Behaviour or Race & why Black Bike Week is under the spotlight

Atlantic Beach SC is in the spotlight again as Atlantic Beach Bikefest, a.k.a Black Bike Week apparently had lots of problems again this year and Governor Haley is planning on shutting it down.  

After three murders and an increase in stolen motorcycles, traffic tickets and fatalities, the Governor has had enough.


According to the Last Refuge, in a 24 hour period ten people were shot, three fatally during the Atlantic Beach Bikefest a.k.a Black Bike Week. This year the Rough Ryders "gang" were evicted from the event because there were too many members present apparently.

An article from Top Conservative News shows three different videos that show some of what went on and those videos may shed some light on why there is a differentiation between the Myrtle Beach Bike Week event that is held the week before Black Bike Week.

MS News Now has two reports on Black Bike Week, one of them comparing the statistics of it to the Harley Bike Week the week before. The comparison graphs point to Black Bike Week being a bigger drain on resources than the Harley Bike Week with trends over 10 years being shown (2005 - 2014).

The Mayor of Atlantic Beach SC is none too happy. 
He feels his relatively peaceful and quiet city is getting a bad rap over the situation.
AND YET - the Mayor and the town had worked hard to increase the amount of vendors for Black Bike Week by dropping vendor fees and they were collecting economic data on what the event brings to the city.

The Atlantic Beach Bikefest starts on the heels of the Myrtle Beach Bike Week and has over the years been surrounded by controversy and the NAACP, has been a watch dog to ensure that there is no discrimination of Colored people.  They have successfully sued restaurants and other businesses for Civil Rights Act violations when those owners wanted to close their doors only during this particular week.

In past years hoteliers have complained of their rooms being trashed during Black Bike Week and restauranteurs have complained of high numbers of dining and dashing, others see extreme reductions in their tills over that week and the whole racial issue flares its ugly head time and again. 

I have watched videos from Atlantic Beach Bike Week and Myrtle Beach Bike Week and I have my opinions on why people are so upset in Atlantic Beach - behaviour not race seems to be the problem.  

I wonder why the city of Atlantic Beach decided to court larger crowds, extend the hours and lower vendor fees? This event has been fraught with issues and challenges in the past, did they think larger numbers would reduce that?

Perhaps faced with a $127,000 policing bill they needed the revenue. Perhaps they were willing to see the event grow because it could benefit the region.  Perhaps they did so to prove to the NAACP that there is NO discrimination.  Whatever the reason, it backfired.

3 people are dead. 7 are injured and a city and its residents are concerned and rightly so.

Although the Governor seems to be talking tough, the city seems to know that they have to prepare for Black Bike Week because no matter what, riders will still show up in their town, official event or not. 

For there to be no tension over this event, I suggest that the organizers of Black Bike Week and its supporters and attendees look at how participants are behaving.  

If the same behaviours were exhibited at a non racial - meaning everyone welcome - events, do you not think businesses would close up for the event?

If the same behaviours were exhibited at a non racial - meaning everyone welcome - event, do you not think the people who live in and pay taxes to the city would not be up in arms?

There have been issues in the past in Sturgis SD, a non racial - everyone welcome - event.

Those incidents, like the shooting in Custer State Park in 2008, have seen no colours bylaws stepped up in the licensed establishments, there have been thoughtless boobs who have to do that burn out or otherwise show off and ruin it for others, there have been incidents of lewd conduct that have resulted in charges.  

The issue at any large gathering of people that involves alcohol is BEHAVIOUR, CONDUCT and at non racial events, those behaviours are not tolerated. Police presence increases with the size of the event and the history of the event and its attendees conduct.

Laws are in place to protect the innocent bystander, the citizen and tax payer and the non motorcycling visitor of the city/region hosting an event, from the choices of STUPID - SELFISH PEOPLE no matter WHAT RACE, WHAT RELIGION, WHAT GENDER.

I know this much, being politically correct, being fearful of the NAACP and their successes with Civil Rights lawsuits is going to make a bad situation worse.

Be you Black, White, Green, Purple, Red, Orange...if you conduct yourselves like asshats, don't pull the racial card to defend your behaviour. 

Suck it up - if you behaved badly, take your lumps.  For those who were there to have a good time, peaceably, do you enjoy the intense scrutiny the behaviours of SOME of your fellow riders has brought down on you?

Most of us "white" people or people who don't give a shit about race, feel the EXACT SAME about those in our circles who conduct themselves like asshats and bring on extreme costs, extreme presence of police etc.

Why is it so expensive to vend at events? Why is it so expensive to attend some events?

Because asshats have increased police presence and someone has to pay for that.

Because asshats have left behind so much garbage and been so disrespectful causing damage of all sorts and someone has to pay for that.

And that would be the rest of us, Black, White, Green, Purple, RED or ORANGE, that go to events to meet people, spend time with our friends, take in great riding and sight seeing, good music and have no need to show off, be rude or crude or destroy shit.

Having fun is one thing.

If you are a visitor to a community who is hosting an event, WHY destroy the relationships that the businesses, the riders, the police and the hosting community need to have with conduct that is so over the top? 

People are the problem. People, who when they consume large amounts of alcohol and or consume various narcotics too often become rude, disrespectful, unsafe and sometimes violent. People with hidden agendas and egos the size of Texas or those who think they are invincible...

Be it football games, racing events, music festivals, hockey games, protests or any other large gathering of people, there will always be those who have to destroy the good time/the good purpose for the many, to satisfy their own selfish desires.

It is BEHAVIOUR that is the issue, not RACE but BEHAVIOUR.

Can anyone else see that, or is it just me?

In Other News:

According to an article in the Guardian Newspaper today, the RCMP in Prince Edward Island is set to start targeting aggressive riders, offensive motorcycle noise, drugs and outlaw motorcycle gangs. Begin Quote: They will also conduct enforcement initiatives targeting aggressive drivers with a focus on motorcycles and offensive noise during the motorcycle season. End Quote

Begin Quote: There will also be increased intelligence sharing, with a focus on drugs and outlaw motorcycle groups. End Quote

Out of Montreal today is a story in the Gazette about a woman who stopped suddenly on the highway to avoid hitting a family of ducks and subsequently a father and daughter on a motorcycle died.

The driver, Emma Czornobaj, 25, of Châteauguay is facing 4 charges, 2 of criminal negligence and 2 of dangerous driving causing death. It took over a year for her to be charged. If convicted of criminal negligence she faces life in prison and if convicted of dangerous driving causing death she faces 14 years in prison.

The Vancouver Sun is reporting that the Hells Angels have won another round in the legal fight to regain their clubhouse in Nanaimo BC.

Begin Quote: Justice Mary Saunders, writing for a three-judge appeal court panel, said the government appeared to want to remove Widdifield to gain strategic advantage in the long running civil case between the director and several Nanaimo Hells Angels, as well as Angels Acres - the company that owns the disputed clubhouse.

"The prize in this application appears to be the availability of a Charter argument in the forfeiture proceedings," Saunders said in her reasons released Monday, explaining that Widdifield could make a constitutional argument on admissibility of evidence that wouldn't be available to the company. End Quote

The Civil Forfeiture Director has filed similar cases against the East End & Kelowna Clubhouse stating that they were used for criminal activities. 

The Hells Angels are fighting back with a suit that challenges the constitutionality of B.C.'s Civil Forfeiture Act.

In the US, the funeral of Maya Angelou, the renowned poet and spiritualist is being guarded by the group 2 Million Bikers.  According the article on Jezebel, even though 2 Million Bikers does not ascribe to Angelou's beliefs, they are going to form a wall to protect her service from Westboro Bapist Church demonstrators because they believe in Freedom of Speech for everyone.

If you are blessed enough to be riding today, please ride like everyone around you is blind and cannot see you and please, consider dressing for the slide, not the ride!

Belt Drive Betty
Editor & Rider

The Ford Mustang, Glasses and Online Shopping for Eyewear

So what do these three things have in common, the Ford Mustang, eyeglasses and shopping for eyeglasses online?

Well, a while back there was a press release from Mustang and Clearly Contacts that Clearly Contacts, an online eyeglass shop had joined forces to promote the brand.
Mustang had decided that like many other automobile lines, it wanted its own brand of eyewear.

I agreed to try a pair to do a product review for ClearlyContacts.ca

The process of ordering online was simple enough, although I did have a question about whether the frames which said they were for males were unisex or if there was a female line. There was no female line and the frames are supposedly Unisex.

Under Product Info it says the Frame is MALE

I ordered the 1904 Titanium Frost frames with my single vision prescription.

Ordering anything as personal as glasses on line is tough for me.  I am fussy and I hate waiting for what I want. The frames you choose might not fit you and you might have to send them back for a different pair.  If your prescription is too involved like bifocals or progressives - well that can be a disaster because your eyes can measure differently (distance of pupil to glasses lens) and it can be tough to get the frames to fit and allow the lenses to do their job well.

The Fitting Chart on the frame page:

They actually tell you to go to a local store to try on frames to find ones that fit....Sorry but I find that to be a wee bit offensive. And if I am going to go to a local shop, where I probably know at least one of the employees, I am probably going to buy them there instead of online. But hey, that's just me!

Now, I got the glasses about 5 days after I ordered them and they came with a small bottle of lens cleaner, a lens cleaning cloth and a small screw driver in a clear plastic pouch and a glasses case.

The glasses fit me, the prescription seems right,  the service was reasonably fast and the transaction straight forward. That's the good news!  The bad news is that I think Mustang - the brand of cars did themselves a great disservice.

They chose to go with just the word Mustang instead of their famous Horse.

How much more representative of the brand would those glasses be if they had the image of the horse on the side instead of:

The array of choice also left me flat, there was simply nothing in the Mustang Line that truly appealed to me.

Ranging from $79 - $99, it seems that unlike their car brand, that is a higher end brand, they opted for the cheaper, lower end frames to put their name on.

Pride of ownership is what the Mustang Car is all about, the race history, the loyal following but something tells me that although having their own brand of eyewear may seem prestigious, they could have taken much more care in the quality and the variety of the frames they offered the Mustang lover.

I give ClearlyContacts 3 out of 5 gas tanks

While the process was smooth enough and I encountered no pitfalls, I am not sure how I feel about the company after reading the fitting suggestions for the frames. I do after all prefer to shop local and support my local economy and the very suggestion that I should use my local shop to try frames on and then copy down measurements to use for shopping on line feels SOOOO wrong to me.

I give the Mustang Line 1 out of 5 gas tanks.

Shame on you Mustang, you should put much more thought into the quality and design of your glasses line than you did. If branding was the goal of creating your own line of glasses - you failed miserably.

You could have also chosen some frames more suitable to we ladies.

And that folks is how I feel about the Ford Mustang, Glasses and ordering eyeglasses on line.

Belt Drive Betty

I'd rather swear like a truck driver or a sailor...

My recent crash has put me in the mood to write about safety gear and riding safely.

Why?

Because I hope and pray that this missive will save the life and or the the hide of someone I care about and who knows, that could be you.

I have lost many people I love in the motorcycle community over the almost 40 years I have been a part of it. The crew I rode with back in the 70's and 80's wore jeans and sometimes chaps, beanies or no helmet when and where the law allowed and often just a leather vest, with no shirt or jacket.

I was one of those riders/passengers. I often rode on sunny warm days with just good motorcycle boots, jeans and a vest and the only helmet I owned was a beanie.

I thought I was hot stuff.  I looked good, and I loved the way the sun felt on my skin, I hated it when a bug or rock hit me, but when I was in my 20's & 30's it was a small price to pay for looking good.

EGO - VANITY, call it what you will - STUPIDITY!

Then I got a wake up call and realized looking good was a stupid reason to not wear proper gear.

In 1986, riding on the back of the '84 FXR with my then old man, Ron LePoidvin,  I witnessed something so horrific that I was puking my guts out.

Not unlike the girl featured in this photo, (I found doing a Google Images search on HmongPlus.com), the girl on the back of this dude's sport bike was wearing a bikini,

AND she was much better endowed than the girl featured here. She was at least a 38 double D and instead of wearing high heels, she was wearing flip flops, but she had on that full faced helmet.
I was rather envious of the buxom young lady, she looked great.

Well, buddy goes roaring by us as we are entering a construction zone on the outskirts of Vernon BC.

In less than 2 minutes, we came upon the most horrific scene I have ever witnessed.

The rider centre punched the back end of a pick up, but unlike the rider in the photo above, he was wearing all the gear.  He ended up in the box of the pick up, she got launched over the pick up and ended up skidding down the shoulder of the pavement for some 200 feet or better. I don't remember where the bike ended up, because I was so horrified.

While buddy ended up with some broken bones and a long recovery, he survived the crash.

His pretty, pretty passenger was dead. Her beautiful face intact thanks to the full faced helmet she wore but her statuesque figure was now nothing more than ground hamburger, you could see her ribs  where once those glorious Double D 38's had been.  Her thighs and legs and her feet and arms were no better.  It is a sight that I see every time I see another rider not wearing good gear.

I am sure her parents were grateful that they could still view her pretty face at her funeral.

Having been young once, although it was a long time ago, I still remember the feeling, men wolf whistling at me, feeding my ego, telling me how hot I looked in that leather vest with no jacket.

But that day cured me of wanting to look sexy on a motorcycle.

I learned really quickly that there was plenty of time to look hot once I got to a rally or event.
When I was off the bike, I could stash my leather jacket and don just the vest and still have my ego fed. In my mid 50's today, I don't give a hoot about sexy or having my ego fed, although it still feels nice once in a while.

After my crash on May 24th, 2014, I could have looked like Sean Stanley from the UK who shared this photo of himself on Facebook:

His crash happened last year in the UK at 25 MPH.
His comment was:  To all the people on motorbikes wearing t-shirts and shorts thinking they are cool, this is the result of coming off at 25mph

Imagine the pain that the road rash he sported caused him.
Imagine the scars and the gravel that he's probably still having surface from his wounds to this day!

My crash happened at about 30-35KPH on gravel, I was never more grateful for good gear.

Instead of looking like Sean, I just have some torn cartilage in my chest around my sternum, deep tissue bruising, sore muscles and a black bruise on my thigh.

No road rash and no gravel to pick out of my hide.  No trip to the hospital.

I was wearing:
Draggin' Jeans that cost about $250.00 - no chaps:

Kevlar Impact Zones

Not a mark on the jeans!

Held Gloves from Angel Wing Trading Inc. and sold by WestCoast ROAR in Mill Bay, BC that cost around $150.00:

The glove is torn but my hide on my hand is not.

Viking Cycle Leather Jacket from Motorcycle House that cost about $100:

The brand new jacket on its maiden ride -  the leather is worn, but I have no road rash on my right arm!

Vest from Leather & Steel in Fruitvale BC - Cost about $90 (I have worn this vest for 12 years and am going to miss it...

Tore the snap right out of the vest and tore some of my favourite pins off of it,  but again, I have zero road rash

Milwaukee Boots bought at Konquer Motorcycles, Kelowna BC and cost about $165:

Some road rash on these babies but my feet are in tact and no worse for wear!

My VOSS helmet from Roadhouse Distribution in Vancouver BC, sold by Leather & Steel in Fruitvale BC and cost about $100:

The ear protector is shot, but my ear is fine, it was sure filled with dirt and grit though!

I would much rather get up off the ground swearing like a truck driver or a sailor and being sad that my bike was written off than be carted off to the hospital in an ambulance and facing a long and painful recovery.  

I'd much rather pull into the driveway at home in a truck and trailer than be in an ambulance on the way to the hospital.

The cost of my crash?

My bike got written off and a few of my contents from the bike will need to be either repaired or replaced.   I was able to replace my bike with a bit of financial help from my husband to bridge the gap between insurance and the price of replacing.

My Held Gloves ($150)

My helmet ($100) and I have a helmet from LeatherUp to do a product review on already sitting here so I am good to go.

My vest ($90) which was 12 years old, could be repaired - and even though I love it, it should be replaced. 

My jacket ($100) will need to be replaced. 

Since I was doing a product review on the jacket, there was no physical cost to me and I own 2 other riding jackets, so I am good to go.

Your gear is meant to save your life and to allow you to ride again and be a consumer again.

Your gear is meant to add freedom and quality to your life, to enriched the ride, not detract from it.

Your gear is meant to protect you from road debris, rocks, sand, cigarettes, garbage bags, road snakes and every other bit of crap people can create.

Your gear is meant to give your loved ones a bit of reassurance that you will be home, reasonably safe and sound, because they love and need you.

I am blessed to be alive and it is because these manufacturers and the shops who sell these products really do seem to want you to be able to buy more gear from them when you need to replace it.  

You are, after all of no use to them as a customer if you don't survive.

That said, you still need to really research the gear you are thinking of buying!  

What appeals to me may not appeal to you.

Read product reviews, watch videos, ask your fellow riders - RESEARCH!!!! 

Not only can it save you money but it can save you in many other ways!

You should try the gear on before you buy to ensure a good fit, so go to your local shop and support your local economy whenever you can.  

If you live in a remote place where online shopping is the only way to shop outside of once and twice a year trips to larger centres, then make sure you review the refunds and shipping policies of the online companies you choose to work with.  And don't forget to ask that retailer in the larger centre that you shop in if they will ship to you and if so what their returns policy might be.  Sometimes a phone call to a not so local, local can be well placed!

You just never know if you can support your local business, because when you are a rider, local means a lot different to us than it does to others!

What say you?

If you are blessed to be riding today, please ride like everyone around you is blind and cannot see you and please consider dressing for the slide and not the ride!

Belt Drive Betty

Editor & Rider