Having recently been a victim of riding with a group of people, with one who was way in back not paying attention, losing control, basically running right into me, my bike taking most of the damage, AND HIM NOT BEING INSURED!!! I'd like to warn all my fellow riders to call your insurance agencies and make sure what you think is covered is covered. I have Safeco and they are going to replace everything that got messed up, minus luckily my $250 deductible, if its not a total loss, but they are only going to replace it at stock prices. I'll have to make up the difference out of pocket to get it back the way it was. The only good thing that came out of this is I walked away with no injuries.

2008 FLHR 2284 miles (was never on its side until some moron hit me)

 

I hope you are not letting him off the hook just because he had not insurance.

 

Group riding can suck when the group start to "rubber band"- stretching and compressing. Every group ride ends up that way to some extent, but it really boils down to who you are riding with. When you are in a group ride, you all are only as good a rider as the worst rider in your group, so pick your riding mates carefully and work with them till they learn to flow with the group.

Whenever I ride in a large group of mostly strangers, I place myself last in line to avoid exactly what happened to you. I've seen it happen several times, so don't feel like you are alone.

Folks who ride often together eventually get to know how each reacts. I see this with the local HOG folks who show up every week for their lunch or dinner run. It's the rides that are open to the general public that are most dangerous because you end up with a bunch of riders who are strangers to each other and haven't learned to flow together.

I'm a lucky survivor of the old days when poker runs were a regular event. We would all meet at a bar and slam a few, then head out to the next bar to slam a few more and gather our playing hand one card at a time-one bar at a time. We would all end up drunk and slapping each other on the back reliving the perils we just survived.....

Those days are over for us old survivers. We now meet up for a run that includes a fine meal at some distant restuarant where we mostly drink iced tea or soda along the way, or we might all meet up and go visit a distant Harley dealer who is throwing a fish fry or crawfish boil that weekend.

 

Yes, the rubber band effect with group riding sucks. Best place to be is as close to the front as possible, then you dont' have to worry about it as much, and the person directly behind you doesn't either. lets not forget about our own situational awareness though, not only do you need to pay attention to whats in front of you, but also those on the side and behind.

When i ride for group rides its most often (probably 90% of the time) in the very back of the back as the rear road captain, so i'm exposed to the rubber band effect all the time. knowing that, just need to be aware of whats going on with the riders in front, and adjust my speed and following distance accordingly.

having said all that, it does suck when you get involved in someone elses carelessness. I guess what my mom always used to say is true "its not you i worry about, its the other guy!"

 

Yep. I generally try to lead or sweep on our HOG Chapter rides. If I get stuck in the middle, I try to surround myself with riders I know and the ones I don't I watch carefully - especially when a light turns yellow!

 

I'm not into group rides. My limit is 8 or 10 and I won't ride 2 abreast with any of them. It's staggered or nothing. You just don't know what other peoples abilities are, if they are on drugs or drunk or even have a license.

 

Same here. But I pretty much gave up riding with groups...MSF courses and such are good training, but riding is like any high-risk sport...if you have to think what to do, it's usually too late. And I've never had better training than to do like we did in high school. We all chipped in on a beater bike, took it up in the mountains, and practiced laying it down on the pavement, running off on the soft shoulder at speed, and locking up the brakes and controlling the slide. Over the last 40 years those real-life experiences have saved my old azz more times than I care to remember. An awful lot of today's riders just don't have a clue when it comes to real-time emergency maneuvers.

 

Back to the original post.

In most cases you need to pay extra for insurance coverage of non-stock accessories.

Our friend the 8ballkid found out the hard way. Let his lesson help the rest of us.

Good luck 8ball. Hopefully you can get some cash out of the guy that plowed into you.

P.

 

Pay the insurance man extra for the accessory & customization you do to your bike, and no matter how much you trust your ins. man, KEEP YOUR RECIEPTS!!

A few years back I wrecked my previous ride, which I happen to have more invested in the custom work than the damn thing was worth.
The first thing State Farm wanted to do was write me a check for the blue book value of the bike. I reminded them of the extra binder I had on my bike covering all the "extras" I had done to the bike, and they immediatly informed me that they were going to need to see reciepts for this work!
Well, luckily I just happened to have a file in my cabinet with all the paperwork for damn near everything I had ever done to that bike.
Total accessories, chrome, paint, etc.... was over $11,000. They weren't too excited to see all that paperwork! I think I still only got about .75 cents on the dollar for all the extras, but without those reciepts, I probably wouldn't have gotten sh*t from them.

Heres my old girl who got sent to Bike heaven before her time!
http://s3.supload.com/free/newwebbike.jpg/view/

 

The best way to manage that kind of ride is to choose a few R&R stops along the chosen route and let people ride to those at their own pace. Breaks the huge pack into much nicer small groups but everyone can still meet up at each stop.