My first group ride was back in 2010 when I was a new rider on a Baby Ninja. I had read about all the awesome sport bike group rides on the forums and I was eager to be a part of one. The group of superbike riders kinda put up with me (bless their hearts) and waited for me at various intervals. Out on hwy 96 in California I proved my worth though when the fast guy on the Ducati 1098 ran out of gas (tuned bike, he refused to put regular into it at Happy Camp). We were miles from the nearest gas station with premium and guess who had a Camelbak with a hose they could use to siphon gas out of a GSXR, into a discarded Budweiser can, and into the Duc.
The group type? We're all in this together. Fortunately/unfortunately I've been in groups like this plenty. Fortunately because there are people, more or less total strangers, who are willing to help each other out if they get in a bind. Unfortunately because bikes break down and sometimes people crash. Groups are fun too. Its comforting to see that someone ahead of you made it through a sketchy corner, it means you can too. A little friendly competition is also fun, but beware the presumptive fine where a TC will issue the same ticket to everyone in the group even though he only caught one doing it. He knows we won't take time off from work to return to Nowheresville to fight it and its free money. Unfortunate for my wallet I've been there and done that.
Of course every rose has its thorn. One wouldn't think that a larger group of sportbikes would make lower average times on a route but it happens. Generally the groups make good time while riding, but all the downtime adds up and compounds the more people are in the group. You see once a group stops, people start smoking, start talking, start checking their phones, and without a designated leader (that commands obedience) to say "suit up lets go" the group will be stuck there for thirty minutes or two cigarettes. Add in other difficulties like large groups hitting gas stations at once or trying to get served at restaurants and you see how much time you lose.
There's all sorts of other things that tend to go wrong when you announce on a public forum the ride. Squids show up without any gear and or with bikes that barely run. People of all skill levels show up. On more than one ride I've been the one waiting for the slow newbie. If we set the way-back machine to 2010 there was a group ride that never even left the meetup spot because a handful of JackCo Sheriffs showed up and started writing fix-it tickets on people's bikes. The consensus is that they had either learned which website we were organizing on or else the group had become too predictable. The newbie on the stock Baby Ninja didn't get a fix-it ticket that day, but that group disbanded faster than you can say Chicken Strips and only a few ever ride together anymore, organized offline.
It wouldn't be fair to pick on just sport riders. During my short tenure as a cruiser rider I tried to take part in several cruiser events including but not limited to a Poker Run. The Poker Run is ubiquitous among the cruiser culture almost as much as salad bowl helmets and leather vests with bumper stickers (excuse me, patches). My beef with Poker Runs is that for the most part each stop is at a bar. As a participant you can't just stop in, get your card, and leave, because the next stop won't have people at it yet and there's no incentive to get there early. At each stop everyone stops, drinks, smokes, then ambles on to the next. Do you want to know what I think? Of course you do, you're reading my blog. I think that its darned irresponsible to be bar hopping on a 200hp 900lbs motorcycle with nothing between you and the ground but a "helmets suck" salad bowl and some flimsy leather. Naturally I can't just pick on alcohol. In Oregon Marijuana has become commonplace almost overnight since decriminalization. On more than one ride I've seen people toking then riding. Whatever I guess, its their skin if they crash. Excuse me if I think consuming central nervous system depressants then going faster than nature can possibly have evolved us to travel on our own seems like it might be a bad idea. Hold my beer and watch this.
Here in the middle Willamette valley I've been fortunate enough to have mostly really good group rides with the only detractors being how slow it is to get people going once they stop.
On a recent ride I found myself playing tech marshal on people's bikes. A number of new people were there and I saw everything from bald tires to rusted parts, to an axle missing the end nut and halfway out of the fork. On the other side of the grid there were meticulously maintained newish bikes that get ridden as fast as the bikes look. I guess it takes all kinds.
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