Modern Vespa

Hello,

I'd love to hear from the folks who have experience in organizing rides and setting up scooter/motorcycle clubs.

Some questions for the experienced:

1. When organizing rides, do you keep it informal (ie not officially hosted by anyone) or do you have it organized with an official host or host club?

2. Do you have (or recommend) some kind of organizational liability insurance for organizing rides?

3. As a ride or club organizer, what do you do if someone on a ride is being not cool/riding unsafely?

4. For those who are part of a club, is your club an official/registered organization (ie some kind of nonprofit)?

5. Any resources you'd recommend for starting a club or organizing rides? Any advice?

Thanks!

RvL LX50,

Others in this great forum will have additional input. In Minnesota, we
have a solid riding group of about 50 members and 10-15 regularly
attend group rides. Here are some thoughts:

In the beginning, even before I joined, founders of the group went
around to motorcycle and scooter dealers with notices of up coming
meetups and ride. It started out with two or three showing up and grew from there. If they rode by a parked scooter they would leave a note about future rides.

1. Our group has no official status or membership dues. Everyone rides at their own risk, and we have no group Liability exposure or insurance.
2. We have a website on Meetup.com. We post rides on this Meetup website.
3. We have an annual planning meeting and schedule one day long group ride each month (Usually Saturday) and also schedule a four day extended ride that routinely anchors in a one hotel and we loop ride out daily.
4. We have assigned group ride leaders that map out the route and are responsible for keeping the group together. Usually, the ride leaders will
pre-ride the route and be aware of road closures or safety problems.
5. We pass out the National Motorcycle group riding and hand signal instructions guide. Always a sensitive situation if someone is dragging the group or riding out of order (because you do not want to run them off) the ride leader, after or during the ride at stops, will have a private talk with the
rider.

I really enjoy group rides and have developed life long friendships.

Good luck, start out with as many as you can get together.

Look my group up at Meetup Minn-Max Minnesota.

Bob Copeland
Minnesota

This is great, Bob! Super helpful information and really good ideas. I love the "leave a note" when you see a scooter. That's such a neat way to be inviting and welcoming of folks.

RvL Lx50,

I may privately post you about leading a group ride. Many on this forum are accomplished at leading group rides and could offer much advise.
A couple of initial thoughts.

1. Leading a group ride is not natural What is natural is riding alone and taking off. You need to take off slow and allow them to catch up and form up behind you.
2. Traffic lights are the big challenge. You need to time lights to stop and let everyone follow. Otherwise, you need to pull over and let the cut off riders
catch up with you.
3. At stop signs, I hand signal all traffic on the right and left to proceed until I can take the whole group through together.

Good luck. Group riding is great.

Bob Copeland

Unless you are a web designer, look into Meetup. I belong to two scooter groups there.

Be prepared for a slow building process. Depending on the size of your local scooter community, it could take years to be truly successful.

Consistency is key to your success. Pick a ride schedule and stick with it. Don't change up the days or times every other week as people need to start making a habit out of participating. Communicate, communicate, communicate. Post rides with ample notice, not the day before. And don't ask "where to ya'll want to go?" Do that in advance or you'll spend a half hour debating on what to do.

Decide what types of riders you want: 50cc, vintage, modern or motorcycles. These all won't have the same things in common. If you find yourself with Burgman 650s. you don't want to piss them off being having to limit their speeds to what a 50cc will do. At 7 Bridges Scooter Club, we discourage 50cc bikes. Just not a good fit.

Practice safety, but don't get tied up with administration. As soon as you start appointing officers, the personalities come out. Ask for input, but don't plan routine activities by committee. We have no officers in our club. No dues either. No insurance policy because that would mean having to charge dues.

Align yourself with a reputable dealer, if you can. They can be a source of members and can maybe host a meet n greet for your club.

Build in meals with rides so the opportunity to socialize becomes part of the habit. That's how people will get to know one another.

If someone is doing something unsafe, counsel them. If that fails to produce the desired result, uninvite them. In 15 years, our club has only had to do that two or three times.

We've followed these practices for years at 7 Bridges and it has worked well for us. Even with the coronavirus, we've been able to get in close to 100 rides this year. And logged some 10,000 riding miles. Some people come all the time, others every now and then. Whatever works for people is whatever works.

Seconding this. Decent platform, relatively easy to use, and a decent way to get your group noticed.

No criticism intended here -- I'm just riffing off of your post. Thanks for the inspiration! Absolutely. One of the longest-running clubs in my area has been doing "first Saturday of the month at <location> 12:30PM with 1:15PM kickstands up" for decades. People show up who never saw it on the internet. (Sometimes people show up for cancelled rides anyhow, and a smaller ride happens anyway. )

Pick a regular date -- as noted above, "first Saturday" but it could be alternate Saturdays, or third Sunday, or whatever. If there are other scooter clubs in your area, don't schedule on their regular dates.

Advance notice is critical. You're asking your riders for a good chunk of their day -- often, they'll be planning their weekend around it. Pick a bike to benchmark your rides around (around here, 150cc is a common choice). If you have a wide range of bikes and a large rider pool, consider making some rides "50cc friendly", while making most suitable for 150cc, and some as maxi-scooter only rides.

One thing that comes up after a while is bike escalation. Riders who started on 50cc bikes will get 150s, the ones on 150s will move up to 300s, then maxi-scooters, and maybe motorcycles. The question is whether you go with that, or keep your focus on the mid-range scooters? There's no right or wrong answer -- it's just something to keep in mind. But maintain social distancing!

Some rides are about the ride, with scenic or technically-challenging routes. Some are about the destination; a good restaurant (but consider your riders' budgets!), a museum or historical site or some quirky attraction, or an event (car show, local fair, etc). It's always a good idea to include a meal stop -- but at the end, or, if it's in the middle, at the turn-around point. Riders will inevitably tend to bail out after lunch unless the rest of the ride is the "easy way" home.

Also, if you have a large group, make sure that your lunch stop can handle everyone in the group. That little hole in the wall place might be amazing, but how's the parking? How long will you have to wait if you hit them with a party of twelve? Of twenty? I've been on rides where the first arrivals had finished their lunch before I even got my food...

Destination rides are easier to make 50cc friendly than "route" rides.

NSR.

We have a "ride" on 25th of this month. It is a monthly meet up. All we get is a destination. So no leader, no route planning, etc.. and no convoy. If guys from same town want to ride together that is their prerogative.

You can also have a weekly week-day evening get-together at a local restaurant/coffee shop. We used to have Italian Night at a coffee shop. Just given a time say 7 or 8 pm. Always the same place on a Tuesday. Can discuss next ride out destination. You can continue this in the winter!

The starting is the big one. You will need a core group. I started a running group once. I was trying to drum up runners and when i got enough..... My mate said No! Just get 4-5 people and do it. The 4-5 will all know someone etc.. We started with work mates etc and had 11 on first try.
I don't know how you would use social media to garner attention. Mine was pre-social media so put flyers up (in your case community centres/ motorcycle dealers etc), I went on local radio but that also may not exist anymore. Get some business cards printed with contact info and leave one on any scooter you see. Lah,lah,lah

"Unless you are a web designer" made me LOL. Thanks!

Great advice! Thanks!

In Italy we have an organization from 1911: the Italian Motorcycle Federation which organizes and gathers those who want to found a club; it also sends out inspectors who take care of events by training members who want to run the club. It also provides forms and advice and, for those who want it, with a little extra annual money of about EUR 20 (the membership is EUR 30) you have an additional insurance valid during the days of the meeting.
Each club can have a personalized meeting calendar but that possibly does not hinder other meetings on the same date within a radius of about 100 km; then there are the national gatherings, also in a calendar organized annually.
In each meeting the presence of an ambulance with paramedics and two policemen is mandatory to keep order, an additional order service is given by the club that organizes the meeting and also sorts the traffic by blocking the intersections to the passage of participants during a route which often includes historic sites and "local food / wine tastings". Lunch has an agreement with a fixed menu and price but never disappoints, you eat and drink in abundance while spending little (on the way back some participants fall into the ditches or have accidents due to drinking ... ouch!). For vintage vehicles there is also a final award ceremony attributed based on the rarity, type of restoration and age of the vehicle; for modern vehicles they are awarded (with cups or plates) based on the starting distance.

https://www.federmoto.it/

I have been involved in a BMW motorcycle club for 25 years as a Founder Member and committee member for 15 years.

The main thing I found is to decide what you want to offer those you want to attract. Our club's motto is "Shared Riding Pleasure" and we have been very successful in that all along. Single brand clubs invariably require some formal contractual link or other to the manufacturer as a condition for using the brand's Intellectual Property (name, logo etc.) Having a good symbiotic relationship with the dealer/s also helps to foster great club spirit. In this club, the dealer principals are paying members (as is a number of the staff members) but they do NOT hold office in the club structure to protect its independence.

The easiest 'club' is just a group of like-minded people who can put up with one another for a few hours once a week, doing what they love to do. Everyone rides their own ride, is independent when it comes to insurances and expenses, with one or other person facilitating the ride route and stops along the way.

The Vespa riding group I currently belong to is just that - a group of Vespa riders. It is a voluntary association without a constitution or office bearers, rules and regulations. Everyone is free to join and free to leave. One does need a leader/s to take the initiative and make decisions though or the debate will never end!

If you don't like something, you either remain in contented silence or you speak up. Speaking up WILL get you saddled with the task of facilitating the next ride to show off your ability! There is room for growth and room for social interaction at an appropriate distance, with masks and sanitiser spray!

Great thread here.

It would be nice to get updates from OP on how his efforts pay off!

Thank you to everyone for the great ideas. I was hoping this would prove to be a useful thread for others like me who want to organize rides.

Really useful info here. As I was sharing with another MV member, I live in upstate NY and unless we have an unseasonally warm winter, I think we'll opt for a/some coffee meetup/s until spring. There's a great motorcycle cafe in Hudson, NY called Moto Cafe -- the perfect place to meet up. I told the punk rock mechanic there that I was going to organize some scooter rides and he lit up and was really supportive.

I'll keep you posted with how things develop!

The most essential thing that makes group riding work efficiently is the Marker System, aka Second Man Drop-off.

It's hopeless getting a ride larger than four or five riders through a city centre without it - getting a ride of even 20 through traffic lights or round a roundabout in one go wouldn't work.

It also allows everyone to ride their own ride, with no pressure to catch up or ride above one's ability.

It works like this:

There is a designated Leader of the ride, and a designated Tail-gunner who remains at the back.

*Every* time there is a change in direction that might be ambiguous, the second rider stops before that change in a safe place that is visible to riders behind and indicates the direction to take. This may be a turn off the road, an exit on a roundabout, every traffic light.

That marker rider rejoins the ride in front of the tail-gunner, starting off before him or sometimes behind him then overtaking, depending on circumstances.

Each person on the ride except the Leader and tail-gunner gets to do this, and therefore also experiences every position in the ride.

It also means there's no need for the Leader to wait until all riders are behind him - they carry on as long as they have at least one rider behind them.

This system is used by all Advanced rider groups in the UK and EU - and the VCdM. Interestingly it was first developed by Harley rider groups in the US, but somehow fell out of fashion.

That's a cool system. To clarify, "second rider" means whoever finds themselves immediately behind the Leader. Not/never the Tail-gunner, who happens to be the second rider named in the description.

Thank you for the clarification - sometimes it takes someone else to proof-read!

"The entire world needs an editor."
-Mrs._ORhea, an editor

If it were possible I would go there ... but the teleportation is not there yet.

This is outstanding.Definitely going to implement this. Thank you!

Exactly what we do...!
We call the 'Tailgunner' a Sweep.

Out here the HOGs ride in pairs, too close behind the bikes in front of them with Ride Captains and Road Marshalls with hi-vis bibs and a strict order of status in the group. No overtaking them is tolerated and illegal blocking of traffic at intersections. They think this creates "presence" on the road and increases the appeal of their brand.

For that reason, the only Harley I would ride would be a 'rat bike' 1200 Sportster.

..is surely not riding in a group. Nothing worse as a road user than finding oneself behind a long line of connected vehicles often impossible to pass.

If there must be a group(s) then like running, the participants need to split into pace groups. So they can ride in 3's and 4's at the same speed. this negates the need for a "leader" a "second man" and a "sweeper"

We're pretty casual and ride at vintage pace but I think someone showing up on a 50cc scoot would be problematic.

They've tried here and it's never really taken off. You'd think in a city with about 6 million people and a Piaggio dealer it would be easy but nope. I just don't get a sense of affinity from other Vespa riders . We have a LOT of scoots but they are just seen as easy transportation and city parking is free for bikes. I meet way more people with the Ural and K1600. The biker crowd is in my experience closer than the Vespa crowd in Toronto.

We do have a vintage club that seems to do well enough and I've met the guys and they seem nice. The big vintage club in Ontario I've met at shows and they always seem a little stuck up. When I was younger there were lots of clubs but we met mostly through the scene at the clubs or ska shows.

That's the whole point of the marker system - there can be huge gaps between riders (many minutes or miles) and it doesn't matter. So no bunching up except possibly on roads with more than one lane in each direction, where it can happen naturally and the group doesn't form an obstruction.

I was riding Sweep on a group ride last year. The Ride Leader's hi-viz jacket was easy for me to make out as he rode up a pass at the head of the group. For interest I noted the odometer and then checked it again when I got to the same point.

From Leader to Sweep was 11.7km...
Averaging 60km/hour, it took 12 minutes from the first to the last rider to pass the same point on the route.

Edit: Math corrected!

It was a winding road down into a valley and out the other side.
I was probably 6-7kms line of sight.

Super stuff from everyone.

1. Groups vary on endurance and length of the ride. In my group, we plan
rest stops every hour. These rest stops are usually 1/2 hour long at a
facility that offers gas, bathrooms, coffee, soda, snacks. My old fart group needs to stop regularly.
2. Our rides usually attract 10-15 riders. We use two ride leaders and break up into two groups that depart 10 minutes apart and arrive at the same fixed rest or lunch stop. Many times you can see group one way off in the distance.
Smaller groups can be safer. If it is all rural backwoods roads we may go in one big group.
3. Lunch destination and eating good chow is big in my riding group.
We always have reservations made into a facility that can accommodate
our group size. Getting out of lunch can drag because of delays in getting
the bill and paying. I tried getting bills up front - never went smooth. Lunch
is scheduled for one hour - never happens - usually longer.
4. We also have a designated sweep or tail that keeps track of everyone.

Bob Copeland
Minn-Max Scooters of Minnesota

I am always last behind the participants, it is safer in case there is an accident in the group I have time to brake.

My local club in Dayton Ohio is the Gem City Rollers. We are a very informal group with a Facebook page that we use to organize rides. No Officers, No dues, No Fuss. Any member can plan a ride by calling out a date/start time, starting location, and approximate distance and duration. And we go from there. We also have a monthly meeting at various local restaurants (although earlier this year and this month we'll be in a Zoom meeting)

Most of our rides have between 5-10 riders, although we did get surprised when we had 25 show for our recent Fall Foliage ride.

We have used the Marker System in the past, but most of the time it is not needed.

I must admit that I would find the situation under IMF as reported by Attila oppressive. We enjoy a tremendous amount of individual freedom in South Africa. We do have formal motorcycle racing and rallying competition governance, but private clubs are not regulated.

Interesting enough, any event in which individual participant's time is measured as a factor in deciding the order of finishing is deemed to be a motorsport event and then subject to the control of Motorsport South Africa.

I found this group last year. They have bike nights, rides and a website that lists the rides in the area. This video pretty much explains how they were formed. It now has 4,000 members on Facebook.


https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=--aIQ-6v88E&t=11s

With my big belly i absolutely "must" own a Harley Davidson!

My belly isn't big but still I have one big bike, one small bike and a scooter. If I was going to get a V-Twin it would be either a Kawasaki or a Victory.

... or a Moto Guzzi ...