Looky,,,Visual Aids

When I first joined the club and took my first few "Club Rides" I was totally clueless. Tom would say,"We'll be lining up bar to bar , turning right and heading up the road. "BAR to BAR", What the heck does that mean? Being stupid even when I was told what it meant it was still a little vague. "All the bikes line up side by side, handle bar to handle bar".  Oh... O/k...that makes sense, Then what? Nobody ever splains that part. You sort of have to watch and see what everyone else does. Unfortunately riding near the rear, What I noticed is that no one seemed to do the same thing twice, some of the first out onto the road would pull out and head for the shoulder while others went to the center line. What this taught me was that nobody behind the road guards seemed to know what to do once they hit the street, they all just headed for a hole in the formation. Quite often there would be more bikes on one side of the road so people would jockey for position.

So after asking further and learning the correct way, I found that it works good and looks good. Problem is, when your new you just don't know,and some people who don't know seem to be afraid to ask and look dumb. Asking does not make you look dumb. Bad formations, and swapping back and forth make you look dumb. So...

Here are some pix that may help...

1). All bike should line up side by side forming two rows.

2). On the road Captains movement all bikes should move forward...The first row heading out to the line to make their turn...

3). As the first row starts tuning on the line the second row should be arriving at the edge of the road. At this point they make the turn sticking to the outside edge of the road.

4). This should bring all bikes onto the road in a side by side pattern. At this point the bikes should go into a staggered formation.

Staggered Formation Why???

I'm Glad you asked...

What about Honor Guard formation?

Why do we do it?

Is it a safe riding formation?

More good questions,,, and I'll answer them for you.

Why do we do it, we do it because it looks good, more uniform, and we usually only do it for special occasions, funerals. parades, etc.

Is it as safe as staggered formation...in a word no. Side by side riding does not leave as many escape and evasion routes as staggered. But since most Honor Guard missions require slow driving the risk is minimal.

I hope this helps, and I must say you ask some good questions

Klay