Doing Good Turns for Charity

Motorcyclists raise millions for non-profit causes — and polish their image — through pledge rides

With the sun reflecting off their motorcycles’ freshly polished chrome, more than 600 bikers descended on this quiet resort community near Milwaukee one recent weekend. The telltale rumble of their Harleys could be heard around town as they arrived, clad in leather, covered with tattoos, and armed with — pledge cards.

By the time the weekend was over, the Pledge Ride for Breast Cancer Research raised $76,000. In the last three years, the annual event has brought in almost $200,000, supporting research at the nearby Waukesha Memorial Hospital.

Waukesha Memorial is not the only non-profit group that nowadays is happy to see a convoy of motorcyclists roll into town. On any given weekend, bikers across the country are raising money for charity — and in some cases non-profit groups are finding themselves in the unexpected position of competing for bikers’ good works.

“A lot of these gruff and rough-looking guys are really good people,” says Oliver A. Shokouh, the owner of Harley-Davidson of Glendale, Cal., and founder of the Love Ride, one of the biggest biker events. “They just look bad.”

The vast majority of the fund-raising events are motorcycle rides for which participants pay an entry fee and often collect additional donations. The rides range in size from the Charity Motorcycle Dice Run, which brings in about $2,000 for the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Eastern Virginia, to the celebrity-studded Love Ride in Glendale, which raises about $1-million a year for the Muscular Dystrophy Association, based in Tucson, Ariz.

“We are compelled to give something back so that we might continue to enjoy the roads and our freedom to ride them,” says Kirk A. Topel, co-owner of Wisconsin Harley-Davidson, a motorcycle dealership that serves as one of the Oconomowoc ride’s sponsors.

Biker fund raising appears to be on the rise. The more than 1,200 clubs affiliated with the American Motorcycle Association in Westerville, Ohio, brought in about $4.5-million last year — more than twice as much as they drew in 1995. (The association’s figure is lower than what all biker groups combined actually raised, as many clubs are not members.)

Bike enthusiasts attribute the growth in charitable activity to a surge in ridership, especially among relatively well-to-do individuals. According to the Motorcycle Industry Council in Irvine, Cal., sales of motorcycles increased by 30 per cent between 1991 and 1996. And 21 per cent of bikers made more than $50,000 a year on average from 1991 to 1995, compared with just 2 per cent from 1986 to 1990..

Youth charities stand to gain the most from the events, as bikers tend to have an especially soft spot for kids. Big Brothers/Big Sisters of America, the Make-A-Wish Foundation of America, and children’s hospitals are all popular with motorcycle clubs. So is the Muscular Dystrophy Association, which focuses much of its efforts on combatting neuromuscular diseases among children.

Sometimes concern for youth comes from personal experience. Bernard W. Bredbenner, Jr., started the Motorcycle Miracle Tour after his two children were born several months premature and one of them died from medical complications. In the last 12 years, his rides have raised more than $500,000 for the Children’s Miracle Network at Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, Pa., where his kids were treated.

Beyond their altruistic impulses, many bikers feel that charitable works are necessary to polish an image that, they say, has been unfairly maligned. “Everybody has seen Easy Rider and the Hell’s Angels on TV, and if you mention motorcyclists that’s the first thing that comes to mind,” says Chris Hooper, an engineer at Virginia Power in Richmond who rides with a local chapter of the Gold Wing Road Riders Association, named for Honda Motor Company’s Gold Wing motorcycle. “One way you change that is to be involved in charity.”

On rare occasions, bikers have lived up to their outlaw reputations — even while raising money for charity. In 1994, for example, two people were killed at a biker event in Hackettstown, N.J., to benefit the local Elks lodge when a dispute broke out between rival clubs.

Bikers tend to revel in their independence, and here in Oconomowoc — as with many other motorcycle events — everything is organized by the bikers themselves. They take responsibility for soliciting corporate sponsors, attracting riders, and getting businesses to donate raffle prizes.

The Oconomowoc ride is the brainchild of Mary A. Mueller and Diane E. Tidball Ford, two motorcycle enthusiasts who work at local Harley dealerships. In 1995, they formed the Lady Riders Breast Cancer Research Foundation. With the help of Wisconsin Harley-Davidson and the Rock River Harley Owner’s Group (or HOG) of Oconomowoc — one of about 580 such clubs made up of people who own Harley-Davidson motorcycles — they put on their first pledge ride that same year.

“We thought that it would raise maybe $200,” says Ms. Mueller. Instead, the event brought in $49,000.

The day-long event includes activities similar to those at many other fund-raising parties, except with a little more beer and smoke and a lot more leather. There is a fashion show (leather pants, leather jackets, leather boots), an auction (an autographed copy of The Holy Ranger: Harley Davidson Poems, by Martin Jack Rosenthal, goes for $210), and a host of raffles (the main attraction being a 1998 Harley-Davidson Road King motorcycle).

But as with any gathering of bikers, charitable or not, the highlight of the day is the ride. Starting at 8 a.m., hundreds of motorcycles pull into Wisconsin Harley-Davidson. They turn in their pledge sheets, catch up with old friends, and show off their bikes.

Then, in groups of 20 to 40, they rumble off on a 70-mile ride. The route passes through small towns and dairy farms. Cars stop to let the convoy pass, construction workers lean on their shovels and watch, and children wave.

One rider is Al Willis, whose ever-present cigarette, bristly salt-and-pepper beard, and multiple tattoos fit the mold of the outlaw biker of lore. “I’m married and I’ve got four daughters, and I sure as hell wouldn’t want to see any of them get breast cancer,” he says. “And I sure don’t want to get it.”

Across the country, HOG chapters hold fund raisers similar to the one in Oconomowoc, but most support the Muscular Dystrophy Association — Harley-Davidson’s official charity. By the end of the year, Harley-Davidson estimates that $2.6-million will have been raised for the group through company or club-sponsored events.

The granddaddy of all those is the Love Ride, which has raised about $8-million to fight muscular dystrophy over the last 13 years. This year’s Love Ride will take place next month, with the television host Jay Leno and the actor Peter Fonda of Easy Rider fame leading an expected pack of 25,000 riders through a 50-mile stretch of southern California.

Other HOG rides also bring in money for the Muscular Dystrophy Association. The Ride for Life in Pennsylvania raised $568,000 last year, for example, and the Packerland Ride in Green Bay, Wis., brought in $65,000.

Scarlett Ford-Marchman, director of program development at the Muscular Dystrophy Association, says that bikers are a natural match for her group. “Harley-Davidson is all about freedom, and that’s what the Muscular Dystrophy Association is about,” she says. “We’re both about giving people an independent life.”

Harley-Davidson owners may represent a distinct breed of motorcyclist — one that is enamored of loud exhaust systems and American-made engines — but they are far from alone in raising money for charity. Other motorcycle clubs go about their fund raising just as fervently. The Gold Wing Road Rider’s Association, for example, estimates that local clubs raised more than $700,000 last year. And several organizations have been started by individual bikers to raise money for charitable causes.

The Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation in Asheville, N.C., for example, was started by Mike Traynor, a former motorcycle racer, to bring in money for medical research. The foundation now holds the Ride for Kids in 14 cities and last year drew $900,000 through the event.

Mr. Traynor says that the group’s rides would surprise people who think of bikers as unsavory characters. “We have a very family-oriented event,” he says. “You could bring your grandmother along.”

The Christian Motorcyclist Association was also formed to advance charitable work, in this case to help spread the word of Jesus. Started in 1975, the group now has more than 59,000 members.

The bulk of the group’s money is raised through the annual Run for the Son, a 100-mile pledge ride held each May that has brought in almost $4-million since 1989. The money has allowed the group to purchase 480 motorcycles, 198 bicycles, and one horse for pastors around the world.

Biker involvement in charitable causes often goes well beyond raising money. HOG chapters, for instance, will frequently rumble en masse to summer camps run by the Muscular Dystrophy Association and give the kids rides on their bikes. And many motorcycle clubs collect toys for poor children around the holidays. Mr. Hooper’s Gold Wing motorcycle club in Richmond delivers Christmas baskets to residents of a local nursing home and holds cookouts for foster children, among other activities.

That sort of work, along with the clubs’ fund-raising rides, is catching the eye of more and more charities. Where once whole towns shut down upon word that a group of leather-clad bikers was due to make an appearance, some organizations now actively recruit motorcyclists to their cause. A number have written letters to club leaders or attended motorcycle meetings to tell members about their groups’ services. Such efforts have led to greater competition for the motorcycle dollar.

The Miracle Ride of the Rockies, for instance, raised $68,000 last year for the Muscular Dystrophy Association — less than a third of what the event brought in seven years ago. Gavin C. Johnson, director of the charity’s Denver office, says the key reason for the drop was an increase in the number of motorcycle fund-raising events.

“They’re just very, very generous people who come to the aid of a lot of charities,” he says.

And they often have a fair amount to give. Here in Oconomowoc, it becomes clear that beneath the veneer of leather and tattoos, the people assembled are not all that different from many other donors. Cell phones and pagers are produced from saddle bags on $20,000 Harleys, and people grumble about going back to the office on Monday. The largest cheer of the day comes when it’s announced how much money has been raised.

Steve Viscuso, a member of the Milwaukee Northwest HOG Chapter and a city sewer inspector, sums up the philosophy of many of his fellow riders: “If we can afford a Harley,” he says, “we can afford to help other people.”

Dan Morris contributed to this article.