The 2010 Winter Ride for Diabetes

Crazy man Mike Cole rode across Canada last year to heighten awareness of Diabetes and to raise funds for Diabetes research and a cure.

He braved icy roads, blowing snow and minus 67 degree Celsius temperatures to accomplish the 2009 ride and he did that ride largely without sponsors or funding. (Click on the above link to view one of many videos from the 2009 ride)

This year, Michael is looking for assistance.

He needs sponsors and we are reaching out to the motorcycle community to find him that support.

Your help is needed to help stop the Diabetes Epidemic.

Here are some facts about Diabetes and the preliminary information on the 2010 ride:

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From the Canadian Diabetes Association: The personal costs of diabetes may include a reduced quality of life and the increased likelihood of complications such as heart disease, stroke, kidney disease, blindness, amputation and erectile dysfunction.

• Approximately 80% of people with diabetes will die as a result of heart disease or stroke.
• Diabetes is a contributing factor in the deaths of approximately 41,500 Canadians each year.
• Canadian adults with diabetes are twice as likely to die prematurely, compared to people without diabetes.
• Life expectancy for people with type 1 diabetes may be shortened by as much as 15 years. Life expectancy for people with type 2 diabetes may be shortened by 5 to 10 years.

The financial burden of diabetes and its complications is enormous.

• People with diabetes incur medical costs that are two to three times higher than those without diabetes. A person with diabetes can face direct costs for medication and supplies ranging from $1,000 to $15,000 a year.
• By 2010, it’s estimated that diabetes will cost the Canadian health care system $15.6 billion a year and that number will rise to $19.2 billion by 2020.

The Statistics:
An estimated 246 million people worldwide are affected by diabetes. With a further 7 million people developing diabetes each year, that number is expected to hit 380 million by 2025. (Canadian Diabetes Association: www.diabetes.ca)

Update from world clock:

- Today 15,840 people DIED from Diabetes, that's what has been reported.

- Today 31,680 people developed Diabetes. (11,563,200 a year - 5.2 million more than predicted)

- “Diabetes has increased 61% in the past 10 years and 76% among people in their 30’s. One in every three children now being born in the U.S. ultimately will become diabetic.” Dr. Isadore Rosenfeld.
 - 1.3 million new cases of Type 2 Diabetes were diagnosed last year alone – that’s 3,562 new cases diagnosed EVERY day!
-  24,000 people in the U.S. become blind each year due to diabetes – that’s 65 EVERY day!
 - 100,000 people require kidney dialysis or kidney transplantation each year due to diabetes – that’s 273 EVERY day!
- Each year 82,000 need to have a foot, leg or arm amputated due to diabetes – that’s 224 EVERY day! (The above statistics and information is from the US Center for Disease Control)

The Radical Roads Ride for Diabetes:

Tentative Schedule:

January 5TH St John's to Halifax Depart  I will ride to Gander then truck to Sydney NS  

Jan 6 - Arriving Halifax  Mid afternoon
Jan 7 - Halifax to Charlottetown PI VIA Confederation Bridge Mid afternoon
Jan 8 -  Charlottetown to Fredericton NB with a stop in Moncton
Jan 9 - Fredericton to Edmundston NB
Jan 10 - Edmundston to Montreal
Jan 11 - Montreal
Jan 12 - Montreal to Ottawa arrive Ottawa noon
Jan 13 - Ottawa
Jan 14 - Ottawa to Toronto lunch in Kingston
Jan 15/16 - Toronto
Jan 17 - Toronto to Windsor early afternoon ETA
Jan 18 -Windsor, London ( lunch ) Barrie
Jan 19 - Barrie to Sudbury ETA noon
Jan 20 - Sudbury to Sault Ste Marie ETA mid afternoon
Jan 21 - Sault Ste Marie to White River
Jan 22 - White River to Thunder bay
Jan 23 - Thunder Bay, Fort Frances, Nestor Falls
Jan 24 - Nestor Falls, Kenora Mid morning Winnipeg ETA late afternoon
Jan 25 - Winnipeg
Jan 26 - Winnipeg to Regina
Jan 27 - Regina to Medicine Hat
Jan 28 - Medicine Hat to Calgary ETA Calgary 1 pm
Jan 29 - Calgary Red Deer ( lunch ) Edmonton
Jan 30 - Edmonton
Jan 31 - Edmonton to Jasper
Feb 1 - Jasper to Kamloops
Feb 2 - Kamloops to Vancouver Stop in Langley ETA Vancouver late afternoon
Feb 3 - Vancouver
Feb 4 - Vancouver to Victoria ETA noon

The Radical Roads Motorcycle Ride across Canada in January will be filmed and our production crew will edit the video filmed daily and stream it on line.

A new video each night: 32 towns and cities.

The Radical Road Ride for Diabetes needs Sponsors:

Equipment Needed:

2 Support Trucks

1 Helmet Camera

1 Dash board camera for lead support truck

Heated Motorcycle Gear

Good & Services Needed:

Motels for a crew of 4: (Approximate cost: 74 room nights @ $120 = $8,800)

Meals for a crew of 4: (Approximate cost: 404 meals @ $15 = $6060)

Fuel for support vehicles and the motorcycle: (Approximate cost:

Cell & Internet Service:

Film Crew Expenses: (Approximate cost: 32 days x $300 = $9,600)

Marketing & Promotion: (Approximate Cost: $15,000)

Sponsorship & Recognition Opportunities:

Web Site

Print Ads

TV Ads

Radio Ads

Support Vehicles

8958 kms riding 15879 kms total in 37 days  (includes 5 days to get to Newfoundland with the crew and vehicles from Vancouver)

The Radical Road Ride for Diabetes is recognized by the Canadian Diabetes Association as a third party fundraiser and awareness campaign

To become a sponsor or for more information:
                 Michael Cole
                 michaeljcole2006@hotmail.com
                 Ph: (604) 574 7281
The purpose of this ride was and still is to educate the general public on the facts about diabetes and to raise funds to find a cure. Your life depends on it - this disease can be stopped.

If you are fortunate enough to be riding today, PLEASE - ride like everyone around you is blind and can not see you.


Belt Drive Betty
National VP
Alliance for Injured Motorcyclists
www.aim-can.com
www.beltdrivebetty.com

Some congratulations are in order...

Al Elmer and the guys from Thunder City in Regina set a land speed record at Bonneville.

Many records fell at Bonneville, in fact Triumph set 4 new records!
Victory also set a Land Speed Record.

It was an eventful time at Bonneville with all kinds of records falling. The AMA and and FIM still have to ratify the records set and will have the results soon.

Congrats to everyone who participated at the Bonneville Salt Flats Speed Week. Whether you set a record or not, you deserve cudos for showing up.

If you are lucky enough to be riding today, please ride like everyone around you is blind and can't see you.

Belt Drive Betty
AIM-Can National VP
Alliance for Injured Motorcyclists
www.aim-can.com
www.beltdrivebetty.com

When riders work together - a story about community

This past weekend the Grande Prairie Toys for Tots group held their 30th Annual Toy Run.

We had members of the CMC, AIM-Can and the Northern Stars helping us with the event this year.

Not including the toys - we raised $30,000 dollars to spend on our annual Christmas shop the first Saturday in December!

Not bad considering we only had 350 or so bikes show up! (Our weather sucked hugely)

Why were we so successful? Community - plain and simple.

Before

We has head shaves that raised $2,300 for Toys for Tots and the hair was donated to the Cancer Society, we had a silent auction with incredible items donated by the business community, our dinner was excellent - the gals of the ANAVET's club did an amazing job and the band was a big hit.

After

Without the participation by any of these organizations or community sectors we would never have had such a success!

There is an old saying that it takes a community to raise a child...I'd say Grande Prairie does it's part.

I am not sure how many kids lives we will impact this year - but because of the support we got it will be a large number for sure!

Community, service and giving back - My hats off to everyone who played their part.

Belt Drive Betty
AIM-Can National VP
Alliance for Injured Motorcyclists
www.aim-can.com
www.beltdrivebetty.com

As bikes begin being put to bed, the community gets busy!

For the average rider, you start thinking about putting your motorcycle to bed about this time of year. Thoughts of maintenance, upgrades and new paint generally start to spring forth.

But there is a whole other aspect of busy-ness that comes with the month of October.

Many riding Clubs and groups start holding elections for officers and board members.
All riding clubs, groups and charitable organizations can use some fresh blood, so now would be a good time to join one if you are at all thinking of it.

Almost all are planning the 2010 riding season.
Deciding on new ride nights or how to make their poker run or rally, bigger, better.

There are many things that you, the average rider or member of a riding club can do to help every club, charity and event become more successful in 2010.

You can start by ensuring  your group is well represented in the 2010 event calendars for starters.  Our New Provincial Calendars are now ready for your submissions - on the sub menu you can pick your province and start adding!

Please search the events first to make sure someone else hasn't already added the event to our calendars before you add an event!!!!  This will become more and more important as 2010 dates start being set!

When you are adding your events - add the venue first - it just makes the whole process easier. Also - make sure you add postal codes and street addresses whenever possible. This way a Google Map can be generated!

Make sure you do your best to provide as much information on your events as possible. Knowledge is POWER and the more people know about your event like who to contact, how much, where, when and why....the better off everyone is!

The next thing you can do to promote your club or group is to make sure we have your riding club web site linked to ours.  On the home page you will see the link to the directory - make sure your group is there.  (We are upgrading this section, so now is a good time to make sure we have your club represented and that your web site address is current).  We'd really appreciate a link back on your group web site.

You can submit stories about your club and or its events, it's fabulous volunteers.

If your community is not represented on our web site or in the Busted Knuckle Chronicles - you have only yourself to blame. We can not promote what we don't know about so help us to help you! 

Our web site is a fairly busy one with a lot of visitors from around the world who are looking for information on events, motorcycle groups, travel and tourism information and the like so why not take a bit of time to promote your club or group with us. It's FREE and all members are able to add value to our web site for the rest of the motorcycle community to enjoy and benefit from. Networking - it's what makes a community strong!

If you are riding today, please, ride like everyone around you is blind and can not see you.

Belt Drive Betty
National VP - AIM-Can
Alliance for Injured Motorcyclists
www.beltdrivebetty.com

Thoughtless, self centered and rude people...A RANT of epic proportions.

For those of who who don't know or aren't familiar with Toy Runs, they are supposed to be about serving the less fortunate children of our community, not about ego, attitude or politics...let me warn you, this is no short rant so be prepared.

Before I begin this little tirade, I need to provide you with some background so that you have some facts and can read between the lines. If you are a a long term member of the rider community, you will know exactly the entirety of my message.  If you aren't a long time member of the rider community or a very savvy new rider some of the subtle and not so subtle nuances of my message may be missed and possibly misinterpreted.


Our Toy Run here in Grande Prairie Alberta used to have it's parade through town and then head out to the town of Wembley. Bikes would line main street, we'd have a burn out competition and the local hotel would put on burgers for a fee. You could have whatever beverage that floated your boat.
We'd generally get to Wembley around 1:45 and by 3:30pm everything was wrapped up.
All of that changed this year.


A bit of History:
Last year about 4 hours after our Toy Run was over a local rider and his passenger who had attended the Toy Run earlier in the day and had stayed behind in Wembley, (I don't know if they stayed at the hotel or went visiting) were coming back in to Grande Prairie at around 7:30 pm, he and his passenger went down and his passenger died the next morning. The rider had allegedly been impaired.  We got notification of the accident while were eating dinner at the ANAVETS Club around 7:45 pm.

Fast forward to this year's toy run.

No more going to Wembley, the Toys for Tots Committee had decided the parade was to stay in town. This decision had been made at the dissemination meeting last year - one week after the run. (This meeting is held after every run so nothing gets forgotten on the what went wrong, what went right list.)

The RCMP put the local toy run committee under intense scrutiny this year.
They had to provide names of all their "Staff", and were made to jump through all kinds of hoops, which they did. They finally got their liquor license, 50/50 draw license and parade permit and had complied with every request made of the group.

Yesterday, as we riders began to gather at Muskoseepi Park, we had the great displeasure of meeting the two RCMP officers who are riding police motorcycles now in Grande Prairie. Their first order of business before they arrived at the toy run was to have a radar trap out - fair enough, they were doing their job and taking advantage of the opportunity that they knew visitors on bikes would offer.

Their next order of business when they arrived, after seeing the president of the Toys for Tots Committee and checking out the parade permit and insurance, was to walk through all of the bikes at Muskoseepi Park. They were looking for bikes that weren't up to par. I was talking to some people close to a custom chopper when the officers came across the bike. They thought the one gent who was admiring the bike was it's owner and demanded to see the signal lights operate. Their request was very authoritative, no pleasant tones of voice used here. The gent said sorry, it's not my bike - it took him some effort to convince the officers it wasn't his bike.

After their walk through, they left.
They did not ride in the parade. We are unsure as to what happened to them. Did they get a call and have to go? No one knows.

The parade route was lined with well wishers this year and with RCMP Officers in squad cars and suburban type vehicles. They weren't blocking traffic for us.


Our fire trucks this year were donated by Trojan Oilfield Safety from Clairmont. The first truck clears the intersection with sirens and lights. We had the CMC along with Toys for Tots members doing the intersection blocking and behind the last rider follows a second fire truck that closes the parade.

Well, according to the man who donated the trucks, one young RCMP officer wanted to ticket Trojan for not having a copy of the parade permit in their trucks. He was going to give the man 2 - $2,000 tickets. The fire trucks are not required to have a copy of the permit under the law - at least that is the general understanding that the Toys for Tots president has. Apparently tickets were not issued.

One of the fire truck operators wife apparently works at the local detachment. She was reportedly/allegedly threatened by this same young officer with her job. Why? For being associated with a 1%er club.

One member of a 1%er club attended our run this year. Apparently, from what I was able to gather, this offended the young officer. I have not, as of yet, spoken to the officer and so I only know one side of the conversation.


I truly believe in the old adage that charity begins at home, but here in Grande Prairie as with most cities or towns that have a chapter of a 1%er club or members of a 1%er club that live in the town/city - the RCMP don't seem to believe that. The minute a member of a 1%er club attends a public charity motorcycle function with their patch on, everyone around them is labeled as an associate. It matters not that most of the local riders don't even know the name of the man that wears that patch, who he is or where he comes from. It only matters that we riders "allow" that person to wear their patch in our midst.

Then we had one rider who for whatever reason, decided it was a wise and prudent thing to wheelie his cruiser style bike, with his gal on the back, in parade formation and then he decided it was necessary to do a burn out on the street at the top of the driveway into the Army Navy Air Force Veterans Club. Way to go dude. He apparently ended up with a $400 ticket for his efforts.

Remember my tirade over the self-centeredness of the riders in Hinton two weeks ago who thought they really needed to have a beer in the parking lot, in front of kids and non riders before the Toy Run? Remember how I said these people were going to ruin it for the Foothills Road Riders Association....well, this man did his best to ruin it for Toys for Tots here in GP.

When people are that self centered they destroy and ruin the good things for everyone.

I know that you have the right to be as thoughtless and careless of others rights and safety as you choose to be.
I know you have the right to be as loud and obnoxious as you want.

This is Canada and you have rights - I get that.

But get this: When you exercise your rights and in doing so infringe on the rights of others you get to pay the price. It's just too bad that so do the REST OF US.

If you had any clue as to what it takes to host and event, if you knew the real way motorcycle charity committees and event coordinators are treated by members of the constabulary - you might actually dummy up and either stay at home and not ruin it for the rest of us or act like a civilized human being if you decide to participate.

If you were really there to serve the charity, the cause - to pay it forward, to do some good - you would NOT act like an attention seeking moron.

You wouldn't jeopardize the event. You wouldn't hurt the kids you are supposed to be there to help.

Am I disgusted with the behaviour of the local RCMP - YES. I resent them tarring everyone of us with the brush of 1% er. I am tired of their caustic cold way of talking to and dealing with people. I am tired of the politics that ensue. But how the hell can you blame them?

They have a job to do and we unfortunately have people in our community that just have to push authority and buck the system every chance they get, regardless of the carnage they leave behind. The constabulary have to protect the stupid people from themselves plus protect the rest of us from the stupid people.

Be very clear on this.
I AM SO FREAKING TIRED of the Wanna Be's. The attention seekers, the rude, thoughtless asses who have to ruin every good thing because they feel it is their right.

I think that part of that $400 ticket buddy got should involve community service work and he should have to work for the charity whose event he has jeopardized. Our Toys for Tots committee is short of volunteers.

That's what I think and while my out spoken opinion may not be appreciated by a few people, I am quite sure that every event coordinator who has ever worn a pair of riding boots will concur - that they would appreciate teaching a self centered person all about the consequences their actions have for everyone else. Let this person deal with the RCMP, the city, the ALGC (Alberta Liquor and Gaming Commission).
Let this person deal with the people who act like they have and see how long it takes before they get an education on cause and effect.

I also think that a Toy Run should be politics free. We are here to serve the children of our region - period!

If more people understood the consequences, the intense scrutiny - the perpetuation of this image the constabulary have of riders...what a wonderful world this could be.

To those who came out to our 30th Annual Toy Run with the thought and intent of actually supporting the less fortunate kids of our region - thank you for your generosity, your support of the children of the Peace Region is deeply appreciated. To all of the sponsors, vendors and riders who braved the cold weather and high winds. Thank you.

To those who supported Larry Debolt, Kevin Larsen, Hoppy and myself as we lost our hair in support of both Toys for Tots and Cancer (we donated our hair for wigs) - thank you.

Because of you, this year the lives of the less fortunate children of our community will be impacted in a good and meaningful way.

To those of you who forgot what Toys for Tots is all about, who forgot about the kids you were here to serve - to you who decided to further your political agendas and enhance your personal vanities and self image in a negative way - do the rest of us a favor and stay home next year.

The pittance you bring to the event by way of donation is not worth the cost to the Toys for Tots committee, the riders who truly come to pay it forward or the kids of our community we are supposed to be serving.

I will now step off my soap box.

I would love your opinion on my rant today.
I want to know if I am the only one who feels this way or if our community has any other thoughts they care to add to this rant.

If you are lucky enough to be riding today, please ride like everyone around you is blind and can not see you and use your head for something besides a helmet rack.

Belt Drive Betty
National VP - AIM-Can
Alliance for Injured Motorcyclists
www.beltdrivebetty.com