Gory Picture Meeting

“Beats Gory Pictures” Meeting

Name for this section came from Rebecca, the volunteer seated furthest to the right in the picture below.

Her phrased surfaced as Doc Wong explained the event’s genesis. Doc explained that the Skyline volunteer fire department wanted to put on a safety clinic to help reduce the extent and number of accidents that they were seeing. Their initial approach was to produce pictures of all the accident scenes where they assisted in the hopes it would elevate the need for personal safety.

When Doc heard about their approach, his reaction was to find a creative way to approach this from a more positive direction. He wanted it done differently because he knew negative selling tactics don’t serve everyone’s best interest. To do it better, Doc decided he would have a large-scale version of his famous riding clinics to attract riders and present information that would work.

To launch his safety clinic, which will also be a Skyline’s fire truck equipment fund-raiser, Doc Wong called a volunteer meeting on Friday, June 1, for his "Rider Skills and Survival Day at Alice's" clinic taking place on July 29^th of this year. Purpose of this meeting was to collect volunteers and to assess who could help with the various aspects of planning and task assignments.

Our involvement as a MARC group will be to provide communications. This event won’t need our typical route support used in bicycle and marathon events, but it will need us to provide a van as a communications center with a few motorcycles and maybe bicycle-hams for area support. More than likely roving hand-held operators will work as assigned area contacts. We might also need to have ham support in SAG-style vans to move people around.

This is a large-scale and ambitious event that still needs more volunteers to get the work done in time so Doc plans to bring more people onto team to fill in assignment holes. His clinic should be a lot fun and we should see an astounding number of motorcycles and riders of all types and skill level.

As plans mature, another planning meeting will be scheduled and all new information will be posted on this site and on our BA-MARC mailing list.

For those of you not familiar with the popular Doc Wong riding clinics, they are held in his office in Redwood City one Sunday morning every month. They begin with a set topic on motorcycling handling that Doc, or a very skilled rider, presents to the group in an informal classroom setting. Each presenter takes the group through the skill development needed by explaining the techniques used.

In all the clinics, the emphasis is always on safety, control and good neighborhood relations for the areas where the ride will later travel. After the informal lecture, questions are fielded before the riding groups are populated by riding experience levels. Rider count in each group varies from 5 to 10 riders and there can be anywhere from 4 to 11 groups depending on the days attendance and skill distributions.

All groups have a volunteer leader that leads the riders and helps keep the group together. Some volunteer leaders are good at providing feedback, so valuable insights into how you are riding might also come as you wind your way through the Santa Cruz Mountains.

Riders in the most experienced groups leave first and all groups stop at predetermined places along the route to compress the spread between the first and last rider of that group. As each group reaches the Davenport lunch stop they strap on feedbags while the later groups arrive. Riders in the most experienced groups leave first and all groups stop at predetermined places along the route to compress the spread between the first and last rider of that group. As each group reaches the Davenport lunch stop they strap on feedbags while the later groups arrive.

If you have haven’t attended a Doc Wong clinic, I certainly recommend you find a way to get to at least one even if you don't go on the ride. If you do want to do the ride, you should feel comfortable enough to handle about 100 turns over a four-hour period on some of the best motorcycling roads in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Doc Wong clinics have helped hundreds of riders develop their skills and be more conscious of riding safety. His clinics are also a great way to meet people of both genders who are already interested in what we like best - Riding.

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