Riders For Health Forms American Chapter

RIDERS FOR HEALTH FORMS AMERICAN CHAPTER

THANKS TO THE BRITISH charity Riders for Health, thousands of tiny villages in Nigeria and Zimbabwe receive regular visits from healthcare professionals. How do physicians reach these remote African outposts? By motorcycle, of course. Now, with help from Jim Boltz, owner of Lynnwood Cycle Barn in Lynnwood, Washington, Americans can help support this humanitarian effort, too.

First, some history: In the late 1980s, American roadracers Randy Mamola and Kenny Roberts played key roles in getting Riders for Health up and running. They worked closely with British husbandand-wife team Andrea and Barry Coleman (she was an exracer and Mamola’s publicist; he was a motojournalist and Roberts’ biographer).

According to RfH spokesperson Zoe Coleman, “Health-care workers used motorcycles in Africa before, but they constantly broke down. My dad studied those programs, and noticed one small fleet of bikes that lasted a long time. It was a program run by a man named Mohale Moshoeshoe, who lived in Zimbabwe. Mohale’s group of public-health workers had weekly meetings, and while they were attending them, he saw that their bikes got regular maintenance. That became the model for Riders for Health.” Soon, RfH (www.riders.org)

was providing “transportation resource management”-basically, motorcycles, training and maintenance-for the World Health Organization while slashing WHO’s transportation costs. For their parts, Mamola and Roberts mobilized the Grand Prix community to help with fundraising auctions, paddock tours, even pillion rides on a specially constructed, two-seat Yamaha 500cc GP bike. Since 1988, RfH’s fleet has grown to 4000 machines that ferry outreach nurses and medicines across the sub-Sahara.

Last September, the Cycle Barn Sport Bike Riders Club and the Washington Motorcycle

Road Racing Association staged the first Riders for Health fundraiser on U.S. soil. The event included a road rally and raffle, with one of 500cc World Champion Kenny Roberts Jr.’s Arai helmets as the top prize. This year’s lucky winner gets an all-expenses-paid trip to July’s British Grand Prix!

As the Cycle Barn’s Dave Preston points out, “The motorcycle industry has historically supported a lot of charitable efforts, which while very worthwhile, don’t have anything to do with motorcycles. This is a chance for us to do some real good in a way that’s ‘motorcycle positive.'

Mark Gardiner