Cycle News Staff | September 9, 2024
The Motorcycle Safety Foundation (MSF) is well-known for its motorcycle-riding courses, which help people prepare for a life on two wheels and enhance advance riders with motorcycling skills. To grow the sport and get more people started on the right path to riding with good habits, the MSF recently created RIDE Day. These one-day events feature MOTO Intro, for those who have never ridden can try out a motorcycle for the first time, and/or SKILLS Check, which gives experienced riders the opportunity to practice more advanced techniques under the guidance of MSF RiderCoaches.
VIDEO | Learning To Ride ft. Motorcycle Safety Foundation
The RIDE Day experiences are scheduled from March to November at select training sites around the USA and are completely free. Starting in September, the MSF is ramping up for 90 days of RIDE Day, a nationwide effort to get as many new riders on motorcycles as possible.
We recently sat down with MSF’s Director of Rider Education Expansion, Corey Eastman, to get the details on RIDE Day and the upcoming surge of events. This is an excerpt of that chat. You can enjoy the full conversation, coming soon on the Cycle News YouTube Channel
To grow the sport and get more people started on the right path to riding with good habits, the MSF recently created RIDE Day.
Tell us what the MSF is doing right now and why are we talking about RIDE Day today?
Thanks! The MSF has been around for about 50 years, and it was established by the major motorcycle manufacturers because, basically, motorcycling was booming in the early ’70s and you didn’t have a lot of people who were teaching or learning how to ride with basic skillsets—you weren’t even required to have a motorcycle license to ride. So, as popularity in motorcycling took off, it became obvious that the States needed people to get licensed to ensure there was a general skillset out there. The MSF was created to develop curriculum so people could learn to ride the right way.
Wow, that’s a really responsible organization.
Yes, exactly. And that mission has carried forward. Now, in 46 states, as well as all branches of the U.S. Military, MSF courses are recommended or required to get your license to ride.
But I’ve learned by talking to you that the MSF is more than just a way to get a motorcycle license. MSF is involved in a lot more.
MSF has made a reputation of the basic course and basic skills, but there are a lot more opportunities we offer to ride your best, as well. That includes the first experience. With MSF, we have 2000 locations for training across 46 different states and over 6000 certified coaches teaching the MSF curriculum. So, we have a group of talented, experienced people that can take people on their first ride. That’s where RIDE Day came from.
Tell us what RIDE Day is.
RIDE Day is a program we’ve developed at the MSF to work with the coaches and ranges across the country to promote events in their area to get new riders the chance to have that first riding experience with very little to no investment on their part. Safety gear is provided. Motorcycles are provided. Coaches are there with every new rider the entire time. It’s a very easy way to show someone the first motorcycling experience in a very controlled environment.
So, these locations where a RIDE Day is held are ranges or locations where the current MSF curriculum is being taught, but now they’re opening them up for an introduction to motorcycling. You can bring someone there, or anyone can just show up, and they will get a first impression of motorcycling.
Precisely.
Very cool. This really knocks down the traditional barriers to a first-time rider, even if they’re friends or related to a rider. You don’t have to let them borrow your bike or slap a poor-fitting helmet on them and send them out on their own. They’re coached!
That is the whole point of the program—to knock down those things that are tough to get through on your own.
The MSF is ramping up for its 90 days of RIDE Day push, a nationwide effort to introduce as many potential riders to motorcycles as possible this year.
How are Ride Day events being received so far?
Using round numbers from our first event based on surveys we do over a year after an event, we found that about 26 percent of Ride Day participants, first-time riders, went on to take full MSF courses and essentially become trained motorcyclists, which is awesome.
I would argue that you’re now in the business of generating new riders as well as training those already convinced they want to be riders. What are people sharing with you at the events about what riding for the first time meant to them?
The word empowering gets overused a lot, but if we had one of those markers on the door of a 7-Eleven that shows how tall you are when you walk in the door at a RIDE Day event, I promise you most attendees would be three inches taller after that first experience.
How do people learn more to get their friends and family to a RIDE Day or learn more from MSF?
MSF-USA.org is the site to go to with all our state-by-state information and course details, including a unique page and calendar for RIDE Day. Right now, we’re ramping up our 90-days of RIDE Day this fall, which will go from September through November to keep riders and ranges/coaches ramped up with new rider interest.CN
