By Tucker Henderson

Reporter

While most of the excitement for the annual Ronald McDonald House Ride builds up during late May and early June in New York Mills, the planning and preparations continue throughout year as the committee works on route planning, marketing and above all, safety protocols.

With around 54 volunteers certified with a Minnesota Road Guard Certification, each and every highway crossing on the Ride’s route each year is covered to guarantee a safe and sure ride for the hundreds of motorcyclists that take part in the fundraising event each year.

“We’ve always prided ourselves in operating a safe ride and it’s just made us better,” said co-organizer, Greg Karvonen. “From day one we’ve always had road guards. It’s made it a much safer ride, knowing all the rules and expectations. The public has always said how safe a ride and enjoyable it is because of the safety, that they don’t see this kind of care and concern on a lot of other rides they’ve been on throughout the state, which is a huge compliment.”

Minnesota State Statute 169.06, subdivision 4(f) provides certified motorcycle road guards to stop and control traffic for group rides. Drives of vehicles are to obey the road guards directions and may only proceed after instructed so by a flagger or police officer.

“We may stop and hold vehicles in place until it’s safe for all vehicles to proceed,” Greg said. “We have to be re-certified every four years, it’s the same training. It’s brushing up on the statute and then the physical training where we go out and we actually go through a mock simulation of motorcycles coming through. There are specific rules that we have to abide by when doing this and certain size flags and things that we have to use and we have to have reflective gear on—the bright neon yellow with reflective on it—just like you see that highway departments have.”

While the committee has over 50 road guards they can call each year, they are always looking for more. This past year, even with everyone on duty, they were stretched a little thinner than they would like to be with guards constantly moving on to the next checkpoints to make sure each street, avenue, and highway intersection was covered.

“I believe there’s four more that definitely want to take it,” said co-organizer Suzi Karvonen. “We always like to have extras in case somebody happens to get sick or doesn’t show up, so we can fill in with the extras. It kind of gives people a little bit of a break too, if they don’t have to do back-to-back stops, and last year, we needed all hands on deck. We do what we have to do.”

Suzi said that the Motorcycle Road Guard Certificate, which they need to keep on their person during the ride, was actually largely based on their safety work beginning with the first few years of the RMH Ride.

“They modeled so much after the ride,” she said. “It’s given us more opportunities for the flags, the safety vests, the signs, they were all donated to us.”

Despite the Minnesota Department of Public Safety and the Minnesota Motorcycle Safety Center’s work on getting the certification into law, the RMH Ride organizers like to err on the safe side each year, regardless of what the minimum legal requirements say.

“A lot of their stops that they have marked that are required,” said Suzi. “We mark roads too, if there’s a gravel road that technically doesn’t require a road guard, we still cover that.”

“We each have to have insurance, we can’t be uninsured,” added Greg. “We even have a special ride insurance we buy for the whole ride that day. We have portable signage, we have the stop and slow signs.”

Another requirement for all road guards is passing a background check with the State of Minnesota. Those eligible must have clean records, which precludes those with reckless driving and DWIs on record.

“Everybody that is road guarding has clean records,” said Suzi. “We work on the route all year long and brainstorming for next year—we just never stop. We try to go north and south with the route, but depending on road construction, some year’s we’ve gone south twice and this year it sounds like we’ll be going south again. It’s all road conditions, that’s the biggest factor. That and of course which towns are willing to take us, it’s a big day.”

Greg pointed out the importance of proper conduct when it comes to their work as road guards. Some drivers are less than pleased when they find out they’re in a traffic stop.

“We’ve been cussed at and threatened,” said Suzi. “Ninety-eight percent of people that are getting stopped are good, but I had one guy years ago say that he was going to run me over. I said ‘you go ahead, but you are not going to run over these motorcycles.’ He said he was going to call the cops, I said ‘let me call them for you,’” she laughed. “‘Or I can stop a couple that are on the ride with us.’”

“Depending on what county we’re in, it’s the Otter Tail, Wadena, and Becker County Sheriffs Offices and the State Patrol,” said Greg of the aid they receive from law enforcement. “When we leave the VFW, that’s a state highway, so we hire the State Patrol to be there. We pay them almost $600 just to get those motorcycles out of there that day.”

As the Ride approaches its 24th anniversary, the Karvonens reflected back on the almost quarter-century of work that has been done in support of the Ronald McDonald House.

“Last year it was around 425-450, right in that neighborhood,” said Greg. “Usually it seems like we’ve been raising between $130,000 and $140,000 a year. I think most everybody knows of the Ronald McDonald House and if they haven’t used it themselves, they know somebody that has, so they know the value of having a home away from home.”

Greg said that most of the stops they go through have free-will donation meals and a lot of the money spent outside of NY Mills during the weekend makes its way back into the Ronald McDonald House fund. They also collect pop tabs during the ride which is donated to the Ronald McDonald House of the Red River Valley where they are able to turn in the aluminum to a recycling plant and receive a check in return to help fund their program.

The RMH Ride collects over 1,000 gallons of pop tabs annually in support of the House, which equates to about 5 million pop tabs each year. That equates to almost 4,000 pounds of aluminum donations for the Ronald McDonald House.

Several favorite aspects of the Ride are at the top of Greg and Suzi’s minds when the festivities of the second Saturday in June come to and end.

“When the ride is over and everybody is back safe and sound,” said Greg.

“I think that is when we all decompress,” agreed Suzi. “It’s all very high stress.”

They continued, saying that they really appreciated hearing the stories of families who were able to utilize the Ronald McDonald House throughout the years and that is continues to serve families in need in the region. 

“There have been a lot of relationships created over the years,” said Suzi. “It’s very rewarding, it’s doing a lot of good for a lot of families.”