Group Riding in MSTA

[normkern]

Group Riding in MSTA
Let's have a wide-ranging discussion on how we do group riding in MSTA- let members discuss their philosophies, preferences and how they handle riding groups, especially at events. I'd like to see what the problems are and what we can do to make things better, both for regular members and newcomers. I've been working on ways to improve the riding experience for my personal riding group for the past two seasons and we have accomplished a lot. Over the course of this thread, I'll explain our style, rules and how everything evolved. What we came up with will certainly NOT please everyone. It will be presented to encourage others to express what works for them.

To kick things off, here's how I became interested in Sport-Touring Group Riding.
Background

When I began sport-touring in 2001, I had just bought a used Honda ST1100. I spent many days that spring, riding by myself, exploring its limits and figuring out how I wanted to ride. It didn't take long to figure out that I didn't want to ride by myself all the time. 2001 was also the year I made a new best friend, Tim Zimmer. Along with Allan Skinner, another recruit from Dayton Motorcycle club, we began doing a lot of riding together and discovered the Mail Pouch Fly-By and MSTA, which quickly became our home for sport-touring style riding. Tom Bartels and Daryl Cassada were early influences from the club, and I quickly picked up a crude GPS unit.

In a couple of years, Tim and I had better GPS units that we could load complex routes into and we started learning navigation inside and out. I liked the challenge of navigating, and wound up leading the rides. I have never been a road racer or ridden a track day, so never got in the habit of maximizing my speed on twisty roads. The thing that really turned me on was the fun of counter-steering and leaning in the corners. For me it was more fun to follow the contour of the road than straighten it out to go faster. Thanks to my younger days of riding endurance runs, I could quickly get into a zone riding the ST and carve corners for hours at a time.

One of the big changes when I started riding in MSTA events was wearing full gear. I've never liked being hot, so have always had a love-hate relationship with riding gear- love it when on the bike and moving at speed, but hate it in town and especially when stopped. That's why I want to suit up in the morning, jump on the bike & get moving. On hot days especially, it's uncomfortable to stop so I avoid it as much as possible. I want to do the ride, finish and get the gear off, so I hate delays. That's just one challenge.

A bigger challenge is limiting group size and composition to avoid the "herding cats" and "slowest common denominator" problems, which are the bane of most group riding, which I'll refer to as "Social Group Riding". In a way, all group riding is social, so we'll talk about that in the next post before we start discussing alternatives...

Comments welcome!

Norm Kern

[Patmo]

Hmmmmm......

Think I'm just going to wait and see how this goes before I express any thoughts.

[bcd]

Great idea for a discussion, Norm. Thanks for starting it.

[RIDEMYST]

Good topic Norm.
My motorcycling interests have changed over the years. This includes the bikes I ride, how far I ride, how I ride and who I ride with.

We (the Boss and I) started riding over 20 years ago. We were thrilled about the idea of group riding and being members of a club.
Each weekend a group of 30 or more riders would meet and ride for 200 miles or more.
I was typically asked to be a "road captain," the guy that led the group. That was also fun...... for a while.
As road captain I was responsible for the route, the pace and stops along the way. However, I would often get complaints that we were going to slow or to fast, we didn't stop enough or we stopped to often. I could handle that but when I was blamed for the weather it quickly became old. I also discovered that often I had riders in my group that I had no idea of their riding skills. What was worse, riders would show up to join in on the ride because (for good reason) no one else would ride with them!
We liked the social aspects of the club but not those fleas that came with that dog.

In 2004, I purchased a Honda ST1300. I was surfing the web looking for information on sport touring bikes when I came across the Florida HSTA site. I contacted Bill Royal (then State Director) and was invited to join the group for a lunch ride. There were about 30 riders at my first lunch gathering. But what I noticed was riders were arriving in groups of 3 or 4 NOT in packs of 20. This I liked!

Today we ride with people that we know that have similar riding skills and I keep the group small at 4 - 5 riders. I could care in the least what kind (or brand) of bike they ride just as long as they keep the pace and are safe riders.

I guess this is what we like about the MSTA, it fits our group riding style.....AND there are lots of great folks!  -JEP-

[DirtFlier]

Integrating slow, medium or fast riders into any group will always be a problem without easy solutions.  I agree with JP about riding in small groups; conversely wonder about making our events more friendly to newbies.

[qman8]

It's very tough to find people who share your personal riding style, Ive found.    Large groups are simply dangerous, and for many reasons.  2 years ago I connected with a local on-line group that called themselves a "sport-touring" club.  I met up with them for a ride and started to ask about their riding technique.  There were cruisers and sportbikes and everything in between.  The leader of this group repeatedly told us "Make sure you stay really close to the person in front of you so we don't lose anyone."  I thought that a bit strange.  There were 20+ riders and I asked if they would break into groups of faster and slower riders.  "NO!, just keep close and close the gaps"!  So on this ride, I had riders beside me, (which I hate) riders close on my tail, saw 3 different bikes lock up their rear tire while stopping for the person in front of them, and one slide out into the middle of an intersection, barely keeping the bike upright.  And I was reprimanded for leaving too much gap in front of me!  At lunch, I said I was taking my own way home.    This is why I love the MSTA!  The best group of riders, as a whole, I've ever ridden with, in over 300,000 miles! 
Thanks for keeping up the high standards guys (and gals)!!!

[Phil Bolichowski]

Just to throw my 2 cents worth in the conversation, the Michigan MSTA director has a nice written seminar about this very subject and it was the focus of a group meeting during the off season last year. It's probably worth a read and can be found on the michigan website at www.mstamichigan.com. Go to articles and scroll down to find it.

This group does a nice riders meeting before each days ride and helps people find like minded groups, then has re-grouping efferts on a daily basis during a multi-day ride. I personally like to ride in as many groups as possible to experience as many different riders as possible. It's not always perfect results but I enjoy leading and/or being within a group. Many groups I join rotate the leader throughout the day (voluntary only) to give evrybody a chance to lead and follow. It's good for everybody to get the feel of all positions and what the differences are.

[OldButNotDead]

There are 14 pages at last count at http://www.sport-touring.net/forums/index.php/topic,54635.0.html#.VienqCtuMvw.  The topic is titled I'm already seeing why sport tourers ride alone
It covers this topic ad nauseum. 
The only reason I belong to MSTA is to ride a few events with a few long time friends.  I had the best time in a very long time riding with one old companion at the FCR because we ride exactly alike, we make accomodations for each others likes and dislikes, and we can make route changes on the fly.  IMO, if your Group is greater than about four riders, the logistics, riding styles, and personalities diminish from the primary goal of sport touring --- having fun riding a motorcyle.
 

[normkern]

Great replies- Keep them coming!

Norm Kern

[TN2Wheeler]

I'm pretty much in the same camp as OldbutNotDead. I enjoy MSTA mostly for social reasons and have very little interest in accommodating new riders who ride significantly slower (or faster) than me or who need special attention. That said I am more than willing to wait on, assist and lead/guide my friends (who are invariably willing to do the same for me). I will add I am willing to assimilate new friends with similar interests and riding styles.

I've been riding a long time (57 years) - maybe too long to be understanding of those with a different philosophy. I guess I'm just a curmudgeon.  I used to be a sport-tour rider doing long, high mileage days. Ya know, high mileage ST1100 - the whole thing. To be blunt it's been a while since I've been real interested in street riding beyond the paved connections to dirt roads. That's just not me anymore. I simply find hiway touring boring and often dangerous because of the speeds and general stupidity of many drivers.   

MSTA is a great club that allows me to interact with good folks and still ride the stuff I like. I hope I'll be able to do that for a while.

[doug mcpeek]

I made this flowchart (attached) to illustrate how the Central Ohio contingent handles a ride.  When I am leading I will often wait for the ride to regroup more often than is illustrated here.  We are pretty good at staying together, but we have been on rides with very slow people at the back and it has worked fine.

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[Brick]

Very good Doug! That is how we do it here too. I ride with two different groups and there are MSTA members and non members I both groups. Additionally we all know the lunch destination. Plus in the Carolina Old Farts Sport Touring Association we are usually running with either Sena (if 4 or less) or GMRS radio's if more than 4. Obviously the radios make it so much easier to stay together. In the other group, The Knobbies, only 2 or 3 of us ever have radios. The Knobbies is a Sunday after breakfast ride. Someone picks a place for lunch and that is the destination. There is a "Touring" speed group and a faster group. This allows us to have a more manageable size group in the faster group.
Since I live in Western NC we have lots of elevation and many curves which is why I moved here. Like Norm said I love carving the curve and do not try to straighten the road. Usually I or Gary end up leading this second group. 

[qman8]

Nice flowchart Coach!  I really don't know why it has to be more complicated than that!  Ive seen groups use all sorts of hand signals and lane changes, flashing brake lights, etc...  WTF?   

I will say that one of my biggest riding fears is having someone trying to keep up with me that may be in over their heads and crashes.  I've had it happen.  That time with pretty fortunate results.  Next time might not be so lucky.  Even though you tell someone to "ride your own ride", usually their natural instinct will be to try to keep up. 

[Patmo]

I've always thought that as a rider in a group, I am responsible only for the rider directly behind me....as far as making sure they see me turn.  It then becomes their responsibility to make sure the rider behind them, see them turn.  And so on.  I think the flow chart does a good job of showing how this happens. 

Keeping the group small, and keeping it a group with similar skills and pace, makes staying together easier and less stressful for all.  It's been my experience thst riders in the far back of groups often feel the need to go much much faster at times, just to catch back up to the group at stops/turns.  This is dangerous and stressful for all.  This is especially a problem with large groups that take up much more road space as they spread out.  AND it's especially a problem for riders that either don't know the route, or don't know the location of the destination.  These are reasons to avoid large groups and to make sure those in the group do have a route sheet, or a GPS route, or at least a destination address. 

I've stopped leading large "rides" and just set up lunch "destinations"......allowing people to group up as they wish, without myself feeling the pressure to herd cats and get them all somewhere at a certain time.  It becomes their responsibility, not mine. 

[RichGrab]

Great stuff guys. Coach, I really liked your diagram, and Patmo I agree - keep the group small, and as long as the person behind you makes the turn, why should everyone have to stop to wait for the next guy. I began my riding years on the mountain roads of SoCal, and rode mostly with 2-3 good friends and 2 of my brothers. We all knew the roads, and where we were going (this was pre-GPS days) and it was usually just a day ride. I've seen one of my brothers crash, and they've both seen me crash. And those were due to not riding "your" ride. First and foremost, it is up to the rider to make sure they are safe and ride safely. I for one would much rather be lost, than crashed. YMMV.