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long. If you have good company or so the saying goes.
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But lousy planning can ruin a group ride Welcome to the Throttle & Roast podcast, I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. In today's episode, we'll look at tips for planning group motorcycle rides. Maybe you've only ridden alone.
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Perhaps you've been a participant in a group ride, but you'd like to organize your own ride. I'll share some guidance on how to make the ride the best it can be and what to watch out for.
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distinction between a group ride and a rally. A rally is really a gathering of many riders at a location, and they may have organized their own way to get there There may be some group rides that depart from a rally, but it is really a very different experience than what I'm going to be talking about in this episode, which is really about a group ride where riders are en route together in this moving caravan of motorcycles is a bit more complicated, or at least differently complicated than putting together a rally or an event where people are gathering at one spot. So we're going to cover a bunch of that in today's episode.
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So the first thing I want to discuss is the size of the group. Now, in general, the larger the group will require more planning, and this involves keeping everyone together.
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Managing logistics such as Where are you going to stop for food or fuel? And it becomes significantly harder as the group's size climbs. So I don't want to get into the dynamics of you're going to organize a ride for 100 riders. I mean, that's a very, very complicated type of ride and having organized a lot of rides over many years. I found that the sweet spot tends to be no more than about ten riders above that, together without a police escort or multiple ride leaders throughout the group just becomes near impossible. So it's far, far bigger deal than if you're going to have a bunch of friends together and go for a fun ride. The other thing is when you're trying to find a gas station that can accommodate so many riders arriving at the same time, it's much harder as well.
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Can you even fit all those bikes in the parking lot at the gas station? So it's something that's really challenging. And don't even get me started on trying to find a restaurant that can accommodate 100 riders. So we're going to really focus on really if you're just thinking about how to get started with planning one of your first or earliest rides, I'm really going to strongly discourage anyone from planning a ride with more than ten bikes. So we're going to start on that sweet spot and really focus on ten or fewer riders.
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with some of the ride characteristics and then I'm going to break this into a few different groupings that you'll have to determine of what it is that you hope to achieve with your particular ride.
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how long in advance will you be planning this? Are you looking for a day of the ride?
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An impromptu one, maybe. You have a pre-planned gathering with friends and some might want to head out on a ride afterwards.
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Or it's a weekly ride. You can just go get up and go, which can be fun on its own, but with nothing shared in advance, some riders might be uncomfortable not knowing where they're going, and sometimes even just a destination can set people's minds at ease. Now, if you have more time to plan or you want to get something in advance and let's say you have a week or more, the more time that you have to plan, the more likely that you can share the route in advance. You can make reservations for food, fuel or accommodations if you're doing a multi-day trip. So taking advantage of the time also allows you to verify any of the stops along the way.
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The next thing is what is the goal of the ride? Now, some rides might have a destination that you're trying to get to, and that's perfectly fine. It's a very common situation for people of, Hey, we're going to ride to this place. Maybe it's an event that you're riding to together. Maybe it's a restaurant, whatever the destination is. The other one is that you could be just doing a fun route, which could just end up being a loop. You might be saying, Hey, we're going to start in this place and we're going to come back to it and just loop around and have a good ride for the day so you can have a couple of different destinations or goals for your ride. And the third one that I'd say is really kind of a multi-day trip where you might be traveling from one place to multiple other places. Maybe it's a longer loop ride, maybe it's something like a backcountry discovery route.
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There's many different ways that you can have a longer ride. And so thinking about what is the goal of the ride will start to help you finalize in your mind a little bit of like, What do I need to think of and what really are the considerations?
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The next one is how long are you planning for the ride to last? Now, shorter distance rides are much easier to plan because you don't need to typically worry about things like food or fuel stops along the way. Now, if your destination is a food stop, certainly that's going to be part of your planning. But if you have to have multiple food stops along the path that you're traveling, this does add in some complexity and some logistical challenges based upon the size of the group. So I'm going to break that into really less than 100 miles and more than 100 miles, and I'll get into exactly why I use the hundred mile delimiter in a moment.
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let's start with route planning for less than 100 miles.
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or shorter ride will have less logistics that you need to manage. And these can often be impromptu rides as well as some limited advanced planning rides that are going to be this less than 100 miles. And I'm going to break it into a couple of different groups of what you may do as these smaller than 100 mile rides.
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So let's start with you have a destination and you're going to have a starting point where you're going to begin the ride from. Well, one of the key things you need to make sure of is does your starting point have enough parking space for everyone to gather? And have you communicated this clearly to everyone in advance so that there's not some random field on the side of some road somewhere that you're going to pull off?
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And that's where I'm going to meet everybody. Probably a little harder to identify what that is. so when you start to think of what are good starting points oftentimes gas stations are really good starting points because you can ensure that everyone's fuel tank is filled up. When you begin the ride.
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Another one is that you might start at a restaurant or a coffee shop, and this is another way to really be a good way to kick off your day because you can make sure that everyone is filled up themselves, not just the fuel tank, but their their own tank is filled up. And of course, if you combine these two, if you have a restaurant that's next to a gas station, it's even better because you can have both stomachs and gas tanks full. So think of what your starting point is going to be for that ride. And then, of course, you have your destination in mind.
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So then the next thing is how are you going to route yourself to get to that destination? With that end point clear, really you're filling in the path and there's a few ways that you can do this. Now, I'm really a big fan of having a fun, twisty route, and there's a couple of different tools that can help you with that type of ride. So one of them would be, Rever, this is, you know, one of the tools that I use quite often.
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It's a great planning tool allows you to actually if you have a pro subscription, you can actually plug in your starting point and end point, and it can provide a really decent route where it will be very twisty along the way. Now, if you're in Europe, Calimoto is another wonderful resource, does a phenomenal routing in that same vein of being twisty roads. So you've got this ability to have a good baseline. The nice thing with either of those two tools is it's going to give you a starting point but you may want to snap the route from what it has pre-selected to maybe some roads that you particularly know and like that, you know are going to be fun. Roads to bring your group on. Or maybe there's a site along the way that you want to make sure that you're going to pass through because it's just a beautiful experience.
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That might be something that you add together. So these two planning apps Rever, Calimoto. I think they're really good options for you when you're planning your route. you might use something like a Garmin Zumo and Garmin Zumos at least some of the more modern versions have this thing called adventurous routing, which is really quite similar to that twisty routing that you would have on Rever or CaliMoto. and that's going to find some really fun roads along the way. And if you happen to have a beeline moto, you've probably heard from our previous episode where I talked about this was actually my favorite new piece of gear of 2024 was the Beeline Moto2. in the Beeline Moto app there, you can select a fun route and this is going to be a crowdsourced route that will find the ones that people have said, Yes, this segment is really good or this segment not so good. And it will try to find a route between your starting point and your endpoint, or if you have middle waypoints along the way, of course, and that works for Rever and then the Zumo show as well, Now, of course, you will also sometimes have routes that are less than 100 miles away where you don't have a destination in mind and your starting point is probably and have the same considerations that we did for where you do have that destination mind. So sometimes a fuel station or a restaurant or combination is going to be a good starting point, but your ending point could be something a little bit more random. Maybe it is a gas station that you want to do.
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Maybe it's a loop back to your starting point and it's good to sort of communicate this with the group to see what their preferences. Some people may not want to be where you rode almost 100 miles away from where they started and now they've got to come back that 100 miles. I mean, it could be a fun road, but maybe they're not prepared for another couple of hours of return trip. So communication is really key and making sure that everyone's on the same page is just going to make sure that everyone has a positive experience versus where people think you're going to be doing a route that's somewhat local and then you end up two states away.
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So really think of how you can plan that out. Now, of course, when you're going the same type of planning and routing options that we used for when you have a destination in mind can be used for your routing and there's actually a couple of cool features that specifically work on devices like the Garmin Zumo and the Beeline Moto, where you can kind of have a almost like a loop route that you want to have defined. So you can say, Hey, I want to ride for an hour or 2 hours or 50 miles or 100 miles or whatever your distance is going to be, and the device will figure out a route that will go along some fun roads and get you back to your starting point within whatever constraint you said. So it's 50 miles, 100 miles, whatever it ends up being.
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And of course, if you already know the area very well, you can craft your route as you're riding along. Maybe, you know, here's some roads that I knew and it's going to be about this and that can work really well.
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But I would encourage you, don't take that as your first go because your ability to know the roads, your ability to know how long it's going to take, it's going to cultivate over time. So I'd probably recommend using something where you have some planning and routing that you can have at least some reinforcement of. This is an hour or 2 hours of distance that we're going to be traveling, and then you can communicate that with the group, make sure everyone feels okay with it.
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It's really that's the key thing, is that when you're riding by yourself, you may be perfectly fine to say, Hey, I'm going to just go and do these fun roads.
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Once you have a few other people involved, the different personalities, the different preferences start to play in here. And communicating is really the key differentiator.
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All right, let's switch into your route planning for more than 100 miles and once you're over 100 miles, you're probably getting into a multi hour or even an all day ride and coordinating with your group to ensure that everyone's comfortable with how many miles you're planning for. The day is critical, And if you're doing it simply as a day ride, probably need to really think about making it a loop to get back to your starting point, or at least to have a clear midpoint that you're taking the ride too, that everyone feels comfortable with.
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Because that's the key thing, is you don't want to have people where you're leading them on a ride and they think it's going to be somewhat local. And now you've gone 200 miles away and they've got to ride another three or 4 hours just to get back home. So communication is clear But the reason why I like having this dividing line of 100 miles less than or 100 miles greater than is, it's a really good one for thinking about your fuel stops. Now, most any motorcycle on the market today should be able to go at least 100 miles. Maybe there's a couple of really, really small tank bikes that will struggle with that. But in general, any street going motorcycle should be able to go 100 miles or more on a tank. if you're going for a ride that is more than 100 miles, you really need to start thinking about where are your fuel stops. And what I found is a good rule of thumb is make them be every hundred miles or every 2 hours is just a good rule of thumb to have at least a stop. Now, if you're going to be planning this in advance, it's probably worthwhile to confirm that the gas stations that you're planning on stopping at are actually still open. How many times have you come across you look in a, let's say Google Maps or something and say, oh, there's a gas station there. And then you may stop there. And it's been closed for a year and a half. if that's the only gas station there and people are running on fumes, that's not a really good situation. So planning is going to be also validating that the places you intend to stop at are actually available, and not even just that they're open at all. But are they open at the time that you're planning to arrive? So better situation is oftentimes to have your fuel stop, be where there's a collection of gas stations. So even if the one you'd initially intended to stop at isn't available, you have a couple of other options you can kind of just audibly, oh, we're going to switch and we're going to go to this station because it's actually open. So have that flexibility And we also want to talk about food stops because just like your bike is going to need fuel. in a few hours, you know, let's say you did a breakfast start around lunchtime, you going to probably have to figure out a place to stop along the way. check with your group in advance to figure out what their preferred eating time is.
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They'll help you narrow this down, but most of the time, if you have a stop that's planned sometime between, let's say, noon and 2:00. That'll usually work for most everybody. But again, I really am a big fan of Overcommunicating just to make sure everyone is on the same page and comfortable with what you're thinking of. like fuel stops, you want to call an advance. And in many ways it's really, really critical for this because as you get to that larger group, having availability for a table when you arrive may be a little bit more challenging. So you want to validate that the restaurant can accommodate you and the group of your size when you arrive. Now, I've run into situations where and I've done this both on a solo rides as well as on group rides where I hadn't done this in advance. And I just kind of made a stupid assumption that that restaurant was going to be available and open, and maybe it was only two or three riders with me. So we were like, Oh, you don't have to call an advance. And we got there and the restaurant was closed because it was a Tuesday, and they're closed on Tuesdays for some random reason. So always, always, always call in advance just to validate it. Now, this is where having your G.P.S. or whatever tool that you're using to have an estimated time of arrival is helpful because this will at least make sure that you're going to hit into that window of are they still even serving food at the time that you're planning for? So if you're planning for a lunch spot and you're aiming for 1:00 and
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00, you've got to be very careful that you're not going to get delayed along the way. So that
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00 intention might turn into 130 or 145 and now you're getting there and the kitchen closes in a few minutes, you may not be able to get your meal in time. So try to give yourself as much of a window as possible so that you're not having where everyone has to hurry and rush to be able to get through their meal. Likewise, you may have a breakdown along the way and this would be another reason why you want to kind of assume a little bit more flexibility of that window of when you would arrive and when you have your hard stop if the restaurant is closing or stop serving meals. That you have that buffer to accommodate it. The other thing is when you're on those fun twisty roads, they tend to be in more of a rural area. They tend to be in areas that are away from population in density situations.
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So you may have fewer food and fuel options than if you were going, let's add a boring highway ride. sometimes it may be valuable to say, you know what, for this, because I don't have that visibility, maybe I will take the highway instead because I have more likelihood of being able to see, Oh, here, the next exit has food and fuel and I can make sure that we can get something for the group at that location. So it's this tradeoff that you have to think of of the fun road versus the availability of food and fuel along the way. Now, the other thing I want to think about is as you're riding, you know, we talked about some fuel stops. We talked about some food stops.
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It's really important to also think about rest stops when you're going over this 100 mile range. Now you start to get into a little bit of not just that you need to refill the tank, but you can also start getting into a bit of where people are starting to feel more fatigued.
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And the longer that you're on the bike and riding, the more that fatigue can start to play And the chance of an accident actually increases. you may want to have as a good rule of thumb, that's why I like that 100 mile range I found. If you're stopping every 2 hours or 100 miles and giving people a rest, maybe it's you're just getting fuel, but you can still get off the bike for a bit. Maybe you're stopping just for a break on the side of the road, whatever it is.
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But having some built in break time is good and check with your group before see if they're comfortable with that. Maybe they want to break every hour, every 30 minutes, and that's fine. Just make something that's going to work for your entire group because fatigue is a really bad situation. I've been on actually group rides that I was not leading before and we were traveling from New York City. We were going up to Vermont to stay at a beautiful inn that's up there. We're on the road for multiple hours riding up here. And one of our riding buddies, it was their first trip that they had ever done on a motorcycle all their rides before had just been, you know, an hour here, an hour there. So very short rides. And they were on a Ducati Streetfighter, which is not exactly the best touring bike.
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And they had just gotten some saddlebags to put onto that bike.
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And we'd been riding. We were actually up towards, I think, Northern Massachusetts at this point. We were pretty close to getting to Vermont. they're going through this fun twisty road section and just we hadn't stopped in 3 hours at this point, and they just started to get tired and. Weren't paying as much attention and went off the road and smacked straight into a tree. that's the thing that could be avoided if you just stopped a little bit more frequently. You got a read on everybody's fatigue level. Maybe if you start to see that a group is getting a little bit more tired, you may even start to stop more frequently towards the later part of the ride. So just really be thoughtful of that and fatigue. While it's one thing that can be important from a accident prevention perspective.
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You also have to start to think about some of the other biological needs so people may need to use the restroom and that's why I like the 100 miles or 2 hours. That's usually pretty good for most people when it comes to being able to find a bathroom. And if you're pulling into a gas station, most often they're going to have a restroom for you. And while, as I said, gas stations can have some of these bathrooms, some of them can be a bit sketchy maybe look for a nicer looking gas station or even a truck stop where they're more likely to have some clean bathrooms than maybe some random hole in the wall gas station that you just find along the way.
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I want to also focus on some gear that I think is really helpful to bring along. as the ride leader, the group is putting their trust in you. Now hopefully you've managed to put together an outstanding route for them. They've had plenty of options for the rest stops, fuel stops and meals, maybe even a few sites to pull over and admire along the way. And this is wonderful. But this gear can actually help bring that ride to an even better level.
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Now, one of the first ones is actually a Bluetooth communicator. If everyone in the group is on an intercom, it's much easier to know if someone is having a mechanical issue.
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They need a restroom or a break because they can just call it out or they're running low on fuel. And both of the major brands of Cardo and Sena now offer headsets with mesh. And this makes adding or handling dropped riders much easier. Now, while they're not necessarily a low cost option, they're very, very helpful for group rides, as well as being able to listen to GPS instructions or music. So I do feel that they are worth the investment. And certainly if you're going in for a group ride, you probably want to have one at least that you have availability.
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If other riders have them to build a connect in with you. We do have an article on Bluetooth headsets on the website, so add that link in the show notes so you can take a look there and get a sense of what's on the market today, what are some options. But they're a really good tool to bring along for you on a group ride because you are working with others and you really need to be able to have that communication mechanism.
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Next one is that first aid kit. Now, as I shared, like we had that one ride where someone ran into a tree and I always had I always carry a first aid kit with me, so I was able to tend to them and help them in some ways before the paramedics were able to arrive.
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So at least we stabilized them.
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this is the real critical thing.
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You want to have something you're not going to necessarily like perform open heart surgery on the side of the road. So be realistic about it. But you want to be able to stabilize the rider And maybe it's not even a severe injury. Maybe it's like, oh, someone you know, needs a bit of aspirin or maybe they, you Maybe someone has a mechanical problem, they're working on the bike and they cut their finger while they're working on the bike. Having a first aid kit will help you in that situation. So it's really, really good. Any time you're in a group ride, always bring along a first aid kit and as the leader, it does sort of fall on you to make sure that you are responsible for that. Then the next thing is, and this plays a little bit into the Bluetooth communicators, but now start to think about other communications gear that you have. The Bluetooth comm units are really helpful when you want to communicate within the group, but you also want to have an ability to communicate outside of the group. And look, most everybody today has a cell phone. And so having the ability to call with that phone for help, whether it's a mechanical problem, whether it's an injury or whatever, But it's really important that you make sure that you have something like a powerbank or a way to charge the phone on your bike so you can keep it from running out of battery in your time of need. As you get into maybe some of the more back roads area The challenge you're going to run into is that the cell towers will be less frequent and therefore your battery may run down because it's going to put up the power for the transmitter a little bit stronger. So your battery may not last as long as it would in another situation.
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And by the same token, if you actually have where maybe your battery is fine, you've got the power bank, you've got some power that's connecting into the bike, and you're in a zone where there's no cell coverage. This is where a satellite communicator can really make a difference. this is a tool that allows you to effectively call for emergency services where you don't have cell capability. Now, some of them are just a push for help, kind of a device, some of them have a two way sort of texting mechanism that's available to them. That same ride that I described where we had that person who crashed into a tree, we're in the middle of nowhere. There was no cell service. So I had to actually make the call on my satcom to be able to communicate and get an ambulance to be able to come.
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The beauty is it communicates the GPS location. So the ambulance was able to know exactly where we were and they were able to arrive. It took him still a good 30, 40 minutes because we were really in the middle of nowhere if you're always going to be riding in more populated areas, maybe you can get away with just the cell phone. But I would say if you get more into that off the beaten path sort of zone, having a satellite communicator is absolutely worth it.
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All right. We've covered some of the things of how you can plan the ride. We've covered some of the things that you'll want to bring in terms of extra gear that will support you on that ride. But when you're about to kick off the ride, one of the things that I think is really critical and this plays into what I've been emphasizing throughout this episode, which is communication, you want to make sure that you have a pre ride meeting with the group. You want to describe the rough plan for the ride, how long it will be. Where you're going when you'll stop, or at the very least, how often? Make sure that you ask if anyone has any questions, any concerns before you start. This way everyone's on the same page, and if there's a worry, they can raise it ahead of time and then you can adapt.
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This is where you also may want to be making sure that you have your communication set up between everybody. Make sure that your comms are all coordinated. And that fits into actually one of the most important other aspects that you can do, which is designating a sweep rider. Now, typically this should be one of the better riders in the group. And if you do have comms, I would say at the very least, make sure that the lead rider and the sweep rider have communication going on between them, because this way they can actually keep track of what's going on. Maybe you have eight, ten bikes and the distance between the first rider and then the last rider might be a, you know, a mile, two miles, even as you start to stretch out.
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Now, that sweep rider ideally should have a copy of the route or at least know the destination and then they can navigate to get there. So if for some reason the group got separated, you'll be able to then at least have that sweep rider be able to guide everyone there. Now, that person should also have a cell phone, ideally a satcom, so that again, if the group gets separated and there's an incident, they can also do that same situation of supporting the riders because they're coming up and they're going to collect everybody who had some incident, had some breakdown, whatever it is, Now, one of the things I like to do in every pre ride meeting is share some of the ride rules. if you're already used to doing group rides, you probably have heard some of these rules or guidelines in the past. They may have some variation that comes in. These are just ones that I found over the many years of leading group rides. That does help ensure the safety of the group, the clarity of the group. one that I love to say is your speed riding by yourself isn't the same as riding in a group. If you want to ride fast and believe me, I love to ride fast on a bike.
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It's a it's a great time. But if you want to ride fast, ride alone when you have a group, their pace may not be the same as your pace. And you have to be mindful that you set the stage for everyone else. And maybe you have the route on your GPS. You can see, Hey, there's this big corner coming up, but not everyone else has that visibility into it. And if you're going through tearing up through there, they may be going a little faster than they're comfortable with and they may not be able to navigate through that corner. So think of you are setting the stage for everyone else. And even if you tell them, hey, you know, you can go at your own pace, they may feel pressure to keep up. So ease up on the throttle just to help everyone else. It will make a big difference. And as I said, if you want to go really, really fast, go ride by yourself. It's okay. On a group ride. It's about having a good time with everyone. So you want to keep everybody safe. You want to keep everybody having fun, but you also don't want to put people into a situation where they're feeling uncomfortable or pressured to ride faster than they should. Now, this leads into where you should also communicate to everybody that they should ride their own ride.
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Every rider in that group may be at different skill levels and the comfort with the roads or even the knowledge of those roads and where the turns are, they may not know them. So even if the pace of the leader is quicker than the slowest rider is comfortable with, they should feel comfortable to know that they can go no faster than they are comfortable with. the reason why it's critical to sort of communicate that is we have a back up for this and this is where we say, look, when we're making a turn across traffic or merging onto a road, we're going to wait for a gap big enough for everyone. So in the US, for example, if you're making a left hand turn, you're going to be crossing a lane of traffic. Same goes for a right hand turn in the UK. It's better to wait for a gap in traffic that your entire group can make it through than the just go ahead on your own. And if you just go when there's space for you, the odds that other vehicles will get into the middle of the group increases dramatically. And now there's even more distance between the leader and the back of the group. And people are going to feel more pressure to ride faster to be able to catch up this leads into actually another good rule that you have which says You are responsible for the rider behind you. Now, this is really critical because even if the route is not shared in advance, you want to make sure that you can keep everyone together, especially if you're in the middle of nowhere in the back roads. Maybe not everyone has a GPS and they won't be able to, if they get lost, have no way to get back home or where where they know where something is. So you always want to have that. When you get to a turn, you stop and you wait for the rider behind you to see that you're making that turn. Make sure your indicators are on and that they are going to follow, and then they will stop and wait for the rider behind them. And if you just keep this going, this will ensure that no one misses a turn. Now, we oftentimes think of turns as just, oh, I'm making a 90 degree corner on to this other road, but sometimes you're going to have a junction is where it's maybe a fork in the road and it may not be clear which direction of the fork the group is going to ride on. So it's good to even stop there. You're really trying to emphasize about clarity and communication and when it could be either or just wait, not a big deal. they'll catch up, and then you can go on forward again.
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So make sure that you have that communicated that you're responsible for the rider behind you. And the last one I want to talk about is you want to encourage people that how we make the group dynamics will be different on certain road. So, for example, if we're on a large road, let's say an interstate or a highway, you want to really ride in the staggered formation.
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This is a very common you see this on a lot of bike groups.
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And the idea is your following distance between the rider who is directly in front of you is normal following distance. But there's a rider who's almost sharing the lane with you. But a little bit to the side of you.
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They're almost a staggered direction. And this way you can keep the overall group size shorter. So if you do need to make that turn across traffic, not everyone's so far behind and it allows you to just keep the group closer together when you're riding but still maintain safe following distance from the rider directly in front. Now, this does change when you get onto some back roads because while the staggered formation works great on highways, on interstates where they're really mostly straight or very subtle turns, once you get into really twisty rides and really tight turns, it's hard for people to then maintain that they're only using a portion of the lane.
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you'll switch to being single file on backroads. what I tend to do with a lot of the rides when I lead them is I may be in the front, I may be going at a little bit of a faster pace than some others. I'm not going to just wait for the one rider who's directly behind me. I'm going to wait for a few of the riders behind me or maybe even everybody else. See what the group dynamic is, because I'd rather get everybody through the turn, then potentially lose someone because someone in the middle didn't follow that rule of, hey, being responsible for the rider behind you. So you got to kind of also keep an eye on how good the group is and how much you can trust because you're effectively delegating that responsibility for the rider behind them. So if you don't trust the riders or you're not seeing that they are following that rule, you just wait for everybody and then you'll never lose anybody. So it just makes it super, super easy.
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So that about covers us for this episode. And we covered, you know, the difference between group rides versus a rally as well as the size of the group.
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As I said, I think the best bet, keep your group size less than ten bikes. It will make the logistics much simpler. Now, when you have done a few rides like this, you start to feel more comfortable. You can start to think about the dynamics of going into a larger group ride.
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I've done much larger group rides. I've even went on much larger group rides riding off road, which is its own dynamic and challenge. And so there so start with that smaller group. I would even say like maybe start with like two or three bikes to begin with, just make it smaller, less stress, easier to keep everyone together. We also talked about some of the ways that you want to think about planning that ride. Thinking about fuel stops. Thinking about rest stops. Thinking about food stops. If you have all of that coming together, you're going to make a much better ride. making sure that your gear that you have along with you, whether it's a Bluetooth communicator, whether it's a satellite communicator, cell phones, make sure that you have gear that's going to support you. And, of course, a first aid kit just in case someone has an injury. And finally, we talked about the rules of how to keep everyone following along. Make sure that you're not going to lose riders when you get to a turn and make sure that they're not riding beyond their comfort level.
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Anyway, thank you so much for listening to this episode. We'll talk to you next week.
