Riding for a cause

The ground rumbled and bike horns blasted.

Row after row, hundreds of motorcycle riders made their way out of the Staples parking lot in Raynham on Sunday morning onto Route 44. Riders came together from all over the country to raise funds, awareness and to keep a fellow rider’s memory alive.

Brian Mello, 43, was killed on March 25 in an accident in Middleboro.

Elisa Mello, his widow, was so glad to see all their friends get together for this and considered the event as a part of her healing process. She had a hard time holding back the tears as she described her husband who was also her best friend.

“He was called the master,” she said, “because he succeeded at everything he wanted to do the first time he tried it.”

She added, “Anyone could always call on him at any time for anything. He’d be there. He was so generous with his kindness and he had a smile that could capture you. He was addictive.”

Mello said Brian, along with her brother, Wolfgang Decker and his best friend, Tom Newhook, were riding on their way back to Mello’s home when the accident took place.

“I was cooking pork chops for the boys,” she recalled.

Both Decker and Newhook also sustained injuries in the accident and were listed in stable condition that night and have since made full recoveries.

The idea to have the benefit began in early April, after Elisa reached out to her sister-in-law, Holly.

“I just felt so much grief,” Elisa said. “I didn’t know where to turn so I went to Holly, my sisiter-in-law, who told me about the Surviving Widow’s Club.”

The club works through the Massachusetts Motorcyclists Survivor’s Fund, which helps raise funds for families who have lost a loved one in an accident. Paul Cote, president, said the purpose of the organization is to step in for the first few months after someone or a family has suffered a loss to help out with finances and offer support.

Sunday’s ride was named Brian’s Ride and his family hopes it will become a yearly event. Riders donated $20 per motorcycle and the route took riders to Knuckleheads in New Bedford where there were raffles, great food, and drink and a silent auction. The parade started at Staples, then it went up Route 44 and through East Taunton, then it continued through Lakeville, and Freetown, into New Bedford. The riders went by New Bedford Fire Department, Station Number Seven, where Brain worked as a firefigher and ended at Knuckleheads on MacAuthor Drive.

“We were given $3,500 worth of items for the auction, all in donations,” Newhook said. “Brian would give his last dollar to anyone who needed it,” he added.

Registration began at 9 a.m. Before everyone headed out at 11 a.m. sharp, they all gathered in a circle and Cote took a few minutes to explain the rules of the road, one of which was that riders were to travel at five miles per hour less than the posted legal speed limit.

“This is a ride for Brian,” he said. “This is all about having a safe ride and in doing that, we’ll honor him best.”

Elisa also spoke briefly just before everyone got underway.

“I wanted to thank everyone for coming out and taking part in this ride,” she said. “I look out at everyone and I can see all of our friends. He called everyone a friend, even if you’d just met him. I know he’s with us today, on this perfect, perfect day. We ride for him, we ride in his name.”

Brian was a New Bedford Firefighter by profession, but he loved getting his friends together to go riding.

This has been very hard on his two friends, who were with him on that day.

“This means alot to my sister,” Decker said. “This is a way to deal with this, a form of closure.”

Newhook was excited that the event brought out so many people and it was a perfect day for riding.

Cote summed it up and said “sometimes out of a tragedy, can come a good thing.” He was referring to the good that people do when it comes to rasing funds to help all the family who are left behind after a tragedy such as this.

“Alot of people didn’t even know Brian,” Cote said. “It’s heartwarming to see so amny people come from all over the place to support this ride and what it means.”

Rick Gleason, 50, of Dennis on Cape Cod has done hundreds of rides such as this one.
“I rode out here from Cape Cod,” he explained. “I wanted to show my support and it’s so important that everyone on the road be aware of what’s going on around them to prevent this from happening.”

Cathy White, 41, came from Boston. She is a member of the Cruiser Club of Boston.

“I’ve been riding since I was 12 years old,” she said. “This is an absolutely great cause.”

Cookie Belcamino, 50, is the founder and president of the East Coast Biker Chicks with chapters in Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. She wasn’t riding foir the event but showed support as a volunteer.

“This is an extraordinary turn-out for the first event,” she said.

Although the riders had come together out of a tragedy, everyone was in good spirits and ready to roll. It was organized like clockwork and every volunteer knew what to do and when.

As the clock reached the time of departure, the New Bedford and Bridgewater fire trucks raised their tallest ladders and hung the American flag in between. Once riders had the thumbs-up to head out, they rode under the flag, onto the main road.

Leading the way, was a special group of bikes, one carried Elisa. This group stayed at the head of the back so they could pull over at all the main intersections to stop the traffic and make sure no riders were cut off.

Newhook prodly displayed a tattoo he got shortly after Brian’s death of Brian’s fire badge with his station number on it.

“Now, he’s always with me,” Newhook said.

“He was the closest to heaven that I know,” Elisa said.

ksardinha@tauntongazette.com