SEMMSF Spells Irony (Sadly)

Well, Blogspot (the site that hosts this blog) is acting up again and won't let me post pics. Whatever, I only had a few anyway. Let's get right into the writeup, shall we?

Yesterday, a bunch of us gathered for the 7th annual Brian's Ride, sponsored by SEMMSF; the "South Eastern Massachusetts Motorcycle Survivor's Fund", which raises money to help victims (and their families) of motorycle accidents. It was unfortunately quite ironic that the event actually added to the need for survivor funds, but I'm getting ahead of myself.

The weather broke rather chilly in the morning, but the forecasters were calling for clear, bright skies with lots of sunshine. Thankfully, they were spot-on this time around, and we enjoyed quite a nice day, even if it did wind up being a bit hot.

We staged at first one spot and then a second, to allow folks to gather where they knew how to get to. First was the Post, and we had 7 bikes lined up and ready when it was time to depart. Ahh, but there was a fly in the ointment; one of our riders had neglected to fill their tank before arriving. A cardinal sin, for sure, and we made sure to verbally spank the person for their oversight.

Anyway, since this person didn't know the route to our second staging spot, there were a couple of plans tossed out; take the whole group to the gas station and then proceed from there, or, have Matt wait for the rider to fill up and then catch up with us at the second staging spot. Well, I thought a plan had been decided on (we'd all head off to the second spot and Matt +1 would catch up with us). All set, right?

Nope. The plan hadn't been clearly communicated to everyone, so when we all pulled out of the Post's parking lot, half of us went right, and the other half went left. Fcuk. Talk about well oiled machinery...

Anyway, my group headed off to staging spot #2 (Ed & Sue's house), parked in the grassy shade and set to chuckling about how messed up things had been going so far. After a short time, the rest of the crew arrived and we were all one unit again. Things would be smooth and simple for the rest of the day, right? Yep...nope.

From there, our next stop was the ride, proper. We got split up pretty well during our entrance, as there were just tons and tons of bikes arriving. There were 4 lanes for registering, and the folks manning the stations were sending folks into any lanes that had a brief opening. When the dust had settled, we were all spread out pretty well, but no matter, we've been through this before.

We checked out the vendors, and some of us threw hard earned money at the many raffle items offered up, hoping to win something really cool. Because we'd arrived toward the end of the registration period, we didn't have a lot of time for mosieing about, and soon had to head back to the parking lot for the official start. Before long, the bikes were fired up, and we were off. (I don't know how many bikes were there, but a rough guesstimate would be 500-600 bikes - so it took a fair amount of time for the whole procession to finally exit the parking lot.)

The ride was a clusterfcuk right from the start. There were newbies who didn't know how to ride in a group, and who were going too slowly, leaving huge gaps between themselves and the bike in front of them. This allowed cars to cut in, which led to further backups, breaks, and delays. We managed to pass a few of the slowpoke offenders, as well as the cars they'd allowed to slide into the column, and were soon making good time again.

And that's when the first of the days' accidents came into our path. We rounded a corner to a mass of bikes all backed up and crawling along. As we got closer to the source of the delay, we could see the problem off ot our right side; it was an on-ramp, and a motorcycle was in pieces with its rider still splayed out across it. EMS had just arrived and there were tons of bikes stopped and folks surrounding the scene, so we kept on going since there wasn't anything we could do if we'd stopped. When we got back to the end, we found out the rider had rear-ended a pickup truck and that she had had to be airlifted to the nearest hospital. We don't know the full story, or why she collided with the truck. Initial thoughts were that she'd been blocking at the on-ramp and that someone had plowed into her from behind, but apparently that wasn't the case. (I found out today that she had serious, but non-life threatening injuries, so it's good to hear things weren't as bad as they could have been.)

Also upon our return, we heard of two more accidents. It seems that at one point, a bike that was in one lane of travel decided they wanted to be in the next lane over, so they cut across without checking their mirror. Too bad, because if they had checked, they would have seen there was a bike right next to them. But, they didn't look, didn't see the other bike, and now there were three more people on their way to the hospital.

And lastly, there had been an accident immediately after we had pulled into the parking lot at the end of the run. Somehow a car had cut in front of a motorcycle that was turning into the parking lot and the bike had t-boned the car. It didn't make much sense, since the roadway had basically been blocked off by numerous cops, so how a car happened to be entering the parking lot at the same time as the bikes were, didn't make sense. But from what we could find out, it didn't seem like this last accident was too serious (but that rider was also headed to the hospital).

Those that had made it back safely were soon lined up for the customary food and beverage lines. We filled our stomachs, washed the dust out of our throats, listened to the band a bit, and watched as the raffle prizes went to other people (I gotta stop buying losing tickets!).

At this point, it'd been a long day, and those of us that had stuck around til the end, said our goodbyes to each other and broke for our respective homes.

So, was it a successful run? Well, from some aspects; yes. The 50/50 alone was about $2,200 and that doesn't even include the raffle ticket sales, or the registration proceeds. I'm sure they raised thousands and thousands of dollars which will go a long way toward helping people. However, for an event which benefits those injured in motorcycle accidents, it seemed that not enough was done to ensure the safety of those involved. Granted, you can't hold people's hands, and a run of this size is going to attract a lot of folks who just aren't good riders. But it seems a good safety speech at the start of things might have gone a long way to preventing some of the problems, and perhaps even some of the accidents.

I heard more than one person comment after the run, that they will not do that one again because it is just too dangerous. That's not a good thing, and it's definitely not what an organizer wants to hear. But in all honesty, I wonder if the organizer of this run really gets it. The guy had more than one opportunity on the stage, microphone in hand, to ask for thoughts/prayers for the folks who'd been injured - on his run - but instead, he chose to go on and on about "his run" and how great it was and that it deserved to only get bigger and bigger each year. Some folks just don't seem to get it.

But here's hoping the folks that were injured have a speedy recovery and are back out there as soon as possible. And here's also hoping that those folks who witnessed the accidents will learn from what they saw, and will spread the word; sometimes we are our own worst enemy. Not only do we need to keep an eye out for cages, but we also need to keep an eye out for (from) each other.

And that's not exactly comforting.

Ride Hard, Take Chances