Mike Traynor
Home:   Asheville, NC
Age: 61
Marital Status:
  Married (Dianne)
Children:
  3 (all of them motorcyclists at various times in their lives).
Current BMW Owned:
  BMW 1984 R100RS Final Edition
Years Ridden: 40
Miles Ridden: 10,000 – 15,000 annually.
Profession: Executive Director, Ride For Kids® , supporting the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation of the United States.

The Ride For Kids® is a motorcyclist's fund raising event established in 1984 to find the cause and cure of pediatric brain tumors. Mike Traynor, a former newspaper executive and motorcyclist from Atlanta, Georgia had a friend whose child was stricken with a brain tumor. "I was blown away," Traynor said. "This child had just been born. We needed to do something. We prayed in my office that day. It was the only thing we knew how to do."

After watching the tragic deaths of many children, Traynor, now 61, set out to help find the cause and cure of this childhood killer. He solicited the support of the motorcyclists of America in raising the financial donations needed to pay for research in the nation's leading brain tumor research centers. The first event was held in Atlanta in 1984, the second five years later in Chicago. After leaving his career behind in 1992 to give full time attention to the disease, Mike was able to put the program into motion throughout the United States. Today there are nine people here at Traynor’s national headquarters in Asheville, North Carolina, to handle a relationship with about 200,000 donors and supporters each year. “The reason we are able to make our program work with such a small staff is because we have a large volunteer force in each city that we have a Ride for Kids event in,” Traynor adds.

How long have you been a motorcyclist?
I began riding motorcycles in northern Japan in 1960 where I lived for two years, compliments of the U.S. Government. I learned to speak enough Japanese to get out on my own. Sitting in the barracks or hanging out in the local community became too confining so I bought my first motorcycle, a 1955 Honda 250cc machine. Early on my specialty was falling off the bike, getting up, kick starting it to life, and riding to the next fall. In time I stayed upright and I was soon off on my own touring the northern Japan mountains and countryside. I have been a member of the Georgia BMW Motorcycle Club and BMW MOA (## 53365) for several years. I am quite proud to count myself among the Georgia BMW Club as they are truly a special group of men and women who not only are riding friends but also hard working members of our Georgia RFK volunteer team.

Who or what prompted you to take up motorcycling?
A burning youthful desire to be independent, to ride quickly, to see Japan and live among the Japanese people who were incredibly kind to me. I have a plethora of stories of helpfulness that came from these kind people who in most cases had never seen a westerner before. I was a novelty in a rapidly emerging country and they were quite taken with this stranger who would ride solo into their town to spend the night. I had people take me into their homes, give me meals and just in general be amazed that there was an American in their midst. It was a tremendously enjoyable time in my young life and I believe I never would have received that kind of attention if I had rolled into town in a car. Riding in on my motorcycle greatly enhanced my instant camaraderie in every village that I rode into.

Typically people see motorcyclists, (the ones who do not look threatening), as being vulnerable, out in the open, and therefore they feel more inclined to approach us and ask how far did you come? What happens when it rains? How do you stay warm in the cold, what does this switch do, etc.? In truth we can each be great public relations people for motorcycling if we will smile a little and take the time to visit a spell.

What bikes do you currently own?
I have a BMW 1984 R100RS Final Edition and a Honda ST 1100.

How many bikes have you owned in your life?
I have not been inclined to buy a new motorcycle very often since I work to adapt the ones I have to my riding style which is typically at a brisk pace, two-up with my sweetheart (my wife, Dianne) on the back. I like to get the bike to handle well through upgraded suspension systems that facilitate riding quickly with a bit of camping gear on board as well. Over a 40-year period I have only owned fifteen in bikes all, including models from BMW, BSA, Honda, Kawasaki, Puch, Triumph, and Yamaha.

How many miles do you ride annually?
Typically today that number is around 10,000 to 15,000 miles.

What are the most you've ridden in a year?
In 1993 my wife and I conducted nine national Ride for Kids® events that were scattered across the country. We decided to use our motorcycle to go to all of the events and then return home intermittently to Atlanta. It was a hectic schedule but it was a huge amount of fun for us as we pounded the pavement back and forth across the country, putting on the events and then either riding home to work, or on to the next RFK city. We would roll into town, put on our business suits, rent a car, so we could make our business calls during the day and ride our motorcycle to chapter and club meetings at night to spread the word of the Ride for Kids® and the plight of children with brain tumors.

How much importance do you place upon your psychological and mental ability to lead this organization and your physical ability to get out and ride?
I believe that our successes with the national Ride for Kids® program has been in part because we are motorcyclists. I have a 21-year AMA pin on my lapel (#752994) and a few boxes of trophies from my dirt track and road racing days in Japan and the USA, including an eleventh in the nation in the national WERRA endurance road racing series. What is especially neat about the WERRA experience is that I was 45 years old and my race team was made up of my sons. My then 17-year-old was my co-rider and my two younger boys were our pit crew. We raced together, won together and sometimes crashed together necessitating a hasty rebuild for the next race. It was one of the finest times a father can ever have with his sons!

When we began the Ride for Kids® program I believed it was important to treat the participating motorcyclists like they were someone special (which they are). We eat, sleep and ride motorcycles, to work, at work and on the occasional off weekend. When a motorcyclist walks into the national headquarters of the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation of the United States (PBTFUS) they are surrounded by copious pictures of motorcyclists and little smiling kids. Many of those little guys have no hair but they do have precious little smiles that will melt a glacier as they stand next to their motorcycle-riding friends.

We at the PBTFUS are all about hope. Hope that a cure will be found and that the kids will beat their brain cancer. Who better than a long-rider motorcyclist knows about having hope and never giving up? The very spirit of a motorcyclist is in tandem with these kids battling brain cancer. We don't shirk from bad weather, slippery roads or a sour running engine. We motorcyclists epitomize the sport shoe slogan, "Just do it"! And it is that very spirit that the kids identify with, and in fact are attracted to.

Does everyone in your organization ride?
Our staff members either ride their own machines or are pillions on someone else's motorcycle. As a result when you call our foundation headquarters, you will find a motorcycle savvy person on the other end of the line or answering your e-mail request.

Rank in order of importance: family, RFK, friends, and God. Explain.
I am a man who is fortunate to have traveled extensively throughout this country and several others. I have worked with people from many different walks of life and have associated with people of varying life styles and ideals.

I have faced personal health challenges over the years and the death of my loved ones. I have known incredible joy and deep despair. From a myriad of life experiences I have come to have a deep abiding faith in God, as I understand him. I believe that my years of motorcycling long distances, sometimes very alone and at other times securely held by the arms of my pillion wife, have allowed me to better see God's handiwork in the countryside I have ridden through and in the chance encounters with a few thousand strangers along the way.

I see motorcycling as being very spiritual, a true sense of IN the world as opposed to watching it through a glass window. Some days I will ride at triple digit speedo numbers, and later that same day poke along at a laconic rate so I can study the wildflowers along the road, or inhale the stunning beauty of a mountain vista.

I am blessed with a wonderful family but I see the whole of mankind as my family. The only difference in my wife and sons and a stranger is that I have had a chance to share my inner most thoughts with those I already know. The stranger is just someone who I have not yet had a chance to talk with.

The Ride for Kids® and the Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation are extensions of my family, or perhaps I am a part of the family that comprises those entities. The RFK is a way of life for both my wife Dianne and I and we are immensely grateful to be able to spend our everyday working to increase the success and impact of the RFK and subsequent PBTFUS research and family support programs.

In light of the fact that we have shepherded these programs from a dream that I had 17 years ago, there are days when we stop and pinch ourselves to be sure all of this wonderful work in the laboratories is actually happening. The sacrifices that we have made to bring our programs to this point have produced more of a joy than we could have ever imagined.

We see ourselves as being quite fortunate to be able to pursue the dream of finding the cause and cure of childhood brain tumors. The relationships we have acquired in the patients, their families, the medical researchers, the motorcyclists and the motorcycling industry have been extremely uplifting.

Describe your 5-year plan for RFK.
We are continuing to expand the number of Ride for Kids® events (20 in 2001) and will follow that avenue for the next few years to enable us to expand our effectiveness in the pediatric brain tumor research laboratories. We are also are busy underpinning the RFK and PBTFUS by bringing compassionate and driven people onto our staff to ensure the long-term viability and continued growth of what we have begun.

The PBTFUS has become the largest funding source for childhood brain tumor research in the world, outside of the federal government, and each year we are expanding into more projects, larger studies and are seeing expanding success from those projects. We currently have three million dollars committed to our research and family support programs. All of this means that we each day come closer to finding the cause and cure of childhood brain tumors in this country and throughout the world.

We are immensely grateful to and extremely proud of our fellow BMW MOA members who have worked so tirelessly over the years to help us bring the answer to this disease closer to its conclusion.

Ride fast, never hurry!

Mike

About the Author: New BMW MOA member Gary Boulanger (airheadgary@hotmail.com) digs bicycles, Steve McQueen, T.E. Lawrence, Jesus, and tooling around Dayton, Ohio on his 1975 R90/6, when he’s not horsing around with his tolerant wife and two small children.