Right To Ride Gets a Re-vamp

Our partners over at Right To Ride have re-vamped their site, press release below, and RTWW can’t stress enough that riders show their support to Right To Ride and their efforts in ensuring Bikers rights are not over-looked.  Check out the Right To Ride press release below and head over to their site today and sign up..

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Back To Rights

9th June 2010

Right To Ride today launches its brand new website with a new address www.righttoride.co.uk dropping the “Write” and putting the “Right” back into Rider’s Rights.

Apart from looking all shiny and new, the main change is to give a direct opportunity for visitors to the site to comment on the news stories, the issues, the consultations and the campaigns that we are involved in.

Our main aims and objectives remain unchanged, however we are reiterating that at Right To Ride we can only do this by consultation with and support from riders; to define our position which is that there is always a line that we will not cross when engaging with authorities and decision makers, principles which we will not compromise under any circumstance.

Right To Ride’s, Trevor Baird, says, “Our thanks to all the clubs and individual riders that have supported Right To Ride over the past year.

We’ve been asked what added value can Right To Ride give to Northern Ireland motorcyclists.

The answer is simple: Right To Ride is a point of reference not just for bikers, riders, motorcyclists, whatever you ride but also for decision makers.  When the authorities put out consultations on road safety issues, training, legislation etc, they always look for a relevant organisation to discuss these issues with.  When bikers are given a raw deal or are unfairly treated by businesses or the authorities, they look for a fellow biker who can help them. In a nutshell, this is what we do.

The other change at Right To Ride is that you can sign up to support Right To Ride either as an Individual Rider, Motorcycle Club or Business, with no membership fees. As a supporter you will receive a supporter’s card.

We also have, “”Don’t Expect Us To Be Quiet!” stickers. You don’t have to be a supporter to receive these.

What’s coming up from Right To Ride?

Our reply to the DOE’s consultation on a Road Safety Strategy for Northern Ireland;

Our views on proposals regarding the introduction of the 3rd European Driving Licence Directive in Northern Ireland, as a follow up to our reply to the Northern Ireland consultation;

Keeping an eye on the review that Roads Minister Department for Transport in Great Britain has announced which will re-evaluate:

1) The manoeuvres carried out in both modules 1 (off-road) and 2 (on-road) and whether these manoeuvres could safely be conducted in the on-road test.

2) Other related motorcycle testing and training issues, including the options for training and testing for progressive access under the third driving licence directive and how any changes relate to wider proposals to improve motorcycle training and testing.

We have written to our authorities to ask if motorcycle riders, trainers, road safety groups, the wider public and others will have the same opportunity in Northern Ireland;

We are looking at a project in Europe which is proposing a force feed throttle to warn riders if they are speeding, where the throttle of a motorcycle can be controlled automatically and the rider has no control over the throttle and thus the bike.

Right To Ride is attending the 1st International Motorcyclists’ Conference to be held in Brussels at the end of June.

This conference is organised by the Federation of European Motorcyclists Associations, with the support of other rider federations from Canada and Australia, safety organisations, businesses and the European Commission.

Notes

The old website, www.writetoride.co.uk if technology works, will automatically route to the new website www.righttoride.co.uk so if you have linked to us or certain pages these links will go to the new website.

We have produced new logos which can be downloaded from http://www.righttoride.co.uk/?page_id=80

If you have linked to our RSS feed this has now moved to http://www.righttoride.co.uk/?feed=rss2

Also our email addresses have changed to reflect the new website.

General Inquires: info@righttoride.co.uk

Trevor Baird: trevor.baird@rightoride.co.uk

Elaine Hardy: research@righttoride.co.uk

Countdown to the North West 200

It’s that time of year again as Northern Ireland goes bike mad with the return of the North West 200 and you can follow all the action on the official website, www.northwest200.org.  Northern Ireland’s North coast will be packed with thousands of bike fans this weekend for one of the world’s greatest road races which always brings guaranteed thrills.  If you are heading up there you may find useful our partner Ride It Right‘s interactive coastal route map, which was designed to get the best, and safest, ride out of the fantastic roads around the event.

Ride It Right has held a number of very successful meetings and events in the past to promote the safe riding of this route.  Visit the Ride It Right web site for the full interactive map.

Also, if you can’t make it to the North West itself, the BBC has extensive coverage on its dedicated website

If you are up there have a great time and, if you get any good pics of the riders or just of you and your ride at the event, send them in to info@ridethewildwind.co.uk or post them on our Facebook Page.

Fallen Heroes MCC Bike Safety Awareness Open day – A Great Success!

RTWW was in attendance at the Fallen Heroes first club event, their Bike Safety Awareness Open Day, held in Comber Fire Station Co.Down.  The day was a great success with plenty of  bikes stopping by and great demos by the Northern Ireland Fire and Ambulance Services.  The rain did strike briefly as always happens when you plan something like this, but it didn’t affect the high spirits, nor the lads ability to cook burgers outdoors!  The PSNI’s Bike Safe team were conducting rideouts throughout the day giving free assessments to riders on their skills, and during one of the emergency services demonstrations, a doctor gave an excellent and informative commentary on what happens at the scene of a crash.   We also made a new club contact in the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club – Bangor Section, a great group of people who’d stopped by during their planned rideout to support the event.  You’ll find information for the VJMC in our UKBikeClubs section and we’ll feature the club later in the week.

Pictures from the Fallen Heroes Open Day are available now on the RTWW Flickr Photostream and some rough and ready video of the N.I.Fire and Ambulance demo will be available on the RideTheWildWindTV YouTube channel shortly.

Well done Fallen Heroes, looking forward to your next event!

Fallen Heroes MCC – Bike Safety Awareness Open Day

Northern Ireland motorcycle club Fallen Heroes MCC are holding their Bike Awareness Open Day on Sunday April 18th from 12pm to 4pm at Comber Firestation Co.Down.  Hot Food is being provided by the Fire Service with all proceeds from the food going to a fund for the family of two Firemen in England who tragically lost their lives earlier this month (6/4/10) trying to help others, James Shears and Alan Bannon.   A link for the Facebook page for donating to the firemen is here.. Click Here Come along and support a great event.

Our New Partners Write To Ride & Ride It Right..

RTWW has made some new friends in the last few days, riders rights site, Write To Ride,

and motorcycle safety organisation Ride It Right.

Both are based in Northern Ireland and speak a lot of sense on both subjects.  RTWW fully supports the aspirations for motorcycling both organisations are working towards.  We are sharing  our other partner, Steve Baker Motorcycles and his maintenance tips videos found on our YouTube channel, RideTheWildWindTV with Ride It Right to help inform as many riders as possible of the basic safety checks they should be carrying out regularly to get the best from their bike.  Be sure to visit both of our new partners sites and help make a strong lobbying voice for NI bikers.  You can also keep up with events and news from Write to Ride via their RSS feed in our RSS News column on the right.