There are many things to consider when planning a group motorcycle ride that includes off-road sections, or is all off-road. These rides are a great way to meet people, and group rides improve safety for all. I began organizing group motorcycle rides about a year and a half ago. I created this post to share my lessons learned over that time, and after many great rides.
Weather
While many don't consider season or weather before planning rides, I do take these things into account. At some point it goes beyond just comfort and enjoyment, and becomes an important safety consideration. For instance, I live in an area where flash floods can be deadly. Many rides include wash crossings, or even long section riding the wash itself. Often these washes are in deep canyons or even slot canyons. A slot canyon is a complete trap, where there is no exit on either side.
Safety
The most important weather consideration is safety. The weather related safety risks vary by region and season. Here in the Southwest flash floods are the most dangerous, followed by lighting and fire. The biggest flash flood risk is in Monsoon season. The challenge here is that the probability of heavy rains during Monsoon season can be very low, yet end up producing deadly flash floods. The situation can be very dynamic and hard to predict as well. Lightening and fire risk follow the flash flood risk and the thunderstorms are responsible for lightning which causes most of the fires as well. OnX has a feature that shows current fires on the map.
Comfort and fun
We all have different tolerances to things like temperature and humidity. Personally I prefer cooler weather in general. I would rather ride in 40F temperatures than 100F temperatures (presuming low humidity). Wind also plays a role. It is not much fun to ride in strong wind. Wind also drives the direction of dust.
Here in the Southwest, I plan around weather. In the summer, I plan very early morning rides, and go to high altitude. NOAA has some great maps views for this. The weather map below is an example showing apparent temperature in the region. Apparent temperature takes wind chill and humidity impacts into account.
Ride Planning
Ride difficulty level
As all riders have different skill levels, train preferences, and motorcycles, it is important to communicate as much as you can about the nature of the ride and the difficulty levels. It is less about the bike and really about the combination of bike and rider, and this is very subjective. The term "big bike friendly" comes up often. However, Chris Birch could ride a Goldwing in places others would struggle with a TW200. I tend to think it is about 70% rider, 30% bike and tires. Because of this I find the best way to share what the trail looks like is with a video. I record all the new trails I ride and post them as playlists on my YouTube channel. I created this https://sites.google.com/view/las-vegas-dual-sport-adventure/home website where I have information about the various trails with links to the related YouTube playlists. The goal is for people interested in the event to preview the trails and determine if the ride fits there skills, bike, and desires. I post a link to the playlist showing the trails we will ride for the event (if available). If I have not yet recorded the trail, I try to find a video from someone who has. I have had mixed success with this but it seems to be the best approach. Too many will ignore the video but at least I have provided them with this information ahead of time. If they chose not to use it, that is up to them. Some off-road mapping applications such as OnX have difficulty levels for most major trails but most are 4 wheeled vehicle based. They are also subjective. If the trails are in one of these mapping application, and that application can share deep links to the trail(s), share those links in the posting. OnX also allows sharing your planned route as a link. Since I post the rides as events in Facebook, people in the group can ask questions and get replies from others. This is another way riders can ask about difficulty and crowdsource responses from other riders.
Ride details
It is very important that you post a map link and details of the starting location. People need to know exactly when and where to meet. I use a Google Maps link as well as a good description in the event post for this. The time should reflect the design ride start time. I found it is best to have at least a 15 minute buffer for this. If you want the ride to start at 8am, post the meeting time at 7:30am or 7:45am. Or, post the start time at 8am but don't leave until at least 8:15am.
Different bikes have different fuel ranges. Fuel economy is somewhat hard to predict since the terrain causes big changes. My Husky 701 can get as good as 65mpg or as bad as 35mpg for instance. Adding to that many off-road focused dual sport bikes can have rather small fuel tanks. Some (like my 701) has no way to know how much fuel is in the tank until the low fuel light comes on. This creates range anxiety. I post the longest distance between gas for the route we plan to ride. I use a mapping application such as GAIA or OnX for this. I have this post: https://jimroal.blogspot.com/2024/02/off-road-trails-in-southern-nevada.html describing those apps. After ring my motorcycle for a couple years now, and tracking the fuel economy, I have a good idea of my range. If there is a risk of not having enough fuel, I have a 1.3 gallon add-on gas can I can attach to the bike. I prefer to plan rides with less than 100 miles between fuel stops when possible.
I like to create the route in OnX or GAIA and share the link with the group. Ideally also create a GPX file of the route and share that for download. This is tricky since I use Facebook to post the events and they do not allow attaching GPX files. I use a Google Drive public folder to host the GPX files, and share the Drive link in the event details. This way people can download the route into their favorite GPS navigation device. I use a Garmin Zumo XT2 for this myself. Some use phone apps, some of which allow downloading maps for offline use. I use both. If I am unfamiliar with the area, I download offline maps on Garmin, Google Maps, GAIA, and OnX. Never get lost!
Some riders have tire/tube combinations that are not good on pavement, or just avoid pavement. These folks will want to haul and meet to minimize road riding. Some rides can facilitate that, others less so. Ideally consider this when planning rides. This is a tough one as suggesting a place to park is risky. I avoid this instead pointing out the route and where we start, and let them decide where they want to haul to and meet us.
Some people don't have street licensed motorcycles. Generally all the rides I plan include roads and trails that require a street license. Mention this in the event post. While the roads may be obvious, many trails are not.
Creating a route
I start with some of the ride mapping and routing tools available. This post https://jimroal.blogspot.com/2024/02/off-road-trails-in-southern-nevada.html covers that topic. Finding and connecting trails with gas stops takes some time. Understanding what each trail segment is like can be the hardest part. I use web searches and YouTube searches as much as I can. OnX and some others offer good reviews and explanations of many trails, but not all. I find GAIA to be a good choice in some cases as it is very crowd sourced and detailed as far as trails but it does not have difficulty ratings. For the most part, OnX and GAIA have trails mapped and you can simply create routes by mapping through and between them. This uses a snap to map feature that tries to route you between points by following defined trails. At times, none of these apps have certain trails covered and you may need to improvise. OnX and GAIA for instance, offer custom routing/mapping tools. In this case you turn off the snap feature and instead draw point-to-point yourself. Often I will build a route mostly with the snap feature ON, and switch to the point-to-point approach only for small segments between defined trails. I use a satellite view while doing this to validate the route appears good. This is of course risky. Watch out for things like gates and fences, large deep washes, etc. I use Google Earth at times to show the profile of the terrain as well as view the satellite imagery. OnX and GAIA both have similar profile features. If you try to add points too far apart, most of these might reroute you to highways and paved roads. To avoid this, add a close point instead to ensure the route stays where you want it.
Here is an example of a powerline service road that does not show up in any off-road mapping tool I have found.
See the "elevation profile" showing how this route follows the terrain. Here is more details about this route: https://sites.google.com/view/las-vegas-dual-sport-adventure/home#h.7ghyi74fpgfg with video. This is a great connector route I often use to make a loop through Goodsprings and Potosi. Powerline service roads can be great trails and too often they are not mapped.
This video shows basic route creation with GAIA.
and route building in OnX.There are many others but these 2 have been the best for my uses.
Once you have the route planned, I take a screenshot of it to use as the image in the Facebook event (as shown above in this post). This way people can see the overview of the ride.
Creating an event in Facebook
I am no Facebook fanboy but it seems to be the best one for rider groups and creating events within the group. Here is a tutorial on creating the event in Facebook.
Rider Communication
Rider-to-Rider
I posted a separate blog post on this here: https://jimroal.blogspot.com/2023/11/rider-to-rider-communication.html . Rider-to-rider communication can help safety and fun. Off-road riding in the Southwest almost always includes dust. Heavy dust can be a safety risk since it impedes visibility similar to fog. It can be worse than fog since the dust coats everything between your eyes and the trail. When riders can communicate, the group can stretch out to provide bigger gaps, helping to reduce the dust issues. This also reduces the likelihood of a rider hitting another rider who has an accident. If a ride at the back of the group has an issue, they can inform the riders ahead. If a rider at the back has a minor issue and has to stop, they can let the other riders know so they don't have to worry or ride back. See my blog post for details, but at a high level I recommend using both Cardo PackTalk (or similar) helmet intercom along with a GMRS radio for longer distances. I have a GMRS radio I keep on my bike, and I carry a spare that I often give to the last rider in the group in case they don't have their own. There are 3 major brands of helmet intercom: Cardo, Sena, and all the rest. Cardo PackTalk is currently the biggest and best choice in my opinion. Sena is a strong competitor and functionally very similar. Both have mesh communication in their higher end units (PackTalk for Cardo, DMC for Sena). You can even bridge between them with Cardo PackTalk. Both also can pair with all the rest and each other via standard Bluetooth intercom mode. Each rider can bridge one rider outside their brand as well. Theoretically 6 riders can have either Cardo PackTalk or Sena DMC can each bridge in one additional rider so 12 rides can all talk. In reality setting that up is difficult and time consuming.
Emergency Communication
In case of emergency, you need a way to call for help. While cellular phones may work in many places, there are far too many places where they don't. Cellular providers and device makers are adding satellite services for SOS which can help. I prefer Garmin InReach as it has an industry leading rescue service and even an insurance plan. I use the simplest Garmin InReach Messenger for this. I also have a Garmin fenix watch that integrates with InReach so I can trigger an SOS even if I can't reach the InReach device. The InReach also lets you message people via SMS for emergencies and non-emergencies. The messages can include your GPS coordinates by default too. I find it handy for non-emergency messaging. InReach can also be setup to track you on rides. You can share this location with a person or group of people, such as a spouse. They can track you on a map so they know where to find you if things go badly.
The GMRS radio mentioned in rider-to-rider communication can also be used for emergencies and to help coordinate rescue. However, I would not depend on this.
