Welcome to the Top Cats - Illinois!
We are devoted to promoting the sport of safe motorcycling. Our members are social by nature, and we host many types of activities, but our emphasis is on riding. We average more than 25 rides a season... most last a few hours, others are for a day. Several last a weekend and even longer. We are business owners, leaders, and executives... but most importantly motorcycle riders and enthusiasts who enjoy the thrill of safe riding.
Group Riding And Safety Seminar
A major focus of the Top Cats is to provide a safe riding environment for our members and guests. To promote this environment, we conduct a Group Riding and Safety Seminar, or G.R.A.S.S., for our members and guests. Attendance at a G.R.A.S.S. session is required for all new members. Non-members are welcome. G.R.A.S.S. does not teach you how to ride...it simply teaches our members and guests how the Top Cats ride safely.
Ride For Dreams
Every year the Top Cats - Illinois hold a major fundraising event for our favorite charity - NISRA: the Northern Illinois Special Recreation Association. All riders are invited to join us for our Ride for Dreams in July…a fun-filled day that features a leisurely 100 mile ride through the countryside. Registration includes continental breakfast, lunch after the ride, music, and an opportunity to purchase raffle tickets. Be sure to put this on your calendar! To date, the Top Cats - Illinois have contributed more than $226,000 to NISRA from the proceeds of this event.
Membership
Top Cats - Illinois is a not-for-profit association. The Regular Members are motorcycle enthusiasts who own a business or are employed in an executive position with authority over a division, department or other entity within a business, governmental, charitable, or educational organization, or who are motorcycle enthusiasts that are sponsored as Associate members by Regular Members. Interested in joining? Come to one of our general meetings and introduce yourself!
18th Annual RIDE FOR DREAMS
Sunday, July 28th
Woodstock Harley Davidson - Woodstock, IL.
JOIN THE FUN AND HELP TOP CATS RAISE MONEY TO SUPPORT NISRA
NISRA provides year round recreation activities for people with disabilities. Since 1976, children and adults of all ability levels have enjoyed socializing, building skills, and having fun in hundreds of weekly programs, special events, camps and trips each year!
Read more about the ride for dreamPresident's Message
Welcome to the website world of the Top Cats-Illinois!
As you browse our pages, you will gain an understanding of who we are, what we are about, and where we are going. What you won't gain is a solid grasp of who we are as people, who we are as riders, and who we are as members of this outstanding organization, Top Cats - Illinois. Let me explain.....
Originally, Top Cats – Illinois was formed by a group of motorcycle enthusiasts who were business men and women. Their purpose was to enjoy business networking and the sport of motorcycling. Over the past decade and a half, Top Cats has evolved into a first – class group of motorcycle enthusiasts who enjoy conservative and safe riding, socializing, networking, and community involvement.
Today, any visitor to a Top Cat meeting, or a Top Cat event, will quickly realize that our group is one that easily welcomes newcomers, embraces safe riding, and provides opportunities for great riding adventures in a safe environment.
As people, our members are business owners, executives, and entrepreneurs (Top Cats) who are riders, co-riders, or non-riders. All, however, are motorcycle enthusiasts. And...they all have three important ideals in common; business networking, safe motorcycling, and community involvement.
Kaution Korner - June 2013
Collision Avoidance Techniques
By Larry Scalzitti
Senior Road Captain
When was the last time you practiced your collision avoidance techniques? If you’re like too many riders it’s when they took a licensing class a very long time ago! As you know I’m a big rider safety advocate and part of that includes preaching that practice makes perfect. We all need to work on the skills that we need to avoid danger and we especially need to practice them early in the riding season and often throughout the year. Have you made time to do that? If not, I would highly encourage you to start. The next time you have to use one of the collision avoidance techniques, that I’ll address in this article, should not be when you have to use those skills in a real life scenario. Hardly worth gambling your life on whether you’ve “still got it.”
Let’s start by reviewing what exactly makes up our short list of collision avoidance techniques. Then we’ll talk about when and where you can practice those skills.
As motorcyclists we can avoid danger by moving our bikes in basically two ways.
The first way is by either moving faster or slower along our path of travel. By doing that we alter our rate of travel by speeding up or slowing down; rolling on or off the throttle or braking. For most of us that’s something that we do naturally as we ride. We continually adjust our speed as we travel along any road. The heavier the traffic, the more we adjust. When we have to react suddenly to danger, this change in speed can be viewed as an evasive maneuver or collision avoidance.
The other way we can avoid danger is by moving from side to side. Again something we normally do in small increments, as we routinely avoid objects that we anticipate, since we can see those hazards from a long way down the roadway. When we have to react much more quickly to danger, we again fall into the realm of evasive maneuvering or collision avoidance.
