Having been on, and conducted a fair few ride-outs, I found this weekend’s turn out by PMC club members impressive. Was it the weather? Was it because it was the first ride-out of the season? Was it the destination? Whatever – 32 riders turned up to ride to RAF Cosford in Shropshire. As far as I know we have never had so many people attend a ride (the next largest was a visit to the Southport Airshow).

 When these numbers of riders are together, the logistics of keeping the group as one are almost impossible to achieve. As far as I am concerned, getting over 40 miles into the trip to the first stop without losing anyone was a minor miracle.

 The ride-out system expounded by both the ride-leaders and the club committee works. Absolutely. No question. But people have to understand the intricacies and subtleties of the instruction set – and have a reasonable idea of where they are going (which is why, usually, everyone gets given a route on paper at the start of a longish ride).

 What it boils down to is this: If a junction or roundabout is NOT marked then it’s straight across, if a rider marks it then follow their directions. As another poster said “simples!” (But I mean it).

 So what went wrong? How did 30 riders lose the leader less than 15 minutes away from the destination?

Only one of three things can have happened: a) a motorcyclist not part of our ride-out (from another bunch or club) was, by coincidence, marking a junction and once a couple of PMC riders turned off, the rest followed; b) a PMC rider thought they saw the ride-out leader take a turn at the roundabout where it all went wrong and followed; or c) a rider just took the wrong turn.

A) Is a genuine error that no one can account for. B) The junction would have been marked by a rider if the leader was deviating from going straight across(remember the guidelines) and c) the ride-out guidelines state, “ if a junction or roundabout is not marked then assume it’s “straight across”.

 What about Hi-Vis – wasn’t the leader wearing it and shouldn’t he/she be easy to pick out?

Your joking of course, every one and his dog is now wearing hi-vis (a sensible thing to do I may add). With so many people in hi-vis it‘s not practical to use that as a guide as to whom to follow.

 It’s a pity really, as the roundabout where it all went wrong had a huge signpost indicating the direction to “RAF Museum”.

Okay, we had radios at the front and back, why didn’t they come to our rescue.

The PMR446 radios used (the only ones allowed legally) have a limited range dependent on weather, topography and a whole host of other factors (don’t believe the 2 or 3 miles you see in the ads). With 32 riders the “string” can get inordinately long. As only the leader and back marker had radios, occasionally communication was impossible.

Other general factors impacting on the ride included the numbers of other bikes out and about. Sometimes it was difficult to figure out who was actually with our group and who was not - there were that many people out on bikes (suppose everyone with a bike had a bit of spring fever).

 All in all I thought the ride-out was a reasonable success, with Cosford being a cracking destination.

If members have any ideas on how to improve ride-outs (everything can be improved) to the benefit of everyone then the club is more than willing to listen to suggestions of a practical nature.

The problem on Sunday was caused by the large number of people that turned up on the ride out  and by the perosn who mistakenly marked a left turn when the route was staight on.  Apart from that we only had one unplanned stop, caused by a crash and everybody got to where we were heading for and all seemed to enjoy the day out.  So I would say WELL DONE PAUL!  A group of 32 is TOO large to lead and cannot be expected to stay together.  It would be better to split such a large goup in future and have two leaders, who know the way even if that means that the planned “tail end Charlie” and leader split and are no longer in radio contact as they ended up for most of Sunday.

David G

regarding the radio contact range (and not knowing anything about them !) if there was a 3rd radio in the middle of the pack, would this allow a greater range between the front and rear riders, if this would be the case, then Sundays riders who took wrong turns could have perhaps been called back to regroup.

just a thought 

Steve H

Thanks to everyone who turned up for the ride-out and to those who have taken the trouble to put a post on here and/or make a suggestion. In particular thanks to Stef for backmarking and Rob for troubleshooting in the middle of the pack. 

My apologies for losing everyone just minutes away from the destination and my apologies go especially to those who didn’t manage to get there at all. The good thing is that apparently I can claim to have set a new club record – no ride leader has ever before lost absolutely everyone on a ride-out. I lost all 31. I knew I was good but I didn’t know I was that good. 

There’s loads of discussion going on about ways that we can improve the ride-outs to reduce the risk of losing people so hopefully we’ll come up with something. I’ve suggested the simplest solution would be to make sure I don’t lead any more ride-outs. 

TTFN

PC

If we go by coach, can we still wear hi-viz?

Maybe we should get some Orange / Yellow jackets for summer and black ones for when its snowing!

Apparently the camouflage ones are for use in the desert - lets face it….a thousand square miles of nothing but sand and your dressed like a tree, your going to stand out.

Grimm