Q&A with Bruce Vermeulen

Helping riders to keep going

By Doran Dal Pra
doran@oxxcycle.com

Bruce Vermeulen originally hails from upstate New York and is the founder and current President of the RiderDown Foundation based in Evergreen, Colo. Besides his work with RiderDown, Vermeulen is part of the financial planning business and has been involved in the industry for more than 25 years. RiderDown has been helping riders recover from motorcycle injuries and related issues since 2004. You can check out the RiderDown Web site at www.RiderDown.org.



Who are the people that seek your help? Why them?
We focus on the off-road community primarily because we can’t get our arms around everybody. We had to create this sort of niche in order to serve them effectively at all and dirt bikers are a huge community....We work with everyone including the little kid who breaks his arm on his dirt bike, up to the desert Baja racer, to the over-the-hill used-to-be-a-racer kind of guy who goes out with his buddies now. The group of guys who we pulled together to get this thing started all had a dirt-biking background. The idea resonated with them to keep it to the dirt.

Are there other organizations out there that are similar to RiderDown? If so, what makes yours different?
I don’t believe that there is another organization doing what we do. The group Road to Recovery focuses exclusively on AMA Motocross and Supercross racers. Like pro football players, they’re having to hang it all out every time they compete....We cover everyone else. We help the people who buy the tickets to see the pros. I love what they [Road to Recovery] are doing, they’re doing it to help that group of riders who are at the pinnacle of success. Most people only dream about that.

When you go to events like the Endurocross in Las Vegas you recently attended, what do you do there? What kind of presence do you have?
We go to a lot of events. On any given weekend there might be three or four RiderDown events across the country. At a local track we might be handing out flyers or talking to riders, but this particular event was a national thing. What we do is we set up a booth with all of our info about who we are, what we’re doing and what people can do to help us in assisting the riding community. We had a raffle at the Endurocross with gear from some of the racers and sponsors with some serious prizes. It was great....When we go to those events it’s about raising funds and then to spread the awareness about what RiderDown is all about, helping riders and their families who are suffering from an injury or traumatic event.

What does the money in the RiderDown general fund go?
We have tried to be creative and efficient in the way we deliver financial assistance. In some cases, we have paid rent directly to a rider’s landlord; in some cases we have gone out and purchased equipment to assist in their recovery, like a wheelchair or a van conversion. In one case … an overhead garage door opener was one rider’s biggest concern. His biggest deal was having to get out of the van, open the door, get back in the van and get out again to shut it, so we installed that. Sometimes we are negotiating medical bills ... sometimes just making their bills is an injured rider’s biggest challenge.

How can people assist the RiderDown Foundation? How does the program work?
They can visit our Web site, click on the ‘Volunteer’ tab and send us their information. The intake form is where they provide their info and then tell us about their areas of concern.... It gets mailed directly to an injured rider advocate (we have several around the country) who makes contact with the rider and has a conversation about their situation. We review that rider’s case as a board and see when and where they need help from us. For kids under 18, we have our “ARC Angel” project and we have other companies that are donating gear and volunteers who deliver a gear bag to the kids stuffed with riding gear. My wife is known as the First Lady of RiderDown and she’ll include stuff that’s appropriate, just to let them know that we care.

Where do you see the future of RiderDown heading? Where is it growing?
[laughs] That’s a very interesting question that I ask myself constantly. I pose that to my board members all the time. Because we are a grassroots organization, the time demands have grown tremendously, and I would like to see RiderDown grow in scope and size; however, I don’t know if the community is ready to start doing some of the lifting because it will truly take the whole community to accomplish that. I recently put up a quote that relates well to that question on our Web site: “To go quickly, go alone. To go far, go together.” That’s where we are with RiderDown. Trying to get the energy and involvement from more people. One of my thoughts early on when I was writing the business plan for this concept is that it can be taken to many other sports out there: mountain biking, snowmobiling, horseback riding, any one of those sports, the organization’s inner workings could be adapted to many other uses, it’s just a matter of finding the people who have the drive to pull it off. RiderDown has just exploded over the past couple of years. From a core group, there are about seven or eight people involved pretty seriously. On a broader level with our volunteers who are delivering gear bags, there are probably 1,200 to 1,500 people.

What do you like best about this organization?
What I like best about being involved in RiderDown is being able to give back to the sport that I have enjoyed all my life. It’s a way to give back to the sport. The biggest rewards come back to me when we see we’ve made a positive difference in someone’s life.