Bikers gather to increase visibility
Anyone can ride a motorcycle in a straight line down Egan Drive, biker Bob Taylor says. But it's a learned skill to ride safely in all kinds of road conditions and traffic.
"Juneau's got some very, very difficult terrain for riding," said Taylor, secretary of the North Star Riders Motorcycle Club.
Bikers met all day Saturday at Marine Park to kick off May as Motorcycle Awareness and You month, attracted by Pappy Poe's ribs and music in the sunshine. It may have been a while since you heard a recording of Jimi Hendrix playing the National Anthem.
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"They just need to have Janis Joplin singing to make it all worthwhile," biker Ron Phillips observed.
The Rev. Sam Dalin of the River of Glory Church blessed the motorcycles at the park. It's not every prayer that ends, "Start your engines and rock Juneau." The ground vibrated under the roaring crescendo of sound and mushrooming smell of gas, and then the sound and scent died out.
But first Dalin asked for a moment of silence for bikers who have died riding.
"Every year in the motorcycle world we lose what I would call an icon," the pastor said.
He mentioned the death in 2004 of Larry Desmedt, a New York City stunt rider and motorcycle builder known as Indian Larry after a brand of motorcycle. He died from injuries sustained performing a stunt for TV. He wasn't wearing a helmet and fell on his head.
Desmedt's wife, a performer known as Bambi the Mermaid of Coney Island, told the press it wasn't a particularly dangerous stunt.
Indian Larry had a tattoo - well, he had more than one tattoo - that read in part: "In God we trust ... no fear."
"And probably for most of you that's really true," Dalin told the bikers.
Alaska has the most motorcycles per person of the 50 states, and the vast majority of accidents involving motorcycles and other vehicles are caused by the other vehicles, said Gov. Frank Murkowski in a proclamation for the awareness month read by special staff assistant McHugh Pierre.
"It's our effort to create heightened awareness of motorcycles in traffic," because most accidents are caused by drivers not seeing the motorcycle or misjudging an approaching motorcycle's speed and turning in front of it, said Ken Brewer, president of Juneau Alaska Bikers Advocating Training and Education, which organized Saturday's event.
Juneau ABATE hopes to educate motorists through ads in theaters, newspapers, radio and the TV scanner.
That doesn't mean bikers wait for other people to learn how to drive safely. Motorcycle riders should take safety courses, Brewer said, although ABATE advocates freedom of choice in wearing helmets.
Bambi the Mermaid notwithstanding, bikers said Saturday that riding can be unsafe.
Taylor said he was run off the road eight times before he took his first safety course in 1973. He's taken five or six more courses since, and has logged a quarter-million miles free of accidents, he said.
His philosophy: Assume everyone on the road is trying to kill you.
Among the skills riders can learn is where to place their bike in the roadway (in the trough created by cars' left tires), and how to maneuver quickly to avoid an accident, Taylor said.
The North Star Riders practice maneuvering through cones in a parking lot and riding on the steep roads downtown, Phillips said.
"You can't get too much practice," he said.
Greg Thompson owns Southeast Alaska Rider Education in Juneau, whose courses are certified by the Motorcycle Safety Foundation. The state doesn't require safety courses for new riders. But those who take his $250 basic course can skip the state's written and road tests for motorcycle licenses, and may get a break on their insurance.
His company trains 50 to 75 riders a year, Thompson said.
"I've had people who have been riding for 40 years. They wanted to take a class as a refresher," he said.
Riding isn't safe, he cautioned.
"We try to make it to where you can be as safe as you can on your own," Thompson said.
• Eric Fry can be reached at eric.fry@juneauempire.com.