You never know though, Lorenzo could be learning and getting smarter about things, which he should competing at his level. Personally I think Stoner is the guy to beat again this year.

Ray, I think you should take your 4 ideas and post a poll, let people vote and go with what the majority wants to do

Happy Birthday Ray!

You may not realize it, but one of the reasons so many of our rides start early in the morning so far away from the Twin Cities was to provide a barrier to entry for all the irresponsible unskilled riders who would show up hung over without a way to carry a route sheet when rides were started closer to the Twin Cities.

This is the main reason I don't attend many of the rides. I'm up at 5am every day for work, work at least 10 hours a day downtown, plus commuting. By the time Saturday roles around I want to sleep in at least until 8am, which doesn't allow me enough time to get to Nelson to join rides. No ones problem but mine, but it would be nice if rides started a little later. I realize alot of you guys like to ride sunup til sundown, again, don't have that kind of time, have other obligations, but it seems most of the rides on this forum are designed as 500 mile days. At least that's what I see every time someone posts up how many miles they did in a day.

They quoted my $830 annually for my 4 bikes together. 250/250 collision and comp, 100/300 on the liability, underinsured, uninsured. That would save me about $350 per year over State Farm.

Seriously, keep the forum the way it is. I work in technology and one of the things I drill into the people who work for me is to not get caught up in the technology. "Just because you can doesn't mean you should" and "The KISS principle" are the things I tell them daily. In the end, this gives you usable technology that can be implemented quickly and maintained.

I see no reason not to follow those same principles here. Just trying to follow the three pages of posts on this topic and all the theories and ideas is making my head spin. Say what you want about the other forums, but they take a much simpler approach to organizing rides and it works. Granted, no one puts restrictions on who should join a ride or not, other than they do list whether its a beginners ride or not. Not here to debate who is a beginner or not or how those "douchebags" ride, just merely saying they have something that works.

I think the simplest way to do it is what I have seen on here from time to time, which is invitation only rides or MN-MSTA official rides. Otherwise a ride posted up should just be open and the ride organizer has the right to reject anyone from a ride that shows up that they feel is not adequately prepared, gear or bike, or if on the ride they are not riding up to the standard of the ride leader, the ride leader can stop the ride at any time and ask that person to leave. When people post rides on here I think they do a good job of setting the tone for the ride, how it should be ridden, if they are expected to be able to self navigate, etc. Seems pretty simple to me, its up to the ride leader to set the standard and hold people to it. If we kicked people out of a ride we don't feel are riding properly, two things happen. Either they never show up again, or they learn (or at least try to learn) how to ride properly.

This could be disturbing for some

http://rmirror.net/r/videos/comments/q5hu9/car_accident_nsfl/

Nothing yet?