OFF THE WIRE
Nearly 1,000 motorcycles filled the parking lot on the west side of the Columbia Mall Saturday morning. Bikers and bikes of nearly every type roared into formation. The lines were two bikes wide and more than 100 bikes long.
The event was Ride Across Maryland (RAM), an annual gathering that unites bikers from around the state to raise money for breast cancer research. Members of the newly formed MCV Motorcycle Club gathered in Reisterstown along Main Street just before 7 a.m. Saturday before taking off down I-795.
The group from the Owings Mills and Reisterstown area decided to get involved in the program this year for the first time as an entity. The club has 46 members and prospects and had about 30 bikes participating in the event.
Although they were certainly not the largest group attending the event, the team will place second in overall donations for this year, finishing out with more thn $30,000.
“When we embrace something as a club, we have such a good chemistry within our club, and such great energy, we go nuts,” said co-vice president Carl ‘Disel’ Galler. “It’s just the joy of the process and that leads us to meeting our goals.”
He said this event in particular brings an element of competition among the club members and other teams. Two of the four top fundraisers for this years ride, are MCV members, Diesel said.
The two top earners were David ‘DOM‘ Selko, with $3,478, and Eric ‘Sniper’ Weber with $4,740 in donations. Selko’s wife is a breast cancer survivor and said it was easier to raise money with the support of the motorcycle club.
Trish ’Shadow’ Powers, MCV fundraising team captain, said the reason many of the members are so passionate about participating is because breast cancer has touched many of their lives.
“This is an event that many of us have participated in for many years,” she said. “It has a lot of personal significance to us, as we have several of our members' wives that have fortunately beaten breast cancer, and obviously we all have moms, sisters aunts and grandmothers too.”
At the mall, MCV members joined nearly 1,000 other bikers for breakfast and live music before kicking off the 150-mile ride to Ocean City at 9 a.m.
The RAM event benefits the Susan G. Komen for a Cure foundation (Maryland affiliate). The foundation is a worldwide network of grassroots efforts to raise money for breast cancer research. Fundraisers are organized locally by activists, breast cancer survivors or anyone else who supports the cause.
The RAM event was started by Dick Gelfman in 2000 when he and a some fellow bikers decided they wanted to help a worthy cause. From those humble beginnings, the event has managed to raise more than $2 million for Komen for a Cure, making RAM them largest third-party fundraising event worldwide for this charity.
Eric ‘Wild Thing’ Barschop said it’s not hard to use his life as a biker to help the cause. Riding provides a chance to break free of all the inevitable, every day stresses of life, he said.
“It’s a life,” he said, “When pull out of your garage, whatever crap is there … you are instantaneously away from it.”
Prospective members Rhonda and Robert Likens said they share that love of riding for similar reasons.
“I like the freedom and that you see things differently,” Rhonda said. “When you’re in your car, you just drive and a lot of times you get where you’re going without even realizing how you got there. On the bike you’re forced to notice everything.”
As the sun started to inch further and further overhead, spirits were high. Selko summed it up just before they mounted up for the ride.
“It’s a beautiful day, we did a great job, we got a ton of bikes here,” he said. “It’s just a great day.
