The Distinguished Gentleman's Ride - An Interview with Mark Hawwa

Ron: 0:03

I can say with complete certainty that the Peace, love, moto podcast would not exist if it weren't for a single event and a single person whose compassion for others sparked it all. The event is the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride and the person behind it is Mark Hawa. Ride and the person behind it is Mark Hawa. This Sunday, my wife and I have the privilege of once again hosting the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride in Fort Collins, colorado, just north of our home here in Loveland. Our ride is one of 1,000 happening around the globe, starting in Australia, rolling across the time zones until it reaches the United States and then here in Colorado this Sunday morning. This podcast called Peace, love, moto three simple words with, I think, very deep meanings. Peace represents the peace of mind that so many of us find from the seat of a motorcycle just going out for a ride. Love it's about learning to love ourselves, take care of ourselves and, most importantly, I would say, to learn to love other people too, because that's a direct reflection on loving ourselves. And moto, well, to use an analogy, that's the thread that ties us all together. To use an analogy, that's the thread that ties us all together A shared love for motorcycling. These three elements peace, love and motorcycles are also what the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride is all about. It's an event that raises both awareness and vital funds for men's health, with a focus on suicide prevention and prostate cancer research.

Ron: 1:51

Early in the life of this podcast, I had the honor of interviewing Mark Hawa in Australia. It was originally a two-part series, but today I've combined them into one episode that dives into the heart of the DGR specifically, and the how and the why behind this incredible global movement that many of you, as listeners, are part of, and I'm so proud of that. So, whether you're already getting on your bike and getting on your bow tie and ready for your Sunday ride, or you're hearing about the DGR for the very first time, I invite you to listen to the story of someone I consider my hero. Mark's vision, his compassion and his relentless dedication have created what I think is a global hug, an act of peace, an act of love for the whole world to see. I'm so proud to be a part of it. So sit back, relax and prepare to be inspired. Thank you so much for joining me today. Recorded in beautiful Loveland, colorado.

Ron: 3:07

Welcome to Peace, love Moto the podcast for motorcyclists seeking that peaceful, easy feeling as we cruise through this life together. Are you ready? Let's go. You know a lot of people in this world have a very good heart. Maybe they would tell you that they were brought up that way to show love and respect for others, because, well, that's what you do.

Ron: 3:46

Other people in the world come up with great ideas, ideas that turn into great business ventures, such as Apple, triumph, ibm, just to name a few. One man was gifted with both a really good heart and a really great idea that turned into a global social movement Beginning in 2012,. Held only one day a year, the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride boasts participation from over 100,000 motorcycle riders in more than 100 countries around the world, collectively raising over $37 million for men's health issues, including suicide prevention and prostate cancer research. I can honestly tell you that this podcast Peace, love, moto and its purpose came from the ideas set forth by this one man who started it all. Kind of to go back in time, if you don't mind, I have researched you a little bit and watched a number of your interviews and listened to podcasts where you've been interviewed. You made a mention on one of them about the way you grew up, about your parents' influence on you, about being a servant. Do you mind expanding on that a little bit?

Mark: 5:16

Yeah, I think for us I mean my parents were. They came from overseas, so dad was born in Palestine, moved to Egypt within 30 days, mum's Polish-Greek, with a born in Egypt background. They came to Australia quite early and you know they're very much Australian, as you can imagine. They're in their mid-70s.

Mark: 5:38

But growing up here, I mean, I've got two older brothers and a twin brother as well, and for us it was always based around how we could help others, whether or not it was helping to carry a pram up the stairs, obviously getting up and giving the seat to someone that's a little bit more elderly.

Mark: 5:56

One of my older brothers has special needs and so they enrolled us into sort of volunteer programs when we were younger to help people with Down syndrome and special needs and all the rest of it. So we're really well familiar with people that have grown up, you know, based around those issues. And so I think for us it was always how do we help others, and I think that's something that still continues. So, obviously, starting the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride in those first initial years and putting a couple of years into it where you know it wasn't about having a job, it wasn't about making a paycheck, it was just about how do we help others, and then ultimately, you know, it turned into something a little bit larger than I think any of us could have ever realized.

Ron: 6:41

Oh yeah, exactly. You talk about something exploding. Take a great idea, just make it completely amazing. You know, as I think about it, it seems to be the perfect combination. Again, it's folks with a common interest, and it's a fairly narrow interest too, would you say. I mean, it's not only just motorcyclists which there's a lot of motorcyclists in the world but it's those that ride with style, you might say you know that this ride is targeted toward.

Ron: 7:11

you know the classics, the classic bikes, modern classics, and you know you have certain criteria for those bikes. So to me it seems that you've got the perfect combination. You've got folks with a common interest fairly narrow interest somewhat, but you've got folks with a common interest fairly narrow interest somewhat, but you've got folks, probably more importantly, with a common sense of values. I can't help, but I was expressing, using this expression to a friend the other day. It's like this global hug. It's like when I went to the DGR for the first time last year. I felt like I could walk up to a total stranger and give them a hug and they would hug me back and then we would say by the way, what's your name? I don't know. Is that the feeling you get from this?

Mark: 7:53

That's typically the feeling I get on every ride. So I've been fortunate enough, obviously, to be able to attend a few different rides in different cities and different countries, and it is a global hub and I've never heard anyone put it that way and you know, the hairs on my arms are currently standing up because that is a perfect way of putting it. Irrespective of where you are taking part in the world, the ride is the same, the values are the same and the people are just the same. It's irrespective. And the thing about this event, you know it is a niche within a niche. There's no doubt about it. I mean, motorcycles are niche, and then you want to go a little bit deeper. You know that classics toll of motorcycles is even more niche now, but there is something special about it where this is a safe space where people can talk, and they can talk without judgment and they can talk in a way that they might not even feel comfortable talking to their partner about or even their friends about.

Mark: 8:52

And I always use an example where, you know, I started riding motorcycles 13 years ago.

Mark: 8:57

I started up a sydney based crew called sydney cafe races and back then you wouldn't hear guys talk openly about their health.

Mark: 9:04

You wouldn't hear guys talking about, you know, having their testicles removed because of testicular cancer, whereas now that's a conversation I've heard in person where two guys are talking about it. And these guys haven't met before, they probably don't even know each other's names before, but they've somehow got onto this topic and started talking about it openly. And I was just overhearing this as I was walking past him and to me I think that's the real pinch me moment, where you sit there and go, wow, like we're not the guys that are trying to be harder than we may appear, we're not the guys that are trying to be something other than what we actually are. We're a bunch of guys that are totally comfortable in our skin, and I think we're also an event that's making it easier for guys to be more comfortable in their own skin, being more comfortable to talk about their mental health, more comfortable to talk about their struggles and, most importantly, more comfortable to reach out and get that support they need.

Ron: 10:11

Regarding the Distinguished Gentleman's Right. Regarding the distinguished gentleman's right, what just struck me was how everyone dressed and, uh, I, I knew how to dress. My wife went along, went along as well, and we, we, uh we dressed the way we were supposed to, but others, oh my goodness, they just, they just blew it out of the water as far as style and dapper. I just thought it was fantastic. Do you mind describing how, in my own notes I wrote a note here to myself unlike a masquerade party, people are showing their true selves in this whole cool factor thing Is that your impression of how this goes when you attend these events.

Mark: 10:49

Oh, it's a difficult one, right? They're showing their true selves, because my true self is most likely board shorts and a t-shirt, living in Sydney, australia. And it's quite funny because when I met a lot of people, they sit down and go oh we expected you to be in a suit. And I'm like, well, no, I am in a suit, but it's the right time, the right place and the right occasion, and obviously the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride and Drive are two of those occasions a year that I will put a suit on.

Mark: 11:17

I think for me it's a different expression. It's an expression of where people on these motorcycles and I think what tends to happen and what we see a lot here in Sydney is a lot of people in their cars, you know they see a person that's got a full face helmet and they lose that connection of the fact that that's another human being. They can't see a face, they can't see a smile, they can't see warmth, they see something, for whatever reason, that they feel is more sinister. And I think for me, the perfect part about the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride when I started it was let's try, and, you know, for those that are comfortable, wear open-faced helmets so that they can see that there's a smile underneath, that it's not a frown, it's not someone that's angry, it's not someone that's dangerous.

Mark: 12:05

But let's couple that with the fact that let's put some suits on, because if we're going to sort of get attention through the streets of Sydney and through the streets of the 64 cities in the first year, let's show them that we can be your mum, your dad, your brother, your sister, your auntie, your uncle, your friend, your boss, your fellow worker. It's not some random sinister person riding this motorcycle that could be your neighbor, and that was a key part in that first year of just. How do we break that narrative, how do we break the stereotype? Um, and show them that these people, just because they ride motorcycles, are no different to you and I yeah, yeah, yeah, I, I love it, I, I to.

Ron: 12:53

The next path I'm going down is not only motorcycles, but you shift gears a little bit also, and to include in the other half of the year the Distinguished Gentleman's Drive. Would you mind sharing where that idea came from and how it might parallel or be different from VR?

Mark: 13:14

be different from, uh, yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, for me, I was always into cars before I was into motorcycles, uh, motorcycles. Was this, this moment where I woke up and thought you know what I really want to get my motorcycle license and I don't know where it came from? Uh, I must have had an amazing dream, it was just. It was just, I just woke up and wanted a motorcycle, um, and so I've only been riding since I was 25, but I've always been into cars and you know, my first car was when I was 17, 18, and I've always been a, um, I guess, a japanese car enthusiast, primarily based around mazda rotaries, um, you know, quirky engine, um, fantastic machine and just something slightly different.

Mark: 13:53

And you know, you know, I started the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride, but it didn't take long to sit there and think, okay, well, you know, once we've got this running and it's sort of working really well, there's always going to be the opportunity to bring people together using classic cars as well. So, pretty much organically, it turned down into that path and for us, we didn't have that negative stereotype that exists in a lot of countries around the world based around classic cars no one looks at a guy in a classic car and sits there and goes. Oh, he must be a one percenter, it's just not so. For me it was okay. Well, you know the for safety reasons, we make sure that we go through the main streets of the city. It means it keeps the speed down. Visually. A lot of people get to see it. We get to break that stereotype city by city, on a global scale, whereas the drive itself it was okay.

Mark: 14:48

Well, let's take this opportunity to actually get out of the city. There's no doubt that you know we create congestion with motorcycles in a calculated way. But if you were to have the same amount of classic cars, we would have much larger issues that would have to be faced with council, police and any other sort of institution locally. So the idea was well, let's get out of the city and let's just get together and bond and create these friendships and go for a drive together. And you know there's something to be said that even going on a drive together is sort of, you know, personality building and connects you with other drivers as well, because you know there's always something going wrong with classic cars on the side of the road, coming together to help fix them and get through to that end destination.

Mark: 15:34

So the distinguished gentleman's drive has been great, um it's. It's been a difficult one because we sort of uh wanted to launch that and then obviously COVID hit Um, but it's growing nicely. It's growing organically and, and you know, I think even last year we had, uh, I think it was about 150 different drives globally. So it's nothing on the sheer scale of the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride and it's not there to compete. It's just an alternative for people that have classic cars, that want to dress up and raise funds for Movember.

Ron: 16:04

Yeah, oh, that's fantastic. I can't wait to this September, find out where it's happening, as close as it can to be to my house, and go watch that. That sounds fantastic. I do have a 1926 Ford model T in the garage. I inherited it from my uncle a number of years ago. The disadvantage there is it only goes about 20 miles an hour and it doesn't go that far and breaks down a lot.

Mark: 16:29

Funnily enough, some of the some of the drives are quite long. You know we're talking. Some of them might go for, I mean, 100 mile maybe, but some of the drives are smaller for those vehicles that are super classic or even if you've got a really small capacity vehicle. I mean you know there's a Fiat 500 drive in Italy that only goes 20 mile or something along those lines, because they just don't have the same sort of power as the bigger cars. But yeah, it's much more. There's a lot more diversity in that. I mean it's a little bit stricter in the fact that it's just pre-1980s vehicles.

Mark: 17:08

But ultimately, I mean our goal with that one is to not be too much of a burden on the road either and everything that we do is very calculated in a way that it's. You know, we ultimately know that if we grow these events to the scale, city by city, where they're too large, that we will get shut down. And you know there's no benefit in us, in that social connectivity and bringing people together and the funds that we raise for november, if, if we're not allowed to host events at all yeah, yeah, I have to ask you about the videos that you have out on youtube.

Ron: 17:43

Um, they are so well produced, so many of them are so well produced. I gotta tell you my absolute favorite, and I don't have the author in front of me at the moment, but what I do is a search for Distinguished Gentleman's Ride, italy, and it comes up and it starts off with a bartender and the next scene is a gentleman sipping a coffee, then a lady rides up on her tramp and the music changes, and I've watched that 50 times. Do you know? You haven't know the one I'm talking about.

Mark: 18:14

I know you're gonna you're gonna have to send me a link on that one. It's, um, there's a lot of, there's a lot of videos and it's it's amazing because I mean, I think it shows just how deeply this connects with people. I mean, these videos aren't videos that we're paying to create. Uh, these are videos that people are doing off their own back and having a lot of fun with it. Obviously, we get the benefit of being able to use them, which is great for us, but no, I'll definitely need a link for that one.

Ron: 18:40

I will send it to you. Not only that, it's the second song that it jumps into early in the video. I was so impressed with that. I got out my phone and no, I was about to say I went to Soundhound but no, it was actually listed who the artist was in the video and then I found them on spotify and then I put that on my favorites list on spotify. That the song was just so so well done. But there's there's so many. It seems like, like you said, that people with such a wonderful spirit and, uh, really putting the, the, the spirit and the motion of the DGR on video along with music is just fantastic, over the top fantastic.

Mark: 19:19

It actually led to an idea that we had a few years ago where obviously we were sort of using Sydney to produce, and our friends over here to help us produce, the launch videos for all the Gentleman's Ride campaigns, campaigns. And then a couple of years ago we sort of looked at all those videos and gone you know what. Let's just find people that take part in dgr, that have fun with dgr, that raise funds for dgr and let's just put it on on their city to to come up with a concept and and create a video. So the last two dj launch videos have actually been um managed by, by our network in those cities and I think the goal for us is, you know, let's do a different city every year. Let's show people how, how diverse this is, let's show people how multicultural this is and that, irrespective of you know what city, you're, your culture and all the rest of it, everyone is taking part in the Distinguished Gentleman's Ride. It's, you know, it's truly magic when you see some of those sort of smaller countries just having the exact same amount of passion as you know, some of the key cities like LA or New York, sydney, london, etc. And they do it so well and know we were.

Mark: 20:33

We were really excited when we when we received the, uh, the launch video from this year, um, from our friends in malta and they just fantastic job. We were all having a little bit of a laugh at certain points of it. We're all excited to ride motorbikes by the end of it, um, and you know the, the goal is next year. All right, let's, let's see what other city, what other country can, can sort of come up with the launch concept and let's continue to. You know over how long this event may last. Let's continue to show people a different side from different areas around the world.

Ron: 21:04

Yeah, yeah, oh, that's wonderful. I think you kind of alluded to it. I know I would imagine that this is at times been a heavy load to bear, a lot of responsibility, a lot of questions to be answered in a lot of interviews, like I'm doing right now. But it sounds like, though, that you've got a wonderful, wonderful staff there with the same heart, a lot of great ideas, and you've got a lot of good, positive support behind you.

Mark: 21:35

It sounds like yeah, it's been a journey and I mean we do have fantastic staff and we punch well above our weight in the fact that you know, obviously we're limited in resources but the event is so global. But I think a lot of that also comes down to the systems that we've got in place, the procedures that we've got in place, and they've gotten better over the years. I mean, what people don't realize when they sort of look at this event is just how much work goes into it. But also, we couldn't copy anyone else. There was no other event on a global scale that basically brought this many people together for a cause, and so for us, you know we couldn't sit there and you know look at even Movember, for instance, how they grow mustaches. We couldn't look at that and use that as a blueprint to how to launch this. So really it all had to come from ourselves.

Mark: 22:28

There were a lot of hurdles to jump and you know there's not a day that goes by that we're not sort of jumping some sort of hurdle everywhere, because you're running a large scale event across a lot of different jurisdictions and the rules are different everywhere that you go around the world. And you know, even when you look from an insurance perspective. You know insurance has changed from around the world as well, so it's a huge undertaking, but the right staff are on this and the right people are hosting these events. They're guys and girls that are passionate about what we do. They're passionate about the bikes, they're passionate about supporting people that aren't themselves. So when you sort of bring this beautiful formula together, it obviously leads to a successful event because, as you said at the start 37 and a half million US dollars in the last 11 years of sort of charity fundraising this is now our 12th year of the event and you know the fundraising is extremely strong for this year. So obviously we must be doing something right, along with all of our support network.

Ron: 23:33

Yeah, yeah, well. Well, mark, from a guy sitting on the other side of the planet from you right now, I just want to tell you thank you just from the bottom of my heart for having the heart that you have. But not only that, but taking a bold step and risking failure to step out and do something like this, which has turned out to be just a tremendous success and has literally changed and saved the lives of so many people around the world. The world's blessed by having a guy like you, so I just want to personally thank you, just from one guy to you among many, I'm sure, to thank you very much for all you've done.

Mark: 24:18

And I appreciate it. I mean you can never hear that enough. All you've done and I appreciate it, I mean you can never hear that enough it is there is a lot of work and there's still a lot of work to do to support the guys that are taking part in this event and to support the guys that sort of are aware of the event even more than we currently do, but we continue to work on it and we've got the right. We've got the right team, we've got Movember on board and we've got guys like you on board and I think for us, you know when, when I first started this, I sort of sat there and thought, okay, well, that was awesome, that kicked ass, that was fun. Um, and then, you know, we started to focus more on the charity aspect.

Mark: 24:50

But there was this part of me that always sat there and thought, okay, well, how long is an event like this gonna last? Is this a fad? Um, do we have a certain time frame on this until people get bored? And the truth of the matter is, I always thought that this was going to be, you know, probably a 10 year event, and you know, being in the 12th year and having numbers that are stronger year on year than every year for the last 12 years really shows me sometimes how little I know. Really shows me sometimes how little I know.

Ron: 25:23

Well, again, you took a bold step forward and you didn't have to, so thank you for that. Well, I'll wrap up our recording now, but again, mark, I thank you very much for your time. I can't wait to tell our group in Fort Collins, colorado, that I had a chance to talk with you. And again, thank you for all you do. I so appreciate it.

Mark: 25:46

Thanks for having me as well. Really appreciate it.

Ron: 25:49

Well, thank you for listening to my interview with my hero, mark Hawa, the founder of the Distinguished Gentleman's Right. I must admit that I was a little bit nervous, and it may be evident in the recording. I just so admire Mark and his organization for what they've done. My goal is to someday shake Mark's hand and maybe give him a hug and just tell him thank you for the great things that he and his organization have done for men just like me. Again, thank you for listening today and for telling your friends about this podcast. I so appreciate it. So until we visit again, I wish you peace. I wish you love From my friend, from my friend.