The Future of “Ride It” in “Wrench It”

Moving forward with information for riders, Ride It will begin taking on a stronger
role on my site. For years I have provided free maintenance tutorials which fell under the
Wrench It portion of the channel. I will still be making wrench it videos moving forward.
Ride It has always been a bit weak and unfortunately hasn’t offered riders much in the way
of being useful. We put some videos up of our adventures on the road and published riding
routes of some of those rides but they never really did much.

I have always wanted to teach prospective riders how to ride and do so safely. If you go
online there are hundreds of videos on riding safety, proper riding gear, and riding
techniques so I was apprehensive about moving to Ride It in that direction because of all the
other people already making those types of videos.

As I reviewed other instructor's videos I concluded there is a place for more of these types
of videos. My method of instruction might be presented in a manner that a rider could follow
more easily or understand better. Learning and instruction takes on many forms and
people learn from different methods of information delivery.

The future of Ride It is near! This spring we will begin publishing videos that
provide information on riding techniques, skills, safety, strategy, and anything other
content that might help riders be safer. I am very excited about doing this and am
hoping it will be helpful to the riding community.

Motorcycle Toy Runs 2018

Incredibly Christmas is only a month away again! For me 2018 went so fast it’s hard to
believe were coming up on Christmas again. I look forward to Christmas time in regards
to the motorcycle community because of the Toy Runs. In North Texas were just coming
into our winter about this time so riding slows down for us until around mid March. Local
Toy Runs provide a great opportunity with purpose to get the bikes out even in the cold and
spend the day amongst other riders.

The local Toy Run I’ve always supported is the Wise County Toy Run. It is always well
organized and is police escorted which provides a lot of safety from motorists interfering
with the column of motorcycles. I’ve written a couple articles in the past about the
Wise County Toy Run being a community event that extends beyond just the motorcycles
in the ride. The route is great as well extending from Decatur, TX to Bridgeport, TX for
about 13 miles. It’s a long enough ride to accommodate the 1000+ motorcycles that usually
make up the event but short enough that you can still have a nice ride and attend the
post-event while getting home at a reasonable time. I also like that is is always run
on the 2nd Sunday of December. Most Toy Runs in our area run on a Saturday so very
few of them interfere with the Wise County Toy Run. That means you can always make it
to the Wise County Toy Run and another that might be running on Saturday the day before.

With that being said, there are a couple of Toy Runs this weekend on Saturday to choose
from in North Texas. The Mesquite Santa-Cop Toy Parade rides out on
Saturday, December 1 as does the 13th annual Buddy Oney Toy Run in Rockdale, TX.
There are a couple of others as well. A new Toy Run that I will be participating in on
Saturday, December 1 is the 2nd Annual American Valor Toy Run. The run is supported
by both Stampede Harley Davidson in Burleson, TX and Fort Worth Harley Davidson in
Fort Worth, TX. It begins at Burleson HD and is a police escorted to Fort Worth HD.
Last year the ride attracted about 300 bikes which is impressive for its first-year kick-off.
The ride distance is 20 miles which is perfect for a toy run and ends with a block party
to close out the event. I am excited to see how much it will grow this year.

I’ll get some video of both these Toy Runs and add them to this post by mid-week.
I hope to see you at one if not both of the Toy Runs!