiple nights and clover leafed around Wisconsin yeah um and that was that was a fun thing to do I think um you know if you want to get not too

(16:29) far away from home or from your start starting Place boy that that’s a good thing to do um that works pretty well you can get the gear off the bike the non-essentials um you know and then you can kind of it’s you don’t have to unpack repack pull in get in the place haul the two three bags of your junk unload reload that’s nice yeah and then if it if it does rain real hard one day then you just stay in yeah you can you don’t have to get to that next you don’t have to get to the next destination you

(16:58) know one thing I remember about that ride too is um I had a different bike back then and in Wisconsin the ABC roads we call them lots of twisties and I remember really being fatigued cuz I was fighting the bike a lot because it was kind of topheavy it had a the Royal Star right it was the Royal Star yeah and it had kind of a big front end on it big front tire and it just always felt like the handlebars wanted to flop on me so uh that bike kind of tired me out on that r remember I mean just really kind of feeling tense all the time because I

(17:32) like I was kind of fighting it all the time going through the corners um so check on your new Riders yeah for sure on something like that I just remember that was fatiguing yeah I was going to just note you said the ABC roads Wisconsin’s South um it’ be their Southwest side has some of the best riding roads and they say if you want to have a great ride in Wisconsin just go ride the alphabet and what it is is all their County roads in Wisconsin are all lettered so a through I think it’s like double F I think is the is like they’ll

(18:05) go all the way through and boy you really cannot make a mistake if you’re in Wisconsin and you write the alphabet so check it out look it on the maps it’s pretty cool um if you ever get a chance to get in that area so and I don’t think they have gravel roads in Wisconsin do they they technically do but there’s not many okay yeah like in Iowa we have them all over the place yeah they’re ridiculous yeah but uh yeah so it’s you can’t go wrong right yeah um in another group ride we took we did a split up if

(18:31) you remember we call that our Eclipse ride and I think on in future episode 9ine we we’re going to do a deep dive into that but um we ended up going to riding into Missouri from Iowa and then on the second day I think we split um three we was five people three of you guys went to Carbondale Illinois and two of us went to Arkansas and so that was kind of an interesting different way to do things um and it worked out well I thought that time yeah um I think the crusp of that was you guys I think you guys went to see hairball maybe H Here

(19:08) Come the Mummies Here Come the Mummies yeah thanks we went to see the eclipse well right the mummies happen to be playing there afterwards but we found that you know you guys like to go do that and then you know we figure it out sometimes everyone will go and go to the show and sometimes we’ll do something different yeah and that’s okay too I mean it was it was good I mean our ride to Arkansas was wild I mean um cool and you guys had a heck of an experience tell us about that well yeah maybe the roads oh the

(19:37) roads were fantastic it was so hot that day though right I mean we just could not find any place cool you know I mean everywhere we went it was over a hundred and uh you know I think we even ended up riding in shorts for a while so hot that day yeah but yeah saw some amazing roads you just got to be hydrating even when you’re R like that because you’re just getting totally hammered away but and then I think when we we met back after you guys went to the show in the eclipse we met back and we had another day

(20:04) writing down around Mark Twain yeah um Park and that was fun and then then we rode home but I don’t know I I thought that was good um um that was fun it was just different experience Y and uh yeah I have some other ideas on things like that we should talk about in the future but maybe it’ll be work well if we get more people riding with us from this podcast because it’s kind of like a shotgun start idea like golf I’m thinking like meat some place you know oh good idea yeah so we’ll talk more

(20:32) about that but um maybe just um one more quick story do you want to say with just group dynamics and how maybe people that weren’t yeah we you know over the years we’ve had some new people join us and you know um you know after after having meals together and you know at night we like to get together at the hotel or wherever we’re staying and play some cards you know and have a have a drink or two and yeah you really can you know just learn who people are you know just ask questions you know and just be

(21:03) curious about you know their kids and their their jobs and lives and just have a great time and pretty soon you know you become good friends with people you just met it’s fantastic well and I think about we’ve went through a couple divorces one person that lost their job like decided to come on the ride you know like those are life things that I I won’t forget though those are great stories and just it was nice to be around people for everyone I think on on those things you know just a oh yeah yeah group absolutely yeah the podcast

(21:33) can be found on best motorcycleroads.com podcast all the information you need will be there uh but you can subscribe on Spotify Amazon music apple pocketcast and YouTube this is the interactive segment we will be looking for input from you uh we want you to send us your questions and suggestions for roads topics and anything else you have on your mind today’s roadside Q&A comes from kale and and kale is asking about our packing list uh he said U you’ve mentioned it’s in your notes but you know maybe we could just kind of talk

(22:06) about it and read through it absolutely so we have some emergency and repair tools things like Tire kits and plug kits for tire punctures uh portable air pump um like cycle pump Expedition the bike Master compressors Air Moto tile uh tire inflator we’ll have those in the show notes uh have a flashlight or a headlamp uh some extra fuse es um some jumper cables or a jump start uh pack and then a few towels and Rags um for like some Essentials make sure you take a spare key for your motorcycle that’s important it’s

(22:43) happened to us uh or a spare battery for your fob if your motorcycle uses a fob uh always carry a replacement headlight bulb uh we’ve had two light bulbs go out uh during trips and one time at night uh have your coffee mud coffee mug water cup a GPS and a kickstand Puck is always nice to have because we’ve been on some hot parking lots in the uh asphalt and the bikes have sunk no joke so clothing and protection uh make sure you have rain gear um uh some wet weather gloves um maybe a small first a kit uh get

(23:20) yourself some medical gloves or the food preparation gloves to slide inside your gloves to make them waterproof if they’re not um a hoodie or a sweater um and then some people will bring out like a canvas like a 6×8 canvas for emergencies you know like a little tarp lay it down on the road it’s true I mean great laying on the ground and then they mentioned even above if it’s raining you can kind of yeah so I love that that’s good stuff uh waterproof boots um you know make sure you’ve got some clothes

(23:46) for uh colder temperatures if you need uh you know leather or whatever um bring some extra glasses maybe night glasses some yellow colored um if you need um trying to think uh maybe like oh go ahead no I was just going to say we can put the full notes will link to them too so yeah and this is just a good start it’s things that we picked up on the way and kind of gathered from just doing the research earplugs even with our helmets I’m a big fan I wish I would have started that L I know earplugs work great even you know with our

(24:17) communicators in it makes it so much easier to hear it cuts down on the wind noise is what it does yeah for sure all right that’s it well now we have the last mile it’s our way to close the episode with reflection so uh the importance of unity and and kind of watching out for other I’ve mentioned before um ask each other how how you’re doing throughout the day um you know find out if they’re tired they’ got pains uh check on fuel levels as you’re riding how’s everybody doing yeah uh

(24:44) Comfort uh take a look at each other’s bike as you’re riding uh sometimes you’ll notice there’s a loose cord or luggage coming loose and they don’t notice it Loose Parts flapped open sh a flat flap has open the trunk is open um tires getting low we’ve seen that back tires getting low and that’s where I say the communication headsets are well worth the money yeah in fact I would even say if you’re doing a group ride that might be the first thing you purchase I think you could be right

(25:13) before anything else get yourself some head headset communicators because sometimes that person in the back needs something and there’s no way to communicate to the front of the group um plus they help with boredom you know if you have to change plans uh just you know you chitchat along the way and it tells some stories and it it you know kind of uh makes the ride go a lot faster uh those communicators you can point out things along the way that you see um front person can always talk about dangers they see and uh well and

(25:43) even when you’re solo riding it’s music you know it’s nice to have music yeah agree then you can talk about the speed hey can you slow down for me I’m I’m struggling to keep up um for me I guess just group rides to me are the thing that makes motorcycling great I mean I do like to get out on my motorcycle and Ride by myself at once in a while but honestly the group riding and experiencing trips with others for me is the number one thing and then just have that leader make sure that you have

(26:09) cruise control um without that cruise control it really it can get Troublesome um maybe not Troublesome but it just gets to be where you’re kind of doing that Surge and slow and Surge and slow and it just it’s annoying at best so yeah and our next episode is called the people and experiences of our motorcycle trips so we hope you join us for that if this episode revved up your day don’t just keep it to yourself like subscribe and share with your crew we’re all about the thrill of the ride and the bond it

(26:40) creates keep the spirit of Adventure alive and remember bikes friends and endless roads the stories ride forever take [Music] care oh