I am ticked off. Bigtime. Peeved and irritated. I have been discriminated against because I am a “BIKER”!

We’ve got a group of around 25 biker folks who regularly hang out at a tiny restaurant called Stallings in Riverside Drive in Danville, VA. Many months ago, a couple of our group members had a chat with the owner to see if it would be okay if our group could hang out and eat and chat there.

The owner was wonderful - he put picnic tables out front with an area marked off for “bike parking only”. He gave us all 10% discount cards. He told us that if there was anything we’d like to see on the menu, to let him know. The owner said, “this is your home”. How cool is that?

Well, on Friday or Saturday nights, we’d fill up quite a few tables. It was evident that the guy was depending on our business after he started to make snide comments if we occasionally went somewhere else to eat! A few months back, he started to change his hours frequently, locking the doors earlier and earlier, and he took a bunch of items off the menu. Rumour was that there was a bit of financial trouble, and so we continued to support the place after he begged us to come back…after all, this was our “home”, where we could gather with friends on a regular basis, and we didn’t want to lose it. So the boss filled out the menu, changed his hours again, and all was well…until last Friday night.

Now, before I tell you what happened on Friday, you have to understand that our “biker” group consists of nurses, county workers, city workers, blue collar, white collar, retired folks, men who have fought for our country, served in special forces, and officers of the law. Yup, mostly over-40ish PRODUCTIVE MEMBERS OF SOCIETY! We always left tips, we were kind to the waitresses, we laughed and joked around, but we weren’t rude, we didn’t leave a mess, and we paid our bills…but apparently something was brewing behind the scenes.

This past week, we found out that the restaurant hours were again being cut. During the week, the restaurant was now to close early (7 PM) and we couldn’t really get in a group dinner after work, so we decided head somewhere else. Oh boy, THAT went over like a lead balloon - it almost feels like we’d been warned that if we don’t eat at that one establishment all the time, we are not supposed eat there at all. More comments about where we’ve been when the entire group doesn’t show up on certain nights. Geez, what other restaurant gets p***d off and expects you to patronize ONLY their place of business???

Well, here’s the kicker, my dear biker friends…last Friday, AFTER we had all ordered our meals, and were in the midst of eating dinner, a sign was brought out from the back room. It was set down on the counter by our group and then he walked away without a word.  After we read the sign, our entire group was pretty d*mn disgusted and p*ssed off. Here is the sign that was set out for us “bikers” to read:

If you can’t read the text in the photo, here it is, with spelling errors intact:
“NEW POLICY
For customers not eating gets only 1 refil
————
For eating customers
After 2 Refils of coffee or
TEA we must charge again for
each additional refil.
————
For Bikers and friends
this is Not a club house
this is our Resturant where
we have to make a living.
So Effective Now, no one is
allowed to hang out in this
Resturant For hours and tie up
tables For Someone who would like
to Sit Down and eat.
No 10% Discount
Owners Sandy and Linda Stallings”

I am very angry that this was directed at our “biker” group, when other customers are allowed to hang out for extended periods of time and just drink coffee or soda. Most of our group orders full meals and drinks. Very few ever just order a coffee and hang out for hours. Our group is being discriminated against.

You don’t think the sign was directed just at our group? Well, they ERASED THE SIGN as soon as we left!!! Did they think that if they erased it right away, that no one would remember what it said or that we wouldn’t spread the word about this crappy treatment of our group??? We found out that they erased the sign because the POLICY was NOT changing for the other customers! Only for OUR group!

I guess we are considered “biker scum”, despite the fact that we supported the restaurant even when the food was less than desirable, and their hours of operation kept changing. We stayed even after they took down the pictures of our bike group (wearing Stalling’s t-shirts) that they put up, and saying that the bike photos were scaring away other customers.

Here’s the facts:
THEY TOLD us we were welcome, 
THEY designated a special place for us to park,
THEY offered us 10% discount cards,
THEY told us they’d stay open on New Years Eve as long as any of us wanted to stay,
and we went back when they begged us to come back after the first time we walked away, and NOW they decide they don’t like us?

If we stop patronizing this tiny Danville restaurant for our regular Friday and Saturday nights (and every other time that one of the members goes there for breakfast, lunch, or dinner), Stallings is going to have a very rude awakening, and a HELL of a lot less money in their till. We ARE a major portion of his business.

I don’t know about you, and as they say, you have to “vote your conscience”…but for me, I will NEVER set foot in that place again. The entire group and their friends are now spreading the word about this discrimination against a group which participated in the baby showers for the waitresses, a group who raised money for a member with a medical issue, a group who would drop everything to help out a friend.

I am so utterly peeved that Stallings waited until we got our meals before he put that sign out. How freakin’ RUDE to try and get that last freakin’ ALMIGHTY DOLLAR out of us when he KNEW we would walk out after seeing the sign!
He could have explained the refill situation to us nicely…we could have had a discussion about the situation…if the bikes out front “scared away” other patrons he could move the bike parking to the back…but NO, we were treated like crap by a place that we patronized faithfully for months.

To our credit, no one in the group raised their voice or caused a scene when this happened. Of course, there was plenty of muttering and angry and disappointed faces, but we calmly got up, paid our bills and left.

Well, the good news is that we’ve already got a couple of other local restaurants who have said they would be happy to have our group’s business on a regular basis! Heck, meal tickets from 25 or more hungry bikers adds up to quite an amount, especially if they patronize your place of business on a weekly, and sometimes daily, basis.

It’s pretty sad that lots of folks still “judge a book by it’s cover”. Just because I may wear black leather and I ride a motorcycle, don’t you DARE assume ANYTHING about me!
Please do not tolerate discrimination in any shape or form, for the next time, it may be YOU who is the target of that discrimination.

Sign me,
Biker “Scum” and Proud of It,
Dawn :)

I am so tired of hearing stories from my fellow riders about their harrowing experiences involving inattentive automobile drivers (or “cagers”, as we like to call ‘em). I am also tired of hearing about the deaths of fellow riders due to the inattentiveness of a car driver.

“I didn’t see the motorcyle” is a frequently heard statement after a crash. These are not “accidents”, folks, they are CRASHES. Accidents just happen (like if you slide your bike on unseen diesel fuel on the road), whereas crashes are caused by controllable factors (high rate of speed, driving attention being given to other tasks, crossing over a center line). How can you come up behind a motorcycle at a stoplight and smack into it without seeing it??? It’s your inattentiveness…you were too busy doing something other than driving and only saw the bike at the last second, when it was too late.

When I lived in the Tampa area of Florida, we frequently rode on Highway 19. It is a frightening stretch of

• *bluehairs going 25 MPH in a 45 MPH zone, pulling out into traffic from side roads,
• *hopped-up Mitsubishis and Nissans weaving in and out of traffic while being raced by young punks going 60+ MPH in a 45 MPH zone,
• *soccer Moms and hurried execs with their cell phones plastered to their ears, more focused screaming into the phone than driving,
• *carloads of screaming teenagers with stereos blaring and thumping who weave into your lane just to see if you’ll freak out,
• *women who are late for work putting on their makeup while driving,
• *people reading BOOKS OR NEWSPAPERS while driving,
• *people working on their LAPTOPS while driving,
• *parents turning around in their seat while driving to yell at the kids in the back
• *people bending down while driving to pick up something they dropped such as a soda can, doughnut, IPod, cellphone, burning cigarette, water bottle,
• *drunks heading the WRONG WAY into traffic (this happened to me one night when a car with NO HEADLIGHTS came SCREECHING around the corner at a high rate of speed directly into my lane of traffic, the driver had only one hand on the wheel while recklessly weaving his vehicle towards the median and bouncing over it into the correct lane; I nearly peed my pants when I realized that if I had been ONE SECOND closer to the intersection, I’d have been ROAD GOO),
• *and speeders who have no regard for human life (and yes, this also includes squids on crotch rockets who are frequently known to smash into cars and other bikes at unbelievably high rates of speed - racing is for TRACK DAYS, you moron).

Now we live in VA, where there are many curving, mountain roads. I see many vehicles crossing the centerline around curves every time we head up to the Blue Ridge, or cars passing in no-passing zones around curves and on hills. Pray to God every time you crest a hill.

I could go on with the list, but you get the idea. Inattentiveness can be a KILLER. Please pay attention when you’re driving your car or truck. Your actions can impact not only a motorcyclist’s life, but that of his or her entire family and circle of friends.

And Riders: don’t ride as if you are invisible, ride as if everyone is out to MURDER you!  Because they ARE. Because some of those folks don’t give a poop about anybody but themselves, or they’d actually be watching the road, concious of what’s AROUND their vehicle, not just what’s IN it.

As riders, we also carry a responsibility to play the “what if” game while we are riding. Think of what can happen up ahead on the road, and how will you get out of it.

• *Watch the front tires of the guy who may turn left in front of you (one of the major causes of motorcycle crashes).
• *Maintain a safe distance from the vehicle in front of you (if he passes over debris, you may get hit with it if it flies up, or you may see it too late to ride over it or avoid it safely).
• *Maintain a safe speed, keep the racing at the track, and knock it off with the wheelies, stoppies and unsafe tricks on the road (you’re giving the rest of us a bad name).
• *Watch for cars coming out of side streets - if they hit you and say “I never saw the bike”, it isn’t going to make it hurt any less.
• *Don’t submit to road rage EVER; you never know who is going to flip out if you flip them the finger for following too close. In a battle of car and bike, the car will always win if there is a shoving match.
• *Be visible! Wear something reflective at night, add a headlight modulator, add more lighting to your ride, wear bright colors.
• *Stay educated. You can always learn more about riding, no matter how many years “experience” you have. Read David Hough’s books, watch “Ride Like A Pro” DVDs, set up a practice course in a vacant parking lot to practice quick stops and slow speed manuevers, and consider taking the ERC.

I think I’ve ranted long enough today. If I can keep ONE biker from getting hurt, and one automobile driver to think about their actions today, then I feel a bit better. We need to spread the word…WATCH OUT FOR MOTORCYCLES…we’re people with families and friends, too. We are doctors, lawyers, factory workers, librarians, CPAs, police officers, mommies, daddies, sisters, brothers, preachers, artists, mechanics, and your neighbor.

These are my Florida motorcycling peeps…Ride on, friends, we hope to see you soon!

Keep the shiny side up,
Eclectic Dawn