5 Minutes with...Adam Glazer
JULY 31, 2008

Adam Glazer gets ready to hit the trail at Motopark on July 22nd.  His ride would end July 23rd, with very little time off the motorcycle.

photo: Bigwave Billy Rainford

By Dan Stenning

As it says on his website, "It is now time for me to give back something. It's time for my passion for off road riding and racing to pay off. It's time for me, a very average person, to make a difference."  On July 22nd, Adam Glazer set out to raise funds to go to the Alzheimer Society of Canada.  His goal: to ride his motorcycle for 24 hours straight.  Adam achieved his goal and is already setting his sights on the future.  We caught up with him a few days after he completed his 24-hour trek on his motorcycle at Motopark.

RXC: Adam, you’ve just completed 24 hours straight on a motorcycle, tell us what it was like.
Adam Glazer: It was, to be honest, a complete roller coaster ride.  Until about two in the morning was incredible.  I'd never ridden at night so I was all high on the experience, having a blast running through the trails.  Once at about 2 a.m. it started raining really bad and with the rocks and roots up at Motopark it started to get pretty dangerous.  So we came off the trails and started using the GP track.  From three in the morning until dawn was the most miserable experience I've had in my life.  

The worst all-nighter you've ever pulled?
By far!  I've pulled tons of all-nighters but it was just miserable.  It was the toughest biking I've ever done in my life because I just didn't want to do it anymore.

What were you using for a bike?
A 2001 WR250F.

Why on earth did you decide to put yourself through this?
Well, My Grandmother passed away from Alzheimer's about four years ago.  So I got to thinking, I've got three daughters and I couldn't imagine seeing one of them go through it, or watching my wife have to deal with me going through it.  And with biking being such a large part of my life—I've been doing it for 27 years now—I couldn't imagine losing all those memories and the friendships I've made along the way.  And it just seemed natural to put the two together.  I love motorcycling and it was the best way I could think of to do something positive and give back a little bit.  

Well that's some awesome motivation.  What type of riding or racing do you do?
I mainly race the CMA hare scrambles.  I raced motocross for a lot of years and started doing hare scrambles a couple of years ago.  That’s allowing me to keep riding because I shattered an ankle in 2003 while snow-tubing so riding motocross gets tougher and tougher.

How long did it take you to put this plan together?
Four and a half months, which is not near enough time.

What would you have done differently?
Um, lights [laughs].  I definitely would have been more prepared with the lights.  More advertising and more PR work to get more people involved.

Is there somewhere people can go to learn more about your efforts?
I've got a website, it's www.24hoursiwillneverforget.com.  

So what's next?  48 hours on a bike?  72?
No [laughs]. We'll do 24 hours again next year.  I'm hoping to have this registered as my own charity next year to make sure all the money that gets raised goes directly to the people that need the help.  And, eventually, I'd like to turn it into where it is a team race where people enter a team and race for 24 hours and we'll raise money that way.  I think that's the key to really getting it to become a big event where we raise serious amounts of money.

It sounds like your really putting some extra effort in for next year.
It needs to grow a little bit.  It needs some awareness so people know that it’s not a fly-by-night sort of thing.  I think a lot of people didn't have faith in what I was doing.  They didn't think I was going to be able to do it.  It was really tough getting corporate sponsors.  I think, now that I've completed it once, and I can show people that I did ride for the 24 hours, it is possible.  We definitely have something to build from.  We've got lots of helmet camera footage and photos that we'll use to build a package for when I go knocking on doors for next year.  

Who were your sponsors this year?
Xtreme Toys in London really helped out a lot.  Ross Rocher also helped; he's a Husqvarna dealer.  They were great to us.  Inglis Cycle in London, Lockhart's Odyssey in Courtland.  Burnt River sent us a helmet camera to use.  They were incredible.  They wanted the event so bad at their place, they were bending over backwards to make it happen but the township wouldn't give us a variance on the zoning so I could ride from 7p.m. until 7a.m. so Motopark offered their facility.  Motopark is probably the best facility in Canada; they have everything you would possibly need so it was nice to have it there but I was a little nervous about the rocks.  I didn't even have one pinch flat which floored me.  

That's good.
I didn't even crash until the 23 hour 50 minute mark.  That was the first time I crashed.

Adam was glad he had a little help from his friends.  He couldn't have done it without you.

photo: MXForum's MX700

You had some riders out with you helping out.
Yeah, I had my friend Brad Brown.  He has an hour meter on his CR250 and he logged 14 hours riding with me.  He did a lot of riding.  Heather Scott did a lot of riding and Maurice Cruteaux.  The three of them really, really helped out with all the maintenance to keep the bike running and to keep the gas flowing.  And, of course, my Wife and two older girls.  They were there making sure I was getting water and food into me every time I stopped.

Did I read on MXForum.com that you had your Dad out riding with you?
Yeah, my Dad wasn't even supposed to come.  He was in Istanbul, Turkey, working and he just happened to come back just in time.  He rides; he raced TVR and everything with us.  He came out with us for the first lap and fell and broke his collarbone.

Oh, no.  Looking back maybe that was a blessing cause he didn't have to ride the full 24 hours.
Yeah [laughs].  I didn't even know until way later when I came in and saw his arm all taped up and held in place.  There was so much stuff going on that it didn't really click in but they told me after and I was like, ‘Uh, crap.’

So your plans for next year are?
We're going to run it about the same time next year.  July 22nd was my 35th birthday and I orchestrated all this to happen on my birthday.  I thought instead of all the people who are close to me buying me presents, if I could get them to donate, it would just help the cause, which is what they all did, which was awesome.  

So we should watch your website for all the details about next year?
Yes.  It will either be the weekend before or the weekend after my birthday next year.  We're going to start the planning for this right away so we can make things happen.  We know we're going to try to have it happen in the London area next year.  The two and a half hour drive from home made it a little difficult for some family members who wanted to come up and support me.  We thought it would also be nice to move it around the province to get different people involved.  

Well, congratulations, Adam.  I'm not sure if I could make it 24 hours on a motorcycle.
It would never have happened without the people who were there helping.  Whenever I wanted to quit, there were people there saying, ‘Get up, let's go!  You're going for a ride!’ They just kept pushing me to get back on the bike.  It was fine once you got rolling because the adrenaline would kick back in.  It's just when you'd stop for gas.  It was hard to kick that bike over and get going again.

Thanks for taking the time with me, Adam.
Thank you.

Check out www.24hoursiwillneverforget.com for more information on Adam's goals.