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So You Want to Go On An Organized Motorcycle Adventure Tour?


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I figured I'd post this for people to understand what to expect on an organized tour as well as what will be expected from you.

A friend of mine from Facebook post this unfortunate story, written by another friend, of how she went on this motorcycle tour and nearly died and goes to to assign blame to the tour operator.  My comment was "trial by Facebook?" The point being that we've only heard one side of the story.  And of course there were tons comments falling on either side of the argument but I was pleased to see I wasn't the only one skeptical.

I was able to find the other side of the story you can read here.

Read them both and then I'd like to know which side you think better reflects the truth.

The theme of this story is about disclosing medical issues but I can go into many others I've seen on group rides, organized or not.

I did once do a trip to Baja with a guy who not only could barely ride a motorcycle off-road but had some kind of serious medical condition that required him to bring a special IV bag just in case he had to be hospitalized in an emergency (if is ailment flared up).  Once we saw all that we told him he should probably go home but he opted to follow us via the pavement.

There was another rider I heard about out of a local dealer where they'd planned to ride the Mohave Trail (bad idea on big bikes like the 1200 GS/GSA) in hot weather and one of the guys has a heart condition he didn't disclose then ends up dying of a heart attack on the trip.

I've also been on trips where the other riders just aren't honest about their ability.  One particular trip I did we had this guy who was beginner level for an intermediate trip.  The really frustrating part though was that he wouldn't take direction or he'd do it correctly once but not again!  He was as bad a rider on the last day as he was on the first.  That was really frustrating.

On another trip I had a rider get mad at me because I didn't allow them to do a certain section of the route and asked them to take the highway for that section.  Then a bit later in the day I suggested they ride with us and then the rider got mad at me because it was above their level!  Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Been there, gone through that. I simply avoid group rides due to my lack of advanced skills and the rubber cord effect often being multiplied on dirt roads.

Guess it all boils down to controlling more risk factors on solo rides versus the benefits of group assistance and group prefs on more high skill level roads and single tracks.

To me the benefits of controlling speed and detours etc on my own trumps the more complex nature of group rides.

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