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The world will be riding dapper in just a few short weeks.
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Break out your best tweed suit and kickstart your bike.
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Welcome to the Throttle and Roast podcast. I'm your host, Niels Meersschaert. In today's episode, I'll be talking about the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride. This annual global charity ride has been going on for more than a decade, and this year it runs on Sunday, May 18th. No matter where you are in the world, there's probably a ride near you. And if you're not familiar with the DGR. Stay tuned as I dive into what it is, how it got started and how to get involved.
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So what is it? Well, the DGR or the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride is an annual charity ride focused on classic and custom styled motorcycles and scooters ridden while dressed dapper in a parade ride to raise funds and awareness for men's health. And it was founded in Sydney, Australia, in 2012, where it was inspired by Mad Men's Don Draper sitting astride a motorcycle, a classic motorcycle that is in a full suit. And from that sort of beginning of seeing that sort of imagery, they created this vision where all sorts of motorcyclists are dressed in their best and riding for celebrating and just enjoying the rides. Now they partnered with Movember to raise money for men's health. It's really to focus on two specific issues related to men's health. The first one is prostate cancer.
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And in the past few years, they've also expanded to include mental health and suicide prevention. if you know anybody who suffers from any of these, this is a great opportunity to get out on your bike and do something to support those people who are going through some difficult times. it has become a worldwide event. In fact, in 2023 of these saw over 100,000 riders in nearly 900 cities in more than 100 countries take part in this global event. Now, I've been participating in the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride since 2017. So I've been I've been doing it for quite a while.
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Maybe not from the when it first began, but fairly early on. But the last few years I've joined the Rhinebeck, New York event.
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Rhinebeck is smaller than the New York City ride that I done previously. But I find the area up in Rhinebeck, that whole Dutchess County is just such a wonderful place to go riding. I prefer to do that as opposed to dealing with all the traffic in Manhattan. So it's kind of why I picked that. The other thing is that Rhinebeck does still have a good mix of bikes, despite being a smaller location than major cities around the globe. And Triumph, of course, has been a long term sponsor and their modern retro bikes are well-represented at Rhinebeck, as well as many other locations around the globe. Now, you will find if you actually go to one of these events, you're going to see a tremendous number of actual classic motorcycles, not just the modern classics like Triumph has been building in the recent years, but you'll see some actual classic bikes, which may even be Triumph's. You may see some Hondas from the seventies. And of course there's a ton of BMWs like my 1972 BMW R75/5. And of course, many other brands. But there's definitely a lot of great viewing that you can see of all these wonderful bikes and of course, modern classics like those from Triumph that we talked about as well as from Royal Enfield. And there's usually at least a few or a handful of Ural side cars, which of course were based on an older BMW design but still have the horizontally opposed flat twin, but with a extra wheel rather hanging off to the side and a side car, which makes it really fun when you can bring your dog also dressed up in a fun suit.
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So it's really cool to see some of these various things going on.
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Now beyond some of the classic looking bikes, both modern retros and the actual vintage bikes. You'll also see, of course, a ton of cruisers with all of their chrome. And this is part of the style guide that you'll see within the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride where they call for certain styles of bikes. So they do want that more classic appearance. a plain old cruiser, you know, not something with, large fairing and, pretty much sticking to that old aesthetic that will be certainly one of them. Now, they do allow you to ride in a modern bike like an ADV bike or a sport bike. Those type of bikes, full fairings cruisers, as I mentioned. But what they'll typically do is they'll ask you to kind of sit towards the tail end of the ride because they the really the imagery that they're trying to convey is that old classic bike. Sometimes people will do it in a tweed suit.
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Other times, people will do it in other types of outfits. So there's a bit of a variety. Now, the route is typically going to be about 30 to 40 miles, the police are going to be blocking major roads. So this way you can keep the group together, avoid, you know, cars getting in the middle of that group. Now, the fun thing to me with this is just the variety of the attire that you're going to see. I've seen outfits ranging from tuxedos to tweed suits and even some steampunk style. So there isn't just a single style and you can really make it your own.
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The bottom line ultimately, is to ride dapper. So however you want to convey that, that's what it's really all about.
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So there's a few ways if you want to get involved with this, that you can do So Now, certainly one of the easiest ways it doesn't involve you having to have a motorcycle. So if you're still contemplating getting a bike at this point, you can get involved with this event just by donating and supporting some other riders.
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And now I'll be, of course, riding, as I mentioned at the Rhinebeck, you're more than welcome to donate in my name on there which would be at g folk dot me that's g f o l k dot m e slash throttle and roast. course, you don't have to only donate to other riders. You could also ride yourself. part of the thing, as we mentioned, is really you want to be thinking of how can you be dapper? Part of that appeal is seeing that bunch of really old classic motorcycles riding through a city with everyone in a suit. Now it is slow speed, so some participants do forego wearing riding gear that you would normally do just to protect yourself. Now, for me personally, I have about 50 miles of riding just to get to the start of it, so I tend to wear armor underneath my dapper suit. So I'll use a Knox armored shirt, for example, onto the upper part of my body, and that provides both impact and abrasion resistance. Even though I've got the tweed suit sitting on top of it, so very easy that you can do. Helmets are, of course, mandatory. Check out the episode that we did a few weeks ago about helmets. If you wanted to kind of see what are some options for you that you might want to consider. And as you get to the ride, of course, there's a ride host at each event and they're going to do a pre ride meeting just to make sure that all the participants know what to expect and what is going on, how the route is going to be managed. All of the other details, of course, they'll also be picking out some people who will be volunteers and these will oftentimes act as corner markers. So as you're going along the ride, the ride leader will actually designate the next person to to say, hey, pull off to the side here, hold it so that they block the road a bit and allow all of the other following participants to get onto that turn that you need to do. So it's really well organized. And so if you're worried about a large group ride, you don't have to worry with the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride.
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It's really, really well organized. Now. It is a slow speed parade ride, so don't expect stunts or hooligan riding.
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This is really opportunity to raise awareness of motorcycles, but in a positive light while also contributing to supporting men's health. So we're not we're not trying to be the stunt riders. We're not trying to be people where non riders will become annoyed at this. They will actually oftentimes be waving. They'll really enjoy it.
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So it's really about an opportunity to have a very positive impact. Now, usually I'm taking my 1972 BMW R75/5.
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Unfortunately, I had a bit of an electrical fire with that last year and the bike is still a bit out of commission, so I'll be riding on my R 18. It's still going to be that classic look, even though it is a cruiser and it looks very much like the 1932 R5 rather, from BMW. And of course the really fun thing is if you love seeing a lot of those old bikes, there's a lot of these older bikes to gaze at before the ride. And we've got from when you're supposed to meet till the ride time, it's usually about 90 minutes before the ride actually begins. So this way people can now accumulate, they can get together, they can make sure that we have all the ride meetings, they can make sure they can get all the volunteers for the corner markers, all sorts of other things. Get them together. But you have plenty of time to grab some pictures of some of the other bikes. Talk with your fellow riders and just enjoy seeing some of these really, really old bikes. So those are the first two ways that you can get involved.
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course, the last way that you can get involved is by being a spectator. you can find the nearest ride to your location from the DGR website. So if you go to www. gentlemensride.
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com/rides, you'll be able to find all of the various countries that are participating in there and select your country.
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And then you can see all of the ride locations that are available. And there's so many of them. As I mentioned, just a couple of years ago, there was over 900 locations globally.
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There's going to be something that's going to be within a reasonable travel distance for you. In all likelihood. And you can find something to even just go and be a spectator so you can reach out to the ride host of course, for getting more details on what the route is so you can find that opportune place just to get a good spot to be able to watch the ride as it goes by.
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So this is just a very quick episode. We covered the Distinguished Gentlemen's Ride and how Ride Dapper might become a part of your vernacular if you actually participate in this. We also shared some ways that you can get involved by donating, riding or just spectating at your local event. I'll have links in the show notes for where you can register to ride, of course, where you can learn a little bit more about the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride as well as I'll put in the link for that episode that we had on helmets. Just in case you don't have a particular helmet, that at this point you can see what other some of the options that would work for you in this case.
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The question I had for you, though, is are you planning to participate in the DGR this year?
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If so, I'd love to know where in the world you're going to be riding. So share your thoughts by clicking the text the show link in the show notes, or leave a voicemail at throttle and roast dotcom slash voicemail.
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Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you next week.
