Motorcycling Doesn’t Just Happen
ABATE District 10's first meeting in new quarters.
Sunday was the January meeting of my ABATE District 10, for the first time in our new meeting space–and definitely a step up!
For as long as I’ve been a member we have met at the Frontier Club out on East Colfax, which is kind of a dive bar. It wasn’t bad but apparently some people objected to the idea of a biker organization that promotes riding safety to be meeting in a bar. So we moved to Noonan’s over at the Heather Ridge country club, in a private meeting room. Some members opposed the move and unfortunately, they were noticeable at this meeting in their absence.
So if anyone ever wonders about how motorcycle events come to be held–poker runs, rides–this meeting was a demonstration of the answer. Almost the entire meeting was taken up with two areas of focus. One was the safeguarding of riders’ liberties and the other was planning events.
On the safeguarding liberties front, a guy who goes by Stump was there. He is the ABATE of Colorado legislative liaison and he was there talking about a lot of bills or potential bills in this new session of the Colorado legislature.
One was a proposed bill to prohibit anyone under the age of 8 from being a passenger on a motorcycle. This had the appearance of a solution looking for a problem. The representative behind this thing is Joann Ginal, a Democrat from Fort Collins. According to Stump–and I do acknowledge that Stump could be biased–this thing got started with Ginal was approached by a couple constituents who didn’t think this was safe, and that the legislature should do something to protect kids. Apparently, however, no one–not the Colorado State Patrol, CDOT, or anyone else–thought there was any need for such legislation. Also, it seems one of the people who approached Ginal was the wife in a divorcing couple, and her to-be-ex likes to take their kids for rides–which she does not like. Let’s get the government involved!
Lacking no good statistics on the number of accidents with motorcycles involving kids, it appears the bill will go nowhere. But that’s the kind of thing ABATE tries to look out for. And by the way, ABATE has a new logo, that includes the wording, “Dedicated to Freedom of the Road.”
The events planning portion was total nuts and bolts. Although each event has its own committee, some of the details get hammered out at the district meeting. For instance, we talked about the upcoming (July 12) Iron Azz ride, a 500-miles in 12 hours ride. Would there be T-shirts? Would they be included in the $25 registration fee or do we sell them?
Or the Blessing of the Bikes, in May. Do we continue to sell the little pigs that are the trinket of the event (they cost 97 cents and sell for one dollar) or does everyone just get one? The suggestion was raised that not all traditions are worth continuing, but the response was that the riders always want something as a token of the event. So the decision was to keep the pigs, give them at no extra charge to all participants, but revamp the registration so instead of $10 per rider and $5 for the passenger, everyone just pays $10.
Yeah, it’s pretty mundane, but you can bet these sorts of discussions go on for every event you attend. They don’t just spring into the universe fully formed.
Biker Quote for Today
Adventure begins when your plan falls apart.
Tags: motorcycle legislation
