Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Riders for Health Day of Stars at Texas GP

They say that everything is bigger in Texas. Now fans of MotoGP can have a bigger and better MotoGP experience than ever before as Riders for Health’s Day of Stars comes to the Lone Star State on April 10, 2014.

Day of Stars offers a small group of fans the opportunity to peer behind the curtain of the world’s premier motorcycle racing series while helping to raise money for Riders for Health - the official charity of MotoGP – to transform access to health care in Africa.

Day of Stars guests will receive a guided tour of the MotoGP paddock led by one of the stars of the MotoGP. The lucky fans will then have a chance to chat with some of the current stars of MotoGP and their crews at their pit boxes.

Also, Day of Stars guests will be served a delicious catered lunch before taking their motorcycles out for a few track laps of the incredible Circuit of the Americas.

Finally, fans will have the opportunity to bid on rare race memorabilia or once-in-a-lifetime experiences at the Riders for Health MotoGP auction.

Andrea Coleman, who co-founded Riders for Health along with Barry Coleman and US motorcycle star, Randy Mamola, said ‘I’m so delighted that we’ve been able to bring Day of Stars to the Circuit of the Americas. Motorcyclists around the world have supported our work in Africa because the thing we all love – the motorcycle – is saving lives in Africa. We’re looking forward to seeing you in Austin.’

Tickets to Day of Stars cost $500 per person, $375 of which is a tax-deductible donation to Riders for Health. Riders for Health ensures health workers have access to reliable, well maintained motorcycles and ambulances so that they can make sure health care reaches everyone, everywhere.

Get your tickets today at www.riders.org/day-of-stars. Only a very limited number of tickets are available, so do not delay.

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Source: Motorcycle USA (AP, 2/19)

Friday, February 14, 2014

Bikers on the Abortion Battlefield? Pro-Life Group’s Plan to Use Harleys to Send a Message to America’s Abortion Clinics

Harleys roared their engines outside abortion clinics and at pro-life rallies across America amid concerted efforts to bring motorcyclists into the abortion debate.

As pro-life advocates planned to mark the 41st anniversary of Roe v. Wade with the annual March for Life rally in Washington, D.C., Wednesday, and as similar events unfold in cities across the nation last week, an activist in Texas announced an unique initiative he launched to more deeply involve bikers in the pro-life movement.

Mark Crutcher, president of Life Dynamics, Inc., a Denton, Texas-based anti-abortion group, recently announced the founding of Bikers for Life, a project he hopes will lead to motorcyclists having a “presence in front of every abortion clinic in America.”

Crutcher, an avid biker since the age of 12, has been riding hogs for 53 years and is now looking to take that passion and fold it into his work at Life Dynamics — all for the sake of saving unborn babies’ lives.

“I have always had this belief that the biker community, from what I can tell, is pretty overwhelmingly pro-life,” he said in a statement announcing the project. “So I had this idea, sometime ago, about Bikers for Life, that we would try and bring these people into the movement.”

Crutcher told TheBlaze that there are two main reason

He believes that there are large groups of people in America who actually agree with the anti-abortion message but don’t feel they match the stereotypes and perceived view of what it means to be pro-life.

“The abortion lobby and the media have defined the pro-life movement as a collection of old, conservative, white, Republican, religious nut-cases,” Crutcher said. “Unfortunately, we often reinforce that stereotype and, in doing so, we keep our numbers artificially low.”

He said that personal experience has led him to believe that the biker community is actually more pro-life than the general public, making motorcyclists a perfect ally in fighting against abortion in America.

“Several factors drive this. First, by their nature, bikers tend to be politically conservative,” he added. “Second, bikers also tend to be an extremely patriotic group and, today, they are sensing that something is terribly wrong with out country and that, if changes are not made, we will soon be in an irreversible state of moral collapse. They also see the legalization of abortion as a symbol of that moral collapse.”

Crutcher continued, “Third, the typical biker abhors both cowardice and injustice, and the predominate feeling among them is that abortion is a textbook example of each.”

Bikers are already getting involved, with 91 motorcyclists who participated in the Dallas March for Life last weekend. And there are plans for more integration, as hog riders are invited to take part in additional events across the nation.

One area where these individuals could become instrumental is outside abortion clinics, where Crutcher said they can “become the reinforcement troops for picketers.”

“The clinics are the killing fields, and this is the place where God is calling the biker community into action,” he said.

Crutcher believes that the future of Bikers for Life has unlimited possibilities and that the project is poised for monumental growth. He hired a staff member at Life Dynamics devoted to heading up outreach, as the group is currently compiling a database of biker groups across the U.S. that it plans to reach out.

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Source: The Blaze (Hallowell, 2/14)

Friday, February 7, 2014

Pope's Harley goes for $327,000 at charity auction

PARIS (AP) - Pope Francis' Harley-Davidson is hitting the road after an unspecified European buyer agreed to pay 241,500 euros ($327,000) including taxes and fees for the motorcycle at a Paris auction to benefit charity.

The Bonhams auction house said the telephone buyer agreed to pay far more than the expected pre-sale price of more than 12,000 euros ($16,000) at the auction at Paris' Grand Palais.

A Harley-Davidson leather jacket signed by Pope Francis sold for 57,500 euros including fees.

It's unknown whether the pontiff ever rode the custom 2013 Dyna Super Glide that was a gift from Willie Davidson, a retired Harley-Davidson designer and grandson of the company's co-founder.

Money from the sale will be donated to charity Caritas Roma, which runs a soup kitchen and hostel for the homeless in Rome.

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Source: NBC 29 (2/06, AP)